Indians For Guns

In a little follow-up to the Bug out bag post, here is some thinking about preparedness.
Who’s Responsible for Preparedness: You or the Government?

When 600 million people lose power, who should be responsible for being prepared to get through it: Individuals or government? That question is being asked as India experiences the most widespread blackout in history.

Most of you already know the answer to the above question. Still, it helps to get think about it once in a while.
While the article is basically an advertisement for selling a book, it does give you some food for thought and reinforces some of the concepts we already espouse here.

It’s this author’s view that there is only the illusion of a middle ground when it comes to blackout preparedness. Large-scale electricity production is a socialized function heavily regulated by government. Private companies sanctioned to perform this work are not beholden to individuals, only to the governments that approved their monopolistic existence. That would seem to place the burden of blackout preparedness on government.

However, government disaster relief services only go so far. Literally. Help has to be shipped in from other places. That’s going to take time. It could be hours, days or weeks. The response to Hurricane Katrina is one example.

The same is true of any place in the world. Yes, there will be governments preparing for disaster. No, it won’t be a perfect response. Don’t be lulled into a false sense of security.

The reality is individuals are responsible for their well-being, and need to be prepared to the furthest extent they’re able. True, people in developing countries, such as India, are at a disadvantage when it comes to preparedness. But the core principles of survival are as true today as they were thousands of years ago.

In the end, no one is going to help you but yourself.

(the emphasis is mine)

The drinking water ran out tonight!
All the shops were closed and the r.o. Plant had broken down!
I guess it makes sense to have a few supplies for the unforeseen.

Aloha,

Living on an island 2,500 miles from the nearest help, we here in Hawaii are on our own.

This was shown 20 years ago when Hurricane Inki devestated the Island of Kauai.

Kauai lost power of a month. The US Navy sent a nuke sub to power the island.

Someone Failed to have the correct connectors between local power company and nuke sub, OOPs.

Personally, I have 2 Honda generators and enough gas cans to last 2+ weeks.

All I need is 6 hours to get gas and stock up on water.

This is persuming Hawaii has a minimum of 6 hours warning, tsunami or hurricane.

If it is a Major earth quake then I have a problem. But, supplies in the pipeline will not be interupted.

Otherwise, it will take the US Navy a minimum of 5-7 days before a Carrier Battle Group can be here

to distribute emergency supplies.

We can hold out for at least 2 weeks, maybe more.

Well forgive me a bit here but I expect a hell of a lot of assistance from my government.

Right now we can afford to park 3 aircraft carriers off the coast of Iran, and yet if some disaster occurs that affects the people the US military is sworn to protect we are supposed to think any casualties are acceptable? We have to take off our shoes and submit to searches if we wish to fly in an airplane, and somehow after all that invasiveness and money we spend on our defense, if some sort of incident happens that results in loss of life or livelyhood I do not think it is OK to just shrug shoulders and mutter something about getting tough breaks.

If an airplane were hijacked and crashed into a building resulting in a hundred or two lives being lost, I do not see that as being any different than having a couple hundred elderly perish from heat stroke due to a major electrical outage. As citizens we should stand for nothing less from our Government.

Do not misunderstand me, I am quite self sufficient should any sort of disaster occur (and around here it does happen with regularity) but that does not mean that I condone Gov't ineffectiveness when peoples lives are at stake.

God bless INDIA!!!


Baljit

I believe god gave up a few decades ago.