[reformedliberal]

Years ago, IIRC, we were informed that in the event of a disaster (blizzard, flood, tornadoes), we should expect it to take up to 3 weeks for help to arrive. Things seems actually a bit faster these days. This advice came before they had prepositioned supply caches.

We keep a generator and the gas to run it, a case of drinking water, 6 weeks of food, a month of medications plus standard first aid, shortwave, batteries, tools and still, when we read about disasters, we always discover other things we should have stocked. We always have firewood left over after winter, camp stoves and the gas to run them, charcoal, etc. We have access to a river for water for flushing, but we would dig a latrine because our septic system requires electricity to pump into the drainage field and we would want to stretch the gas supply. Oh, and yes: we have guns and ammo, too.

So far, thank God, we have been without power and with impassable roads for no more than 4 days and that was in the summer after a huge storm. We and all our neighbors survived quite easily on our own.

There was an article from the Gulf Coast about food, cigarettes, beer and gas being barter items. One anecdote was about trading food for TV-watching.

I guess the worst case would be a nuclear attack, in which case, I would expect we would have to fend for ourselves for months or more.I would want to free up the Guard for more important duties.

[NaughtiusMaximus]

Good on you Reformedliberal. You and your family are obviously one group of people who can learn from the experience of others. You're in before the Zot and I wish you were my neighbors. (Or maybe not, my self-righteous liberal neighbors purport to be vegans. Nevertheless, they are pleasingly plump. I have a plan to turn them into jerky if I need to.)