Food doesn't come from the store

Food doesn't come from the store.

"...There is no reason to just sit down and give up during the extremes of a temporary disaster situation...."

by Cody Alderson

Wherever we live, we already have what we need to survive in that particular geographical location. Whether we live in mansions or recreational vehicles, we keep a supply of what we need to survive at the home. We also have pipes and wires coming into the home to supply a need, and pipes going out of the home to get rid of our waste. Most of us have curbside pickup of our trash. Life is good!

Surviving a couple of days snowed in is usually just a minor inconvenience, even if the power and heat are off due to problems with the supply grid. A minor inconvenience, because we have plenty of blankets, food to eat, probably some candles and a couple of flashlights, and maybe even a kerosene heater or a fireplace. That minor inconvenience may turn into a dangerous situation if we were prepared enough to survive a couple of snow days in Pennsylvania, but are actually having to survive it in Coldfoot, Alaska.

In moderate climates such as where I live in Southwestern Pennsylvania, it is easy to become negligent about the simplest preparations that have us equipped to survive an extreme of climate since we do not often experience extremes of climate. Statistics demonstrate that more people die of hypothermia in moderate climates than in climates where extremely low temperatures are expected as the normal routine of winter weather.

We don't experience arctic conditions very often where I live so routine preparations to survive those conditions aren't carried out by much of the population either. People who live in areas routinely struck by tornadoes prepare for tornadoes. We don't have very many tornadoes in Pennsylvania either so finding underground shelters dug for protection from tornadoes is unlikely. People adapt to their environments in ways that could be dangerous if the environment should suddenly change.

On any typical day here in Pennsylvania I can leave the house with no more preparation than an average winter coat (even on the coldest days), get in my vehicle, go shopping at the twenty-four hour Walmart, get gas at the always-open gas station which is also a convenience store, and stop by Wendy's for a burger at least until one in the morning. I know that Walmart is closed on Christmas Day so I'll make sure that I don't need a prescription filled on that day, or be out of tea, coffee, milk, and other sundries. But even if I am out of some medicine, I will be okay waiting until Walmart opens up again the day after Christmas so they can refill my prescriptions. That being said, I have become adapted to the current conditions of my environment without regard to the possibility of the environment suddenly becoming extreme.

Fortunately I do not put all of my faith into nature keeping my environment within limits that are acceptable to me, nor am I ignorant of the possibility of man-made severe changes to my environment occurring at any moment. Though I have given thought to the wildest possible scenarios that could be thrown at me by man or nature, I only prepare for the ones that are probable based on my current geographical location, taking into account the social and political climate along with knowledge of the weather.

It is far more prudent to have a primary, secondary, and tertiary plan in place for probable scenarios than to prepare for the wildest conjuring of a vivid imagination. A man or woman who has a million rounds of ammunition buried in secret and strategic locations would be better served to have a redundant source of heat here in Pennsylvania. Conversely, a redundant source of heat would be of no use to a man or woman living in a climate that never drops below 80 degrees Fahrenheit, but who is constantly under threat of armed attack.

I teach people to prepare for what is most likely to happen to them based on their current location and operational scenario, and to leave the End-Of-The-World preparations to those who are much more extreme than I am. After all, even having a nuclear bomb shelter won't do a fellow any good if it goes off while he is sitting on the toilet in the upstairs bathroom of his house. In other words, it is certain that even the best of us won't get out of this life alive. As it is often said, "Ya gotta go sometime," and the best we can do is to just do our personal best to survive a temporary harshness, then get on with rebuilding what may have been lost during the harshness.

There is no reason to just sit down and give up during the extremes of a temporary disaster situation. If a nuclear power plant is melting down, get away from it. If a hurricane is coming to your town, don't be there. If tornadoes like to sneak up on you, have an early warning system and get in the pre made shelter when the tornado is coming. If there is a possibility of a train derailing and spilling 50,000 gallons of acid in your neighborhood, maybe have appropriate respirators for every member of your family. Have pets that you would die to protect in the same train scenario? Install a positive pressure filtration system in a room or vehicle for them, or buy the positive pressure filtration containers which are sized for your pets.

Oh, that last one is key to all of this. It really screams of preplanning in education, materials, and installation. It's tough to fit pets with a respirator. There are some bag-like structures for individual pets. They use a battery powered blower that blows air through an appropriate filter into the bag so the pet can breathe. Usually the bags are big enough to fit over a pet crate that confines the pet. If a disaster that will affect air quality is on the list of probable disasters for a family who has pets that they are not willing to just let die, then a method to keep the pets from suffocating during evacuation should be considered a priority.

Positive pressure systems can be used in rooms and vehicles as well. The blower is big enough, and the filter has enough capacity to handle the volume of contaminated air blowing through it to keep the air pressure in the room or vehicle higher than the air pressure outside. This way treated air is always trying to get out any cracks, leaks, or crevices, which makes it so no contaminated air can creep in.

Saying that type of system is the key to all of this Bug Out stuff is not saying that it is the most needed or even needed at all. It is just pointing out that both PLANNING and PREPARATION is what makes disaster survival possible and training makes it more probable. Some things are not survivable. The human body can only endure so much trauma. Being blown to bits by a gas explosion caused by a ruptured main supply line usually comes quick, and without warning. If my body is in a hundred pieces, I'm not going to need my Bug Out Bag, but the rest of my family who may survive should have survival items ready to go for rapid evacuation.

I will need it for things like a dirty bomb going off in nearby Pittsburgh, or an accident at one of the chemical plants at each end of this valley I live in. Possibly the dam upriver may give way, or maybe one of the trains that go through town every couple of hours might one day be carrying something toxic and may spill. I watched a downdraft start to force a black swirling cloud toward the ground last summer while I was coming home from the post office during a storm. It started to rotate then lost momentum and faded away. Tornadoes aren't common here, but one that hit Kennywood Park in Pittsburgh a few years ago was a killer.

I pack bags based on possibilities. I have more than one survival bag. There is one that I take to work every day that has in it an MRE, something to raise my blood glucose level (I'm an Insulin Dependant Diabetic), a lighting tool, extra test strips, insulin, infusion set supplies (for my insulin pump) batteries, cell phone charger, first-aid supplies, a handheld radio programmed with FRS/GMRS and NOAA Weather Alert frequencies and functions. One can also usually find in that bag the current issue of Concealed Carry Magazine and a book I am reading.

At home things are different. I have in my home all that I need to survive. I have clothing, shelter, climate control, water, food, methods for making light, fire making supplies or fire replacements (electric stove, microwave), medical supplies, means of personal hygiene, a place to relieve myself of biological waste, companionship, means of defense, tools for building, repairing, and maintaining, necessary fuels, as well as an abundant supply of entertainment and educational materials. Just about everywhere I go, I have access to most of these same things. Going out just about anywhere that human beings commonly go in public, I have access to light, a place to relieve the biological waste, a water fountain, and a controlled climate.

We are programmed to have the necessary amenities for ourselves as well as provide them for our guests or customers. Conditions are variable depending on personal circumstance, but most of us in the lower forty-eight states enjoy more of a lifestyle of ease than one of having to continually be in a mode of trying to just survive. And although we Americans are resilient, we can get a little too reliant on the 'grid' that supports our daily comforts. My wife and I were present in a little sampling of chaos the day before these words were written.

The power went off in the main business district, and no transactions could be made at the stores and gas stations since everything that supported making sales easier ran on electricity. People were upset that the normal flow of daily life was interrupted. They wanted what they came to get, and they wanted it now. They were on a schedule and the interruption of the normal flow of their lives was disconcerting to say the least. As the lines got longer at the checkouts the emotions began to get a little charged. People didn't want to wait. The body language and facial expressions had me wondering how some of them would react during a real emergency.

Most peoples only source for the things that they need are the stores and the gas stations. We are slaves to our thriving economy. I work for money to buy what I need, and do not have the resources to grow or hunt for my family's own food supply here where I live. I need to buy stuff, and hopefully keep enough on hand to survive a protracted emergency. It also doesn't take a highly imaginative person to think if it got so bad that the 'getting of things' may involve some folks trying to take it from us, but for most of us experiencing a disaster situations, that will not occur. Most people try to help, but it does depend on where one lives.

The same thing happened with a temporary power outage last summer when I went into a convenience store for coffee. I had exact change for my coffee, and the clerk was still hesitant to sell it to me. She had a difficult time reverting to an earlier method of doing something because she had no frame of reference for it. The electronic cash register told her everything she needed to know about the coffee. It told her the price, the tax, and how much change to give depending on what amount of money the customer tendered.

Ah, another point made. The old-timers reading this will think how easy it is to get through things if a person would only do this or that. The problem is that the old-timers already have a point of reference of how to complete a task a different way with a different tool. Many younger folks do not have that experience. In the stores of today everything has a barcode on it that is read by an electrically powered scanner. When I was a child, there was a price sticker on everything, and some of the stores still had cash registers that worked with a hand crank instead of being plugged into an electrical outlet. Clerks could also give change without having to see what to give on a screen.

We have modernized to support the massive amount of people who need to get their needs supplied every day using less staff to do it. The scanners make it faster to get through a checkout line. Shut off the electricity, and the clerk won't even be able to tell you how much that can of soup is unless they send someone back to check the tag on the shelf. And with computer controlled inventory where every item being sold will be replaced on an automatic reordering system, the whole store would go into chaos if the staff would sell stuff while the electricity was off using paper and pencil. But that actually would only happen if the customers were carrying cash. Many of us no longer carry cash; we use debit or credit cards instead. They are worthless without electricity.

The simple act of never letting the fuel tank on one's main evacuation vehicle get below a half tank is an important step in disaster preparedness. Most disasters knock out power. Even if a person has a wad of cash in his or her pocket, and even if the clerk was willing to make a cash sale without the register working, there still won't be any gas purchased with no electricity to the gas pump. I live in an area that has a tame climate, and have been unable to make transactions for goods several times a year due to power outages.

Some folks who have a generator and kerosene heaters for emergencies won't bother to use a fuel stabilizer so they can store fuel longer, due to the inconvenience. They rely on being able to drive to an area where the grid is still functioning in order to get fuel for their backup power generator and redundant heat source. Good luck with that if you are can't leave home because of the disaster. A simple five gallon can of gas that routinely gets dumped into the gas tank of a vehicle and refilled with fresh fuel doesn't really have an extra cost to it beyond owning the container. Gas goes in the tank of the vehicle anyway, so filling the gas can, emptying it into the fuel tank of the vehicle, and refilling the can with fresh fuel on a regular basis is just a matter of time and effort to have fresh fuel on hand for a gas powered backup generator.

So what conclusions can be drawn from this segment so far?


Savvy planning and preparations rely more on the person wanting to
be prepared than money.


It's tough to revert to an old way of doing something without a point
of reference of how it used to be done.


Even though we are resilient, we rely on the grid too much.


Prepare for what is most likely to happen in your geographical
area, and leave doomsday to Hollywood and that weird guy who
lives in the woods.


Plastic money needs electricity. Cash doesn't.


Plans need at least a small element of routine work to maintain
effectiveness.


Our home is the Ultimate Bug-Out-Bag but tough to carry on our back.