Remarks on FEMA Camps

Anonymous left a new comment on the older post entitled "USA FEMA Concentration Camp Controversy - Part I": "Ok, If the government were to imprison all the citizens, the country would crumble because the small businesses and consumer spending is what makes the country run, if you take that away, not only would the country cease to run, all materials the government would need to continue would not be produced, and all of the economics of the country would halt because the government would keep the spending, but the citizens of this country would be spending to somewhat equal it out so we would spiral into a black hole of debt, making us easy prey for others to take us over..."

UrbanMan Replies: I think the point is that the government would use the FEMA camps to imprison Americans,...maybe selected Americans,.....AFTER a collapse, after the businesses crumble, where it would be rationalized that Americans (maybe just some) need to be imprisoned to maintain order,...or perhaps in order to control disease and feed starving masses.

I am not a rabid anti-government conspiracy theorist, but I recognize the this may be become a possibility if the economy collapses, welfare checks stop coming and food is scare. The resultant chaos, especially in urban population centers may make it necessary for a "law and order - population control type approach" to handling masses or,...well, a large pissed off entitlement population.

I know the government well enough to understand that this is most probably being planned for at some level,....an outline of a plan,...what resources (read troops) would be necessary, and what the political fall out would be. I have been involved at various levels on operational plans,..no, not for population control but for lower level contingencies. This is simple contingency planning that all SHTF preppers should be doing anyway.

Reader Opinions on SHTF Weapons

I received the following responses on the post concerning recommending survival-collapse weapons:

Response #1”Good response Urbanman. I think a lot of preppers out there have a skewed sense of reality. In other words how likely is the worst-case scenario to occur? Living in earthquake and wildfire country we have built our preparations, and planning, around the most likely event scenarios. Mobs of famished, displaced, and desperate people fleeing are on our threat assessment matrix, but farther down the list. We eat what we store for food and every weapon we buy has to have at least two uses.”

Response #2”Just my .02 but any gun in your hand at the time of trouble is far better than having a bunch of money hidden away waiting for a gun sale or to have the right amount of money to buy that M-4 clone. I've got water, shelter, food and guns that won the west with experience of 30 yrs using them. Not an AR or AK anywhere in my supplies. I'm happy with my choices.”

UrbanMan replies: If a prepper was absolutely sure,…had a crystal ball or something, and knew,..really KNEW,....that the collapse was coming and to what extent their safety would be in jeopardy, …well then of course the right thinking individual would ensure he/they had a slew of survival weapons geared toward protection, and a large inventory of ammunition.

As it is, what do we know? We know that the economic indicators foretell bad times to come. Does it also mean a total collapse of authority? Chaos and anarchy reigning across the land? Heavy handed Governmental controls, even military deployments to control the population? Food supplies drying up. Limited or no medical care for chronic or emergency medical issues?

None of us know. We read books, visualize and war game STHF scenarios in our minds; develop planning, preparation and material solutions we think will solve the problem of at least give us an edge. Obviously, the more financial resources we have the more we can invest in procurement.

I am very lucky I have the resources to have bought what I consider enough survival weapons and routinely add to my preparations with mostly food, and some new gear. But even my comfort level has a limit. Where am I gonna stop? Six years of stored food and 10,000 rounds per weapon on hand?

I think the idea is to consider the threats that response #1 said, and develop what preparations across the categories of Shelter, Food, Protection and Water are going to be necessary. Look within each category,....Protection isn’t just guns, it is much more such as clothing, medicines and medical supplies/equipment, procedures and protocols for dealing with all manner of emergencies. Boy, you can make a list a arm long.

Survival Lessons Learned from West Coast Power Outage

In case some of you missed it, there was a power blackout in Southern California and for a time the cause was unknown making people surmise everything from software glitches and hardware failures to terrorist attacks. This affected a reported 6 million people from Los Angeles to San Diego to Yuma, Arizona,....and in a time of the year when some temperatures hit well over 100 degrees.

Good comment received from Secunda, entitled: Notes from the Southern California Blackout of September 8, 2011

The blackout yesterday provided us with a good test of our emergency plans. Some things we did well in, others not so well.

The hand crank radio we purchased for $10 gave us great information. Discovered the power was out all over Southern California, Northern Mexico, and Arizona.

My husband called from Downtown. The Trolley system was down. He caught the bus. He had only one water bottle and his walking shoes at his office.

The highways and roads were choked. Few intersections had working street lights. Most people treated intersections as 'stop sign only' intersections. A 16 mile bus ride took 3 hours.

Cell phone coverage in the area weakened the longer the power outage lasted.

A neighbor asked if the municipal water was safe to drink. Her family had NO emergency water stores. Some water districts were already issuing boil- water orders within just two hours of the outage.

Most grocery stores had to close. The small independent convenient stores who remained opened were swamped with people making last minute or panic purchases of water and ice. Some merchants were over-charging for water and ice. Most gas stations were closed.

The power was off long enough for looting to take place but I have heard of no instances yet where it occurred.

I cooked eggs on the camp griddle over a charcoal grill for supper. We finished all the items in the Frig like the milk that would spoil soonest.

LESSONS LEARNED
Store more water at my husband's work site, along with a extra cell phone battery and an alternate communication method.

Identify more routes out of the city he can take if he is forced to walk or bike out.

Store more water and freeze water in a couple of old milk jugs to keep in the freezer.

Keep the cars no less than half filled with gas.

UrbanMan's comments: Thanks Secunda for the excellent comments and your lessons learned.

Your observation of the cell phone infrastructure becoming weaker or less reliable as the power outage went longer is interesting as cellular networks and the repeaters have sometimes both both solar and fuel generation emergency power designed to last at least 24 hours. It would have been interesting to see if text was more reliable than voice communications. During the Hurricane that hit the East Coast, I lost voice comms with some of team, but our texting and e-mail on portable devices was reliable.

I would add a couple things to your lessons learned:

Look at the possibility of buying higher end radios so that your husband can have another means of communications with you as he makes his way home. The FRS/GMRS radios, e.g..talkabouts probably won't do it,....may have to be something in the VHF or UHF band. You hit on additional routes out of the city....this is PACE planning (Primary, Alternate, Contingency and Emergency),.....for not only routes but for communications as practical everything in our plan.

Always have cash handy for those circumstances were ATM's are out and you need to and can buy additional items. It is a rare day I don't have at least $60 or so in my pocket and I always have a couple silver rounds on me as well.

You also hit on your husband having an additional cell phone battery and water. Does he have a Bug Out Bag? Not necessarily a fully equipped Bug Out equipped for a total SHTF scenario, but maybe if your husband wears business clothes, then a bag containing durable clothing to change to, including some hiking boots and a smaller bag with extra water, some food such as nuts, jerky and granola bars, extra water, maybe a fold up rain coat, multi-tool, butane lighter,....you get my drift.

In any case you sound like you have your act together and are using your biggest and best weapon against a collapse type scenario and that is your brain. Thanks again for your comments. Be safe.

The Likelihood of a Collapse

We received a anonymous comment for the Survival Chronicles of Jim - Chapter 25 post entitled Don't Lose Focus......"I too am turned off by those who want the S to HTF (no offense to you because of your comment). I fear the coming collapse. I don't think our leaders are capable enough to get us through this and in fact I think that some of them are intentionally making the situation worse for
political reasons. A collapse with our current batch of leaders could be a disaster of biblical proportions. Don't wait too long to complete your preps."

UrbanMan replies: The bad side of hosting a website, doubly so on a site that talks about surviving the coming collapse is that people come out of the proverbial woodwork writing e-mails a week concerning conspiracies.

When discussing (arguing?) about the causes of the economic disaster we find ourselves in now, and the intent of our elected political leaders and appointed bureaucrats, it is hard to persuade some people that the current leadership is intent on destroying this country's economy. Hard to persuade, because even the most rational people are scratching their heads in amazement of the Government's
failure to enact a balanced budget; failure to spend less money than they take in from the tax payers; failure to enact any, let alone, meaningful entitlement reform; continuous implementation of regulations, from the EPA' clean air act to the FDA's Food Safety and Modernization Act,.etc., etc., ...all with the result of making it harder for small businesses to remain afloat and for the economy to get better.

So in short, yes it does seem like our "current batch of leader are intentionally making the situation worse for political reasons." This is called riding your ideology to our demise.

However, aside from all the things we can do,..... such as writing our legislators to vote correctly; urging good people to run for office; and, contributing to the campaigns for candidates that are patriots, it really boils down to that the average citizen and therefore the average Survival Prepper has little control on the factors that control the pace or the depth of the coming collapse.

What we do have is some control over is what we do about it. Do we bury our heads in the sand thinking things must get better? Do we move to some remote wilderness location where we can be self sufficient and ride out SHTF? Probably for most people, the answer lays in between somewhere. Do what your conscious tells you
to do in regards to communicating with your elected political leaders abut your concerns, complaints and ideas,....but,......do what your gut tells you to in regards to preparing for hard times. Have food; have some firearms; develop some friends; read and expose yourself to the Survival Preparation movement to leverage everyone else's recommendations and lessons learned; look at all the threats and see how they affect you; and, above all, have a plan. Do not rely on the Government to make it better. As we all know, the Government never does the right thing before they have exhausted every other option.