Bill Troyer was still in the City Police Chief’s office trying to sort out the situation. He had been promoted to acting Police Chief. All officers senior to him had been killed. A meeting of city officials at the hotel ballroom had turned into a carnage. Most of the senior police officers were there. Over a dozen grenades had exploded in the room. Only a handful of the hundred plus people in it had survived. One of the men had been in the restroom when the attack had begun. He raced to the street just in time to be killed by a direct blast form the .50 in the trailing APC. A National Guard graves registration unit was setting up in an open area in Penn Park. One Naval and two Army medical units had already moved into the city. One occupied Penn Park center city, near the creek, the other two occupied parks on each end of town. Ironically Penn Park was the site of a hospital to serve the wounded from the Battle of Gettysburg over a hundred years before.  These medical units would provide any medical care needed rather than just treating the wounded. This decision was based on the realization that the medical facilities in the city were overloaded by the wounded and any relief this system could get would be welcomed.

Bill Troyer didn’t know where to concentrate his efforts. The city had been hard hit. The death toll would easily exceed twenty five hundred, the number of wounded more than ten thousand. The police were busy helping people who had been wounded and trying to sort out looters and citizens trying to get legitimate possessions or find friends and relatives. The firemen were still searching for wounded on the streets and in buildings and putting out fires that had been started by the attack. They were painting X with the date and time on a house door when they cleared it.  The water, gas and electric companies were busy turning off service to demolished homes. Gas leaks and electrical shorts had caused several fires. Electrical power was out in over two thirds of the city. This may have been a mixed blessing. Broken lines had caused several of the fires. Water leaks were serious too. Broken water lines were bleeding the system of water that was vital to save the city from fire and sustain its citizens. All of the utilities had experienced problems with personnel. All had at least a fifteen percent absence rate this morning further reducing their capabilities. The telephone company had its problems too. The damage to the Main central office exchange was extensive. Even calls originating and ending outside the area impacted by the raid were effected. Some of these would have been routed through Main but with it demolished. Calls between East and West or North and South 3were being routed through other paths rather than through main, overloading them. Over half of the long distance carrier trunks ended at main. Long distance calls to and from the center of the county were nearly impossible and many calls from the other four exchanges were aborted because there were no available trunks. Four men were working at reconnecting damaged wiring at main. Ten others, experienced wire men, were already on the way from other towns to help. They should arrive about noon to begin the reconstruction. The phone company had just pledged twenty more for the next day. Three more repairmen were removing the rubble which had once been the 755 exchange’s main switching unit. Replacement equipment was already on its way. It had been loaded on a truck in Erie before 3 AM. Two installation experts were driving the truck. It would arrive just after noon and be on line by midnight. The wire crews would need seven additional days to connect the wiring to the other switches. Repairing the damaged lines and home wiring would be a massive task. Nobody would even estimate how long this would take.