Posted on 10/29/2005 10:13:52 AM PDT by Travis McGee
Thoughts On Urban Survival (Post-Collapse Life in Argentina)
My brother visited Argentina a few weeks ago. He’s been living in Spain for a few years now. Within the first week, he go sick, some kind of strong flu, even though climate isn’t that cold and he took care of himself. Without a doubt he got sick because there are lots of new viruses in my country that can’t be found in 1st world countries. The misery and famine lead us to a situation where, even though you have food, shelter and health care, most of others don’t, and therefore they get sick and spread the diseases all over the region.
What got me started on this post is the fact that I actually saw this coming, and posted on the subject here at Frugal’s, months before the new viruses spread over the country and the news started talking about this new, health emergency, which proves that talking, thinking and sharing ideas with like minded people (you guys), does help to see things coming and prepare for them with enough time. So I started thinking about several issues, what I learned (either the hard way or thanks to this forum) after all these years of living in a collapsed country that is trying to get out an economical disaster and everything that comes along with it. Though my English is limited, I hope I’m able to transmit the main ideas and concepts, giving you a better image of what you may have to deal with some day, if the economy collapses in your country. Here is what I have so far:
URBAN OR COUNTRY?
Someone once asked me how did those that live in the country fare. If they were better off than city dwellers. As always there are no simple answers. Wish I could say country good, city bad, but I can’t, because if I have to be completely honest, and I intend to be so, there are some issues that have to be analyzed, especially security. Of course that those that live in the country and have some land and animals were better prepared food-wise. No need to have several acres full of crops. A few fruit trees, some animals, such as chickens, cows and rabbits, and a small orchard was enough to be light years ahead of those in the cities. Chickens, eggs and rabbits would provide the proteins, a cow or two for milk and cheese, some vegetables and fruit plants covered the vegetable diet, and some eggs or a rabbit could be traded for flower to make bread and pasta or sugar and salt.
Of course that there are exceptions, for example, some provinces up north have desert climate, and it almost never rains. It is almost impossible to live of the land, and animals require food and water you have to buy. Those guys had it bad; no wonder the northern provinces suffer the most in my country. Those that live in cities, well they have to manage as they can. Since food prices went up about 200%-300%. People would cut expenses wherever they could so they could buy food. Some ate whatever they could; they hunted birds or ate street dogs and cats, others starved. When it comes to food, cities suck in a crisis. It is usually the lack of food or the impossibility to acquire it that starts the rioting and looting when TSHTF.
When it comes to security things get even more complicated. Forget about shooting those that mean you harm from 300 yards away with your MBR. Leave that notion to armchair commandos and 12 year old kids that pretend to be grown ups on the internet.
Some facts:
1) Those that want to harm you/steal from you don’t come with a pirate flag waving over their heads.
2) Neither do they start shooting at you 200 yards away.
3) They won’t come riding loud bikes or dressed with their orange, convict just escaped from prison jump suits, so that you can identify them the better. Nor do they all wear chains around their necks and leather jackets. If I had a dollar for each time a person that got robbed told me “They looked like NORMAL people, dressed better than we are”, honestly, I would have enough money for a nice gun. There are exceptions, but don’t expect them to dress like in the movies.
4) A man with a wife and two or three kids can’t set up a watch. I don’t care if you are SEAL, SWAT or John Freaking Rambo, no 6th sense is going to tell you that there is a guy pointing a gun at your back when you are trying to fix the water pump that just broke, or carrying a big heavy bag of dried beans you bought that morning.
The best alarm system anyone can have in a farm are dogs. But dogs can get killed and poisoned. A friend of mine had all four dogs poisoned on his farm one night, they all died. After all these years I learned that even though the person that lives out in the country is safer when it comes to small time robberies, that same person is more exposed to extremely violent home robberies. Criminals know that they are isolated and their feeling of invulnerability is boosted. When they assault a country home or farm, they will usually stay there for hours or days torturing the owners. I heard it all: women and children getting raped, people tied to the beds and tortured with electricity, beatings, burned with acetylene torches. Big cities aren’t much safer for the survivalist that decides to stay in the city. He will have to face express kidnappings, robberies, and pretty much risking getting shot for what’s in his pockets or even his clothes.
So, where to go? The concrete jungle is dangerous and so is living away from it all, on your own. The solution is to stay away from the cities but in groups, either by living in a small town-community or sub division, or if you have friends or family that think as you do, form your own small community. Some may think that having neighbors within “shouting” distance means loosing your privacy and freedom, but it’s a price that you have to pay if you want to have someone to help you if you ever need it. To those that believe that they will never need help from anyone because they will always have their rifle at hand, checking the horizon with their scope every five minutes and a first aid kit on their back packs at all times…. Grow up.
Travis McGee Note: This is the beginning of one of the most amazing essays I have read in my life, written by an architect in Argentina, who has lived through an economic and social collapse for the last five years. I consider it one of the most important things that you will read in this or any year. If you're a sheeple, don't bother. But if you see (as I do) storm clouds on America's horizon, do yourself a BIG favor and read it, and pass it to your friends, family, and loved ones.
Thoughts On Urban Survival (Post-Collapse Life in Argentina)
I was thinking just in time has more to do with supplying factories with parts prior to assembly. It's related closely to the term I'm looking for for keeping only "the pipeline" full on the way to the supermarket shelf, with no giant warehouses upstream anymore. But JIT will do until someone provides the specific terminology.
As resources, I highly recommend both the frugalsquirrels.com and survivalblog.com websites.
The best thing I read in the essay(besides being stocked) was setting upsome informal neighborhood watch group type. I'm pretty lucky because where I live, it would not take much at all to seal it off from the outside. But it would have to be an organized effort.
Ping.
Thank for the post.
I should ping you too on this one.
Thanks for the ping, TraM!
Yep, a LOT depends on the layout of the area around your house. A walled gated community will be terrific.
Living a block away from main arteries on open surface streets will be a disaster.
I wasn't leaving. My concern was all the needy people who 'flooded-in' to my sphere of influence. People everywhere for days, stranded, out of gas, no food, water, etc.
Has anybody built it?
Yep, those highways can bring tens of thousands of hungry, scared, desperate and possibly infected etc folks into your little shangrila in a hurry.
I guess in a tsunami, you would have no choice. But thinking about the bioterrorism or bird flu epidemic possibilities, the last thing I'd wanna do is run to a supermarket and have some 6 year old kid cough up something green on me!
Commercially available ones here: Vortex Tubes
The bird flu self quarantine option is another reason to have a year's food on hand ASAP.
I tried to have a year's supply of food on hand, but chinese take out only lasts four days, tops.
I remember how some who thought this scenario would play out were bragging about how prepared they were going to be. They were going to have bars of gold, generators, a year's supply of canned good, a closetful of ammunition, and on and on.
These armchair commandos had visions of sitting comfortably in their homes with a rifle across their lap, generator going full blast and eating pork and beans while the world went to hell in a handbasket all around them.
I told them how foolish they were to think this. Fire up a generator during a national crisis and you'll attract thugs and criminals like bugs to a bug lamp. Slap a bar of gold on the counter of the local store and you might as well wear a sign on your back that says "Follow me home and rob me." Shoot at somebody begging at your door and well, you might as well prepare for a lynch mob. I don't care how much ammunition you have stockpiled, you aren't going to hold back a mob of starving people once they find out you've got a stockpile of food cached away.
Yup, Think about what you're doing before you do it. I bought some N95 face masks on an impulse because they claimed to remove 95% of all particles at .30 microns or larger. It wasn't until later that I did my 'homework' and found out that most viruses are .15 microns or smaller. Live and learn.
There is a fantasy of heroism that exists among those whom the world seems to have forgotten.
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