Monday, May 23, 2011

The End Of The World As We Know It (Or What Happens After the SHTF)!

The End Of The World As We Know It (TEOTWAWKI)     Updated (see video at bottom)!

I have been interested in this subject since Jimmy Carter.  At that time I did not even know that there were millions like me: ready to "head for the hills" when things got really bad…

TEOTWAWKI is a big subject, so I am just going to write on two pieces of the subject.  This topic is likely to come up again in the not too far future here on my blog.

Fast or Slow?

A fast TEOTWAWKI is the big ugly one.  The grid goes down in an instant.  Chaos ensues quickly. 

Two of the four fiction books I have read re TEOTWAWKI feature an EMP (electromagnetic pulse produced by exploding a nuclear device in space, but near the atmosphere).  The EMPs fry almost all modern electronics, and so produce terrible effects like:

n  All modern aircraft flying then immediately crash
n  NO electricity at the hospitals, vaccines and diabetic supplies go bad quickly
n  All modern vehicles have their electronics fried as well, too many little computers
n  Transportation quickly breaks down
n  Our cities become like New Orleans after Katrina
n  The Golden Horde / MZBs (Mutant Zombie Bikers) head out of the cities, looking for food
n  75% of Americans die before one year passes
n  It apparently would take years to rebuild our country
n  Mass suffering and hunger

There are, of course, other ways the fast TEOTWAWKI could happen (nuclear war, a worm like Stuxnet takes down the Internet and causes factories, refineries, electric power plants and so on to fail, etc.).

The below book tells the story of what happens in a North Carolina town post-EMP:

One Second After  (William Forstchen) now available in paperback.  Newt Gingrich himself wrote the introduction!  Apparently our military is trying pretty quickly to harden their electronics.  But, Newt himself says that the USA is very vulnerable to this kind of an event: the EMP.  The book is great!  Dire things happen.

There is another book out on the Internet (only) about a TEOTWAWKI after an EMP, but it is hard to find.  It is called Lights Out, I do not remember the author’s name.  You will really have to look kind of hard for it, but Google is your friend.  I spent almost an entire weekend with my eyes glued to the monitor reading the +/- 400 pages.  Very bad things happen in that book too!  This one takes place in Texas, so that made it even more of a pleasure to read.

But a TEOTWAWKI could happen slowly too.  The economy declines as our debts get out of control. Important parts of the economy start to fail over time.  The “Decline of the Roman Empire Scenario” if you will.  The World Ends, just not right away.

Two more recent books out on a post-TEOTWAWKI:

The Road, (Cormac McCarthy)
Patriots, (John Rawles)

Apparently there is to be a sequel to Mr. Rawles’ book

I have read and enjoyed all four of the above books.

Are You Prepared?

Properly preparing for a TEOTWAWKI is a huge project.  First it requires a mindset that is really ready to do what it takes (including costing a lot of money) to get prepared.

The Mormons are all supposed to have a one year supply of food at all times stocked up.  How many non-Mormons do this?  Very few I would guess.  I do not.

Even more important in the short term is water.  In a TEOTWAWKI, it is likely that the water utilities would fail as well.  Who then has a water well or other handy potable water?  How do you clean the water?  “They say” that a person needs one gallon of water per DAY.

What would function as money?  Sure for a while paper money would be taken by vendors, but the credit cards would not.  No power…  But, even if paper money is taken, it likely would be only for a short while.  So, what would be taken?  Gold and silver probably would.  Barter too (eg, bourbon and cigarettes).

How prepared is your community?  Oh, please.

OK, so let’s say you are solidly prepared regarding the above.  What happens when the desperate come knocking on your door?  OK, better have guns and ammunition too.  More firepower than “they” do.

What else?  A Nineteenth Century skill set that could help to repair things (a friend of my brother and mine informed me once that he “was more prepared to live in the 1860s” than anybody he knew, some of you know who I am talking about, yes, he is the guy who fire 2000 rounds from his guns on zero notice without even having to reload…).  Doctors and nurses would be in big demand as there would be LOTS of accidents and epidemics.  Without heating and air conditioning the Winters and Summers could get rough.


Two blogs that cover this subject, there are many others:


www.survivalblog.com
www.shtfplan.com


Update:


A Youtube video, thanks FOFOA!  For some reason you cannot just click this, but you can "copy and paste" this into your browser at the top of your screen to view this very appropriate video.  You might want to start the song, let it play "on and off" for a awhile, then back up that little red cursor button all the way back to the beginning of the video for best results.


http://www.youtube.com/embed/_eyFiClAzq8


Another Update!  YES!  Click on any of the blue coding below!!!


Two of my friends sent along code that might work better re YouTube videos:


<object width="425" height="349"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/_eyFiClAzq8?fs=1&amp;hl=en_US"></param><paramname="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/_eyFiClAzq8?fs=1&amp;hl=en_US" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="425" height="349" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true"></embed></object>


<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_eyFiClAzq8";>
It's the End of the World as We Know It</a>


YET another update!  If I did this right, see my wife and her sisters singing Italian, great fun!!


<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EM1mIcbllXk";>



(People who know more about this stuff than I do, please chip in some helpful comments, also, how do I get a gold price widget (like kitco's) for my blog?)


Another Update!


I just saw (but could not copy it over to here) a world map (from Google's blog service stats) that I have had viewers from the below countries:


USA
Peru
Canada
Australia
Germany


How cool is that?  Thanks for visiting!


*****


I thank you all who read this article.  I would thank you even more to comment on it!

Be looking for another article in a few days!

I wish the very best as always to you and yours. 

11 comments:

  1. Where's my link, Robert? You promised. ;)

    I think you need to learn how to embed videos. Here's a good one for this post:

    The End of the World as We Know It

    Now at the video, click on share and then embed, and then copy the code over to the bottom of your post. And then those of us that can't read can still enjoy your offerings!

    Sincerely,
    FOFOA

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks FOFOA! Yes, I need to learn a lot of stuff. It was hard enough for me just to figure out Facebook...

    That idea you have re embedding videos is excellent! It encourages people to come to your blog. I REALLY enjoyed the Johnny Nash song you embedded in April, that was one of my favorite songs when it was popular.

    I just dropped off my propaganda at the end of costata's 2nd comments section about my blog.

    Best to you!

    ReplyDelete
  3. government is going to be the most important, how will it react, collapse or martial law. Will martial law work or collapse as well. Will it be like russia?
    Doubt it, russia was one people, your underclass is real ugly. The future sure is going to be interesting

    ReplyDelete
  4. Who knows how our .gov will react?

    The underclass would be a big problem indeed, whether here in the USA or in Europe.

    10-4 re an interesting future!

    ReplyDelete
  5. Hi Robert, thank you for the invitation to your blog, looking forward to sharing thoughts here!

    Though I've been awake from my typical American slumber for over four years now (wish I could say it's been longer..), I just started serious SHTF preparations just over a year ago. If a person takes one step at a time it's amazing what you can do in a year's time (or less, if you've got plenty of resources). MUCH can be done even on a tight budget. Surplus eastern block guns and ammo are a fraction of the price of some of today's more popular guns. Local gun shows offer the best price for various ammo, pretty much bar none. Military surplus stores sell 55gal water drums for cheap. One can find mylar bags and O2-absorbers cheap on Ebay for long term food storage. And, of course, the exchange of soft money for hard money.. Lots of other stuff but I don't want to take more than my fair share of space here.

    Glad to see FOFOA here, great catch!

    ReplyDelete
  6. Cool avatar Shell Game! Thanks for posting!

    ReplyDelete
  7. I see from the stats that someone visited from Italy as well.

    GRAZIE, Italia!

    ReplyDelete
  8. Let's see if I can post via OpenID.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Robert, the book lights out is now available on paperback:
    http://www.amazon.com/Lights-Out-David-Crawford/dp/0615427359/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1306429411&sr=8-1

    ReplyDelete
  10. Thanks Rey, I'll look for it. It KILLED my eyes reading it on the computer that weekend.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Hi Robert

    Thanks for the invite - I look forward to learning more and sharing in this smaller sandbox.

    Like Shell Game, I awoke only 4 years ago at age 51 and then went about like a mad man buying PMs and prepping. I think I've covered most of the bases but it was very costly - be being a paranoid, if an EMP hits I'm sure I'll rack my head and say "Shit, why didn't I think of that earlier"

    Glad to be aboard.
    The Navigator

    ReplyDelete

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