In my years of living I have come across people who seem to have this strange ability to not believe that bad things can happen to them. Unfortunately these people seem to pass this trait and attitude on to others around them. It seems to be the thought "Oh this won't happen to me/us. It only happens to others."
To help visualize the problem lets list some disasters both natural and man made.
Automobile accident far from civilization
Major Snow storm
Flooding
Crime
Katrina
Mexican Drug Wars
Haiti Earthquake
Russian Forest and Wild Fires
Mount Saint Helens
Chinese Earthquake
Tsunami Southwest Pacific
Drought in Africa
Riots in American cities
World War 1
World War 2
Spanish Civil War
Soviet Revolution
Finnish War of Independence
San Francisco earthquake
3 wars between India and Pakistan
There are thousands of other examples large and small, ancient and modern that I could list. One example that happened to me was a major snow storm which knocked out all electrical power for seven days. It took a long time after that for the roads to become passable again. A second was when I was trapped in a hotel in Hong Kong during the communist riots in the 1960's.
Now I was very lucky that my parents were the descendants of American pioneers who moved out west in the early 1800's. We always had food set aside for emergencies. We always had a tent, sleeping bags, weapons, and the attitude that "you better be able to take care of yourself, because other people may not know you're in trouble, or may not care what happens to you".
I believe it is important to promote the survival attitude to help my family, friends, and others get through the hard times. When you believe that it can happen to you, then you can survive, because you are prepared. Without this attitude you are allowing yourself to be a powerless victim of circumstance.
May wisdom be with you; from the folks here at "If It Hit The Fan".
I would like to add on the importance of communication during an emergency situation. We have become very reliant on modern infrastructure that is likely to not exist in any emergency situation (including an economic crisis). For the American civilian there is an another option and that is Amateur (Ham) Radio.
ReplyDeleteHam radio provides much farther and more reliable communication that other unlicensed radio services such as CB or Family Radio. In some instances communication across the globe.
More important that the radio itself is the knowledge gained from the licences. This includes a understanding of radio and electronics that will allow to you build/maintain your equipment. I have done demonstrations on how to build simple CW transceivers using only parts found in broken TVs and VCRs. Also knowledge about batteries, solar and home made generators is critical because you may not have electricity in your emergency situation.
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Evan, thanks for your comment. One of the things that working on this BLOG has done is to also educate me as to other things that are important.
ReplyDeleteWe hope to target many different groups with the BLOG. You are in the minority in that you have already started to think about what to do IIHTF. You are much farther ahead than a lot of people. I am like you, I surf the internet to give my mind lots of alternatives.
Your right, RF (Radio Frequency) communication would be a tremedous advantage to any group that had it.
Good Luck and keep preparing just in case IIHTF.