Chapter Seven - part five

   The first step was to begin restoring emergency services, followed by restoring utilities. Police stations, fire departments, and hospitals were secured and brought back into operation. That had sounded simple enough, but it had often proven to be very difficult. It was hard to locate the people and equipment needed, and some of the buildings had been totally destroyed as well. Once they saw that they would be working behind an advancing shield of troops it was easier to convince the utility workers to come back in and help. James had also brought in a lot of military specialists and engineers to assist them. They were the first ones in and the last ones to leave any area where there was work being done on the utility systems. Once an area was fully secured the troops would move out and turn it over to Guard units. Once the work was far enough along on the infrastructure and utilities the military engineers and specialists moved out and left it to the civilians to maintain and improve. The progress seemed slow sometimes, but it was steady and that was a vast improvement.

   The next step was to get the local radio and televisions news going and then link them up nationwide. That had proven to be a real nightmare for several reasons. The first was just getting the stations operational. The next had been getting people to man them. They could have used military personnel, but James wanted people to see and hear someone they knew wasn't in the military. He tried to avoid politicians as much as possible too, but he did make sure some of the local ones were on the air. As the utilities came back on they concentrated on getting them working in the places that would do the most possible good first. That wasn't always where the people were living though. One of the big sticking points of his plan had been convincing the politicians that infrastructure had to be focused towards business and industry centers immediately after it was restored to the emergency services and communication centers. The people's homes would get taken care of, but it would be easier and better for everyone if they could get factories and stores running again first.

   The first real shock had come when they had started trying to get into the retirement homes and nursing facilities scattered around. Nobody had been prepared for what they found. Many of them had been abandoned by staff. Even those that hadn't been completely abandoned were short handed and virtually out of supplies. Someone had came out to beg for assistance the second day of James effort to restore order inside the major cities along the coast. James had immediately responded with that assistance. In fact he had gone in himself. That had been another major battle for him. Even General Hodges was totally against James going along into an unsecured area. Hodges had been working in the field with some of the units, to get the feel of things, but even he stayed back from the front as they moved back into the cities. James was to be going far in front of that line, going directly in to provide immediate aide and assistance. Only because he was in command was he able to override their concerns and go along. What he found had been enough to cause a drastic change in the basic plans for all current operations.