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You Won’t Be Able to Do That After T-SHTF
Feb
23
Today is what I would refer to as a “lazy Sunday.” I woke up around 5 am, looked at the clock and thought to myself: why. Went back to sleep and woke back up around 8 am. Good times. Did a few chores around the house but nothing crazy and now sitting here as yet another snowstorm dumps its contents on us. The fire is nice and I’ll probably go plow later this afternoon but I decided to take the time to write this article. For context, I’ve been texting a few buddies about the Coronavirus and the potential associated with that and I even took the time to send a few messages to my immediate family. I suppose that got me thinking about this particular topic as after all I think it’s a safe assumption to state we all care about family. It’s also a safe assumption to state that many of our families live in various stages of doubt / denial or unpreparedness – which I must clarify might not be a total fault but rather a product of our society as we know it. After all, “things tend to typically always work out” and whether we like it or not, “someone” usually does “something” to keep the status quo alive.
Coronavirus Update
I’ll take a brief moment here to detail my thoughts on this as I reached out to family with similar details today. Most of you are already up to speed on this but here’s what I’m tracking beyond the obvious headlines.
Relatives: Don’t Overwhelm Them
Call it a weird hobby but I have various SHTF predictions from very popular websites / blogs saved over the years, almost all of which have never come to pass. I have stuff saved from 2010, one article in particular where the author and the hundreds of folks in the comments section were certain that would be the year – end game – collapse – buckle up. Not the beginning of the end but absolute certainty that 2010 was the end and well… here we are in 2020. Granted we can discuss all the reasons why it could be a false prosperity and the need to prepare still exists but my point is this: can you imagine being a family member who doesn’t prep and getting inundated with predictions and SHTF potential scenarios and “this is the one” for a period of months / years / decades? At some point it all becomes white noise and who are we to say I told you so about one event in particular if we seemingly got in wrong on the last 37 other events over the span of 10 -15 years. Can’t fault folks for being skeptical now can we?
Instead I think an approach where we take point and stay informed, understand that everyone should have a little preparedness going on for those localized disasters but save the sky is falling routine until we have definitive information which leads to that conclusion. Otherwise all that is accomplished is this: we discredit ourselves by constantly going into panic mode.
After All, They Are Adults Too
This morning I sent off a text about Coronavirus which was pretty level headed, just some basic details with facts and assumptions and some reasonable next steps. Would be good to watch more of the news to see how it develops in other countries and oh by the way, a couple weeks of supplies on hand probably a good thing. Whether or not they take my advice is on them, I tried to frame things up as logically as possible and the action required on their behalf was truly minimal, this versus sending them 15 links to various websites with the demand that they buy 6 months of freeze dried food ASAP.
They are my family but like me they have their own lives, responsibilities and things that concern them. I can try to interject some relevance here and there but understand and respect the fact that it’s also on them. I won’t force it nor will I argue about the relevance of it and truth be told if they did nothing but still chose to drive across the country to hunker down at my place I’d still take them in.
Being the Voice of Reason
I sort of touched on this already but it’s all how the message is delivered. If I were to inundate them daily with Coronavirus “facts” and articles and fear it (at this point) degrades the message. However if I choose to touch on the issue once every couple weeks as things develop with logical, actionable items and thoughts I think that resonates much more effectively. If I recall I even said that we should keep living our lives at this point but definitely be watching / monitoring and if that task falls to me exclusively, I accept it. We can “what if” and wargame this thing until the cows come home but the reality is: Nobody knows how bad it will get here – if at all (that’s a stretch).
Final Thoughts
I enjoy writing but I’m not on Social Media be it FB, IG, Snapchat, Twitter or whatever. I can only imagine the amount of link sharing that is going on related to this virus, people trying to change other people’s minds or even worse internet arguing while citing various sources. I still don’t understand why people invest their time into that sort of noise but again, we are all adults I suppose and quite frankly I can keep in touch with my real friends perfectly fine (the circle of which is pretty small) without being on any of those platforms.
I state all of that because the regular media and especially Social Media has a way of taking a thing and turning into something perceived as 10x worse than it actually is. With respect to this virus and how we communicate with our families we must remain the voice of calm and reason, working in realistic goals and expectations and sometimes shouldering the load completely in order to get where we need to go. I think SO MANY preppers are waiting for the day to say “I told you so” to folks, which boggles my mind because if we are saying that then the S has truly HTF. Who in their right mind would want that? Let me know your thoughts in the comments section.
I’ve found the best way to get family members to take action is to take a sort of “What could it hurt?” approach. “Look,” I say, “Probably nothing will happen here, but we don’t know. I mean look at the people in China and Italy right now. Next time you’re in Costco, grab yourself a couple of dozen packages of pasta and a few cases of tomato sauce. Maybe a bag of rice, some oil, and some salt and spices, too. You use all this stuff anyway. If something does happen, you’ve at least got some food in the house for a while. If nothing happens, you don’t buy pasta for a few months. Big deal. What could it hurt?”
This works pretty well. It’s not perfect, but the people who have done this will be in a lot better shape than most if the panic should come here.
Great points, stockpiling what one uses is a key component to getting folks on board. Extra TP, paper towels, canned food that is regularly consumed etc. I think most folks can find the value in that, even folks who might be skeptical of long term #10 can food storage.
This morning 2-25-2020 my wife told me that I was living in fear. That I’m addicted to prepping the same as when I raced motorcycles, bicycles and was a workout junkie.
So yes as you can see I overwhelmed m family with the ( what if scenario )..
Well off to the discount grocery store, and secretly store up some more cans of meat product.
Get bless you all, and your families.
Todd – I used to race motorcycles back in the day and as you well know, prepping (for the most part) can be a far less expensive adventure with tangible benefits (as opposed to winning a $5 plastic trophy). I think if you are practical about it, storing up items that you already use, it should go over quite well. Good luck.
Normalcy Bias may be the death of many in the future.
Anon has a great idea. My millennial family members, who have never been without, make fun of my prepping. My husband half heartedly goes along with my suggestions. What does it hurt to have an extra portable propane tank for the grill or some extra firewood should the power go out? A few extra gallons of fresh water stored and rotated? It hurts nothing and will be used up at some point in time. So as I see shipments and orders for items from Asia being cancelled at the floral shop where I work part time, I know a greater need will be coming down the pipeline soon. Hopefully the kids will start to understand prepping is not just for WSHTF, but any global emergency that may never enter their back yard.
Stay safe friends. Watch out for you family & neighbors.
Arrrgh…. my sister-in-law knows that my parents-in-law and my family are preppers (we all live within 25 miles of each other). I spoke to her yesterday (again) about the need to keep at least 2 weeks worth of supplies on hand and the response (again) was ’Well, I’m just coming to you (insert scenario here)’. So frustrating. I think I finally got her to agree to go to the store yesterday. This is a close family member who is chronically irresponsible, and will not hesitate to show up empty handed with kids, boyfriend and the extra dog she picked up last month in tow. I’d love some ideas on how to make it clear to complacent family members that they need to take some responsibility, without threatening to barricade the door!
Some of us (myself included) live near the Cascadia subduction fault. It quakes on the average every 260 years; it has not had a quake/tsunami for about 320 years. It is 10 months pregnant! The devastation that will occur is quite predictable: bridges out; roads impassible; no electricity for at least several months; etc. The necessary preparation is also clearly predictable. All that is necessary is to have someone like you clarify and prioritize the necessary preparations. So I appreciate your information/opinions as I apply them to my situation here in the Cascadia mountains of southern Oregon. Thank you very much.
Thanks much, you are very welcome.
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