Back in the day (in this case “the day” was from the early eighties until the early nineties) I used to contribute articles to a small survivalist magazine called “Australasian Survivor” run out of Canberra by a couple of mates of mine. This particular article was printed in issue 43 (Feb 1990). A short time after it was sent out to the subscribers, somebody at the Sydney Morning Herald got hold of it and decided to lampoon the magazine in general and this article in particular. They missed totally all my attempts at humour and took all of it as dead serious. I sent the paper a letter which effectively said “OK, we all got a good laugh, how about letting me submit something serious on the subject”. The silence was deafening. Here is the article reproduced in full, make up your own mind!
If you are reading this magazine it is odds on that you believe that sooner or later the wheel is going to come off the wagon in a big way. You are also probably preparing for it, putting away food, water, medical supplies, cooking equipment and fuel, lighting gear – the list goes on and on. But are you training for it? By this I do not mean spending $2000 on a course to teach you how to survive in the bush with only a blunt razor blade for company. This is something you can do in your own time, in your own house at little or no cost.
The process goes something like this:
- Pick a scenario you consider likely to occur,
- Run a simulation,
- Debrief everyone involved noting strengths and weaknesses,
- Correct perceived weaknesses,
- Run a second simulation.
Let’s look at these points in a little more detail:
1. Pick a Scenario you consider likely – this depends on whether you see the end as economic, nuclear or whatever, but the big picture of why is a little irrelevant as most crashes have features in common. So it makes sense to pick a number of likely results of a major catastrophe and run the training exercise on them, e.g. power blackout, food shortage, interruption to water/sewerage services or communications blackout. Once you have decided on the big picture, draw up a list of sub-scenarios you wish to train for and attack them one at a time until you feel proficient at all of them. If you feel time is short, prioritise. For the purposes of this example, let’s say you pick “power blackout” first.
2. Run a simulation – having decided on your scenario you now spring a surprise on the family. Make it 6:30pm on a midweek winter’s night with the kids watching TV and the lady of the house cooking tea. You walk through the door and yell “power blackout!” and pull all the house fuses. The judge would say “justifiable homicide” if she kills you! The point worth noting is that all this should be worked out with the family beforehand (the first time anyway). Picking the worst case scenario will probably teach you the most but won’t win you any friends in the household for doing it. When you have everyone’s cooperation and an agreeable time do yell “blackout!” and pull the fuses, no cheating! Then watch, and participate in, the panic to cope. This sort of exercise will do two things:
a. Show up any deficiencies in your preparations, and
b. Give you an appreciation of how well you operate and what it would be like under various adverse conditions.
3. Debrief – after you have run your exercise and the lights are back on sit everyone down and collect each of their impressions, both good and bad making sure to write them down for later analysis. For our power blackout scenario the following points came up –
a. No easy access to emergency lighting (candles in the closet and couldn’t find them in the dark.
b. Gas cooker needed to finish cooking tea was easily accessible but the gas bottle was empty and the spares down the shed were difficult to locate without light.
c. The kerosene heater which was in use obviously did not go out when the power did so at least we didn’t freeze to death.
d. After the initial excitement the kids found it dead boring as the TV, stereo, radios etc run on 240v power.
e. No fridge or freezer (major panic!)
4. Correct perceived weaknesses – go through your list and analyse your results. Pat yourself on the back for things that went well and start a program to fix those that didn’t. Let’s look at some answers for the power blackout problems –
a. There are a number of answers to lack of lighting e.g. a rechargeable torch or two kept in ready access say, to the kitchen and living room. A sprinkling of hurricane lamps kept full of kerosene and each with a supply of matches might be cheaper but not as easy or just move the candles to a more accessible place, and don’t forget the matches.
b. Ensure the gas bottles on the gas cooker are always full or consider a cooker of some description (gas, kero, metho – not electric!) to be dedicated to blackout service only and located in an appropriate place fully fuelled, with matches.
c. You were obviously very smart to get that kero heater (pat on the back).
d. Entertainment may be as simple as battery radio with spare batteries (essential for news anyway, consider short wave capability) or as complex as solar cells, batteries and inverter to run TV set, stereo, video etc depending on your time, money and ability .
e. Lack of fridge or freezer may be overcome by the above mentioned solar set up, a petrol or diesel 240v generating set of even switching the fridge to kero. Generally refrigeration is an expensive problem to fix. The interim of PET bottles full of water frozen in the freezer help it run more efficiently and extend the time to total defrost.
5. Re-run another simulation – no warning this time. They have had one time to practice and hopefully you have ironed out most of the bugs in your system. Some new bugs will show up but they can be fixed for next time. Once you feel that your family and your system can cope reasonably well with a blackout, and then try another scenario – turn off the water supply while your wife is in the middle of washing her hair. Nobody said this stuff was easy!
This approach takes some time and effort if little cost but it means that you and your family will be better prepared physically and psychologically if the balloon ever does go up.
