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Letter Re: Preparedness for Less Than a Worst Case, From an Eastern Urbanite's Perspective
Jim,
I found the following in a letter posted on your blog: "Barring TEOTWAWKI,
it seems to me that we are infinitely more likely to face moderately scary
scenarios,
like Hurricane Katrina and necessary urban
evacuation,
some urban 1970s-style civil disturbance but nothing like Mogadishu, high-intensity
individual criminal acts, a low-order terrorist event nearby and the accompanying
panic, or some other situation shy of the worst case scenario."
Do people realize that New Orleans wasn't far from becoming Mogadishu-like
after Hurricane Katrina? Certainly if the water hadn't flooded the streets
it very well could have been much worse. The flood waters actually helping
the situation by
restricting
movement to a degree. And let's not forget we heard the approved media version
of it. Who knows how many people really were killed, wounded or raped.
Certainly we want to hope and pray for the best, but it's
totally unrealistic given recent examples in the United States to think that
the low-lifes in society will not take advantage of any and possibly every
situation.
There's some good writings out regarding some of what happened in breakdowns
and economic
problems in other countries- i.e, Argentina, Rhodesia, etc. Here's
some things to consider regarding that:
I would argue that people in third world countries are accustomed to:
currency devaluation, military controls, rioting in the streets, high crime rates,
food
shortages, breakdown of infrastructure [such as extended power failures],
et cetera.
So for the average Third World resident these things are not TEOTWAWKI. Now
consider the suburbanite in the US of A:, "John Smith": John is definitely not
used
to
seeing
the
value of his money vanish before his own eyes. John Smith is not used
to getting
mugged every day on his way home.
John Smith is not used to seeing the military on his street.
John Smith
is not used to rioting in his city. John Smith is not used
to two or
three days of brown-outs
or black-outs.
John Smith gets angry and extremely frustrated when someone cuts him off in
traffic. John's wife Sally is irate when she loses satellite reception during
Oprah and
she misses the required reading section. John and Sally's kids are even worse.
And that's suburban folks, what most of us would call "middle class." We
won't even bother to talk about some of the other's actions, just find the archives
of Hurricane Katrina and the New Orleans Superdome and you'll figure that out.
[JWR
Adds: Lest anyone consider this a quasi-racist statement from R.H.,
bear
in
mind
that some
of
the looters caught on film in New Orleans were white and
hispanic.
The
tendency
toward
looting
and
other
acts of lawlessness during disasters is
tied
to economics and whether or not children have a law-abiding, morally-grounded
upbringing, not race.]
As survivalists, we need to be careful in our thinking. If we are not mentally
prepared for the "worst case" and always assume that the guvmint will
bail us out before our "three day kit" nonsense runs out, we are going
to be in for a world of hurt. It took about three days for it to get really ugly
in New Orleans and one could argue that had a lot to do with weather factors
or it potentially would have happened sooner.
A lot of folks have "itching ears" and want to hear that they will
be okay in the suburbs, that two weeks of food is enough, that they will only
have
to 'brandish' a firearm and won't have to actually use it, et cetera. I'd like
to personally thank you and the many others on the net that don't water
down the message so as to pander to "itching ears." Thank
you for your
commitment to reality - R.H.
