Don’t mind me, I’ll just die here in the dark
My father-in-law recently faced up to the adult equivalent of “there is no Santa Claus.” Specifically, he discovered that, if the shit ever hits the fan, nobody is going to wipe his ass for him. Well … Maybe that’s unfair. He actually realized that, in case of disaster, he can’t count on “the authorities” to charge to the rescue.
Hmmm … I phrased it better the first time.
The wide-eyed revelation he shared with my wife and me over cheap red wine and better cigars was actually a continuation of a conversation dating back about five years. You see, my wife and I live in Arizona, which has a nasty habit of bursting into flames from time to time. Seeing as how the state is so unpredictably flammable, it’s generally a good idea to be ready to bug out if the neighborhood starts to get well-done, and we keep a “go bag” of important documents and the like at hand in case we need to head for less-smoky environs. Dear old dad-in-law’s California digs are similarly combustible, and also prone to slide into the ocean if visited by rain instead of fire. So we thought it wise to inquire as to his preparations for unfortunate events.
“Oh, I’ll just do what they tell me to do.”
When pressed, he grew upset at the idea that he should presume to make plans when there are experts whose job it is to handle such eventualities.
Since then, though, we’ve had Hurricane Katrina, flooding in Tennessee, the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico and any number of smaller incidents when even the best-intentioned authority figures have been completely overwhelmed by events and unable to play savior to everybody in distress. When authorities aren’t so generously inclined, they sometimes … err … How to put this delicately? Let’s just say that they sometimes act like hungry wolves in a field of sheep — like the New Orleans cops who, apparently for fun, gunned down civilians at a bridge in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.
Don’t you just love a man in a uniform?
So now pops is ready to throw a water filter and a box of Dinty Moore in the pantry, just in case, right? Not so much. It’s all too overwhelming. How can you prepare when the lights could go out for weeks? Or months? (He’s obsessed with the idea that hackers are going to crash the power grid.) What’s the point of doing anything when even the authorities are overwhelmed?
You see, from a state of abject dependence, we’ve journeyed not to self-reliance, but to despair and resignation. God failed — or at least FEMA screwed the pooch — and the old guy has decided to die in the dark rather than lift a finger on his own behalf.
Actually, the lights did go out two years ago, where I live, for the better part of a week. It was a wild storm that nobody anticipated. We drank water from storage containers and read by the light of a Coleman lantern. Hey, when I die, I plan to have a full belly and some mood lighting. Frankly, it’s just not that hard to get ready for some of life’s little speed bumps.
I’m not saying that it’s necessary — or possible — to prepare for the apocalypse. But I don’t pretend to understand people who are determined, one way or another, to be victims in even the most easily handled circumstances.
My father-in-law is a decent, well-intentioned guy. But if, like too many other people, he’s not prepared to carry his own weight if something goes wrong, he better be really careful where he puts that cigar down.
Because, as the world keeps on discovering, despite promises to the contrary, nobody can be counted on to wipe your ass for you.
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Tell your dad to buy a gun too. He should also take a safety course if he does not know how to use one. Sacramento is busy trying to figure out how to disarm the upstanding citizens and insuring the only ones with guns are the cops (Danziger Bridge should be remembered) and the criminals that they are busy letting out of prison.
I hope he’s at least grateful to you for looking out for his daughter better than he would.
John,
I agree about getting a gun (and I’m well taken care of that way myself), but I’m afraid the old guy would break out in a cold sweat at the thought of defending himself in any way.
Henry,
I’m not sure I’d describe him as entirely grateful …
Solid preparedness information (more than you’re likely every to absorb) at James Wesley, Rawles’ http://www.survivalblog.com
“I’m not sure I’d describe him as entirely grateful …”
“Relieved” is probably the better verb to use.
I find that mindset so alien.
I grew up in the country in Texas back in the 70’s where we were faced with serious threats nearly constantly, thunderstorms, tornadoes, flash floods, blizzards, ice storms, wild fires and generally being a half hour from the help of authorities even assuming they could find 5 miles off the paved road. In our minds, the authorities were there clean up afterwards and occasionally hang somebody. Anyone who relied on someone else to take care of natural or man made threats would be dead a long time before anyone else even knew they were in trouble.
I still assume that my safety of my family and immediate neighbors is primarily my responsibility.
I guess it’s the difference in mindset between the individualistic rural environment and collective regulated urban environment. People in rural areas make most of their own decisions about everything. People in the city have to fill out forms just to sneeze.
BTW – power grids are controlled by a completely separate network from the “Internet”. Separate cable separate network.
There is no “24” Chemical Plant controlled by the bad guy.
Strange. What you advise is pretty much a no-brainer, so I’m surprised at your father-in-law. Up in what some of your talking heads like to call “Soviet Canuckistan”, we went without power for a week to 10 days in Metro Ottawa (well within city limits, but not the core) during the ice storm of ’98. No, not because we have third world infrastructure or poor power generation, but because we had a big-time bad-ass storm.
I guess the difference we had (from you and your father-in-law) is that going outside, or allowing temperatures to drop to external temperatures would kill us in relatively short order.
Our big problem (since I was prepared only with a 1kW generator and 200L of fuel) was that I couldn’t keep the pipes heated very well. Freezing pipes = bursting = big costs, and, well, that death thing. (we had a well and septic tank)
But did any of us — in a left-wing country, relative to yours — expect the government to come in and rescue us? Good grief, no.
In any event I’ve spent thousands on pipe insulation, and upgraded my preparations to a 6.5 kW generator and a proper transfer switch. 400L of diesel this time, and two months supply of food. A joke compared to those who are really prepared, but a decent stab.
Should the government do this for me? No.
-One Random Canadian
After years of talking about it and some halfassed preparation, my wife and I have finally committed to purchasing a years supply of food other things recommended by Rawles in his book. Our kids (older) think we are nuts but humor us.
It takes money, training and effort to be some what prepared. I don’t think you can ever be prepared for every possible occurance.
If your inlaws are in SoCal they can’t evacuated in any timely manner. Just look at the freeways on a friday. Now picture everyone trying to leave.
What would happend if San Onofre goes Nova?
Send him some KI03 for his birthday.
That mindset is prevalent in the UK where it’s officially against the law to defend yourself (and that’s the mother of “Common Law”; sigh) They depend on the state to tell them what to do. I see more and more evidence everyday that that mindset is becoming, if not mainstream, then “growing” here.
I was a criminal investigator for a long time and I learned very early that evil is unpredictable and thus unpreventable; you must be prepared.
It will break out when there is no authority and you are either a victim or a survivor.
I’m now of the depressed opinion that some people are incapable of defending themselves or their families.
I lived in the High Desert in CA in the mid-80s and my wife, the mean, red headed yankee nurse, worked in San Berdoo, and drove over the Cajon Pass every day.
She had a very elaborate survival kit in her car as well as a .38 Chief Special (she can’t figure out autos)
We rehearsed what she would do if the “big one” separated us and all the possible alternate routes she could use. She had a CB and we developed codes and range requirements for her to use in the event she couldn’t call home (cell phone were “quaint” and unaffordable in those days)
At home we had water, and because Apple Valley was in the country in those days, honking big LP tanks, were the standard.
Our gas company hardened the tank and gave me a lesson in how to re-hook it up if the line was broken.
Today we live in Texas but we still have bugout kits in both cars as well as a survival kit in the house (gonna get sick of Dinty Moore after awhile)
.
I think that different folks have different mindsets about these things and it is often hard to see exactly what’s coming down the road. I live in New Orleans and both of my aged parents told me they didn’t want to leave their house of 50 years for a hurricane. (They never had before.) They had stores of food and supplies and were really quite prepared but, in their mid-eighties, I really wonder if they could have managed the aftermath. We finally prevailed upon them to leave with us but my mother, while recognizing reality, was really very unhappy and worried about her house. My father was okay with the trip but, of course, coming home was hard. It was very hard on a lot of older folks. I think some people just don’t want to face having to desert the old homestead. Of course, your basic point that one should prepare for anything which you can really easily foresee is logical and realistic but sometimes there’s a disconnect and you can’t be ready for everything. Both of my parents are gone now but where my father was okay with packing up (which was, of course, the wise choice with Katrina and, hey it was a trip and he loved to go for a ride), my mother was a bayou girl and that was her home. I guess all I’m saying is that you have to decide what you are comfortable with and make your plans based on that along with the nature of the threat.
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J.D., others, we don’t have a survival kit in my house. I’m wondering what you think we need. We, fortunately, are not in a tornado, flood, earthquake, mudslide, wildfire zone. Of course, emergencies are unpredictable, but the most likely threats from nature in our part of Pennsylvania is a bad thunderstorm or snowstorm that could take out powerlines — that’s happened and the longest we’ve lost power in the last decade was 12 hours, and there have been major storms in that time. Some others in the region have lost power for longer, but rarely more than a couple of days. The power company has cut back tree limbs and reduced the local frequency of power outages, but they still happen, though usually for only a few hours.
We have bottled water in a separate refrigerator in the basement, but not a huge supply, and we have some canned food, etc., but just what is normally in a pantry rather than a large supply intended for emergencies. We have several neighbors on our block who would support each other in an emergency, and we all have fireplaces and wood if we didn’t have heat for a couple of days. The snow — even the historic snow we had this past winter — never keeps us off the roads for more than a day, and supermarkets were open this winter by the day after the storm.
Barring some nuclear catastrophe or terrible terrorist takedown of the grid or something else we see in movies, it seems to me that where we live, at least, a major problem or extended blackout is not likely, but as your piece points out, if it’s easy to be prepared for the small stuff, then responsible people should be prepared. So let’s say the power goes down for something more like a week (I would hope that longer than this is extremely unlikely). What should we have on hand if we’re not going to be survivalists living in the woods but want to be prepared for the more likely, realistic scenarios?
Make a list of the first responders available to you ( police, EMT, fire) starting at number 2 and going on from there. When you are done, go back to number 1 and enter your name.
I guarantee whenever something happens to you that you will be the very first responder.
that is the perfect analogy of the Obama Nation that we live in. Take no responsibility, I voted for The One because he was going to pay my FILL IN THE BLANK for me.
He’s not gonna pay anymore than a cop is going to be able to stop a hurricane, flood, terrorist attack, etc.
Dear Mr. Tuccille: Your notions of self reliance are fine, and can be used with profit by just about everyone. Let me return your post, maybe giving you something to read while:
“…when I die, I plan to have a full belly and some mood lighting”
It’s from an obscure book you’ve not likely heard of, the Bible. Specifically Luke, chapter 18, starting with verse 9. Jesus is telling his disciples a parable:
“And he spake this parable unto certain which trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and despised others:
18:10 Two men went up into the temple to pray; the one a Pharisee, and the other a publican.
18:11 The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, God, I thank thee, that I am not as other men are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican.
18:12 I fast twice in the week, I give tithes of all that I possess.”
I’ll let your curiosity pick up at verse 13 what your father-in-law must be.
What does your wife think of having her father called out to the world as a dam fool who can’t even wipe his own rump? I look forward to your posts on Happy Marriages And How To Keep Them That Way.
Before you post on marriage, I wish you’d tell us in a post if you profess the Islamic faith. I hope so; the unbearable self-righteousness of such a post would be bound to spark a reaction against Islam, and do more for the struggle against Islamic fascism than David Petraeus and the folks on Flight 93 combined.
Sincerely yours,
Gregory Koster
If a truly serious disaster strikes *any* big city, the residents will be SOL unless they can evacuate before it strikes. How long can a big city survive on just its own resources?
One of many reasons I no longer live in San Diego is the fact that it would be very easy to cut off the city from the rest of the country as far as supplies are concened. Take down one bridge apiece on I-5, I-8, and I-15, knock out one set of railroad tracks, and that’s pretty much it, except for supplies coming in by air or ship … oh, and two high-traffic border crossings from Mexico, which probably would be clogged with refugees fleeing north *into* San Diego from Tijuana.
Really, the best way to prepare for a disaster is to make sure that you aren’t there when it happens.
The worst disasters are the ones which affect YOU!
I am in the Business Continuity field, and do BC self assessments for a living. One of our major core talking points is that redundant networks and computer back up is not going to do you much good if you don’t have a people to run them. Family obligations will trump business obligations every time.
“Disaster Ready People for a Disaster Ready America” is available for free downloading at http://www.firestorm.com because it is our belief helping you and your family prepare for disaster helps you go from disaster denial to disaster “preaction”.
Once again, our solutions are built for business preparedness, so we offer the download in the optimistic belief that a corporate culture of preparedness starts with every employee geared toward being their own first responder.
Check it out for free as it is a well written, common sense 12 step guide to curing your “disaster denial”
The biggest problem most people have with preparedness, according to those I’ve talked to, is that they see “survivalists” as crazy and don’t want to be like them. Their image of these “survivalists” is either: 1. a “Grizzly Addams” type living deep in the woods, or 2. militia types with lots of guns and paranoia.
I don’t know how everybody wound up with these notions, but they are hard to deprogram. Calling it “preparedness” instead of “survival” helps. Then you have to convince them that they’re not preparing for the end of the world. Explain to them about all of the disasters that can occur: flooding, wildfires, hurricanes, ice storms, Rodney King-type riots, etc. Sooner or later, everybody gets to live through one of these.
Then explain that being prepared is usually not a matter of life and death. It’s about passing a temporary crisis either cold and hungry, or with relative comfort. A couple weeks of food (and water) and a portable generator is usually enough for a shelter-in-place scenario.
Bugging out is a lot harder to prepare for, but there are sites that can help. The two most important things are: 1. have a detailed plan, and 2. bring copies of all important documents. It’s a lot easier to kick a squatter out of your home when you’ve got the deed with you. You’ll have an easier time filing an insurance claim when you have a copy of the policy. That sort of thing.
John M and RetiredE9 are right.. Now you don’t have to have a zillion guns or 2 years of food stuffed in a trunk, but I’d make sure I had a least a months supply of food in the house (and that is not hard) and a rifle and pistol.
Yes you can get a fancy AR or AK but even a lever action 30/30 and .357 magnum revolver will do fine (and maybe a 100 rounds of ammo EACH gun.)
And a few good flash lights, water (say 1 55 gallon drum), and any meds you take and you should be ok unless a nuke lands in your back yard.
Let me guess…
He is a baby boomer.
Have your neighbors made their own preparations,
and do they know about yours ?
If you have, say, a thousand gallons of diesel
in the tank out back, will the local government
confiscate it for equitable redistribution ?
For any disaster which is going to interrupt the operation
of the infrastructure for more than a week, two at the most,
the first rule of survival is to go somewhere else, and stay
there for at least a month.
I do not trust the authorities to save me from disaster. But I also no I have no usefull skills – damn history degree!
So, I might just wimper and die in the dark after rational processing.
Matt,
He predates baby boomers by a few years. I don’t think it’s fundamentally a generational issue, although some generations probably produce more people horrified by the idea of taking responsibility for their lives than others.
Scott,
Appropriate emergency kits depend on your needs, your budget, your storage space … Some basics are below, and these should be added to, resources allowing.
First, have copies of important documents — deeds, insurance, birth certificates and the like — all together and easy to grab and go.
Bottled water is OK, but better are large containers that can be filled with water (and maybe a few drops of bleach) in case of emergency. We have several seven-gallon containers that we use for camping, and I keep them topped off, and occasionally flush them out and refill them.
A week or two of canned goods, of course. Dried beans, rice and the like are good, too. A camp stove, too.
I think a gun and some ammo are a wise idea.
A packet of cash. No power means no ATM machines.
A first-aid kit.
Most important: Resilience. I think that’s good advice in general. If your entire sense of well-being is dependent on everything going right, you’re setting yourself up for a fall.
I grew up on a Canadian farm. If nothing else, travel and the potential for power outages in the winter were always taken seriously.
Pragmatism sits on the fine line between naivety and fatalism. I guess it’s all a matter of what one considers worthy of protecting.
Your father-in-law is like all too many Americans, educated in public (government) schools to think that the government is a benign authority that loves them and cares for them, just as a master would take care of a pet. Actually, government is a malicious authority that wants merely to control its people and treat them like slaves.
The Kool-Aid that we are served in public schools, when we were told to consider the likes of Lincoln and FDR heroes is hard to live down. One has to think independently to see the farce of it all. And, upon the realization that it is a farce, cynicism sets in, and then possibly anger or depression. Ignorance is bliss, until the reality of the world slaps a person in the face. I prefer to see the world for what it is and our leaders for the crumb-bums that they really are.
ghoti: The biggest problem most people have with preparedness, according to those I’ve talked to, is that they see “survivalists” as crazy and don’t want to be like them. Their image of these “survivalists” is either: 1. a “Grizzly Addams” type living deep in the woods, or 2. militia types with lots of guns and paranoia.
And in the wake of mega-disasters like 9/11 and Katrina, there is also the notion, especially among older folks, that even if they were to survive such an event, the post-disaster reality would be so dramatically altered that their lives as they had known them would be over anyway, so what’s the point? Sort of like the old “the living will envy the dead” mindset (vis-a-vis the aftermath of a nuclear exchange) that some folks took during the Cold War.
Especially older people, who have lived the American Dream of easy life with no disasters tend to be this way. They were taught young that the Authorities would take care of them, and sure enough, in the small upheavals they heard about, they did. In the larger ones, the patriotic press wouldn’t breathe a word about Authorative failures.
Don’t push him as far as firearms yet. He’s barely ready for a bug-out-bag. Give him one for Christmas.
Great topic and one that will, hopefully, hit home before the time comes. Maybe it would be good to show him some homeless people due to storms, earthquakes and so forth and have them relate their unpreparedness stories to them and their “I wish I had’s” too. It’s time to give him a good book or two about survival and one guy named Cody Lundin wrote a few. Maybe take him out camping with just a tent, a fire starter, a little food and water and miles from anywhere making sure that if your vehicle breaks down then there’s a way out if someone gets bit by a snake or other crawling thing. Having him see it and experience as close to reality may help, don’t know. Good luck with your father and I sincerely hope reality will occur to him soon. How soon people have forgotten the Great Depression of the past.