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Post by castanea on Jul 14, 2012 0:03:35 GMT -5
Not sure where to put this, but here goes..... "Read This First Before You Decide That Preppers Are Crazy Do you believe that preppers are a few cards short of a full deck? Do you assume that anyone that is "preparing for doomsday" does not have their elevator going all the way to the top floor? Well, you might want to read this first before you make a final decision that all preppers are crazy. The information that you are about to read shook me up a bit when I first looked it over. To be honest, I had no idea how incredibly vulnerable our economic system is to a transportation disruption. I am continually getting emails and comments on my websites asking "how to prepare" for what is coming, so when I came across this information I knew that I had to share it with all of you. Hopefully what you are about to read will motivate you to prepare like never before, and hopefully you will share this information with others. Originally, I was going to write an article about the rising unemployment in Europe today. Did you know that unemployment in the eurozone is now at a 15 year high? It has risen for 10 months in a row with no end in sight. But I have written dozens of articles about the economic crisis in Europe already. So before starting on that article I started thinking of all the "preparation" questions I have been getting lately and I went over and checked out one of my favorite preparation websites: shtfplan.com. Well, an article had just been posted over there about a report put out by the American Trucker Associations entitled "When Trucks Stop, America Stops". I went and found that original report and I was stunned as I read it. The truth is that our "just in time" inventory and delivery systems leave us incredibly vulnerable to a nationwide disaster. You see, it is very expensive to hold and store inventory, so most manufacturers and retailers rely on a continual flow of deliveries that are scheduled to arrive "just in time", and this significantly reduces their operating expenses. This is considered to be good business practice for manufacturers and retailers, but it also means that if there was a major nationwide transportation disruption that our economic system would grind to a halt almost immediately. Once store shelves are picked clean, they would not be able to be replenished until trucks could get back on the road. In the event of a major nationwide disaster, that could be quite a while. So what could potentially cause a nationwide transportation shutdown? Well, it is easy to imagine a lot of potential scenarios - a volcanic eruption, a historic earthquake, an EMP attack, a solar megastorm, a war, a major terror attack, an asteroid strike, a killer pandemic, mass rioting in U.S. cities, or even martial law. If something caused the trucks to stop running, life in America would immediately start changing. So exactly what would that look like? The following is an excerpt from the report mentioned above put out by the American Trucker Associations entitled "When Trucks Stop, America Stops".... ***** A Timeline Showing the Deterioration of Major Industries Following a Truck Stoppage The first 24 hours • Delivery of medical supplies to the affected area will cease. • Hospitals will run out of basic supplies such as syringes and catheters within hours. Radiopharmaceuticals will deteriorate and become unusable. • Service stations will begin to run out of fuel. • Manufacturers using just-in-time manufacturing will develop component shortages. • U.S. mail and other package delivery will cease. Within one day • Food shortages will begin to develop. • Automobile fuel availability and delivery will dwindle, leading to skyrocketing prices and long lines at the gas pumps. • Without manufacturing components and trucks for product delivery, assembly lines will shut down, putting thousands out of work. Within two to three days • Food shortages will escalate, especially in the face of hoarding and consumer panic. • Supplies of essentials—such as bottled water, powdered milk, and canned meat—at major retailers will disappear. • ATMs will run out of cash and banks will be unable to process transactions. • Service stations will completely run out of fuel for autos and trucks. • Garbage will start piling up in urban and suburban areas. • Container ships will sit idle in ports and rail transport will be disrupted, eventually coming to a standstill. Within a week • Automobile travel will cease due to the lack of fuel. Without autos and busses, many people will not be able to get to work, shop for groceries, or access medical care. • Hospitals will begin to exhaust oxygen supplies. Within two weeks • The nation’s clean water supply will begin to run dry. Within four weeks • The nation will exhaust its clean water supply and water will be safe for drinking only after boiling. As a result gastrointestinal illnesses will increase, further taxing an already weakened health care system. This timeline presents only the primary effects of a freeze on truck travel. Secondary effects must be considered as well, such as inability to maintain telecommunications service, reduced law enforcement, increased crime, increased illness and injury, higher death rates, and likely, civil unrest." More at: theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/read-this-first-before-you-decide-that-preppers-are-crazy |
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Jul 14, 2012 1:32:32 GMT -5
I don't worry about just-in-time deliveries of water, electricity, food, fuel, sunshine, air, etc... It seems to me like these items should be classified as flows, not as stockpiles.
Sure I think we may be better off as a society if the flow was more like a localized landrace and less like a corporate inbred, but it seems to me like there are huge flows of resources passing close at hand that could easily be re-purposed to local use if the need arises.
In my valley we export huge quantities of beef, cheese, and wheat to California, and we import huge quantities of vegetables. So if the transportation system collapsed, we would eat more beef and malt-o-meal and fewer tomatoes. I'd miss Idaho potatoes, since what I can grow locally suck! Twenty years ago sheep-herders walked their herds right down the main highway through my village. They still have the ability, tools, pack-animals, and knowledge to do so tomorrow. They could easily leave a few animals behind in barter. We have hundreds of people in town that have the knowledge, tools, ability, and experience to butcher a lamb. (When I was a kid we got a day of vacation from school the day before opening of the deer hunt.) Our home butchered lamb would not be USDA inspected, but it would be perfectly safe to eat.
Another community I spend time in exports vast quantities of turkeys. I figure every community has some type of local food production. I see unused recreational bicycles and horses all over. These could easily be converted to more useful work. etc, etc, etc.
And when I look around me, I see that many people are carrying around a 50 to 100 day supply of fat with them everywhere they go. That gives them a couple months of leeway before they starve to death.
People are inventive: A few months time aught to be plenty to rework a food/water/fuel distribution system. It would only take minutes to dump a tote of toys out and place it under a rain-spout. The illegalities of doing so would not matter, the flow of rainwater into the sewer system would get re-purposed.
My family could spend the winter in a well insulated room in the basement. Our body heat would go a long ways towards keeping one room warm.
As much as I have longed over the years for the sudden collapse scenario, it seems to me like the most probable outcome is better summed up by one of my favorite bar songs: "Next verse, same as the first, A little bit louder and a little bit worse". A slow agonizing decline dreary year after dreary year.
Ugh! What a horrid post I wrote... I have been discouraged ever since last nights Farmer's market: For 12 hours of labor yesterday I collected $1 at the market. By the time I paid the market fee, and for the ice to keep things fresh, and the gasoline to drive to market, I was $20 in the hole. And that doesn't count the investment in seed, and planting, and weeding, and seed-bed preparation, etc.... Morose.
At least I enjoyed visiting my friends and family after market to give them really nice food.
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Post by Drahkk on Jul 14, 2012 1:42:22 GMT -5
As a retail department supervisor, I can attest to the truth of this. We are held responsible for maintaining our inventory at approximately 4 WOS (weeks of sale, based on the past two weeks this year plus the past two weeks and two weeks going forward last year) Specifically, that is one week of sale plus two weeks of "safety stock" plus whatever the lead time is for that particular vendor. That means that you can expect most major big box retailers to be out of stock on most items after 4 weeks (at the most) after the SHTF. And I'm at THD, where most items have no expiration dates. Grocery dealers will probably be out of stock sooner than me.
I have to agree with Joseph though; I believe many folks, my wife and I included, would survive on our own fat long enough to rearrange our priorities and survive if TSHTF. We have enough stored (both internally and in the pantry) to survive long enough to convert to more primitive methods.
MB
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Post by oxbowfarm on Jul 14, 2012 5:46:49 GMT -5
Obviously if all the lights shut off at once it would be very very horrible. But that doesn't seem super likely even in the event of an economic collapse. You'd need something like a Carrington event or something to have that kind of "everything stops at once" occurrence. Seems more likely to be the slow scenario. I like the slow scenario better because more people will have time to adjust.
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Post by MikeH on Jul 14, 2012 7:04:14 GMT -5
What a load of nonsense! Let's say that we don't have a just-in-time system. The consequences of all of the listed scenarios remain unchanged. To single out just one disaster on the list, a Mount Tambora eruption would have an impact on agriculture, travel, electronics, etc that no amount of prepping would permit life continuing unchanged until the effects had diminished. The consequences are probably so large and varied as to be immeasurable so how do you prep? The linked page seems to be loaded with all kinds of stuff to buy so maybe this is just fear-based advertising meant to sell product. Toby Hemenway in Fear and the Three-Day Food Supply is quite blunt about using fear this way. The enemy here is fear, not the food system. In my book, anyone shouting “Run to the stores and buy as much food as you can!” deserves a special place in hell.To shorten Joseph's excellent response, people adjust to survive. |
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edwin
gardener
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Post by edwin on Jul 14, 2012 10:41:14 GMT -5
I also find the doom and gloom on such a short time scale problematic.
That said, I think Cuba effectively lost 1/3 of its calories when Russian communism collapsed. It took several years for Cuba to re-establish its food supply. Families have a gap in children for these years. Things were too bad to think of bringing in a child during these times. It was extremely rough going and it was no simple matter to go from centralized food supply to local food supply.
If the distribution system collapses in the west, I would expect that the rich would not have much of a problem, and the poor would suffer worse than the people of Cuba did.
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Post by davida on Jul 14, 2012 10:51:11 GMT -5
Ugh! What a horrid post I wrote... I have been discouraged ever since last nights Farmer's market: For 12 hours of labor yesterday I collected $1 at the market. By the time I paid the market fee, and for the ice to keep things fresh, and the gasoline to drive to market, I was $20 in the hole. And that doesn't count the investment in seed, and planting, and weeding, and seed-bed preparation, etc.... Morose. At least I enjoyed visiting my friends and family after market to give them really nice food. Joseph, At least all was not lost and you made the best of a bad situation by spending time and giving people your great food. You may have especially blessed one of them with your smile, encouragement and food in their time of need. And this is what community is about, helping others in their time of need. I have thought many times that your community is one of the best prepared in the US for hard times. Your forefathers spent much time and effort to be able to maximize the food production of your lands. But back to the farmers market. This must have been one of the first markets of the year. Why do you think people were not buying your produce last night? Have food prices went up so drastically in the grocery stores this year that they do not have additional food money for fresh produce? What was different last night at the farmer's market? Hopefully, your seed business will continue to grow where so much does not depend on the farmer's market. David |
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Post by castanea on Jul 14, 2012 11:09:16 GMT -5
What a load of nonsense! Let's say that we don't have a just-in-time system. The consequences of all of the listed scenarios remain unchanged. To single out just one disaster on the list, a Mount Tambora eruption would have an impact on agriculture, travel, electronics, etc that no amount of prepping would permit life continuing unchanged until the effects had diminished. The consequences are probably so large and varied as to be immeasurable so how do you prep? The linked page seems to be loaded with all kinds of stuff to buy so maybe this is just fear-based advertising meant to sell product. Toby Hemenway in Fear and the Three-Day Food Supply is quite blunt about using fear this way. The enemy here is fear, not the food system. In my book, anyone shouting �Run to the stores and buy as much food as you can!� deserves a special place in hell.To shorten Joseph's excellent response, people adjust to survive. One of the ways people adjust is to prepare, hence the name "preppers". The world economy is in shambles, crop losses around the world this year will be astronmical, Washington DC just went through days of power outages, and no one has any idea what the weather will be like this winter. Thus some people have decided they may want to prepare. If you don't that's fine, but the idea that things will always be the same as they are now, and that failing to prepare for possible change is a great idea, is a bit odd. The idea that because you can't adequately prepare for the worst possibility, that you therefore should not prepare at all, is also a bit odd. If you have a savings account, you're preparing for the future and thus you're a prepper. The rest is just a matter of degree. |
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Post by castanea on Jul 14, 2012 11:14:19 GMT -5
I don't worry about just-in-time deliveries of water, electricity, food, fuel, sunshine, air, etc... It seems to me like these items should be classified as flows, not as stockpiles. Sure I think we may be better off as a society if the flow was more like a localized landrace and less like a corporate inbred, but it seems to me like there are huge flows of resources passing close at hand that could easily be re-purposed to local use if the need arises. In my valley we export huge quantities of beef, cheese, and wheat to California, and we import huge quantities of vegetables. So if the transportation system collapsed, we would eat more beef and malt-o-meal and fewer tomatoes. I'd miss Idaho potatoes, since what I can grow locally suck! Twenty years ago sheep-herders walked their herds right down the main highway through my village. They still have the ability, tools, pack-animals, and knowledge to do so tomorrow. They could easily leave a few animals behind in barter. We have hundreds of people in town that have the knowledge, tools, ability, and experience to butcher a lamb. (When I was a kid we got a day of vacation from school the day before opening of the deer hunt.) Our home butchered lamb would not be USDA inspected, but it would be perfectly safe to eat. Another community I spend time in exports vast quantities of turkeys. I figure every community has some type of local food production. I see unused recreational bicycles and horses all over. These could easily be converted to more useful work. etc, etc, etc. And when I look around me, I see that many people are carrying around a 50 to 100 day supply of fat with them everywhere they go. That gives them a couple months of leeway before they starve to death. People are inventive: A few months time aught to be plenty to rework a food/water/fuel distribution system. It would only take minutes to dump a tote of toys out and place it under a rain-spout. The illegalities of doing so would not matter, the flow of rainwater into the sewer system would get re-purposed. My family could spend the winter in a well insulated room in the basement. Our body heat would go a long ways towards keeping one room warm. As much as I have longed over the years for the sudden collapse scenario, it seems to me like the most probable outcome is better summed up by one of my favorite bar songs: "Next verse, same as the first, A little bit louder and a little bit worse". A slow agonizing decline year after dreary year. Ugh! What a horrid post I wrote... I have been discouraged ever since last nights Farmer's market: For 12 hours of labor yesterday I collected $1 at the market. By the time I paid the market fee, and for the ice to keep things fresh, and the gasoline to drive to market, I was $20 in the hole. And that doesn't count the investment in seed, and planting, and weeding, and seed-bed preparation, etc.... Morose. At least I enjoyed visiting my friends and family after market to give them really nice food. Sorry for your rough day. You can prepare for a slow collapse as well as a fast collapse. You can prepare for a temporary collapse as well as a permanent collapse. You may be fine in your area if the trucks stop running for a couple of weeks, but folks in most large cities would be hurting. |
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Post by caledonian on Jul 24, 2012 21:34:23 GMT -5
Imagine what would happen to New York City. There isn't enough farmland to support all its people within several hundred miles. Even if people wanted to adapt to some other way of living, they couldn't do so.
Even if it's a long, slow change instead of something rapid, the big cities are going to go through some very unpleasant changes.
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Post by circumspice on Jul 25, 2012 0:11:17 GMT -5
Imagine what would happen to New York City. There isn't enough farmland to support all its people within several hundred miles. Even if people wanted to adapt to some other way of living, they couldn't do so. Even if it's a long, slow change instead of something rapid, the big cities are going to go through some very unpleasant changes. Back during the Great Depression, many people were able to "go home" to the family farm to weather the storm. Yet there were many people who had nowhere to go. They either became hobos or they settled in shantytowns. (Hoovervilles) I think that there will be dispersals, people moving from one place to another, looking for somewhere to live until the situation improves. Some people will be lucky enough to have families who own a farm or ranch. Others will try to stick it out in the cities, depending on soup kitchens & shelters, or maybe the shantytowns will once again sprout all over the country like before. What I hope is that we will have actually learned something from this when it happens. Hopefully we will reassess & decide that small scale farming & ranching is in the better interest of the greater number of people, that our previous lifestyle was not sustainable. In a mere 3 generations, it looks like we will be entering into another Great Depression. And programs like the old CCC won't alleviate the problem. (make work programs) |
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Post by castanea on Jul 27, 2012 0:39:54 GMT -5
Imagine what would happen to New York City. There isn't enough farmland to support all its people within several hundred miles. Even if people wanted to adapt to some other way of living, they couldn't do so. Even if it's a long, slow change instead of something rapid, the big cities are going to go through some very unpleasant changes. Back during the Great Depression, many people were able to "go home" to the family farm to weather the storm. Yet there were many people who had nowhere to go. They either became hobos or they settled in shantytowns. (Hoovervilles) I think that there will be dispersals, people moving from one place to another, looking for somewhere to live until the situation improves. Some people will be lucky enough to have families who own a farm or ranch. Others will try to stick it out in the cities, depending on soup kitchens & shelters, or maybe the shantytowns will once again sprout all over the country like before. What I hope is that we will have actually learned something from this when it happens. Hopefully we will reassess & decide that small scale farming & ranching is in the better interest of the greater number of people, that our previous lifestyle was not sustainable. In a mere 3 generations, it looks like we will be entering into another Great Depression. And programs like the old CCC won't alleviate the problem. (make work programs) The next depression will be far worse than the Great Depression simply because so few people live on farms now. When the Soviet Union broke up, things were very tough but many people survived because they were close to the land and knew how to grow and store food. |
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Post by oxbowfarm on Jul 27, 2012 6:12:54 GMT -5
NYC is definitely unsustainably large, but it is still surrounded by areas that used to be productive farmland, and could be again. Current economic conditions make that land too valuable for agriculture but if those conditions changed then so would the land usage. Obviously there would have to be a certain amount of relocation but NYC isn't unique in that case. I'd rather be in NYC than in Phoenix or Las Vegas personally.
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Post by castanea on Jul 27, 2012 10:21:53 GMT -5
I've lived in Las Vegas. Gardening is hell. Literally. 120 degrees will fry almost anything. I love dates, but they are one of the few fruits or veggies that will reliably grow in that kind of heat. I now understand why dates became so significant in some middle eastern countries.
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Post by circumspice on Aug 21, 2012 22:43:29 GMT -5
I've been mulling over this subject for a while now. I've read what others say about making preparations in the event of some catastrophe, whether natural or man-made. We talk about saving OP seeds for future gardening, planting perennials that need little care once established, hoarding 'hard' currency such as gold, silver & copper, putting in place some sort of reliable, sustainable water supply, etc.
My question is: Why aren't we hoarding iron & steel?
I mean that gold, silver & copper have their uses outside of the obvious which is vanity/luxury goods. Gold & silver can be used in dentistry, silver in photography & copper in plumbing & electrical applications, along with cookware.
But think about it... You're not going to make nails or a hammer or a kitchen knife or a plow blade out of gold, silver or copper. Maybe you could trade those metals for such items, but you won't be able to make the tools & equipment necessary for long term survival with precious metals.
So, how do you go about hoarding for yourself a usable amount of iron & steel? I guess one way to start is to save all the steel food cans that we regularly either throw in the garbage or take to the recycling center. So, I guess we should never dispose of items that are made of iron or steel.
But those are heavy bulky items once you start collecting them. How do you store them? I suppose you could squash the cans to take up less room & cut up other items into smaller pieces. But where to put them? Do you have an outbuilding that has no other use at the moment? That could work for a while. But I suspect that a 'real' working farm doesn't have any outbuildings that aren't already in use.
I am reminded of a man I once knew a long time ago. He had a huge erosion gully on his property that he wanted to fill in, but he didn't have sufficient rocks and soil to do it. What did he do? He asked everyone he knew (& quite a few strangers) if they had bulky items to dispose of. Items such as old washers, dryers, refrigerators, bed frames, old barb wire & panel fencing, rocks, gravel, sand, brush & dead-fall. He offered to do all the heavy lifting and hauling if they would give him the items for free. It took him a couple of months, but he did it. He filled that gully, then spread some good topsoil over it. He held a barbecue to show what he had accomplished. About 15 years later, the local power company trenched right through the middle of it. He said that the stuff down in what used to be the gully looked pristine, like it was buried a few months earlier rather than more than a decade ago. We've probably all heard about the anaerobic conditions in land fills, how surprisingly new looking 50 year old newspapers have been excavated from old dumps. That could be a sensible way to store something for future use, that won't take up space allocated for other uses. (just mark the location of your stash on a map, for future generations?)
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