IF T-SHTF Right Now: What’s Your Status?

We like to discuss possibilities, what if this and what if that.  I’ll throw one at you right now: Power clicks off in your home or work, a virus has taken down the grid indefinitely (you just don’t know it yet).  Let that play out for a minute in your mind and think about where you’d be logistically, your family considerations, all the things that could help or hurt your situation.  I’ll go first.

I’m sitting here in joggers (sweatpants) and Crocs (knock off brand), my dog is in my office with me and it’s a nice day here in the mountains.  If the power went out and I had no indication of when it might come back on, here are some of my first actions and thoughts.

First Actions

My first course of action would  be to asses the level of the outage and total impacted parties.  Is this a localized event, am I getting communication from the power company, are all the normal things happening that typically take place during an outage.  If it’s comms down, dark everywhere that would be my first key indicator that something might be amiss.  I might even take a drive around to see what things look like to truly get a grasp of what is going on.  I’d be looking for other warning signs like cell towers being down, places with backup power (gas stations maybe) unable to connect to their internet links, people in bewilderment (remember this would be very initial phases).  Based on all of these observations I might not go into full “this is it” mode but I’d certainly have my antennae up.  I’d probably come back to the house, fire up my generator and flip on the TV to see what’s up.  TV stations and their broadcast networks down too?  Now we have a major problem on our hands.

The Good

I would not be particularly worried about things like food, water, shelter, medical supplies and all those sort of template preparedness related items.  I have those covered pretty well and since it’s just me and my dog we’d be set for quite a long time but of course there are no guarantees.  Living up here on the side of a mountain, assuming this would play out for an extended time, I wouldn’t be too worried about folks coming up from the city (50 + miles away) but rather local folks finding their way to my location wondering about their own survivability.

In short I’d feel comfortable sitting and waiting, taking it day by day and establishing some form of community just in case.  I’d probably exchange my Crocs for something more robust in the footwear department but that’s about it.

The Not So Good

Well where do I begin.  I should have filled up one of my vehicles last night while coming home but didn’t, it’s sitting at 1/4 of a tank of fuel (it was super late, I was being lazy).  That could potentially be a huge miss if there was no fuel available for quite some time.  I mean I do have fuel storage but I wouldn’t want to use it all in one vehicle when I should have had it full to begin with.

I have yet to complete my wood prep for this winter and that would be something I would have to prioritize quickly.  I’ve been putting it off because I’ve been busy with other projects, I’ve also put off buying more pre mixed fuel for my chainsaw.  Huge miss on that behalf because my wood burning stove would be my primary means by which to heat the home.

I mentioned that the dog and I would be fine but I should have more stashed dog food and I do not.  He would make due eating human food of course but as we all know, not great for his stomach AND it would dig into my own stash.  Not optimal but doable.

The Bottom Line

It might be good to run this scenario at your own home and have a discussion.  What if someone commutes and they are 50 miles away?  What if they travel for work and are 500 miles away?  What about that 1 month supply of food you were going to buy but did not and you have 3 cans of tuna and some ramen in your pantry?  Do you only have a 2 week supply of blood pressure medication on hand and won’t be able to get a refill?  On and on the possibilities go specifically related to your own situation.

These are what I like to call low probability, high impact events but they are still worth dedicating a little bit of time to.  If the SHTF right now, where would you stand?  Understanding some of those gaps what could you do now to help change that…if anything?  A little thought provoking conversation never hurt anyone and it’s free.  I suggest giving it a try.