#105 - Counting On Friends or Neighbors After SHTF.
A friend of mine made a comment on Facebook on one of my postings about what they were going to do when the grocery store shelves were bare. He commented that he would just come to my house because I have everything. While this was meant as a joke, it does bring up a very important point that needs to be discussed.
After a major SHTF event happens, it is not advisable that you attempt to go to your frends or neighbors house for help for your family, unless this has already been discussed and agreed upon before hand.
If you failed to store away food, water and supplies that your family will need after a disaster, and you know that a friend or a neighbor is a "prepper" so you know that they will have plenty of supplies, do not count on receiving any food or supplies from them. Remember, when they spent all that time storing up that food, water, and supplies, they stored enough to see that their family could make it through a situation. They did not store up food to feed you and your family. Don't be suprised if instead of being welcomed with a handshake, instead you find yourself staring down a barrel and being told to leave.
They can not be expected to suddenly become a charity, or "soup kitchen" feeding everyone who ignored the warnings from FEMA and other government officials to stock up on food, water, and emergency supplies at the expense of their own families survival. First and foremost, the survival of their own family comes before anything.
There is a saying, that "we are just 9 meals away from total chaos". The reason for that is as I said in my posting earlier today, the typical grocery store will run out of food within 3-days. The vast majority of people do not have enough food in their homes to even get them through that 3-days. By the time that 3-days has passed, people will start becomming desperate for their next meal, especially if they have children that are crying that they are hungry.
People who were responsible enough to store up food, water, and other emergency supplies for their families will do whatever they have to to ensure that it remains available for their families use, and hard decisions will have to be made by them to turn people away, with force if necessary.
We highly recommend joining with other preppers in your local area. No one can know how to do everything, but together those knowledge or skills voids can be filled. There is also safety in numbers. You can not stay awake 24-hours a day 7-days a week protecting your food and supplies, but with a group of people, sleep can be done in shifts ensuring that someone is always on guard duty to protect the group, and their resources.
If you are planning on becomming part of a group of preppers this should be done now instead of after an SHTF event happens. If you approach a group, or perhaps an individual prepper, and want to join with them, one of the considerations that they are going to have to make is do you bring any necessary skills to the table that can benefit the entire group and is worth them spending their valuable resources on. The caloric requirement for an adult is 1 Million calories per year, so 1 Million calories per person per year is what is needed to sustain a group. For a long-term situation, that is a lot of food that is necessary for each and every person in the group, so they will have to carefully pick and choose who they will help and who they will turn away. Very few will get chosen, but those few have knowledge or skills that are vital to the success of the group as a whole.
For instance, if you go up to a group and they ask you what skills you can provide and you tell them that you were an accountant so you are good with numbers, you probably are not getting in as that is not a necessary skill that would be worth spending 1 Million calories per year on obtaining. If on the other hand you say that you were an Emergency Room Physician, that would be a valuable skill that the group can benefit from.
Obtain necessary skills that a group can benefit from and find a group to join with now while you have time. Start storing up an emergency supply of food, clean drinking water, and other emergency supplies for your family.
Don't wait until it is too late, and you find yourself alone with nothing and no one to turn to for help.
Until Next Time
Aloha & 73
