Meteor Storms Plague SoCal

It had come to the point where the term “meteor showers” was not even close to an adequate description of what was happening in SoCal.

Nowadays, these have become meteor storms. Several houses and buildings had already been destroyed as cars traveled on the 5 and out on State Route #99. It can get ugly when a car going 80 or 90 mph gets hit by a meteor.

Anyway, there’s not much a driver can do to control a car ablaze after being hit with a meteor, even if the driver survives. And in some cases, they do. I mean, not all meteors are that big.

Some are the size of a marble, a golf ball, or a baseball. But then, some have been as big as a house. Even those small ones when they hit a semi hauling Hazardous Material (HM) like explosives or a tanker hauling propane can make a hell of a mess.

The Meteors Make It Personal

We built our eco-friendly house outside of Buttonwillow, CA, about 15 miles from Bakersfield. The town population is less than 2,000 - just my style. One of the many eco-friendly amenities was the rainwater and filtration system, all solar roof, and solar power throughout.

We had remote control steel shutters installed on all the windows and doors, with a smart home protection system with infrared cameras everywhere.

Although we had a central air conditioner, I had the builder put a lawn-sprinkler system in the roof to cool the house and take some of the load off the HVAC. Since it "never rains in southern California," we can make it rain anytime we want.

That’s what happens when you have more money than you can spend sensibly. However, all of those amenities came in handy when the meteor showers started.

If the news called for meteor showers, we turned on the sprinklers, closed the shutters, and went to sleep - rather soundly, I might add.

That was until the meteor showers turned to meteor storms, then the dipshit governor decided he wanted to evacuate his citizens for their protection.

The Calamity of the Governor’s Plan

His “grand plan” was to cover the windows of all the public schools and buildings with corrugated steel and wait out the storms. So, for however many days or months it took, we would be sleeping on cots and eating cafeteria food. No, thank you, Mr. Governor.

Well, the first rescue wagon came along. A helpful gentleman from the sheriff’s department knocked on the door and asked if we were ready to go to the shelter. I politely told him, “We will wait it out at right here.”

Of course, he gave us the safety spiel and told us there would be no emergency medical, fire, or rescue. We would be on our own. I said thank you and goodbye.

The next fellow wasn’t as friendly. He insisted we were to go to the shelter with him. I told him we weren’t leaving our home. He started to say he couldn’t make us… but a meteor the size of a baseball hit him in the head, and it exploded. His head literally exploded, and flying gore landed on my bathrobe.

I pushed the button to lower the shutters and went into the kitchen to watch the news with my wife. We saw the highways jammed with people trying to escape. We looked on in terror as meteors hit some.

People were running around screaming, and fireballs were hitting stranded travelers trying to get somewhere safe. We were already somewhere safe and not leaving.

The news went out a few minutes later. We flipped through the channels, but all we got was an error message, “no signal.” I don’t know if the feed was lost, our satellite dish got hit, or if there was a bigger problem. So, we just hunkered down to ride it out.

When the storm subsided, we went out to assess the damage. Our house stood up to it surprisingly well, but many of our neighbors weren’t so lucky. Even our satellite dish was still standing, so that answered that question.

We saw on the news after the TV came back on that meteors destroyed six of the buses carrying families to shelters. The death toll was around 25,000 across the state. We probably dodged a bullet by not getting on that bus.

Later that day, the Governor came by to ask me about some of the things we had done to the house. It seems they might install some of my ideas in government buildings and schools. The Governor offered me a post in his administration, but I politely declined. I’m a writer, not a politician.

As we stood in the field by his helicopter talking, a meteor that must have been 20 feet wide struck dead-center of my house, driving it into the ground. I stared in terrified horror as I realized my wife was still inside. I sunk to my knees, sobbing as my world came to an end.

I published this story previously on Medium.

Stephen Dalton is a retired US Army First Sergeant with a degree in journalism from the University of Maryland and a Certified US English Chicago Manual of Style Editor. Also, a Top Writer in Nutrition, Travel, Fiction, Transportation, VR, NFL, Design, Creativity, and Short Story.

Website | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | Reddit | Ko-fi | NewsBreak

If you enjoyed this story, buy me a cup of coffee by leaving a tip. Thanks.