I would APPRECIATE IT if you wouldn’t post this stuff...it’s simply too intense to deal with.
To me it was the most awesome Twilight Zone ever...because they NAILED IT regarding how preppers are seen by non-preppers.
I think the best analogy that I have was when Hurricane Rita was approaching the Houston area (where I live). My wife thought that I was a nutcase for taking out street maps and plotting out an escape route that only used side streets. She said: “Why don’t you go on I-10”. The Houston areas has 4,000,000 people, at least 2,000,000 vehicles that will be evacuated (i.e., many families took at least two cars). We had 4 usable outbound lanes of freeway (we have 3 more, but they were in the possible hurricane path...so not really usable). 4 lanes simply cannot carry 2,000,000+ vehicle in the timeframe needed to clear out the city, as the world saw.
We took my backstreet route and made it to San Antonio in 8 hours...most people were lucky to move 20 miles in 8 hours, and most of them turned back after not moving much more in 24 to 36 hours.
I bring this up because most ‘neighbors’ that are not preppers, no doubt, figure they can go to Walmart or Sam’s to buy what they need when our distribution system shuts down. Boy will they be in for a surprise. If I had to guess, I doubt that Sam’s has enough toilet paper on the floor for more than 1% of their local population to buy a package of it. With the stuff in transit, maybe 2%, or at best, 3%. The other 97% of customers are simply out of luck. But if you go there tomorrow, you can buy all you want...no questions asked (which is one of the reasons that I like Sam’s and similar stores). Which is why I keep 4 years worth (at least) in my house, along with everything else that I can think of, that won’t spoil or otherwise decay during that time.
I still would have a lot of trouble fighting off a marauding gang...but it may not come down to that - rather it may simply come down to having to wait an hour in line to get my two rolls of toilet paper.
No one really knows how things will go...but generally, short of a war, the police are still around and gangs can be somewhat controlled.
Four years worth of toilet paper?
Well, you’re prepared...for taking care of your (rear) end if not the world’s end!
I think it’s Texas Trails that puts out detailed county maps. Local tourist centers usually have them for free. I have a stack and renew them every few years. You never know when back roads will come in handy.
FYI, the debate is coming on again. Great stuff if you didn’t see it earlier tonight.
About the marauding gangs, the Bosnian guy suggested breaking a few of your own windows and throwing stuff out in the yard to make it look like your place has already been looted.
In many scenarios most people know police are stretched thin. In personal one on one conflicts, no witnesses, heresay, etc, the living person can say the other freaked out and it was self defense, etc.
Who’s going to be around to dispute it? that’s the danger to this. Lots of people alive today don’t go after people because they don’t think they can get away with it under normal conditions. They fear the punishment. Under major stress and you look like Sams in your prep supplies....
There are more people in the Houston metro area than the whole state (Alabama) I live in now.