Posted on 09/10/2017 10:14:03 PM PDT by Kartographer
At dawn, people began to gather, quietly planning for survival after Hurricane Irma.
They started with the grocery stores, scavenging what they needed for sustenance: water, crackers, fruit.
But by nightfall on Thursday, what had been a search for food took a more menacing turn, as groups of looters, some of them armed, swooped in and took whatever of value was left: electronics, appliances and vehicles.
All the food is gone now, Jacques Charbonnier, a 63-year-old resident of St. Martin, said in an interview on Sunday. People are fighting in the streets for what is left.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
A German sociologist wrote a book “Das Kulturkamph” about that subject in 1933. I can’t remember his name - college was a while ago.
Toward the poles it’s full time survival; in the tropics, it’s easy living; but in the temperate zones, folks must prepare for the seasons ...
They can always eat each other. Or the vehicles, big screen TVs and such that they stole.
Spelling Police on Patrol
I’m sure the Clinton Foundation will rush right down there and save them...and so will the SPLC with that nearly $70 million they shipped to banks down that way.
You know what’s fun?
Opening cans where the label has washed off. It’s a surprise every time.
It’s can roulette. The only rule is you open it, you eat it.
My buddy had canned green beans for dinner last night. He lost the game.
We were in St. Martin about 30 years ago, before the hurricane before this one. The Dutch side was built up and prosperous, while the French side was poor and depressed. There is little land for sustenance farming, so the island is overpopulated in relation to its population carrying ability.
If it weren’t for tourism, there would have been many fewer people there. The whole system is dependent on more-or-less just-in-time shipping of food and fuel, which the hurricane has obviously disrupted.
I would think one of the worst situations would be to be a tourist stuck there when the food and water runs out. You’d have no connections to sharing with the locals. I presume that’s why there have been military transports provided, as well as why at least one of the cruise lines has announced mercy voyages bringing supplies in and trapped tourists out.
I look forward to any stories you have about the Caribbean and their thin veneer of civilization.
So yeah: more stories, please!
I actually knew what you meant. :-)
I was just expanding on its practical implications. And the REAL implications are that it would be wiped out, for all intents and purposes.
I confess that one thing I like about where I live is that I’m surrounded by people that augment their income with a few (or few dozen) head of cattle (I’m thinking of picking up a few myself). And the nearest city is about 70 miles away as the crow flies. So I figure the starving masses will have to make their way through 70 miles of people like myself and my neighbors. It should cull the herd by the time they get here. :-P
Where are the Dutch and the French didn’t they send help to their Island? The French must be busy with their beloved Muslims.
I spent a week with my sister and husband on their 115’ boat in the Alaska area west of Juneau a few years ago. One thing I learned is that the raw quantity of wild food up there relative to the human population would make it an ideal place to survive a Mad Max type collapse. You’d have to watch for the well trained rovers but it would fall back into a sort of “old west” scenario rather than Mad Max, except women would not be as safe as they were in the old west. There’d be plenty of food, though, and the rovers would probably be adept at fending for themselves from wile game, fish, shrimp, etc...
And multi-million dollar estates.
Proper prepping can depend on your location. In a hurricane zone you need to bug out or put your preps above the surge level.
For most it is not by design but by a desire to help. The problem is that in an EMERGENCY it is helpful, but it should never be a daily feeding.
Look at ‘wild’ animals who can no longer feed or defend themselves. Every day millions visit them in CAGES in the zoo not realizing that one day, if they don’t stay independent and free, they, too, will be encaged.
Trump’s fault.
I was stationed in the Aleutians, and we couldn’t get a plane in for three months. We ran out of supplies in a random fashion: you could sell one racquetball for $20; laundry soap for $50. After weeks without any vegetables, I bought the last dusty can of asparagus just to get something green. I found out that the old saying that a body can eat anything if you need it is completely false. I couldn’t eat a bite of that skinny green-colored wood though I was a day from scurvy.
Anyway, i have seen many a shortage in my military career and we have the best logistics system ever seen. By nature, islands have limited resources and limited storage. Everyone can point fingers and talk about “those people,” but I can assure you that your little lilly-white town would fare no better. The entire commercial world has transitioned to just-in-time logistics. Unless you have your own supplies, you are 3 days from hunger.
My son is on a ship in the Caribbean relocating hospital patients and delivering supplies. That’s what Americans do. Help others in need. I thank God he’s there, and not in Florida. That’s only by the grace of God—had Irma followed predictions, half of Florida would look like St. Maarten.
Welcome back and thanks for the post.
I read a post on the Irma thread that they had been evacuated safely to Puerto Rico.
Any word from Tilted Irish Kilt? Hope he is safe and sound.
I’m not a prepper but we could eat for 2 weeks just on what is in my pantry. May not be what we want but we wouldn’t go hungry. Add the meat in the freezer in and we could get by for about 3 weeks.
Who are these people that don’t have a day or 2’s worth of food?!?!
Society is just 3 missed meals away from barbarism.
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