Saturday, September 7, 2013

What Happens If Your Friends Change ?

               

 

  Those of you who have read an abundance of my posts here know that I am not a proponent of bunkers.  I believe that most families can formulate a good disaster plan using some notebooks, backpacks, documents or copies of documents, using my book or other sources as a guide. I believe that most families can formulate a disaster plan centered on either sheltering-in-place or family evacuation. For most disasters a good plan to shelter in place or evacuate one's family is sufficient.  Although, I will concede that some families, in tornado areas might benefit from a cellar or underground shelter, I don't think it's practical or intelligent for most people to sink eighty-five thousand or higher on a home underground, either accessed from their home, or somewhere around it.
                 This said,  I do have friends who had sufficient money to do this, and had business interests which made it possible for them to built a bunker underground suitable for their families to spend, perhaps a week at a time in.  One of these people, I will call Bob was very proud of the bunker he and his wife designed for their family and then had installed by a company which not only agrees to keep their clients confidential, but destroys their files several months following job completion.   Bob was so proud of his bunker that he showed it to a lot of his friends when it was completed.  He even showed those in his hunt club. He was proud of the steps he had taken to keep his family safe and his intention had been to encourage others.  He did not consider all of the ramifications should the situation go sideways.
                   I have mentioned before that even in the lead up to a war or a potential disaster or financial collapse, there will be people who lose perspective or even lose their minds. One of Bob's most trusted buddies has very recently lost his home, and he and his wife are separating.  Bob's friend is now in a rage the likes of which Bob has never seen.  His friend has made threats which frighten Bob.   Now Bob and his family have a bunker and food supplies, and a former friend of his is angry, jealous and potentially out of control.  All of this has happened BEFORE civil unrest, a major disaster in their area, or a financial collapse of some type.  Now someone who could be an enemy of Bob's knows exactly what he has, what and where his weapons are in his house, and where his bunker and emergency food is located.  Even if Bob's friend does not come back in an emergency, then people his friend has told or his hunt club might.
                     It is not my intention to make you paranoid. I do think that some people should be trusted with where you are, where you would go in an emergency, etc.  I do think that there is value in incorporating people we trust in our emergency plans.  However, we need to be really careful when we do this.  Chances are, people you know from the internet are internet acquaintances and not your friends.  Sometimes a close friendship from the internet can develop, but this can take years.  Think very carefully when deciding what to disclose to both friends and family.
                  I made errors when I was younger in letting acquaintances know what I had stored, and I lost all of it when Hurricane Isabelle isolated where we were living then for two weeks.  I never got any of those supplies back and no one offered to help pay to restock when the emergency was over. It was a well learned lesson.
                I do have trustworthy people who know something about our emergency plans now. However, these are people who have the same level of supplies as I do, if not much more. I have known them for twenty and twenty-five years.  When things go sideways for any reason, most people can be counted upon to act in their own and their family's best interests, not yours.  For this reason, I never ever trade ammo.



15 comments:

Gorges Smythe said...

"Silence is golden," goes the old saying.

mizdeb said...

Look up the old Twilight Zone episode about a family with a bunker. False alarm emergency and all the neighbors go nuts!!

Angela said...

Amen to that!

JaneofVirginia said...

I had forgotten that episode ! I think I saw that for the first time as a child. It's probably so deep in my psyche that I had forgotten the actual episode ! Thanks for posting.

JaneofVirginia said...

I also like "Loose lips sink ships" or bunkers as the case may be !
Thanks for posting, Gorges.

JaneofVirginia said...

Thanks, Angela ! You would be surprised how many people do trade ammo. I don't have enough that I could, and I think it's a really bad policy anyway.

Sunnybrook Farm said...

Very good advice, I have been thinking of preparing a secret storage area, not a bunker just a place for supplies. I don't like the idea of a bunker other than a storm cellar type of thing. Thanks.

Gorges Smythe said...

I've read that ammo and whiskey are the two best trade items for hard times. Guess it may depend on your area and your perspective. ;-)

Harry Flashman said...

It's probably unwise to be too open about some aspects of your preparedness planning, outside of a very select circle of trusted friends.

JaneofVirginia said...

I think that can be a good plan depending upon where you are. I keep supplies in my basement and some in the garage. Since I found a giant black snake in the concrete generator house we built near the parking area for the RV quite a distance from the house, I haven't been very gung-ho about structures on dirt or in the ground. I worry that they would either flood or be occupied by snakes of one type or another. Of course this year we have had eight or nine inches of rain in excess of what is normal.

JaneofVirginia said...

I personally will never trade ammo because in my opinion it's too easy for someone to use it on you and take back what he traded to you in exchange for it. I will trade eggs, apples, pears, clean or sterile gauze, depending upon how much I have, and wine or liquor. We don't drink but I keep it as gifts for friends and trading items. Other than that, anything else we grow we need right here.

JaneofVirginia said...

That's true. My plans change rather regularly depending upon a new strategy I am trying, or for example, when the mechanical room flooded and destroyed a bunch of preparedness supplies earlier in the year. We are not nearly as prepared as we were before that.

Harry Flashman said...

What is a mechanical room? I never heard that term before.

JaneofVirginia said...

When my husband and I designed the house we live in now, we knew from the last time we did so, that we needed certain rooms. Because this house has a secondary electrical system which allows a generator or a marine battery array with a whole house inverter, we needed a specialized room for this. Ours also includes a tank for the well, a hot water heater, and the NID (telephone network interface device, which we chose to have put INSIDE the home so no one can cut any wires on the security system. It also has a box which regulates the water which leaves the house and goes to the barn and the dog kennel. This isn't a utility room because the utility room is on the next floor above it. When the plans came back from the architect, he had marked this room the "Mechanical Room". There is a Disaster Supply Room just beside it, which turned out not to be the most fabulous idea in the world. LOL

Kristin said...

This is why I don't understand the show "Doomsday Preppers". Why would you go to all the effort just to tell millions of people what you have?