Did anyone see the hamaski report from gary n. web site ? I know sewage backup is possible for us city folks as is looting, but can anyone PLEASE share with me how come all keep saying leave the city? THIS SCARES ME TERRIBLY. I cant leave i have 3 sons and a niece to care for. What other things ought I be concerned over? I am storing food, alt. heat, candles med stuff, etc....also, why does everyone say to get rice in big bags and beans? dont they require alot of water to fix?

-- consumer alert (private@aol.com), November 07, 1998

Answers

I think it's the famous Paul Milne who's fond of saying, "If you're within five miles of a 7-11, you're toast." Or something like that. What he's getting at is demographics- mainly population density. Lots of people with nothing to eat, drink or do are apt to mean problems. If you live in a sprawling apartment complex or a hi-rise in an area where you can't put your feet on anything but concrete or asphalt you will very likely have problems if the infrastructure fails for longer than a very few days. If you live in suburbia you will have a few more options. If there's a major systemic failure it'll be tough all over, not just in the city. But population densities in urban/suburban areas are higher and where there's more space between people there will likely be less problems, so that's why the flee to the county theme predominates. It's likely that population centers will get official attention/help sooner than the boonies anyway if things really turn brown and smelly.

Your essential problems are likely to be heat, water, sanitation, food (supply and preparation) and security -I think in that order. If you can provide for those things on your own for days or weeks (months if necessary) you are probably in reasonably good shape for whatever the rollover brings. I personally wouldn't want to be in the city in normal conditions much less TEOTWAWKI but that's because I'm your basic redneck hick hayseed sort of person who likes dirt roads and starlight.

Rice and beans in big bags are cheaper- that's probably why they get talked about a lot. But they have to be stored properly or they'll get buggy, mousy, moldy etc. And yes, they do take water (no more than freezedried but more heat and cooking time than the wafflestomper yuppiefood). The yuppiefood freezedried stuff costs a bunch more too (but it is handy since it prepares fast and is mostly pretty tasty too). Check the shelf life dates on canned goodies for the pantry- lots of stuff you probably fix normally will be good till after d-day. Think about the essential processes- where you'd get water if the taps didn't work, how you'd stay warm if the heat/electricity was off, how you'd cook if the stove didn't work, etc. Figure out alternatives, and TRY THEM to see if they work for you. Work out security drills (fire drills, intruder drills etc) too while you're at it (what- you don't have a family fire plan ALREADY?) Remember- there may be a test afterward.

And heck, don't be scared- get a good flashlight, a shotgun and an attitude and learn how to use'em all (safely!!!). If the boychicks and the neicechick are old enough, enlist them too, even if they only get baseball bats or golf clubs. IMHO none of the above is necessarily bad advice y2k or no. Your mileage may vary however.

Much luck,

nemo...

-- nemo (nemo@deepsix.com), November 07, 1998.

Yes, you will need to store a LOT of water too. If you must stay in the city, I would recommend getting together with neighbors and friends you can trust and who are also willing to get equally prepared. The thing that is scary about areas of high population density originates from the simple concept of supply and demand. If low income or anti-social people are unprepared and begin to form into gangs they will no doubt be carrying guns and knocking on doors of those who have lights on and a supply of food. May God be with you.

-- Jim (Jim@yordy.com), November 07, 1998.

If the lights go out (I'm not convinced) the most dangerous aspect of staying in the city, to me, would be fire. After a few days without power or heat people are going to start building fires in inappropriate places to cook or keep warm.

-- Ned (entaylor@cloudnet.com), November 07, 1998.

Please look in the archives on this web site for a thread called "Tom's Take". In it he describes what he thinks city/suburban dwellers need to do....I live in a city of 100K population. I have contingency to get out before September 1999 IF it becomes necessary or the smoke signals warrant. I personally think that suburban communities can pull together and make it work...

The problems in the cities as many people have said are:

Supply lines interrupted...food....

Power that is supplied to water distribution.....

Civil disruptions...looting, thievery...

Tom's take talks about cities being the first to get power back if power goes off....he talks about being squirrels than burrow in during the worst....please find the thread..it is well worth the read.

I'm still on the fence..will make my final decision before August 1999.

-- Donna Barthuley (moment@pacbell.net), November 07, 1998.

Thanks Donna, I've looked for it, cant find it? Does anyone know what catagory its under.?

-- consumer alert (private@aol.com), November 07, 1998.

You can use this URL:

http://www.cairns.net.au/~sharefin/Markets/Y2k/Toms_Take.html

-- Gayla Dunbar (privacy@please.com), November 07, 1998.

As I've said elsewhere -- with reference to armed defense of a bunker (or house, or apartment) -- the more bodies lying outside the door or in the yard, the more convinced the next bunch will be that there's something inside they want. And in that Mad Max scenario, there will always be a next bunch. Tom Benjamin is right, eventually they'll disappear -- but until they do the problem will be there.

I plan to be "visiting" way outside this city (metro area 2.5 million pop.) for Christmas holidays 1999 -- and see how things turn out.

-- Tom Carey (tomcarey@mindspring.com), November 08, 1998.

I moved our family out of the city already in the seventies and into the boonies because I knew that civilization would collapse. To see what was coming was a no-brainer for me.

I pray for prolonged blizzard here when TSHTF.

-- trying to forget but better remember (seenit@ww2.com), November 08, 1998.

Tom, I read your long article. It's good- you should send it to a magazine or something.

Anyway, I have to disagree. Socially, we're living on a razor blade. Thirty years ago, there would have been no Dennis Hopper. But now, in our society, we've got kids going into schools with automatic rifles. We have drugs everywhere. We've got people demanding instant gratification.

Dennis Hopper is not neccassarily going to be a hard-core gang leader. He could just as well be an aggressive lawyer or insurance guy. He is going to get some buddies and say "We don't have food. We've already looted the shops, and there's nothing left. Unless we raid some guy's house, then we're going to starve. Yeah, they may defend themselves- but we've got guns as well, and there's ten of us and probably no more than a couple of them, and we'll be able to blow them away before they blow us away. And even if they do kill a couple of us -if we DON'T act, we're going to die of starvation anyway."

And remember, I'd say that more than 1 in 1000 people will have stashes of food. I'd say that 90% have some tinned food somewhere, and that maybe 50% will have made some kind of basic preparation- a few sacks of rice, a box of tinned tomatoes, something worth looting. And maybe one in a hundred -NOT your 1 in 1000- will have something of real value, a stockpile enough to last several months.

Then you've got your "packs of assholes". At some stage, someone is going to realise "If there's 100 of us, we'll be unstoppable! We can do what we want- occupy towns, rape the women and kill the men (or vice versa, if we're sickos), take everything we want, use peoples' houses for firewood if it's winter, and when we've taken or destroyed everything we want, we can move on!". This is where the real Road Warrior danger comes from. But no, I don't really envisage them riding around on souped-up Harleys or modified Corvettes with spikes on the bumper. If they have transport, they'd probably use as many jeeps or trail bikes as they could get. Not that they'd be able to use them for long, because those roads would be as you said parking lots -has anyone seen The Stand?- and in any case, fuel is a finite commodity that would eventually run out. The Road Warrior is a good movie (about the only Aussie movie known worldwide- other than that national embarrassment starring Hogan that I'm not even going to name), but in reality, the assholes would be walking or riding pushbikes by the time those movies would be happening.

The bottom line is that a scarcity of resources needed for survival, combined with a collapse of the law enforcement system, is going to cause a lot of people who normally would NOT be Dennis Hopper, or even garden-variety Dennis Learys ("I'm an asshole, I'm an asshole..."), to pick up guns and kill other people in order to survive. There will also be a lot of people who figure: "No cops, therefore if there's a bunch of us who can do anything we want to anyone we want without any reprisals!". I know a lot of people in real life who would probably rape and murder if they were able to do so without reprisal; fear of punishment holds a lot of people from doing a lot of things. And killing for survival: Say that you have no food at all. You know that the only way to get food is to kick in the door of some stranger's house and kill him. How many people would nobly starve to death? I know that I wouldn't... I would HATE the idea of killing an innocent guy, but I think to save my own life, I would be able to force myself to do almost anything (although I'd probably feel sick about it and hate myself for the rest of my life, maybe even to the point of risking my life needlessly later on as self-punishment- no, I'm not a psycho, just a guy with a conscience). But having a conscience doesn't bring back the dead guy.

--Leo

-- Leo (leo_champion@hotmail.com), November 12, 1998.

Although I'll try not to get too personal here , I HAVE an EX husband named Leo, after reading your thread, I know WHY HE IS AN EX. To think there are more of you out there is what concerns me. I cant afford to leave the city. I have 4 children and a GREAT BIG GOD. So bring it on and whatever will be will be.

-- consumer alert (private@aol.com), November 13, 1998.

Leo,..the malcontents are NOT in the majority...The news/the media make it seems so but that is not the case. The majority of people are caring and willing to work cooperatively...Don't go by media depictions as your sole examples for the reasons for decisions....

-- Donna Barthuley (moment@pacbell.net), November 13, 1998.

Leo, you probably mispoke when you wrote about gangs raping the women and killing the men(or vice versa if they are sickos).......?

-- Arthur Rambo (buriedtreasure@webtv.net), November 14, 1998.

Donna, the fact that Leo admits it here, readily, that he could revert to killing to survive, (and his slip of the pen..."if *we're* sickos"...hmmm) makes me really wonder how many more like him are out there?

Like I said before, there's 260 million loonies here, but only 25 million loonies in Canada. Leo's post erased any doubts I might have had about the wiseness of choosing my "bunker" back in Canada.

-- Chris (catsy@pond.com), November 14, 1998.

* or vice versa if they are sickos).......? * but they have pride parades.

-- . (.@...), November 14, 1998.

Like it or not, Leo makes a valid point, which is that the cities are where this is most likely to occur. In fact, existing inner city gangs would probably provide the "trendsetting". And no matter what, any group that forms initially just to be able to survive is likely to then "advance" to other things -- this is the sad truth, again especially in the cities.

Where there is a will, there is a way: Get out of the city!

-- Jack (jsprat@eld.net), November 15, 1998.

Leo-- just to keep the record straight, in case it's confused -- I'm not the author of "Tom's Take." Tom Benjamin, from British Columbia, wrote it. I agree that it's very well done.

Donna-- "The majority of people are caring and willing to work cooperatively..." I think that's so. But those aren't the people Leo (and others) are talking about.

I live on the outskirts of Atlanta. Yesterday (18 Nov.) the local news reported a pedestrian death in Atlanta. An 18-year-old woman, a single mother of 3, was walking to work just after 6 AM.

While crossing a street she was knocked down by a car, which left the scene. She was conscious, and starting to get to her feet, when a second car hit her. This driver stopped. Before any could reach her the next three cans ran over her body. None of these drivers stopped. This was a heavy set woman, looked like she may have weighed 175 lbs. or better. She did not survive.

Donna, this was on a good day.

for if they do these things in the green wood, what will be done in the dry? (Luke 23:31)

On part of the original question on this thread-- do beans and rice require water to fix? Too right they do. The stability of the water supply in any metro area is vital, and can't be predicted.

-- Tom Carey (tomcarey@mindspring.com), November 19, 1998.