Monday, October 11, 2010
News you can use: Survival advice
Can you really say you are as prepared as you ought to be until you have studied this Amazon list of books on survival
4 Comments:
By 
, at
Mon Oct 11, 11:04:00 PM:
During the runup to 2000 I was working in IT and would sometimes get asked about Y2K. I nearly always blew my credibility by starting out saying "First, it isn't going to be a big deal."
Yeah, who was I to dispute what lots of extermly sooper-smirt peepul had to say on the topic, like journalists with no particularly deep knowledge (not even much of a shalow one), or luminaries like Gillian Anderson, Sooper Jenius.
But if I retained any shred of credibility I'd tell people to keep bottled water, candles, matches, and oil lamps, canned food, extra batteries, blankets, and other generic aticles. They'd ask if I really thought they'd need that for Y2K and I said "No, you should ALWAYS keep survival material on hand for a four to five day outage, depending on where you live." Most people were puzzled, at least the urban dwellers. Power or water go out, and almost immediately a truck is dispatched by the city to fix it.
Those who lived in rural areas, as I did, knew better. It doesn't have to be Y2K or the killer asteroid or the zombie apocalypse, it's only good sense to prepare for disruption of service. Nobody can predict a Katrina, but you can mitigate its effects. After it hits is too late.
Incidentally, a few years later an unseasonably rough snow storm hit Western Washington and my area in the sticks was without power for a day and a half. Seattle lost electricity for much longer - some parts didn't get it restored for a full week. So much for the benefits of urban living - but even then, my experience is that rural Americans are much more self reliant and prepared for a worst case scenario.
By 
JPMcT, at
Tue Oct 12, 07:25:00 AM:
Heh...I don't see anything on the list about buying gold!
By Dawnfire82, at
Tue Oct 12, 10:28:00 AM:
In a survival situation, I don't think I would accept gold as payment for anything. Fuel, ammunition, and women! Didn't you see Mad Max?
By JPMcT, at
Tue Oct 12, 11:01:00 PM:
That's basically how the world works NOW!!
