Chaos is Coming
My mind is certainly filled with apocalyptic visions these days as the characters in Objects in View start to feel the long-term consequences of their situation. You’ll get to read those soon.
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In the real world, the rose-colored glasses have been ripped away from large swaths of the population all at once. Cops are shooting people for traffic violations and exercising their Constitutional rights. The politicians and media have jumped on the false flag of “race war” in hopes that the newly awakened will be distracted from the blatant corruption in our government.
I think they may be reacting too late. The country has already become a battle zone after decades of abuses of power. The actions of individual cops in certain police departments have made all cops targets for violent retaliation. I know some people will claim that above statement misreads the situations and makes it worse. I don’t think so. If cops weren’t abusing and killing citizens in an abuse of their power, citizens would not be responding with violence.
Regardless of what you think about how or why the events of last week occurred, it seems that the potential for violence is spreading across our nation in a pandemic fashion. I think the situation is being manipulated for power and political gain and I believe it’s going to get worse. Last weekend, communication between one of the leaders of Black Lives Matters and some followers suggested a “day of rage” what being scheduled that would have caused widespread disruption in major cities across the country.
Pretending that it isn’t happening or planning kumbya gatherings is not a rational response to the chaos that is building. We need to face reality, accept it and prepare for it.
My view on this has evolved over the years, so we only did this with our son and our disaster plan is mostly for natural disasters because we live in Alaska, where societal unrest is less likely to happen. If I lived in a city in the Lower 48, I’d really be thinking more about how to survive widepread societal breakdown.
By planning ahead, we avoid the fear, panic, and confusion that leads people to rush to the store and clear the shelves like a horde of hungry locusts. We don’t have to venture out into the angry mobs, the rioters who will use any excuse to steal, and the hungry people who are only thinking about feeding their own kids. A prepared mindset, a defense plan, and a well-stocked home can help to keep you and your family out of harm’s way.
This may not be entirely your choice. Martial law often involves the authorities forcing people to stay in their homes, as we saw in Boston following the bombing at the marathon. Although the directive was supposedly voluntary, but if you ventured outside, you would have SWAT teams pointing guns in your face. Staying home during this martial law was the only option. Some people ran out of supplies the same day. Don’t be one of those people.
When you take out the government factor and consider just civil unrest, your lockdown area may be greater than your own home. In a small town (like Emmaus), far away from riots and protests, your lockdown area could encompass your immediate community. Life might go on as it always has for you, aside from the need to stay just a little closer to home than before.
In a city or suburb, it may become essential to make a decision quickly. Do you lock your doors and stay home or do you bug out? Only you can answer that question, but don’t contemplate it too long because there’s a rapidly closing window of opportunity. If all your neighbors get the same idea, you’ll most likely be stuck in traffic and trapped in your car. Protesters shut down highways more than once in the last six month just in protest of Trump rallies. Think about what people in a food riot could do? That’s why my plan is to stay home. I can’t think of any place less safe than a car stuck in traffic.
I’m going to focus on my son’s “get-home” plan from when he was in elementary school. We were honest with him and said “There may be a time when Mom and Dad can’t get to your school. What do you think you would need to get home in a crisis?”
Kyle asked us to walk him home from the school several times so he would know the way on foot. One of those times, we started out in on a lovely day and then got rained on and then the temperature dropped. The Alaska weather taught lessons I had never considered. When he went back to school that fall, he carried a thick pair of socks, gloves, a hat, a flashlight, some Powerbars, and a cell phone charger with him. He also chose to stash 20 1-dollar bills. At 10, he understood the value of being able to give people money. He also had a taxi cab company programmed into his phone. I had pre-paid a trip home from school. But just in case he had to walk, he knew the route that avoided major thoroughfares and he had a laminated map that would allow him to stay oriented should he have to deviate. We planned ahead for extreme cold weather by identifying places where he could stop to warm up, but he also had a couple of chemical hand warmers in case he had to make the walk without shelter. He knew where the back-up to the back-up key was, could build a fire in the woodstove and had controlled access to the firearms … just in case.
By the way, when his bus broke down that winter and the back-up was slow in coming, he had already calculated his route home when rescue arrived. He planned to just tell the bus driver that he was going and walking in the direction he needed to go. “How could she stop me, Mom? She’s not armed and I’m strong.”
Yeah, okay. Good plan. At 10 years of age, he understood that sticking around in a situation where the authorities thought they were in control was a dumb idea.
Once everyone is safely home, you need to commit to your decision to lockdown. This could last a day, a week, or longer. There’s really no way to predict it. Maybe you’ll have electrical power throughout the crisis, but what if the grid goes down due to rioting or government attempts to gain control of the situation? Yes, in foreign countries, the United States Army has shut off the power to cities to pacify the locals. In a martial law situation, you are the locals. Are you prepared?
What do you need?
- Water sufficient for your family for a month or a supply you don’t need to leave home for. If the second one is your choice, consider how you will filter it. We have a well under our house that is our back-up plan. We live in a suburban area. The water isn’t contaminated, but we don’t trust that it won’t be, so we have filter material ready. It’s just a bucket, some screening, a bag of activated charcoal, a bag of zeolyte, a supply of iodine tablets, and a jug of bleach.
- Food for at least one month sufficient for the entire family including pets.
- An off-grid cooking method. We have the woodstove, a barbecue and the ability to build campfires. Alternatively, we have food that doesn’t require cooking.
- A GOOD first aid kit. Research what I mean by that.
- Lighting in case there’s a power outage. We have lanterns and flashlights.
- Santitation supplies. Trust me, you don’t want to get sick.
- A way to stay warm. I live in Alaska. This is more of a concern for me than it is if you live in Florida, but staying warm is important. Woodstoves work without electricity. Pellet stoves do not.
- Means of communcation that allow you to get updates about the outside world. How many of us actually own a radio with an AM receiver anymore? We should.
If you are completely unprepared for this type of thing, you can pick up buckets of emergency food at Walmart. Stick them in a closet where they will last for 25 years. This is absolutely the fastest way to create an emergency supply. It’s an expensive way to do this, but it’s better than starving in a crisis. We have accumulated about a six-months supply of rice in addition to a lot of canned goods and dried fruit. Don’t forget the toilet paper and laundry soap.
Your best defense is avoiding the chaos. You want to stay under the radar and not draw attention to yourself. Invest in good security before the crisis. I don’t mean a security system — I mean locks and barriers to entry. Remember that a well-lit house becomes a beacon for people looking for shelter or an easy mark. Cover your windows. Don’t answer the door. It’s harder for people to play on your feelings when you don’t talk to them and many home invasions start with an innocent-seeming knock at the door to gain access to your house. We all gather in the living room during a power outage to save on lights, but this is a good idea in a crisis. If someone does try to breach your door, you know where everyone is who is supposed to be there.
Recognize and accept that first responders may be tied up. When my mother held off three soon-to-be rapists when I was a kid, the police were dealing with a huge bar fight in downtown, so the only one protecting me was Mom. In a civil unrest situation, it may be entirely possible that the cops won’t be your friends anyway. There is a federal law that says they can confiscate any food stores you have.
If your property draws the attention of people with ill intent, you must be ready to defend your family. Sometimes despite our best intentions, the fight comes to us. Many preppers stockpile weapons and ammunition for just such an event. Firearms are an equalizer. My tiny little mother defended us against three large intruders because she had a firearm and knew how to use it. Had she only had a kitchen knife, things would have turned out much differently.
When people breach the door of your home, you can be pretty sure they’re not coming in to borrow a cup of sugar. Don’t rely on 911, which may be overwhelmed by the ongoing crisis or may use it as a means to stomp all over your liberty. Be prepared to protect your family because nobody else can do that for you.
Above all, stay home. I love my neighbors and we might coordinate with them to defend the whole neighborhood, but Fairbanks is an odd situation where people are armed any way and the circumstances of severe weather makes us more cooperative in practice. If you don’t know your neighbors, the best way to protect yourself is with strong walls and narrow entry points. Every single time you leave the house, you increase your chances of an unpleasant encounter. Nothing good will be accomplished by going out during a chaotic situation, something I show in Objects in View. Keep an eye out for the publication. If might be worth reading while you wait out the crisis.
