Disaster,.....Collapse,.......Dealing With It

An article by Bob Rinear, titled "Disaster - Dealing With It, published on the International Forecaster. Pretty good article from a financial analyst. The value in an article like this is for the survival-collapse preparation aspect to be coming from a financial guy as opposed to some guy in camouflage fatigues. In this way it is much more palatable to the average guy.

Disaster.   It is a word used to describe a multitude of situations, such as an airplane crash, a mudslide, a hurricane, a mass shooting, biological hazards, Earthquakes, Volcano’s, drought, floods, Tidal waves, Industrial accidents… the list goes on and on. Interestingly if you scan the “response” web sites, you never see anything about a disaster as being economic in nature. Yet I assure you, the proper economic “implosion” will be a disaster just as threatening if not more so, then most of the other items listed.

I don’t know how many of you have come through a situation such as Hurricane Katrina or more recently “Super storm” Sandy. But if you did, you know what a physical disaster can do. When Sandy hit landfall in New Jersey, it just happened to “ground zero” in the Little Egg Harbor Inlet, which was just 3 miles straight across the bay from my house. Our little town was completely devastated. Dozens of homes simply gone, hundreds ruined beyond repair. The following two weeks were not easy to deal with. No power, no water, no cell phones, no gas stations…it was tough. It was the first week of November. It was cold. Thousands were homeless. It is something I shall never forget.

Yet we also knew that if you could just get inland a few miles, things were okay. There was food and water and “heat” and for the most part “normalcy”. The storm was a localized event. Help was just a little ways away. Now compare that to a nationwide situation and you come to an ugly conclusion. There’s no place to run. Every place is in the same boat as you. Help isn’t on the way.

Let suppose we do get some form of economic implosion that takes down the economic infrastructure. A few weeks of no banks, no credit cards working, no ATM’s, no way to buy anything…. And it’s nation wide. It isn’t localized. How well would you fare? In the past several issues we’ve discussed the idea of having cash on hand. We’ve discussed having some gold and silver on hand. But what about hard goods? What about protecting yourself? What about basic survival implements? Here’s my guess…..most of you don’t have any plan, and I understand that. We’ve all given up the idea of self sufficiency in this “reliant on others” economy. We rely on the gas company and electric company and banking company and grocery company, etc etc. Well, my Sandy experience taught me in real terms that when we rely on these things, and they aren’t functioning…things go to hell in a handbasket quickly.

The “good part” of an economically based disaster, if anything at that point could be considered good is that even if there’s no food, water or electric, you should still have a place of residence. It isn’t like a tsunami that knocked down your home or apartment.

So, a large part of the equation you don’t have to worry about because you still have shelter. But, here’s the question. How well can you live in that shelter? Will you have heat? Food? Water? Medicine? Then there’s a more disturbing question. If someone that doesn’t have food or water decides they want to come take yours… can you stop them?

You have to decide for yourself as to what level of prepared you’re willing to do based on the size and scope of an emergency. I personally think that every person that lives in a detached stand alone home should have some basics of survival, which includes some water storage, some fuel for a generator, something to cook on such as a propane grill, or a campstove, matches, flashlights, candles, first aid kit, LifeStraw water filter, Inverter, canned goods, dry goods, etc etc. These are just the bare necessities to get past say a storm outage or what have you. From there however, the options are quite limitless.

Let us imagine that we get a derivative cascade that ripples around the globe, so banks shut down to stop the hemmorage, and commerce ceases for a while. With “luck” the government will force electric and water companies to continue to provide, so for at least a time we could all have electric and water and the biggest concern would be food.

Do you at least have enough “in home” to get you past say 3 weeks of no grocery store, or no way to pay? Probably not. You’ll need to fix that and it’s easy. Between canned goods and dry goods, it is simple to stock up 3 weeks worth of enough edibles to get you by. Store it properly and resist the urge to use it in your weekly food preparation and you’re gold.

On the other hand, a true Mad Max scenario, where the grid is attacked, the banks shut down, and no relief in sight for months, is a whole different animal. Very few are prepared for anything even remotely close to that situation and that includes me. While I understand the chances that it could happen, I have consciously decided to avoid it in my mind. I don’t want to go there. That could end up being a very bad choice on my part, but again I simply wish not to allow a worst case scenario in my head. For right or wrong, it is where I stand. I want to be prepared for a bad scenario that lasts up to a few months. Not a whole new lifetime of trouble.

The one thing I do want to stress however is this: History shows us that the people who have not prepared, will seek out those who have prepared and try and take it. On any given day in any state in any city, there’s armed robberies, car thefts, purse snatches, murders, you name it. This is while everything is running, EBT cards are being charged up, the stores have food, the lights are on, etc etc. You can only imagine how much escalation there’d be concerning assault and robbery if things got ugly for a while.

You can look on line and find tons and tons of articles concerning how to prepare for an emergency. There’s tens of thousands of them discussing the things we just talked about such as stocking flashlights and water. But the field narrows considerably when you’re talking about personal protection, and home defense in a bad situation.

Main stream media doesn’t talk about such things, they aren’t allowed and besides the main stream medial doesn’t think you should have the ability to defend yourself in the first place.

I tend to think however that taking care of your immediate family is the most important thing you can do. If someone is going to try and harm me or my wife because we have prepared a bit for a bad situation and they didn’t and therefore they want to take ours, there’s going to be a problem. But trust me on this one folks, this opens a big can of worms, a can you probably never thought about.

Suppose something pretty big hits. Judging by the severity you figure that it could take a month or two before we get even close to barely back to normal. In the first week not too much goes on, people seem to be “okay” but have that panicked look. A few days later you “feel” that more folks are having problems. Then you get that first knock on the door. It’s a neighbor from 4 houses down. They want to know if you’ve got any food around because their 10 year old is getting hungry. First question is… how did they assume you had food? Right there is a MAJOR MISTAKE folks. You cannot allow anyone to know that you have prepared.

The second word gets out that you have food and/or water or what have you, people will flock to your house. At first it would be civil, asking for a hand out. But eventually “they’d come”. The people who left civility behind and will take what they can through any means they have. So, believe it or not, one of the single most important things I can say to you all is this. Don’t let anyone suspect you’ve got “stuff”. If your neighbors are already out of food because they didn’t stock up and their pantry’s empty, don’t make the mistake of cooking up a couple freeze dried steaks on the grill. They’re going to come. They’re going to beg. And what are you going to do? Even if you hand out a little because they’re “friends”, they’ll be back for more. They’ll tell their friends.

Then what?

You don’t want to fall into that mess. So while I can imagine that the first thing you thought of when I mentioned personal home defense was that I’d instantly jump on the gun situation and what to buy and what kind of ammo, and how to set a perimeter…..you’re wrong. The very first line of defense is to ACT LIKE EVERYONE ELSE. You want to look hungry. You want to complain, and act nervous. You want to act scared.

If you study real world survival, in the hell holes around the globe, one thing stands out, but no one seems to notice. The people that get robbed, beaten, broken into, ravaged, etc.. are the people that display that they are different from the starving masses. Mobs don’t’ attack themselves. They attack those they perceive to “have” things. It is the number one mistake and it ALWAYS leads to big problems.

So, here’s job one in protecting your home and your family in a serious multi week, or couple month long disaster situation. Keep the secret. Your food should be stored in the dark, never displayed. Prepare it indoors with shades closed. Every instance of eating or drinking should be done behind closed doors. You should interact with the neighbors as much as everyone else does, but make sure they understand that you’re in the same boat as them. You have no food, you have no water, you’re hungry and worried too.

The underground communications network is quite effective. Even if the people nearest you would “never” do anything wrong, they talk to people who talk to people who talk to people. Somewhere down the line, someone will learn that you’ve got stuff. The message you want sent down the line is that “no one on Smith Street has squat, they’re all looking too”.

As long as you appear to be in the same ugly boat as everyone else, you’ve cut your chances of being a target by well over 50%. That’s a great risk reduction in any investment, And it is one that you need to seriously focus on. Remember last week we were discussing having a few grand in cash “on hand”? Well don’t let it slip that you don’t care that the ATM’s are down, because you’ve got some money “stored up”. Big mistake.

Someone will come looking for it. Don’t show off your half a garage full of food stuffs to your neighbor Tom. Tom’s a great guy and all, but Tom told Joe at work about you and how well you’ve prepared for a rainy day. Tom was really impressed. But, Joe however is out on a work release program for theft. Joe now knows where you live. See my point?

This holds true for EVERYTHING folks. Guns, ammo, food, water, money, silver, gold, Medicine, prescription drugs, the whole gambit. Do NOT let people know about any of it. In the “good times” we like to share with people, we’re the social media generation.

We like to express our good fortune. Well, telling 10 people at the water cooler that you’ve got a “fine collection of weapons” because your proud of your collection, just insures that one day you’ll come home and they’re gone. Imagine how fast they’d be coming for them in a disaster period?

In the good times we all like to show off our homes. We make it nice and pretty, and keep the shrubs trimmed and lawn cut. But in dark times, the house that doesn’t get robbed or invaded is the one with an overgrown lawn, a knocked down bird fountain, and a hand painted sign in the yard that says “will work for food”. I’m sure you understand my point. Do not draw attention to yourself. Not your home, not your mannerisms. Blend in; look worse off than those with bad intentions.

That is the first step in surviving a bad time if indeed you have no place to “bug out” to and have to stay where you are. I’ll sprinkle in some more home defense/personal defense articles as we work our way through this crazy economy.