What should we prepare for?

Mama and I talk a great deal about scenarios in which our preparations would come in handy. Along with that conversation ultimately comes the discussion about how far those situations go, and when they are considered over. Many preppers call this scenario The End Of The World As We Know It or TEOTWAWKI. If any of you have viewed or participated in the communities in which this scenario is discussed you may have realized that they almost always talk about the initial fall out of the event, or the collapse. For the purpose of this blog I will refer to the different stages of TEOTWAWKI as The Event, The Collapse, The Panic, The Reform, and The Rise.

The Event is whatever emergent situation happens that would cause preparations to be necessary. Let us take the basic and scifi example of a zombie apocalypse as our example. The Event is the initial period or the outbreak, starting from Patient Zero (the first infected person) to the fall of the first few cities. Within this time infrastructure will begin to be closed, and people will begin to stay home. Accompanied by this is the security threat of hordes of zombies. Many people view this is the actual apocalypse, but it is just the seed. This is the most dangerous time in which the most loss of life will occur. This example can be applied to nearly every scenario, from a mass EMP, to a cyber attack, civil war, etc. We would do well to plan for this as it is the greatest threat, but if your goal is to thrive rather than just survive we should look past this phase.

The Collapse occurs when the infrastructure starts to fail. Using our zombie apocalypse as an example this is when the folks that work at the electric plant (or any other utility facility) do not go to work, for whatever reason, be it quarantine, infection, they choose to stay home, or the power plant is over run. The power plant will stay on for a period of time and supply power to its grid due to automation, but after a period of time it will fail and the lights will go out. This is when The Collapse begins, when our modern way of life goes away. This phase can occur 3 days to 3 weeks after The Event due to the automation of our infrastructure, or lack thereof. The most rapid and frightening aspect of The Collapse is going to be the unavailability of food. Most people keep between 2-7 days worth of food in their house. When that food runs out they make a trip to the store. Most stores have between 1-3 days worth of food on their shelves based on how much food is sold out of their store in the period. That means in 3-10 days the stores will be completely out of food. It is within those 3-10 days that rioting and looting will occur. By the time The Collapse is in full effect about 13-21 days will have passed depending on how quickly The Event happened.

The Panic will overlap with the The Collapse because it is the phase that is completely driven by human emotion. When people realize that there is no food, and the lights might not come back on, people begin to riot, to loot and pillage. It is within this phase that we will see the most brutal of human behavior. It is this phase that many of the serious preppers have planned for, they have food for 3-18 months, they have a safe place to weather the storm (a farmhouse or a bunker or some similar safe haven), they have ammunition to provide security and they have taken some tactical training course. These preppers may even have a plan with a group of friends or a network of other preppers to meet and form some kind of organization after The Collapse.

The Reform is the period after The Collapse. It is when most of the people have died, all the food is gone, the lights are off, the water won’t run, and the internet is dead. This is the time in which any of the survivors come out of their shelter and work together, or kill each other. This is when society will be rebuilt and we will see order restored once again. This period is when those that survived will plant gardens, scavenge for supplies and debate the future of their government and their towns. This is also one of the most difficult phase to prep for. The reason that this is so difficult to prep for is because it requires having the skills, knowledge, references and materials to rebuild a town or society.

The Rise is the final phase in which things are getting back to a sense of normalcy. This is the phase in which everyone has plenty to eat, towns are secure, there are medical professionals again, and the time in which a normal economy is emerging with a currency and a governing body to serve the people. This is the goal that everyone that is involved in The Collapse should be working for.

The questions that we should be asking ourselves is this “Am I prepared to deal with these situations, and what can I do to be better prepared?”.