I have concluded that I am in for severe sleep deprivation unless my brothers show up to live with me and my wife and 3 young kids. Or, alternatively, I have a very explicit understanding with 1 or 2 close neighbors concerning mutual defense. There is simply no way to defend a home in the face of a concentrated assault if you are by yourself. When do you sleep? The homes that make it or going to be the ones that have the manpower and military discipline to defend a position. Consequently, I believe that if you are more than 5 miles from a 7-11, your prospects for such a coordinated defense are substantially less than in a more populated area. Perhaps I am deluding myself. I don't know. I was never in the military. And I do agree with those posters on another thread that famine and disease may well be the most heinous threats, but I did want to tap into the combined wisdom on this forum. Finally, please refrain from the troll accusations. Thanks

-- Pessimist (dreadin'it@scared.com), March 27, 1999

Answers

Well, you could be in hot water. The dark nature of deprived humans is scary. You've seen this in movies and read this in books, but when you experience the ugliness for yourself, it's hair-raising to say the least. Be prepared to smile. That offsets potential anger. Be prepared to endure continual frustrations. This will tax your smile, but you'll become inured somewhat as the problems accrue. When the smile is replaced by a grimace, stand fast in your faith because the worst is yet to come!

There's not really any good news regarding the potential problem scenarios, so please prepare as best you can. And pray to God, for He will never forsake you.

-- dinosaur (dinosaur@williams-net.com), March 27, 1999.

Pessimist --- Distinguish between wise preparation and prediction. No one knows how bad Y2K will be, so why waste time assuming the worst? It's understandable that this forum focuses a lot on bad news AT THIS TIME, and some of the sober aspects of preparation, but this doesn't mean that heroic, generous and kind actions by many won't also be happening post 1/1/2000. They will.

-- BigDog (BigDog@duffer.com), March 27, 1999.

Yes, but this does speak to the issue of Going It Alone vs. cooperative preparation and contingency planning... INCLUDING plans for defense and security of neighborhoods and communities.

It's time to begin that kind of planning, if you haven't already.

-- Sara Nealy (keithn@ptd.net), March 27, 1999.

Big Dog,

BIG PAT ON BACK, GOOD BOY. LET ME SCRATCH YOUR EARS AND TUMMY. WHAT KINDS OF BONES DO YOU LIKE?

-- Like this Big Dog (good@boy.woof), March 27, 1999.

We have heard of the several Marine manuevers going on on the West Coast in cities such as Oakland, Alameda, Monterey, and Seattle. We also know that FEMA and the Red Cross are gearing up their preparations and advising citizens to stock up and be prepared. Our local utility, PG&E, has warned it's customers to prepare because they cannot guarantee that the power will remain on. And summing up all the other reports we are learning about such as the Senate report, and many other "progress reports," it does not look good. This being said, be prepared for civil unrest and disease will hit the big cities first then the suburbs, then the country and mountain people last. If you have family that can be with you to stand watch to protect your home then prepare for them to be with you. That means you will have to store water, food and plenty of guns and ammo to support everyone. Don't depend on your neighbors to protect your house, because they will be busy protecting theirs. Teach your wife how to handle a firearm or have her take a firearm safety and shooting class. She will have to learn sooner or later and time is running out. Look around your property and think of ways you can make it difficult for someone to come onto your property. Do you have a wooden fence going around your backyard? Take carpet tacking strips and nail them on top of your fence. This will prevent someone from jumping over your fence...it works, believe me! Plant blackberry vines to trail around fences or in front of your house. Pyracantha bushes are good deterrents from intruders. Put gravel in walkways or driveways, you can hear someone stepping on them. A BIG DOG is good to have around but don't let the dog out in the yard by itself. Have plywood on hand to cover the windows and have a plan ahead of time for a way of escape. Good luck.

-- bardou (bardou@baloney.com), March 27, 1999.

We gave everyone in our neighbourhood LOUD whistles!

-- safety (in community@home.com), March 27, 1999.

One of the BIG lies of the GI Cult. NO utility today will "guarantee" that the power will be on tomorrow. Yet they repeat it like a mantra. Can you spell Jim Jones?

-- Y2K Pro (2@641.com), March 27, 1999.

Bigdog makes sense, as usual.

On the one hand, whethering Y2K alone gives you more freedom of movement and decisions. You only have yourself to worry about, you can split whenever you like, whatever the situation calls for. You only have yourself to feed and defend. If you had your brother's family living with you, you would be very restricted, plus you would have those 3 kids to worry about. You'd have only your brother and maybe his wife to count on for defense (assuming the 3 kids are too young too help.)

On the other hand, your brother and his wife are 2 more helping hands to help with food and shelter. I don't know, those 3 kids are really the wild cards. Depends on how self-sufficient you feel you are, and how much you worry about the welfare of your brother and his family.

-- Wishywashy (don'tknow@home.com), March 27, 1999.

Something to be said for not looking like you have anything. I know that I have dodged at least one post car accident lawsuit due to the fact that I drive cars that are old POS and I can dress like I am a bag lady. If things break down we plan on doing the old camoflauge routine, get skinny, wear our worst ragged clothes, no hair combing, board up the windows, spread a little glass around, singe a few shingles and the siding for effect. We will employ our loud and territorial dog, noise makers and other elements of surprise and hunker down and hope for the best. Lastly we will probably load an old shotgun with rock salt shells for warning with a real one as backup. This is plan B for us as I sincerely hope it doesn't come to this.

-- Ramp Rat (Aviation_R_us@noname.nocity), March 27, 1999.

I have talked with a number of my friends about human nature and hard times. They are all long-term (12+ years overseas) vets with a great deal of first-hand experience of hard times, both their own and geography-wide for where they were -- I mean massive social, economic, military upheavals, repressions, wars, etc. I've talked to them about self defense, and that sort of thing, because they're the most down to earth people I know.

Now mind you we are not discussing living in a city of millions of people, but rather, villages with say not more than a few thousand people. But this is what any given neighborhood comes down to anyway.

They think the advice to prepare yourself as well as humanly possible is good, necessary, obvious. They point out that sanitation is a bigger killer than most weapons and lunatics combined, and that planning ahead for a way to deal with sewage disposal and cleanliness and proper treatment of water before ingesting is critical. They also mention, don't forget medical supplies -- for childbirths, for injuries, for illnesses.

They think the advice to have defense on hand -- meaning weapons -- is also good, as much for defense against dog packs as against people. They suggest weapons with some range involved, but point out that high powered rifles have a kick that few people who aren't pretty well trained with them can take (unlike a handgun which the average housewife can use at closer range). They say, don't forget a way to deal with the local small predators -- snakes, rats, etc.

And then we get into the discussion of "me vs. them." Now seeing as how most of these guys ran around alone or close to it with backbacks in foreign jungles for some time, you'd think they'd be the ultimate solitary survivalists. Oddly enough, that's not the case with any of them, and in fact I see this more with people who have NOT had their experience than those who have.

They say: keep your own counsel. People, even friends and neighbors, don't need to know what you have, or how much, or what you're doing with it. Store it out of the way or in buckets, trash cans etc. that what it is isn't visible to people walking through. If people ask you what you're doing to prepare, answer it vaguely ("what I can, but money's tight..."). It doesn't have to be the secret of the universe that you're aware of Y2K and planning; it probably won't be even if you think it is; but the details should be your own and don't share them.

They say: people who want to shut themselves off from the neighborhood, barricade the door and shoot anybody on the lawn are morons. Humanity lives in groups because it takes a group to fill human needs. These people make enemies, or nobody knows them, and eventually they run out of something they need, or forgot to plan for something that comes up which they need, and they have to go ask for it, and the community will say, "Get lost asshole, when we asked you to help in the community garden you refused lest we steal your precious food while you were gone; when we needed medical supplies we know you had (the drugstore fellow remembered...) you refused so you'd have them for yourself. You wanted to be on your own -- now you are."

They say that in times of severe duress, human instinct is to congregate. I second this because I've seen this, having been through a number of 'natural disasters' and crisises, that people become more social, and bizarrely enough, more altruistic in some of these situations. Again, we're not talking about a million people here, but about a neighborhood working together because they're all desperate.

Everybody in this forum seems to assume that the whole world operates like New York or East L.A. or something. I've been there, I've seen looting in L.A. 15 minutes after an earthquake, I have no illusions that this is how people react. The people THERE. I've also seen ordinary gripey, uptight people become warm hearted social altruists when the situation was bad.

My friends say that in the average neighborhood -- sans an 8-10 rating of this problem -- they would expect probably 90-95% of the people to be helpful, generous, work with others, etc. They say the 5-10% left who are dangerous are usually the people who are so bent on saving themselves (in a solitary me-first fashion) that they end up acting out the me-vs.-the-world mentality that they planned for so thoroughly from other people.

I'm not saying I have an actual opinion on this aspect of things yet. I just thought I'd share that.

PJ in TX

-- PJ Gaenir (fire@firedocs.com), March 28, 1999.

Can see some of the points made, but I live in a neighborhood of DGIs. There's no planning on their part and the professions in my neighborhood will not help me one bit. When I aproached the hood several months ago, I was met with much resistance and the neighbors go out of their way to avoid us. So, you are telling me that I need to be responsible and plan for them because they may have something that I may want or need? NAAAATA! The line has been drawn, no one knows my plans or my level of readiness. People have to realize that they cannot be everything to everyone nor plan to take care of the hood when they turned away from your plea. That's just the way life is, there's always winners and losers. If and when TSHTF, water will the biggest problem. After the hot water tank is drained and there's no more water to drink or bath with, dehydration will set in the kidneys will shut down and death is near. How could I possibly help my neighbors when water is in short supply? Do you give away yours so you can die before your neighbors? Or do you let your neighbors die and you live on? That's a no brainer.

-- bardou (bardou@baloney.com), March 29, 1999.