My Approach to Disaster Preparedness

I believe that coin/metal hoarding dovetails with disaster preparedness. Here are my thoughts on the subject.

Resilience is the ultimate goal of being prepared, resilience in the face of whatever mother nature or society can throw at you. If the currency collapses you have precious metals, if the power goes out you have back-up sources of energy, if store shelves are empty you have food stores, etc., etc..

Even  a little bit of preparedness usually goes a long way. Don’t throw in the towel just because you are not a weapons expert, with a cache stored in your bunker under your animal paddock and vegetable garden. Having some food and water, maybe a gas barbeque with extra fuel, and a way to provide for your personal defense will get you most of the way there most of the time.

This is not a how-to guide. There are plenty of places you can find out how much water or food a person needs per day to survive. However, I feel much of the available material is so bogged down in minutiae that it loses site of the big picture, and reality. I intend to lay out an analytical framework for the types of events you are actually preparing for.  I also want to give you some perspective regarding preparing with “things”, which seems to be the focus of most “prepper” advice, as opposed to personal resilience and community.

Type 1 Event – Localized Natural Disasters or Civil Disturbances

This category includes events such as earthquakes, hurricanes, tornadoes, flooding, other severe weather, riots, mass strikes and power outages. Most Americans have probably already experienced one of these.  Unless your home is destroyed by the event a few days of food and water, maybe a generator and propane stove, are probably all you need. A weapon to protect your family against opportunistic criminals should be handy as well. The risk of meaningfully organized banditry is probably small.

Since these events are localized, resources pour in from nearby, unaffected areas fairly quickly. Order and utilities, at least for most people, are restored soon after the event.

I experienced the Northridge earthquake and the Los Angeles riots. For the Northridge earthquake we lost power for 2 to 3 days and water for 7 to 10 days. There was no problem obtaining water at the local supermarket and a pool kept the toilet tanks full.  The benefit of having food and water at home was that you did not have to venture out and put yourself at risk of being somewhere dangerous in the event of an aftershock or victimized by an opportunistic criminal.

The impact of the riots was muted in the suburbs where I lived. There were curfews and people tended to stay home. In the urban areas there was widespread looting and arson and some famous shoot-outs between liquor store owners and looters. For most people, hunkering down in their homes with food, water and weapons was the best strategy. Just going out to buy some bread could make you a victim of the mayhem going on around you. However, order was restored within 2 or 3 days.

Everyone can prepare for localized events like these. You don’t need to own chickens or have a weapon cache. Very basic items should keep you fed and safe. I’d also like to add that the best way to prepare for a disaster is to avoid it. For some events, like hurricanes, there is plenty of advance notice. Just leave. People who willingly live through disaster should willingly suffer the consequences. I understand that there are classes of people (the elderly, disabled or those in abject poverty) that cannot easily pick up and leave.

Type 2 Event – Sustained Economic Collapse and Social Disorder

This type of event occurs when a currency collapse or other serious economic malaise starts to fray the societal fabric. The result is not anarchy but a serious diminution in the effectiveness of government and security. Utilities may become intermittent, including extensive periods of no power or running water. Food becomes expensive and sometimes scarce. Criminal gangs become more powerful, engaging in widespread kidnapping, extortion and burglaries. The effectiveness of law enforcement is severely impaired by lack of funds, corruption and the reach of criminal gangs. This can be seen in parts of Mexico today and, most famously, in Argentina during the late 90s.

In these circumstances life pretty much goes on. You still go to work each day, if you have a job, and you come home at night. These events can go on for years. Certainly, having stored food, water and precious metals puts you in a much better position that a person without those things. However, it is unlikely they will hold you over, without more, for a period of several years.

 If you are in the suburbs with a yard or the country you can benefit from fruit trees, vegetable gardens and livestock. Even Los Angeles allows urban poultry. Of course, being armed under these circumstances is extremely important.

One of the most important things you can do is make sure you have a community. Friends, family, neighbors, whatever.  You can watch each others’ backs and take advantage of the different skills and resources each of you possess. You can’t do it alone, if you think you can you are asking for trouble.

Ideally, living in a small semi-rural community would probably be the way to go. You’re away from large population centers that would be the locus of crime and civil unrest; but not out isolated in the country where you can be easily victimized. You can have a place, with some land, and also be part of a larger community that can offer mutual support. Unfortunately, the reality is that most people can’t, or won’t, live in a place like that.

I have read several very common misconceptions over the years that I would like to address. They mainly involve the extent of social collapse and methods of exchange in the post collapse economy. Some people confuse a serious economic and social collapse with a post-apocalypse. We know a lot about what happens when societies get frayed and collapse, or even fail. It has happened in the distant past, the near past and is going on in places today. I have no idea what a post-apocalyptic world looks like, though I have seen it in some movies. In fact, I don’t think there have been any documented post-apocalyptic earths. People who think they are going to strap their shotgun to their back and go down to the market to buy some carrots with silver Roosevelt dimes are not in reality, that is Hollywood fantasy.

In most economies suffering from hyperinflation the government just keeps printing paper bills. This is what people use in their day to day lives. There is no other practical alternative because there is not enough gold or silver around to use in everyday transactions. There is a place for “hard currency” in these economies. Larger transactions or transactions involving land are often paid for with “hard currency”, this could be precious metals, but is more often another “stable” fiat currency. In the Americas that is the US Dollar, in former Communist Europe it was the German Mark.

The notion that an economy would form based solely, or even heavily, on silver coins of a by-gone era is pretty silly. There is no need to fantasize about how disordered societies may function because such societies already exist around us. Joe Schmo shop keeper and Joe Schmo shopper are going to do their business with paper currency, whatever paper currency is around. Whatever government exists is going to demand taxes and pay salaries with paper currency.

Of course precious metals protect your savings from rampant inflation and currency devaluation during times of disorder and uncertainty. They are a way to preserve wealth. However, that is a far cry from believing that precious metals will be used in day to day transactions.

To recap: Growing some of your own food, providing some of your own energy, being armed, owning some hard assets and being part of a community that can provide mutual support will make your life during a prolonged economic disaster easier.

Type 3 Event – The Failed or Barely Functioning State

This is similar to the Type 2 Event, just more extreme and often includes warfare. It can also be localized. For example, during the Yugoslav wars of independence Croatia and Bosnia were not failed states, but several of their cities suffered sieges and were effectively on their own for extended periods of time, sometimes years.

The warfare and widespread violence that often accompanies failed state events means your land or cached supplies may not be of much use. There is often large scale population displacement and a refugee can’t really carry that much.

It is so difficult to predict how events will play out when states fail that it is basically impossible to prepare for it beyond what you do for the other types of events.  The one exception is your personal resilience, which I will discuss later.

Type 4 Event – Post Apocalypse

All I can say is get your leather chaps and hockey mask.

Personal Resilience

The most important resources you have are you, your skills and the ability to deal with adversity.

Let’s face it, some people don’t handle adversity well. They panic, freeze up, or think they can complain their way out of a problem. These are the people that don’t make it.  You don’t have to like, or thrive under, adverse conditions, you just have to be able to make the quick, and the well reasoned, decisions to survive without emotion and panic clouding your mind.

In addition to coping with adversity, individual skills you have developed may make a huge difference.  These skills include survival and trade type skills. Be familiar with firearms, self-defense, first-aid, agricultural techniques. You don’t need to be a firearms owner to be familiar with them. Go with friends or rent at ranges etc.

Trade skills are awesome: carpentry, metalworking, electrical, medical and even butchering can be extremely valuable to you and other members of your community during a crisis. They may make you an invaluable member of your community.

The skills you possess can not be taken from you. If you have to flee your home you will take these skills with you. Even though you have lost all your “things” you still have the ability to help yourself. I consider self-improvement to be the most important thing you can do to survive serious societal disruptions.

Community

The final issue I want to address is the notion of community. The lone wolf strategy is not the best way to survive a prolonged social disruption. Mutual support from your community is essential. This does not literally have to be your neighbors, though I can’t imagine getting through such a crisis without establishing a close relationship with them. Your mutual support network can go beyond your neighbors but will usually require geographic proximity because traveling long distances is not very practical. Your mutual support group will help provide security, pool resources and give access to a variety of skills.  

Conclusion

That’s how I approach disaster preparedness.