There was a post started yesterday afternoon about "preppers", and many made light of the fact

[cherokeeprogressive]

that they want to be prepared for any eventuality.

Some DU'ers called them wackos, others called them racists, some simply called them crazy or said they should be pointed at and ridiculed.

I thought to myself, wow, who in their right mind would think that someone should be ridiculed for being prepared for any disaster, either manmade or natural?

I'd like for DU'ers to consider something, and try to imagine the consequences...

Let me start by saying that I spent the majority of my life to this point as a "city boy", having grown up in Southeast Los Angeles County. I lived my life without a care about such things as electricity, ice, water, heat, gasoline, or any of the things it would be hard to do without. Now I live in the San Bernardino Mountains, in a city called The City of Big Bear Lake. It's nothing to have two or three blackouts a week, some lasting only a few minutes, others lasting as many as 5 hours. I'll admit that those 5 hour blackouts are few and far between, but blackouts of any length put public safety at risk if for no other reason than the streetlights don't work, and stupid drivers think that no light at an intersection is tantamount to having a green light.

Imagine that for whatever reason, you were without electrical power for say, two weeks. Oh hell, let's make it interesting and say you were without power for a month. Consider the consequences and repercussions of that one thing. Forget civil war, forget revolution, forget whatever makes you ridicule someone who has a worry in the back of their mind that such a thing could happen. So, your power goes out for a month. How much food do you have on-hand that is non-perishable? The food in your 'fridge and freezer will be useless in a matter of about two days, provided that you DON'T open it unless you really need something out of it. There will be no running water. No light. No gas to your stove/oven. Gas stations won't be able to provide you with gasoline or diesel for your automobile. The food problem will take two days to become a big worry. The light, the natural gas, and the gasoline will become problems the moment the power goes out.

Worse than that, without electrical power, you might as well eat your credit and ATM cards for all the good they'll do you. Need medicine? Are you a diabetic? High blood pressure? Depression? Suffer from some kind of chronic pain? Better have cash when you go to the pharmacy.

Need a bath? Forget that little nicety for a while. Better if you find a way to fill your tub with water for the purpose of drinking, cooking, and surviving. Have a swimming pool that your neighbors know about? Plan on sharing your water with them, like it or not. Soon, even brushing your teeth will be something you'll have to balance with having clean clothes.

Imagine a city like Los Angeles, Chicago, New York, or any other large metropolis without electrical power for 30 days. Fucking nightmare. People will be wanting to leave in short order. Those who had gas in their cars will be gone, those who didn't will either walk, or stay where they are. Even those with what they think is enough gas in their cars will run out sitting in traffic jams that last for miles and miles and simply walk away from their cars, exacerbating the gridlock. Those who stay will soon be competing for whatever food and water there is within walking distance of their homes.

I'm not talking armegeddon, I'm not talking civil war, or revolution. I'm simply talking about being without electrical power for 30 days. Given the fact that our infrastructure is falling apart, and that some cities depend on power lines that stretch over hundreds of miles and could be compromised by any number of different things, it's not at all beyond the realm of possibility. Just this last Memorial Day, the Big Bear Valley went without phone service from 6 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. No credit cards. No working ATM's. Can you wrap your mind around that?

The Ms. and I are not hoarders, nor are we crazy racists, but we do have an eye on what's necessary to survive in extreme circumstances. After all, we live in a place where it's not uncommon to have 36" of snow over a two day period even during times of drought. I figure we have enough in the way of necessities to survive for about three, maybe four months (a winter), without having to venture out and kill our own food or grow it. We got to this point by buying extra canned goods here and there. We almost always buy an extra something, and squirrel it away in the basement, even if it's only a can of chili or beans, or rice or whatever. We even save propane cannisters we took camping that might not have been completely exhausted, and, we buy one or two now and then. We have camping gear out the wazoo, including down sleeping bags, stoves, and lanterns. We have a shotgun, and maybe three or four hundred shells for it. They don't take up much room, didn't cost as much as you might think, and range from birdshot to deer slugs and everything in between. We have a couple of pistols too, with maybe two or three boxes of ammo for each. Don't even ask me about fishing tackle; I live next to a lake.

So just think for a moment. REALLY think. What would you do if you and your two, five, or ten million neighbors were without electrical power for a month? After you've considered that, really thought about it, are you still prepared to call someone who's prepared to live through it a wacko, racist, or crazy?

I'll give those who love to point fingers and call people racist a pass here, because there ARE those who think in those terms. For the rest of us? I like to think I'm prepared like a Boy Scout, even though I never was one. I live in the mountains, and it's what I think is necessary to provide for myself and those I love.

[Rocky Sullivan]

1. I'm trying to see where race comes into play...

is it by using the term "blackout"?

[RandomThoughts]

2. People should not be ridiculed, they should be treated with kindness.

But if what they do is ridiculous, you should point that out, they will be ridiculing themselves, while people show kindness to them. Ridiculing people is wrong.

People that prepare for circumstances are not being ridiculous. If they buy extra canned food or have water on hand, that makes sense.

I actually saw a TV news story on cnn, it was a short clip about a lady that was saving money that month by not buying food and instead eating all her stored food in her freezer and shelves, the exact opposite of being prepared. So I would agree some groups may want the populace to be less prepared by advocating such ideas as not being prepared.

[Journeyman]

3. If there are people on this board who ridicule and malign. . .

those who prepare against foreseeable contingencies, then this board has slipped beyond the irrelevant into the realm of the unusable.

I too live in South California and know first hand how fragile our existence is here in this land of harsh extremes. Anyone who doesn't recognize how precarious our position is has simply not been paying attention. Were we to lose any of our comfort levels for any extended time -- water, electricity, gas or petrol -- this land would be convulsed by destructive violence.

I think often of The Day of the Locust, Nathanael West's nightmarish vision of this land, wherein the protagonist Tod Hackett's spare time is spent painting his masterwork, "The Burning of Los Angeles," an apocalyptic vision of a human-created Hell, the final destruction of the city at the hands of its own, a macabre form of self-cannibalism. His anti-utopian vision is some 75 years old, and yet, it was not the first bleak assessment of this dry land.

There's no reason to be consumed with fear, or guided in all choices by visions of what-could-come, but anyone who doesn't make at least minimal provisions for disruptions in services -- here in the land of many Faults -- is only fooling themselves at best, and potentially putting theirs and their loved ones' lives in jeopardy. And there's nothing wacko or racist about recognizing the realities of the situation in which we live.

[gleaner]

4. I admit I have never heard of the "preppers" ...

and I did not see the post. Would someone please tell me what it is about? I take your point about being prepared for disasters. I live in L.A. and I am always aware that the next big earthquake is probably just around the corner. I prepare for what I can reasonably for see, but it probably would not be enough. Then there are the fires here and the floods after the fires and drought. All thoughts to conjure with.

Still it is a fine line we walk between trying to hold ourselves in readiness for the contingencies we realize may occur and living our lives in a constant, strangling panic. Do any of you remember how it was running up to New Years in 2000. The news media kept whipping a potential computer glitch into the end of the world. Planes were going to fall from the sky. No one would have water or power. We would somehow be overrun by sinister enemies. It was posited to be the end of civilization.

My sister utterly panicked. She was not familiar with computers and bought in to the whole grim scenario as it was presented to her by reporters looking for that really big story even if they scared everyone to death in the process. I didn't buy into it. I thought there might be some glitches or short term snafus, but I knew that the computer manufacturers were taking steps to prevent them. I knew it was not the end of the world. After all the frenzy, nothing did happen. A few isolated minor problems and that was all. My sister sheepishly donated all of her spare goods to homeless shelters and I didn't make fun of her. Her panic was real, and shame on the people who fanned it.

Somehow we have to strike a balance between reasonable precautions and paralyzing terror. People who live in that kind of terror are not to be mocked. The fear is real, but it may not have its roots only in a loss of survival. It may be coming from within them and attaching itself to this so that the people who feel it can explain why they are so afraid. Who knows? I don't. But I do know even as I write this that if I felt the house start to shake or my lights went out my heart would probably go right through the top of my head and I would be scared to death. What is so funny about fear?

[cali]

5. it all depends. there's a survivalist community near where I live

and yeah, they're nuts. they've blockaded a class 3 road where the public has a right of way and they've threatened people. oth, I'd manage OK without electricity for a month. I have gravity fed water and lots of kerosene lamps. i have a woodstove that I could cook on. There's a line between being prepared for the worst and being part of a paranoid community.