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You’re going to be better off where ever your support network is, whether that’s family, friends, your church, likeminded coworkers or some other affinity network. Most likely in situ, in other words.

If that happens to be a major metro, think Katrina, think of those pockets of neighbors banding together to defend their neighborhoods or even a few blocks of a neighborhood.

It’ll be worst at first, settle down after a few weeks to a few months, and then there will be the chronic crime and home invasions, due to people who are prone to such behavior anyway, emboldened by the general breakdown. Think of looting rioters, diffused and spread out.

Cash on hand, at least enough to cover a couple months’ living expenses. Nonperishable food, the same but up to a year’s worth is not a bad idea. What will inflate wildly will be the necessary things, and the imported things. What will be nearly worthless are the status symbols that add no utility but do add a lot of maintenance cost, expensive cars, that sort of thing. They’ll make you a target, too.

The ability to defend yourself, not just in your home but out and about on your business, will be important. No point in going completely nuts and setting up a private armory, but even current scarcity argues for more rather than less, as far as ammunition goes.

The world won’t just grind to a complete halt. I suspect it’ll be rather strange, with pockets of seemingly complete normalcy, and pockets of Mad Max, with flare ups and calm periods over time.

These are my thoughts on the matter. I considered the rural place with surface water, backup power, solar panels, etcetera, but honestly you’re going to be a sitting duck. Being the descendant of people who lived through the Civil War in the south, and it’s aftermath during Reconstruction, I’ve heard the old family stories about outliers and such, so there will be feral elements looking to prey on you if they can. Safety in numbers.

...with pockets of seemingly complete normalcy, and pockets of Mad Max, with flare ups and calm periods over time.

Precisely!

And there will be people who today we might not think are superstars who gird up their loins and turn out to have talents that actually save lives. Meanwhile, some bank executive or attorney or whatever ends up being more of a pain than ever, and proves to have not a single useful talent whatever.

That’s another thing that I disagreed with the main article about - tools.

I fix things as a hobby and to learn how to do it. If I needed to do it for a living, I could give it a halfway decent shot.
And the ability to repair stuff and find useful results from things we take for granted would be priceless.

Cash on hand, at least enough to cover a couple months’ living expenses.

Cash is just paper without a government that people trust to back it. Gold, silver, those are more likely to retain their value, in terms of loaves of bread and such. But there are other things which are also pretty easy to store, will also retain, or increase, their value. .22 rimfire ammunition for instance. But also wire, tools, etc. In a SHTF situation, most of our "work skills" are quite likely to no longer be in demand. Perhaps a good hobby skill would be worth investing the time to acquire?