Read what Selco a real life shtf survivor has to say:
I will add this; Right now in a land of plenty there are people willing to fight and kill for a pair of sneakers or a big screen tv what do you think they would be will to do for a can of beans when they haven’t eaten in a week?
There’s a Great Storm coming everyone is feeling it and its one of the reason everyone is on edge. Deep down the alarm bells are ring the nerves on on edge and the mind is unsettled.
Its your choice you can prep or you can stand around on a bridge waiting for FEMA to bring you a bottle of water, a MRE, a warm blanket and a kiss for your boo-boo and maybe you can even get your picture as you stand there on the national news.
Any one with half a brain can look around and see for themselves what is happening right before their eyes.
So listen to what the bible says: A prudent man sees danger and takes refuge, but the simple keep going and suffer for it. NIV Proverbs 22:3
One of the things Selco covers in this article is the fact that many will not accept that a breakdown is occurring even as they watch it happening before their eyes. Why don’t they realize it? It’s caused by a condition called ‘Normalcy Bias’ a mental state people enter when facing a disaster.
It causes people to underestimate both the possibility of a disaster occurring and its possible effects. This often results in situations where people fail to adequately prepare for a disaster, and on a larger scale, the failure of governments to include the populace in its disaster preparations. The assumption that is made in the case of the normalcy bias is that since a disaster never has occurred then it never will occur. It also results in the inability of people to cope with a disaster once it occurs. People with a normalcy bias have difficulties reacting to something they have not experienced before. People also tend to interpret warnings in the most optimistic way possible, seizing on any ambiguities to infer a less serious situation.
A good article on ‘Normalcy Bias’ is on our own ChocChipCookies Blog The Survival Mom:
http://thesurvivalmom.com/2010/12/29/normalcy-bias/
You either prepare and stand on your own beholden to no one or you become dependent on others to provide your basic needs and become their ‘serf’. Me I don’t want to be beholden to anyone for providing what is needed for me and mine. I certainly don’t want to have to kiss some ‘gubberment’ third class bureaucratic to try and coax some help from them, I don’t want some ‘jack booted’ thug herding me in line and telling me where to stand, sit, eat or sleep. And last but not least I don’t want to be shut up in with a bunch of ‘zombies’ and have to worry about not only trying to get basic necessities but having to fight to keep what I manage to get.
http://tomeaker.com/kart/Preparedness1j.pdf NOTE! THIS IS A FREE DOWNLOAD. I DO NOT MAKE ONE CENT OFF MY PREPAREDNESS MANUAL!
For those of you who haven’t started already it’s time to prepare almost past time maybe. You needed to be stocking up on food guns, ammo, basic household supplies like soap, papergoods, cleaning supplies, good sturdy clothes including extra socks, underwear and extra shoes and boots, cash (I myself have been putting up change for the past few years both for the metal content and the fact that using change to make what purchases you can will move you down the the list of possible marks during shtf), tools, things you buy everyday start buying two and put one up.
As the LDS say “When the emergency is upon us the time for preparedness has past.”
Again I like to recomend FReeper’s ChocoChipCookie Blog The Survival Mom (Please Blog Police let this one slide!) Where you can get lots of useful information like:
http://thesurvivalmom.com/2011/11/20/8-morale-boosters-for-any-worst-case-scenario/
http://thesurvivalmom.com/2010/02/02/survival-priorities-the-rule-of-three/
And More
Also there is Ferfal’s Blog a survivor of Argentina’s first collapse:
And there is Selco’s Blog a Bosnian War survivor at:
“There is no greater disaster than to underestimate danger. Underestimation can be fatal.”
I have posted this several times on these SHTF articles, but I can tell you from personal experience that you have 3 days. When Sandy hit, the grid went down and there was no gas to be found in northern Jersey. Things got out of hand quickly. Christie was smart and made sure Newark and the surrounding areas got power right away. That kept the zombies at bay. Where I am is solid conservative country and people were going nuts. They were pulling guns at gas station and there were huge lines at a pizza and bagel store that had owners smart enough to run their business on a generator. We were okay because of two things. 1- a wood burning stove. Hot water, cook top, and kept the house warm. 2- I happened to read a post by a Florida FReeper that suggested getting gas the night before the storm hit. I said what the heck and took ten minutes to fill up both cars. I almost didn’t. A day later there were 3 hour lines to get 5 dollars worth of gas. Because I had a full tank I could make it to Pa. and get supplies and top off the tank. I have been in deep prep mode since then.
One of the things he emphasized was valuable talents. Those can't be taken away. One talent was the ability to fix things ie; being a tinkerer.
If anyone thinks they will be able to pay for food with a gold eagle coin, they will be looked at like they had a hole in their head which they will probably acquire on the way home.