I'm never excited about exercising certain skills I've learned, other than looking competent on the firing range. The Y2K disaster never happened, but I had a chance to try out a few of my survival skills/tools during the Great Blackout last August. I was mildly pleased with the results, but I never wanted a huge power failure, and still don't want another one. Multiply that by 1,000,000% for the Y2K disaster, and square THAT for a civil war.
Sorry it took so long to reply, but what you said is very true. I just want to comment on my observations on the Great Blackout of 2003.
1. Drinking water that does not need boiling or filtration is the number one priority. I'm a weirdo who does have a sub-micron filter, but that's only if I have to live out in a field somewhere. Staying at home, I felt the $12 I spent for 70 half-liter bottles of water was a cheap investment. I didn't feel like a "hoarder", and I didn't have to go out looking for water, although most big food stores produced tons of bottled water seemingly out of nowhere.
2. "Stock up for three days only, we will relocate you by then" is not just fanciful, but reckless. When you have 100 million people in the same predicament, nobody is moving anybody anywhere. Everyone has to either stay where they are, or decide to move on their own. There's absolutely nothing wrong with "three day supply", but even some natural disasters may last longer than that. "Three week supply" gives more "cushion", and can handle larger problems.
3. Nobody had any plans for handling an electric outtage that vast. Hospitals and other buildings had diesel generators, but with no power at the refineries and fuel depots, new fuel could not be pumped to get tankers out for refueling. The hospital system I work for was almost ready to collapse after 24 hours on generators because they couldn't get more fuel. Everything was planned under the assumption that tankers could get there on a regular basis. Refineries and fuel depots need their own backup power supplies so they can keep pumping. Millions of gallons of fuel doesn't do anyone any good if you can't get it into the trucks.
4. Power company "emergency procedures" developed post-911 were a joke. Special emergency communications circuits were never tested, and failed.
5. Government "emergency procedures" post-911 were an even bigger joke. Multi-millions spent on sophisticated radio systems didn't work, because nobody bought any radios. The Macomb County "emergency communications center", which was built with millions of taxpayer dollars, turned out to be a room in a county office building with a table, two chairs, and two phone jacks in the wall. Nobody knew who was expected to do what with the room. So they want more money to fix the fixes.
Actually, I'm grateful for the blackout. It was a benign way of testing the system, and finding much lacking, without killing too many people. One thing that I found encouraging was there was no civil upheaval. I credit that to the post-911 attitude, where the first person to start trouble will be gunned down on the spot.