by Ron Foster
So at a minimum the study should say that there will be 3 million folks evacuating if it was to be more realistic.
Michael had said this figure doesn’t take into account of what he called the “Domino effect” of more evacuees than predicted leaving an area. If, for example like in California a huge area of suburbs adjoins major cities and the mandatory evacuation area ends only a mile or so from your house. Most folks in that neighborhood if they think the threat is realistic will go ahead and evacuate also. Then the ones next to them get worried and evacuate and so on in a trickle effect.
Thing is, Michael had importantly pointed out is that you will have miles and miles of ethnic and gang related traffic coming out in blocks in a zip code or community related evacuation order.
Now a lot of people will leave their homes out of order both before and during a declared evacuation order. So this place being California, you got millions of gang members and traditional enemies on the move. You got the Crips and Bloods having to share the same highways with the prison buses and county jail inmate trucks.
You got the Hells Angels riding in formation along with countless other motorcycle clubs. The cities transportation system is going to be moving the homeless and those who don’t have any other means to escape. The nursing home and mental hospital buses along with various hospital evacuations will be taking place. The church buses of all faiths will be gathering.
The Junkies, Homies, Amigos, Indian Reservations, China Town, Illegal Immigrants, Skin Heads, Meth Freaks, Politicians, Lawyers, Cop Families, preppers etc. all get to try out their driving and social skills together on the same stretch of road all at the same time. Michael had pointed out and rightly so, that even if wild animals run side by side with no conflict between predator and prey from a wildfire, you could guarantee that the same competition for survival amongst humans wouldn’t happen the same way.
There is going to be a shit load of bad people with some bad ass guns sharing the same highway and stress levels will be high. Michael said look, there is always at least one idiot in every crowd so consider a minimum of one gun incident to occur with every one hundred miles of the evacuation area or route. Knowing who the target or perpetrator might be already could lead to the conclusion you might drive up on a full blown war zone. He also said remember when those animals get to the edge of the forest they go back to thinking about eating each other.
So, what’s going to happen when you reach the evacuation hubs or shelters? Uh all Russian speaking folks go to shelter 4 for translators, Mandarin Chinese or Korean go to Shelter 5, Non Bloods or Crips get shelter 6 and if you are a known gang member go here. Bull Shit! That’s too practical and politically incorrect to even consider for Emergency Managers to even consider Michael had fumed. Hell they separate the gangs in prison, why the hell don’t they think they exist outside of prison when it came to planning was beyond him.
F.E.M.A. in its great wisdom had a one size fits all approach when it came to planning. Yes, they spent a great deal of time trying to help provide for special needs people, but it was against their credo to look at affiliations.
“Hey!” Michael had loudly said to Randal. “Don’t you know that even some old folk’s homes have specific gang affiliations? It’s a plague upon our times and one that is a growing cancer.” He had concluded.
Michael was for taking a more holistic approach to emergency management rather than the command and control military model the current Department of Homeland security advocated. However, he was old school in his thoughts of being a soldier and respectful of the law enforcement community. He just wanted them to apply their power and influence in the areas of being peace officers versus an aggressive badge following some non-profile B.S… ‘Walks like a duck’ is all Michael had to say on that one and leave him and his grandma alone when going through airports and hassle someone else that more fits a terrorist profile. He had admonished.
Randal had sat on his picnic table in the backyard while drinking a beer a long time evaluating whether or not to take the trip he was on now. Gas prices were going to go up, but not for a week or so. Availability of gas would probably start the old gas lines again as soon as he got back. This might be the last Prepper Stock ever and he wasn’t going to miss it. Joyce had agreed we had to feed our need for info dissemination and even though crestfallen with her own losses was going to bring her messages of hope to our little meeting.
Misty Cluck and Mountain Man were probably the only true survivors going to show up at this prepper meeting. They would go on as before with their self-sufficient proactive lifestyle with just a hiccup here and there of not having store bought goods. HA! Randal mused to himself. I missed my chance to kid my buddies and ask them how much Creole seasoning Misty had stored up in her preps! I bet she could make it from scratch but I have never seen her do it. That reminded him, what the hell was the recipe for “Old Bay” seasoning? You douse a couple of Cornish hens with that and be sure to put about a half tablespoon in the cavity of the birds at 375` for 1 1/2 hours and you have something special for Sunday dinner.
Randal knew nothing of their community they lived in or their traditions. He just knew of the salt of the earth folk’s channel that LowBuck had turned him on to on YouTube, those type of folks who could and did replicate the best of traditional cooking and good spirited community engagement on a daily basis.
He could only hope to aspire to anything close to their self-sufficiency. He did not want the same hard scrabble lifestyle they had, where money might be low but spirits were high; he had had his day in the sun and had gotten too mentally and physically lazy for that. Not that he had not done both in his time on the earth, he just preferred to use his energy in plotting and scheming easier ways to make a living and was blessed his efforts afforded him a way to hire a neighbor rather depend on one to help with a task. Both options had merit, Randal just liked applying his talents to other tasks, but a part of him was always envious of Misty`s and Mountain Man’s true connection with the land. With the land, Mountain Man could do anything by using the finest forward and backward thinking applications of traditional skills applied to an evolving modern society and Misty took the cake in her home grown non –pretentious style that charmed all. She just said, like all the great preppers, I am here and want to share knowledge and comradely with all of you. LowBuck was the same way and the bonds of prepperdom had manifested to each by his or her giving to the community with courtesy and passion and wisdom.
Like so many folks who had gone down the prepper road they held a compassion for animals as well as people and this theme had prevailed in all their videos. Very few of their subscribers ever asked themselves or appreciated why in the hell these folks and others dedicate their fortunes and lifestyles to just to try to prepare others for an inevitable conclusion of “were they prepared, or not prepared” for the hard times coming?
Randal had brought up the fact in conversation that, in his opinion, by trying to help others we might just be reducing our own chances our survivability by teaching every thing we knew about surviving. Particularly he thought about this when he was discussing trapping and snaring or infantry tactics. By telling all of our secrets and tricks, it could realistically be possible to reduce ones own chances from this type of information dissemination and it could come back to bite us in the butt.
However, the thought of not sharing knowledge would be reprehensible for them all to consider so very little was held back. It was their nature and desire that they leave at least one human being on this earth with a skill or two that might make the difference for a young person to apply to a survival situation or to remember some historical “how it was” homesteader skill that might increase a community’s survivability.
Holocaust survivors used to designate one child to be the “Memory Candle” that would retain the memories of past generations. Randal and the rest of the preppers in the community kind of figured at this stage in their lives they had better start talking openly he had gue
ssed because such a vessel of knowledge in this technology age could be multiplied many times over from many efforts to educate preppers.
What was a odd thing about the prepper community, was that they in general as group were either learning from old books in the “Prepper Archeology” series GoatHollow produced and valuing it, or they were trying to balance old and new applications of theory with modern technological innovations applied to sustainable living as their theories for getting by in the long-term survival situations that may occur.
What was really neat about Mountain Man and Misty was that they were the ‘Hey! We are doing it.’ type of folks who were living the lifestyle daily and were of the ‘We always have done it this way and it works’ mindset that they generously shared with others.
They did so in order that the YouTube viewers could try to emulate their self-sufficient lifestyle to some degree and show the positive side of thinking about being self sufficient. Regardless of any detractors, most people agreed that these farmsteaders had a great life and outlook that contained volumes of experiences and skills, that unless you had access to all the great farmers of the depression era whispering thoughts into your brain, you would never realize in years of lifetimes all the information contained in their videos.
The ARkStorm was going to put the royal Damn-Damn on most of society very soon Randal had more than realized and his mind found it a very scary thought indeed. But he had said to himself, that this great pair of folks (Misty and Mountain Man,) would probably remain unchanged in their lifestyle except for some minor inconveniences and still be the smiling lovable folks they had always been regardless how much infrastructure broke down around them.
“Shit! Randal could easily envision for himself the possibility of giving up his meager acreage and being accepted to live and work on their land or someone like them, if things got as bad as he thought they were going to be...
But he had his own A.O. (Area of Operations) and his own family to care for now and this was just a fleeting thought. No one can depend on having a neighbor even close to the wisdom of Mountain Man and Misty’s clan or community. They themselves had realized this a long time back and so prepped for any possible danger it put them in. The couple did regular marksmanship skill training and should they ever be threatened by someone uninvited they were fully capable of repelling most aggressors.
Michael explained to his prepper friends that some of the houses would be burnt down, flooded or just plain gone in a SHTF situation, but he made you think about it before you had to and start planning for that kind of an event beforehand... It’s the new rules for a post-apocalyptic society he would say. You got to think about before they happen he had cautioned. There will always be war and another after that, so woes can be predictable. We always war with our emotions and what cards our own individual, as well as collective fates have dealt us that might affect our lives adversely.
He would ask can you be what he calls a “Possum Prepper?” One who can adopt and practice the idea of just eeking out a living similar to the days of the horse and buggy in an agricultural society? Having to depend on your neighbor to help and not hurt you?
Most people cannot or ever will. One of these days Randal was going to give a try at writing a book for homeless preppers. Not today though, they need to listen to the basics first of just being able to get by for a few months post disaster.
Their lucrative jobs will be no more for millions of Californians evacuating now. The times they will be a changing for everyone in America and this ARkStorm thing going on right now will be the tipping point or trigger for many more hardships to come. The fragile processes of growing, shipping, and stocking food to sell in stores is constantly susceptible to even the most minor complications.
13
EMP -- If it ever happens, you may regret surviving it
Preppers that store survival food already know how valuable their stockpiles can become, especially if a disaster or societal breakdown disrupts the flow of the normal food supply system. The preppers attending Prepper Stock all realized how close their own local store shelves are from being completely bare and took steps so that they would not be at a loss if they could help it.
Randal and LowBuck had discussed by phone that there would probably be a very low turnout of people for the festival for any number of reasons. Most preppers would probably rather stay at home for now and save their money, or they were out right now stocking up further while the prices were low. Naturally there was a lot of wisdom in this line of thinking but for them, they made the decision to go ahead and finish making the trip anyway. There was no telling how many preppers would be using the planned festival as a rally point for evacuations or to meet up with friends to discuss impacts of the latest disaster.
LowBuck said there was a surge of illegal immigrants coming over the border at the moment for a variety of reasons and the border patrol was having problems trying to cope. Hampering their efforts was power outages that knocked out sensors, gas shortages caused by the evacuees, staffing and man power issues to name a few burdens made the borders pretty porous at the moment.
The vast illegal immigrant population of southern California was also conducting its own mass exodus out of the state and trying to disappear into the heartland of America. Many cities and states were about to be direly impacted by having to feed and house these uncounted millions and trying to sort them out would be even more difficult because of California’s dumbass ruling of issuing them legitimate state drivers licenses. If someone is illegally in the country, how can you make it legal for them to be driving around here? California was already about broke from its massive welfare state mentality before the storm hit. Now for all practical proposes the state was bankrupt and Randal doubted if its pension funds would ever make another payment to a pretty hefty population of retirees.
The flood of illegal immigrants and refugees pouring over the border had a lot of concerns for Randal. That amount of people would certainly raise crime levels and demands for medical resources but what or who else might use this opportunity to bring in terrorist elements? It has always been widely known that the Middle East had many terror cells in South America just waiting for a chance to infiltrate the U.S.
Randal had told LowBuck we would probably be getting some very unwanted visitors besides the likes of the very problematic gangs like MS 13 making the streets a dangerous hell in some areas.
Thanks to several desperate weather and drought scenarios and spiking prices, the US is struggling to sustain the amount of food grown for a typical demand let alone what was about to occur now Joyce had brought up.
"There's a huge ripple effect" from the drought, said Joyce. "If a farmer is making a profit -- not a big one, but a little one, even -- then they're going to go to the grocery store. They're going to go to the implement dealer. They're going to go to the beauty shop. They're going to go to the Hallmark store. They're going to utilize the services that are in those communities. And if our farmers aren't buying anything, then the implement dealers suffer. The hardware store suffers. Everybody suffers.” She concluded.
Randal cautioned them both to avoid salad bars and public gatherings around government buildings for some time to come because he foresaw a high degree of risk involved.
“I can understand there is going to be a lot of protests going on regarding the government’s response to this disaster or someone not getting their food stamps on time but what’s this about salad bars?’ LowBuck said to Randal.
“Simply put all of California is going to have issues providing any kind of clean water so any vegetables that survive the flooding will have a high degree of risk for salmonella contamination or other diseases from the sewage plants being shut down or flooded. I am remembering an incident which was the first, and single largest bioterrorist attack in United States history. That was the 1984 Rajneeshee bioterrorist attack which caused the food poisoning of 751 individuals in The Dalles, Oregon area through the deliberate contamination of
salad bars at ten local restaurants with salmonella. Those fools had hoped to incapacitate the voting population of the city so that their own candidates would win the 1984 Wasco County elections. Now if someone was so petty then to try such a thing, imagine what might happen during this confusion if some different idiots somehow wanted to influence something much worse like the demise of American economy or trust in the government to provide proper response to a disaster. There are a lot of international as well as home grown terrorists that could try to take advantage of the CDC misdiagnosing or failing to monitor outbreaks of all kind of diseases they might attribute to the flooding versus a bioterrorism event. So heads up preppers and wash your hands and fresh veggies etc.” Randal advised the party line conversation with LowBuck and Joyce.
“That is some crazy shit to consider Randal, but I do see your point. I remember Russia planned to use a nuke EMP and then complicate matters with releasing smallpox in the cities during the cold war.” LowBuck stated knowledgeably.
“This storm has preppers and non-preppers alike considering their level of readiness when it comes to food and water I bet. But, it takes a weird emergency manger prepper like you to start putting the military or terrorism aspects of what did you call it “force multipliers” to a situation.” Joyce said considering the impact of his warnings.
“Speaking of EMP you got me thinking of further scenarios LowBuck. The power grid that is directly tied to California will already be having some cascading effects on the surrounding states as it shuts down or causes surges. Then things start a domino effect to the states surrounding them. Now if a rogue state like North Korea or Iran wanted to truly screw with us they could cyber-attack our infrastructure and cause a lot of mayhem and confusion while our defenses were down or the electrical grid had its own inherent problems of shutdowns that could easily exasperate the problems we will already be experiencing. Take into account Al Qaida already has a ghost fleet of tankers and freighters at their disposal to sneak into the coast and pop off a “Scud in a Bucket” and we would be shit out of luck and back to living in the 1800`s with the electrical grid taken down for years to come.” Randal concluded.