I know I have posted to Old Sarge on this before so this is for others. Civilization broke down in just three days in NW Jersey after Sandy. I am not talking about Newark or Camden or Trenton. I am talking solid GOP bastion. I would put our congress critter-Scott Garrett in top 10-20. Gas lines, brawls, guns drawn, pandemonium. Admittedly, we are not hurricane ready and it was a bit of a shock. After reading a FReepers post, I said to heck with it, and filled up both our cars in 15 minutes. The next day the lines were several hours long. That little trick made all the difference as I was able to bugout to Pennsy, pick up supplies, and get back. Oh, and a wood burning stove which just happened to come with the house. I can’t imagine full blown civil pandemonium. I started upping my prep game. Great warning. Take it seriously FReepers. It ain’t pretty.
Matt —
Since you have been there/ done that ...
“A prepper is a scoffer who’s been [suddenly] ‘stranded’ by circumstances they can’t control and never thought would happen to THEM.”
REM: Know also that I have a daughter in school at Stevens in Hoboken. We were moments from executing the pre-planned extraction (Sandy) when the storm shifted south. They lost power for a little bit, but didn’t even get limbs down.
Two essential reads for you:
http://www.afailureofcivility.com
or AFOC as referred to here in FReeperdom, and
“One Second After” — Forstchen
Also on Kindle for only $8. Yes the disruptive societal mechanism is EMP, and you may not believe in EMP risks, BUT, the book presents a plausible and quite chilling look into what’s possible after AFOC. Prepare/plan/think as you see fit.
Thirdly, I encourage you to read the Bracken Anthologies.
http://www.amazon.com/The-Bracken-Anthology-ebook/dp/B00A4SCLKK
written by our own “Travis McGee” - Matt Bracken.
These are three very realistic sources, sans the Mad Max hype.
AFOC in particular describes different levels of threats, preps/plans for them, and responses to them. The worst level, DEFCON 1 if you will, is AFOC.
Competition for resources was the main cause of societal breakdown after Sandy hit. And this competition extended far, far beyond the areas hardest hit.
Here in Connecticut, 75-100 miles northeast of Sandy’s landfall, we had a lot of wind damage due to trees falling and coastal property damage due to extremely high tides. Power was out for up to two weeks depending on how far from the main roads you were. However, main roads were navigable (for the most part) soon after the storm, and gas stations, grocery stores, etc. were up and running very quickly as power was restored to the main roads first.
Most folks around here were wise enough to fill their cars prior to the storm, and many have generators. However, nobody really has a personal gasoline storage capability of more than 5 or 10 gallons, and those gennys made short work of home supplies. So the gas lines formed, but it wasn’t too bad.
Then, the folks from out of town showed up. People from the hard hit parts of New Jersey and New York traveled out our way, and added to the lines, bringing with them both a sense of desperation and worse, a sense of entitlement. Lines grew to 1974 levels, and there were some problems until the local cops took a firmer hand.
We learned a few things - first being that social disruption is inevitable and scales up quickly when a highly populated urban/suburban area is affected. Folks will travel to your neck of the woods, quickly, and will compete with you for resources you thought were your own. Second is that a gas generator is not the best solution for a long term, widespread outage. A propane generator with a large propane tank, or a solar charged bank of batteries would have been a much better approach to providing electrical power (with a much lower exposure to the effects of social disruption).