By John Galt
October 30, 2007
The following is my first “prepetorial”; a word I concocted to try to introduce the idea of “prepping” along with one of my editorials. The events in italic are completely fictitious and hopefully will never happen….
As I was meeting with my client in the town of Port Charlotte, about 45 miles from my home, the air seemed unusually warm for this October morning. The meeting did not go well as my customer was in no mood to purchase anything as he said “let’s see how the news goes” and this meant another thin sales week for my company. It was not a surprise as orders were down by 75% after the U.S. took out several of the Iranian nuke sites a few days ago and oil spiked up to $142 per barrel.
As I started the company pick up truck up and headed north on U.S. Highway 41 the vehicle suddenly died and a huge flash of white light appeared to the north of me many, many miles away. Just as suddenly another white flash just to the northeast of where I was happened but it was much farther away, in the direction of Orlando. As I sunk in the seat of my truck, I realized what had just happened as I saw the mushroom cloud in the distance; we were at war and either Russia or China had elected to take out some of our cities. Foolishly I reached for my cell phone only to observe it was dead also. I attempted in vain to start the truck but it just clicked. I noticed some older vehicles started to turn around through the medians and observed people leaving their vehicles chasing after those cars yelling “help, help, don’t go” but I knew what was going on. I had a forty plus mile hike in front of me and I was not ready. After years of worrying about the worst case scenario, I packed only my coffee, some bottled water and a sandwich. Because I thought today would just be another day……
So there it is. Even us “survivalist” types fail to anticipate that we could have a bad day and this day would have been one of the worst ones in my life if it were real. Not only would the panic ensue in short order as anyone with a working vehicle would be assailed, it is safe to assume that anyone who looks like they might be carrying food or water might well be a target. Add in the fact that no one at that scene, not even the police, would have any idea what was happening and hundreds of cars would be stalled in place, the information and physical gridlock would lead to all types of panic and hysteria. You would have to deal with elderly people having heart attacks, policemen barking out orders and threatening those who did not obey and general if not total breakdown of order. While many deny this would happen, the reality of our brave new integrated circuit dependent world would set in immediately. And as this situation might sound far fetched, you must ask yourself “is it really?” We are sinking into a new phase of the long standing Cold War with Russia and China, but the citizenry is in complete denial. That fact should alarm any sane person, but a prepper should be doubly concerned. Your stash, your survivalist empire, will be the desire of everyone as the civilization deteriorates. This is not the time to ask “will this happen” but more so what will I do when it does occur. The United States may not engage in full nuclear exchanges with foreign powers but that real threat now exists as we are viewed the world over as a scourge in many corners. That should give each of us pause to think “have I figured out every contingency?” From my perspective, this is the time to create a daily “prep list” of actions to take each day. The most important item on that list is “situational awareness” and while the news can be overwhelming, this is the era for everyone to divorce the emotion from the reporting and focus on the subject matter. If you watch the events around you, factual and speculative as they may be reported, you might determine a pattern which could save you and your family’s life. The physical items you will need to get by are easy enough to determine and the items available are still attainable but that time is starting to run short. So begin today, with this set of simple rules:
Watch
Learn
Listen
Think
Act
I know it can be depressing to read the idea of Islamic terror killing thousands in your town or the possibility of a geopolitical event spiraling out of control. There are people who are well paid to be concerned about these issues but the question you must consider is “what if they lose control?”
This time, this era, this minute is the time to begin the consideration of that question.
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