Posted on 05/20/2012 7:41:45 AM PDT by Kartographer
Systemic risk. I guarantee that most ordinary folks have no idea that if trucks stopped rolling all across America, within a short period of time nearly all Americans would all be in a life-threatening situation from major delivery shortages. 70% of all freight that is moved in the U.S. is done so by truck. You (we) depend on that ‘stuff’ for our survival. A major disruption in truck travel would immediately impact seven major industries, and would bring America to its knees within days due in part to “just in time manufacturing”, zero-inventory, and the fact that our modern way of life is entirely dependent upon unimpeded distribution chains.
(Excerpt) Read more at daily-survival.blogspot.com ...
It still seems a bit far-fetched to me. Humans wouldn’t stand idly by while zombies caused their children to starve or be without medicines. To the contrary, humans would declare open season on zombies and they’d dust off the zombies in short order. There are millions of privately held weapons in the country. I have a little more faith in the strong right arm of your average American than most, perhaps. But given our history I doubt that it’s misplaced.
That is an excellent idea, that driver’s training should include a course about how to drive around trucks.
And you are right about the abuse truck drivers get.
And you are right about how people do not appreciate how to drive around them. Whenever I see a truck that wants to pull into my lane (needs to pull into my lane really). I slow and give my headlights a flash to let him in. Easy enough for me to pick up speed in a bit.
For sure the truck drivers need to earn more money. A raise in their pay would add little if anything to the cost of the goods they haul. Geez, there are some companies paying 10 cents a mile for dead head runs. Other companies bounce the drivers from short run to short run with long waits at the warehouse door.
When I had my business and a long haul truck pulled up, we made sure he was loaded and in and out as soon as possible. I’ve even called customers that were making a trucker wait that had one of my deliveries to tell them to get the guy unloaded. The customer complained about delivery time and price and held the driver waiting to unload sometimes for a full day. They can’t hold up a driver and expect to have low prices for freight.
To all of you that don’t understand trucking, when you see a truck on the highway, give them some room, don’t pull in front of them and then slow down. Give them a wave and a thanks. They are Great Americans doing a tough job.
I'm afraid the way things are going some of us might live to see if they will or they won't.
Some of us - maybe not.
BUT - if we make preps and we are wrong we just end up with some spare foods, meds, ammo, etc. No harm done and maybe we learned something in the bargain.
However if we don't prep and the scenario unfolds as discussed we are in a position where we have narrowed our choices and they are all bad.
It’s basically a really big hole/tunnel down to the water source. I never opened it up (except once to examine it) because of my son but now he’s old enough not to screw with it. Once I find the manual pump and some rubber tubing it’ll hook up really easy. The hard part will be simply to build a cover out of some pressure treated lumber to enclose it around the tube and mount the pump on it.
See Post number 39 and then look a road map of say Atlanta.
Depends on where in the country you live for one thing, but the over riding thing will be a thing called ‘Normalcy Bias’.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1hdf675sUAc
And from our own Survival Mom (ChocoChipCookie)
http://thesurvivalmom.com/2010/12/29/normalcy-bias/
Don't think for a minute this fact has been lost in history. Disrupt the flow of blood to the organs, the entity dies...
I would use pressure treated lumber as the chemicals they treat it with would could leech into your water. I use Composite Decking. It’s strong and won’t rot.
Last December NASA had a meeting in DC, closed to reporters (or most of it was), and IIRC it was an emergency meeting, not one planned long in advance. Again, IIRC (dang brain...) it was about solar weather. Sometime in that time frame, NASA sent out to employees a message about having preps on hand in case of this or that. They never did that before.
Read that on another forum saw a copy of the memo they sent out. Maybe blam or Kartographer knows more about the meeting in DC.
Some reasons for trucks to stop are given in the article.
The article is true and I have witnessed that first hand.
I am a major prepper and was prepared when Ike was coming my way. I didn’t have to go to a grocery store to prepare so I was not in the crush of people who rushed to stores. I did get ice the day before at a small grocery - I knew the big stores (Walmart, Kroger, HEB) would be out.
Every grocery store was cleaned out in two days and there was no gas left. I filled up three days before it hit so I had two cars full of gas.
There was no gas from Galveston through Houston through my town and 60 more miles north and east and west.
I was without power for five days and was comfortable and had a working TV and working phone, plus many other comforts.
A funny aside: People want to spend money immediately after a storm passes - buy anything if you have cash, just to feel “normal”. There is a Shipley’s Donut store in my town and they cook with gas so they were open using candle light to light the store. I’m sure the rush started when one fellow saw a light there and stopped - then the whole parking lot was full of cars/trucks to buy donuts and other pastries.
So, food was gone, bottled water was gone, frozen food at grocery stores was stacked behind the buildings as it was trash at that point, and rotting.
As I said, power was off for five days. When power came back on, there was still no food or water delivered. Why? Because there was no gas in stations and supply trucks would not come until they could be assured their trucks could refuel.
It took another one, two, or three days, can’t remember, before any fuel trucks got here. Then, slowly, supply trucks began to arrive.
I noted that bread was the last item to get here, three days after other food was here. I assumed that was because our bread is made in Houston and bakeries had to start up again and make fresh bread.
I saw it and I know without trucks, we’re toast (and you won’t get bread to make toast).
The same reason the trains stopped rolling in England - union strike. We're one truckers' strike away from total social meltdown at any time.
I'm never without at least 6 months worth of supplies for basic life. That came in handy after the 2008 stock market crash. I wound up living on stored food and garden and forage for about a year.
It does help to have a live-in chef to make meals more appetizing.
/johnny
Well, you’re certainly ahead of the game. Throw in a few old catalogs and newspapers to substitute for toilet paper, buy some bags of dry beans and simple basic food (shorten the gourmet shopping list), save up some old cotton rags as fill ins for paper towels and napkins, a few candles and limited other stuff you gotta have - and there you have it. Oh, and do simple gardening and fix yourself a manual well bucket. Then you got it.
I bake all my own bread not just to save money but because the store bread is so horrible.
One thing I want is a grinder that will grind soaked wheat berries. I have a good hand flour mill - checked it, it works, but it’s not set up yet.
If anyone has any ideas about what kind of grinder will work for soaked wheat berries, I want to get one.
Mr. Chef, if you lived closer to me, I’d kidnap you when TSHTF.
I had a couple of loafs of store bread in my freezer so I had enough bread for that problem, however, if it was long term disaster, I’d make Indian fry bread and tortillas as I would not have an oven if power was off. I can do without an oven to save fuel, didn’t incude that in my long term preps. I do have a solar “oven”.
AMEN and AMEN
Rail is only good for transporting from producers to distribution hubs...trucks have to to the rest. There is no more efficient method.
All you need is a dutch oven and a hole in the ground (fire pit). Of course you also need firewood.
No Fuel, Too many Regulations, start there and report back to us.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.