Be Prepared For Unprepared People
Guest post: by ‘Be informed’
In the aftermath of any unprecedented disastrous event, no matter how well prepared someone is with regards to a well accumulated stock of survival supplies, no one is truly ready or can anticipate how people will handle it. The emotional upheaval is difficult enough for yourself, throw in those around you within your circle of family and friends and you have some genuine stress. Nevertheless you are familiar and have certain bonds and mutual understandings with each other. Now, unless you are a totally isolated group, the actual issue is how those casual acquaintances, little known neighbors, people of your community, and strangers are going to act towards you and others when the normalcy and stable structure of society has broken down or collapsed.
It can be downright frightening to witness how a person you thought you knew becomes erratic and very volatile, a perfect word is “unhinged”. Try now to imagine that there is a calamity that goes into uncharted territory of overwhelming shock. You, your family, friends, maybe your whole neighborhood or even the better part of the city you live in might have stocked up and prepared to survive varying degrees of disasters. However, what do you do in regards to those that have NOT prepared?
This is mainly the issue that one is going to have to face with irrational people – the lack of their preparation and their need of food and other items. Aside from the obvious dangers of people that will try to come to your home or retreat and attempt to forcefully get what you have (which you should have defense plans for ahead of time), you might have to deal with individuals that are desperate, terrified, and disoriented. These people will come to your door in terrible distress, and whether you choose to answer the door will be a decision that you will have to make. You will have to decide whether to share what you have or not. I have personally reserved some food that I got with coupons for next to nothing for certain neighbors. Please beforehand, consider the following when thinking about handing out your supplies after a disaster.
Most people that have not stored away some food and supplies, other than those too poor to do so, have failed to “out of personal choice NOT to do so”. You and those in your group have gone without luxuries in order to prepare. Those that laughed at the idea of preparedness have spent their money on much useless junk, TOYS for amusement. Everything you give away will cut down on your family and group’s own time of survival. Survival food for 10 people for 3 months if shared with the average block of neighbors that is about 100 people that didn’t prepare will now only last 9 days. Think about the math and not being able to replace what you stored for your own survival before divvying it up. It may become quite difficult when very scared ill prepared people, nice and not so nice, come to your home and either plead or demand that you share.
An “in advance” solution that many people do not understand is to keep their mouths shut in regards to their preparations. Getting neighbors on board and getting them to store up is wonderful as this benefits all. Going around bragging about all the survival supplies you have and how you can make it through anything puts a great big fat bull’s eye on your home. You want to encourage and give valuable advice on how to stock up and store food and supplies to neighbors, not openly advertise that your house is a mini supermarket ripe for the pickens when the need presents itself. Too many make this mistake and become overly enthusiastic about prepping and forget the old adage that “loose lips sinks ships”.
On top of safeguarding what you have at all times, people MUST also watch over their dear pets. As repugnant as this sounds, some people are going to become ugly inside because of the desperateness of the dire situation and find and eat whatever animal is available. Someone MUST remain with their pets if they go outside or risk them disappearing. Your victory garden is also something that either has to be guarded at all times, or harvested early, to avoid the two legged varmints snatching every last vegetable and fruit you have growing. Disaster brings out some true weirdness in people, and people in your group should always go in at least pairs and children always have adults in their presence, if and when you must venture outside.
There are two extremes of unpredictable behavior to expect after a very intense and societal breakdown type of catastrophe. The first is not as likely at the offset, but becomes more probable as the time or lack of social order drags on. People begin to exhibit some raw animalistic behavior when doing whatever is necessary to get food and whatever they need and want. Ugliness that someone would expect in a prison in which just a handful of inmates have the remaining resources. Then there is the good nature of people that is supposed to separate the beast from man. This is where the community comes together and works for a common goal towards everyone’s survival. The standoffish neighbors are the ones out there with chainsaws clearing fallen trees and other debris. In other words, unpredictable stand and work togetherness. We can all hope!
Each community is different. But know this, whether it is intensely positive or horrifically negative, unprecedented and unbelievable disasters WILL bring about highly uncertain reactions in people around you. Any person planning survival and preparedness for future bad, ugly, and worst case events must understand and plan for; how to handle, adapt, and be ready for the many different “person to person equations” that will certainly continuously play out in everyone’s life.
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@BI; Great post my friend! You make my point of NOT BEING IN THE SUBURBS OR CITY. If you live where you have neighbors, you may be able to share with a few and/or try to hold off the neighborhood, but if you don’t have an impregnable underground fortress (if you do why didn’t you move anyway, you had the money?) you’re not going to succeed. Also, at some point you are going to have to deal with not only the neighbors and roving bands of miscreants, you will have to deal with the government. No one exists in a vacuum. When the authorities (and you don’t even know who that will be) find out that there is a place in the burbs where it is heavily defended and everyone gets their asses kicked trying to raid it, they will come find you AND your supplies and take them, by force, and probably will not care what condition you are left in. So, leave now, while you can. Living in a tight knit rural community is probably the best thing you can do. People help each other, even if they don’t know them. You are closer to where food is produced and you should even be producing some of your own. I also have preps for people that come along. I’m willing to share some rice, beans, peanut butter, vietnamese sausages, Ramen noodles and cans of Chef BoyArdee pasta. I even have some things for sale (for gold, silver or something I NEED) or barter. I even went so far as to buy some inexpensive, 7-shot, bolt action .22 rifles for this (if I can trade it for a center fire rifle and 20 rounds of ammo, that is much more dangerous to me) so that I could trade it for said item with a FEW boxes of ammo, it is to my advantage. That means I control the weaponry of the people that do come by and stand to gain something of value (not the gun) that will more than pay for all of this trouble after the SHTF issues have died down. Of course the caveat to that is that someone now knows where you are and what you have (sort of). I will tell them they are getting a deal BUT DON’T COME BACK or they will be treated as a hostile threat. You’re depending on their good will, sense of survival and integrity; it’s that or shoot nearly everyone that comes up. I prepared and they didn’t and they are a potential threat to me and mine. You do what you have to or suffer at the hands of those that don’t care about you. If you’re buying a lot of supplies, someone knows it, even if you don’t use a credit card. If you buy at Costco or Sam’s you have a membership card that is associated with your transaction even if you use cash. They know who you are, hide yous stuff well, prepare well and have a plan B. Survive well. Enjoy.
@ TripodXL. The cold reality of it is that the very nature of people unwinds at various stressful circumstances. A tight knit community is something that would be really nice to live in. Ken has many times emphanized how important it is to get your community that you live in on board and all become allies in the pursuit of survival. You just do not want to advertise just how much you personally have ever. Had a relative give everyone in the family some real sound advice, never tell anyone what you are worth. This is especially true with your food and supplies as this will be the ONLY thing that has any worth left to it after something awful happens. It sure would nice to have an impregnable fortess of solitude though. Thank you for the nice comments and insightful wisdom.
Good article on an important topic. How about a follow up article with some solutions to deal with some of the unpleasant social situations that will arise. TripodXL had some good ones. You’ve obvously done some thinking so you probably have many others.
@ SurvivorDan. I will try, but it may take a little while. Solutions are difficult because you always want to give sound advice to those that will need it. You are correct, I do have many ideas on so many subjects, my mind is on even when I sleep as I have gotten ideas then also. Just want to make sure it is the right answers for others because after a disaster we are not going to have many second chances, we probably have to get it right the first time around.
(Paperback) My family and I were lvinig in New York City during 9/11. What happened is history, but we were totally unprepared for it. Fortunately, we were more than a mile from Ground Zero. We immediately began taking precautions in case another disaster targeted where we lived. If we had a copy of The Disaster Preparedness Handbook we would have had a terrific guide in terms of what to do. For example, we had no plan or place to meet up if we and our small child were separated. We didn’t have food, water, protective equipment for emergencies, or a plan for how to leave the City (except to drive as we always did). We certainly hadn’t considered any kind of disaster possibilities so we hadn’t reviewed the fourteen basic human needs and how to provide for them. The book has great coverage, including the concerns of the elderly, the disabled, children, woman who are pregnant, and people with special needs. We all hope nothing will ever go wrong, but it’s good to be prepared in case something does. This is definitely the book to have. Its price is reasonable and it has lots of color photos for illustration.
I love all of the advice on this site. but a SHTF crises has me pretty worried. trying to prepare on $800 bucks a month is kinda hard. sometimes i feel like i will get shot at from both gangs and rich prepers.
There definitely ARE things you can do to prepare, even with hardly any excess money. Lots of it is self education and mindset. You have a computer with internet access and can learn quite a lot of advice that way. Very often the talk is about ‘stuff’ you should have, but this unfortunately should not always be the case. There is a mindset involved, a way of life, and planning for scenarios. The topic in general is worthy of many posts and I will add it to my ‘ideas’ list for the future
@Darth Lung. I cannot say enough about coupons. You can literally get good quality food for almost free, if not for free. This expert coupon lady Jill Cataldo aka (Coupon Queen) does a column in the newspaper weekly on how to save a lot of money using coupons, and trust me it works. The website is at: http://www.supercouponing.com/ This should help you. Most people don’t even have a couple of days of food in their house, and they have a lot of money. Putting away a can or two each time you shop adds up. Get a few free cans of food using coupons and it doesn’t run into any of a limited budget. Besides this getting items for free is fun.
I can attest that coupons can save you an amazing amount of money. The problem is whether the items are things you particularly want and use. For that reason I only do couponing occasionally. But for emergency storage items, I think it is great. In an emergency, for example, you’ll be more willing to eat cheap coupon food than you are now.
When I’ve clipped coupons, I never have gotten maniacal about it – just newspapers, easily found online coupons etc. Even with that, by using a store that offers at least double (or more) value on a coupon, and buying items on sale, I’ve typically saved between 25%-40% off my grocery bill. 25% was the lowest ever; and around 80% was my best. And that’s without knocking myself out to do it.
Coupons are often for the types of foods that you can store, such as canned goods, jars of things like pasta sauce, etc. I dislike Spam and Cheez-Whiz for regular use; but when I was unemployed and hitting up my emergency food supplies, I found that I felt healthy and functional eating those items (which I had purchased for practically nothing with coupons). That was good to know, especially since it can be difficult to find meat and cheese type products cheap to store.
If someone can afford to stash jars of caviar, then more power to them; but the stuff we can often get cheap with coupons, like tuna or Spaghetti-Os, will do the job too. You can keep even just 3 months of food in a couple of cardboard boxes in the closet or under the bed. Just pick up a few extra things on your shopping trips and throw them in. Three months of emergency supplies (on top of what you’d have in the house anyway) is not bad and more than a lot of people keep. Technically you should rotate that stuff every few years; but my understanding is especially with cans and jars, the food just won’t really go bad, ever.
@Darth Lung; Try the dollar stores. They are all different. If you live in a large enough community, you will have 2-4 different “dollar store” brands and they all have different stuff. Their prices beat the hell out of Wally-world. Bought a 3″ glass magnifying glass, 10 pack of dust masks, 1 pair of safety glasses, and a pack of industrial sewing needles, for $4, plus tax, $4.32. Un-freaking believable. If you need building supplies go to Habitat for Humanity stores and they have significantly reduced items. There are other specialty stores that specialize in re-purposed building materials saving %60-80+ on the dollar. Hope this helps. Survive well. Enjoy.
Yes, these places are an extremely great way to stretch that dollar. Although Lauren and I can thankfully ‘afford’ to buy products elsewhere if we want to, we have made a habit of purchasing certain items at our ‘formerly’ nearby dollar store because it just makes frugal sense.
im not completly unprepared. i have two weeks of food on hand. three firearms, a 556 semiauto rifle, a 12gauge and a 9mm sidearm. i bought all three for under $1200. its just that my gear is setup so i can carry it all. its not alot. and since i live just outside of Houston i will be on the move. when i do buy gear i do buy the good stuff because i cant afford to have it break. im not really worried about a collaps. what worries me is the panic after it happens.
another thing i have noticed around my area(North west Harris county, Texas) is that .223/556 ammo has become very very scarce. its being bought up like crazy. just though id pass that along.
@Darth Lung; I just have to ask. Darth Lung, where did that come from? Back to topic. First, that is a lot to carry, even for a Ranger. There are certain things that only a particular substrate of of people know, and one of these is the gun show circuit. In Houston, you should have a number of fairly large gun shows a year. There will be a gun show every 3-4 months or more. They should have the ammo that you are looking for, give them a try. Also there is reloading, which will save you money and give you custom ammo for your rifle. You can usually save 50% over retail, so the equipment will pay for itself in short order. I was at a gun show today, and did not notice a shortage of 5.56 ammo. Survive well. Enjoy.
Darth=Star Wars. Lung is Chinese for Dragon, i was born in 1976, 76 was year of the Dragon
I’m a historian, and I remember in my research coming across a fair amount of commentary on “parched corn” as a survival food in the past. From what I could gather, this is what we’d call simply cornmeal. It was apparently the one food someone would take if nothing else on a journey. It was claimed that even a large man could survive indefinitely on no more than one spoonful mixed with water and drunk every morning. The Europeans learned this trick from the native peoples. The second two preferred supplements were pemmican (which I know everyone has heard of – basically meat and meat fat mixed together), and whatever berries might be available fresh or dried. Some people mixed berries into the pemmican; there are different recipes that were used. But the plain cornmeal was known as “the stuff”.
Indeed. I was retired for a couple of years and discovered the dollar stores. Some of the deals are amazing. I still shop them for good values. I have purchased a lot of canned goods from them and have sampled many and am happy with the quality. Food, utensils, canning jars, toiletries, storage containers, tape of all types, pliers, bungees, towels, clothing, ad infinitum. Good stuff.
That is difficult. But 20 lb bags of rice are cheap right now. Oatmeal is also inexpensive. With that limited income I would take advantage of church food giveaways. You can pay them back by volunteering some work if you like. I get vitamins and diarrhea pills at the dollar store.I see that the dollar store thing was covered. Good.
Just noticed your comment that you are more worried about the panic. Logical. With limited supplies and ammo I would pick out a few dry hidey holes near water and game and plan on keeping a low profile. Otherwise I would arrange an alliance with one or two trusted like-minded people. You might know a stocked up prepper couple with young kids who would appreciate some extra security and labor in exchange for sharing their supplies and retreat. Just sayin’
While hiking in the Sierra Nevada backcountry, I had 4 dudes ask me for food because a bear took and ate their food stash. I gave them several cups of ho-made granola. The #1 dude said “there is 4 of us and we could take your food” (hint hint.) The next items I pulled from my backpack were my snub-nose .38 spec. and my flat badge. The revolver only held 5 rounds for 4 dudes so I explained that I would shoot dude #1 (the one with the biggest mouth) first. Since I am not a very good shot, I’ll simply aim for the gut on all 4 of you-all and keep shooting until I was empty because now you got me scared and outnumbered.
Things were much more quiet and civil after that. Lesson learned: When things go ugly, it can start out civil even friendly. When things go bad, it always happens quickly. The lessons that kept me alive that day were taught to me by several old-time cops who helped raise me when I was a teenager growing up.
I carried a back-up weapon while on duty. I carried a weapon with me when I was off-duty. and in this case, it saved my bacon.
This was in the mid 1980s and I radioed their names, addresses and Ca Drivers licenses to dispatch and had them met at the trailhead by some on duty cohorts. several days of hunger was all it took for these dudes to become overly aggressive jerkoffs.
These days, I do not mess with the homeless. A large number of the rattiest looking individuals have a lethal weapon on their person or in their shopping cart or both. It is usually stolen. When I greet somebody at my door, I usually have a large caliber handgun on me with the round chambered. These days I have traded my old chief’s special for a high capacity 9 mm as the memory of multiple assailants is still fresh.
This event took place within a National Park. I ALWAYs recommend carrying within a National or state park. I am not going hunting or blasting things. I bring it just in case… You should too. Survive well
@QNWAKTT; I have never not carried a gun unless I was i D.C. Even then I carried an M-16T CRKT folder. Illegal of course, but it was that old 6 or 12 thing, and as a drilling reservist and decorated veteran, maybe ONE free pass, who knows? The new law that lets people carry in the national Parks has a caveat. It must be legal under STATE LAW for you to carry there. That said, it still comes back to the 6 or 12. I carry everywhere else, except on a plane and the courthouse. You’re absolutely right, it will go bad when you least expect it and it will do it quickly. Good advice. Survive well. Enjoy.
@DarthLung
We also are in the same income group. $1100 a month for a family of 5. I find ways to save money and then can add to my preps. The grocery store is the best way to save money. Make your own mayo It costs about 50 cents to make a qt of mayo instead of paying $5 for it. That just saved $4.50 to spend elsewhere. Also many stores will have “markdown” meat. This meat is still perfectly good. It just can not sit in your fridge for a week before you use it. You need to either freeze, use or can it immediately. Also if you have a wal-mart they will price match any other store price. I live in Wal-Mart country. The founding family and store is from a town 20 miles from me. If any store within 20 miles has a cheaper price just tell them you want a price match and they will do it. For example if your local grocer has Campbels soup for 29 cents with a limit of 4 you can tell WalMart about the price and they will match it without the limits. I take the ad’s from several stores with me when I shop and then can get the same price without spending the gas to run all over. Also Craigs list and freecycle is a good way to get free stuff you may need for prepping.