Are You Prepared For What’s Coming?
How Horrific Will It Be For The Non-Prepper?
Be Informed
May 12th, 2012
SHTFplan
This article has been made available by regular SHTFplan contributor Be Informed.
Editor’s
Note: You have no doubt had your own set of issues dealing with
friends and family members that simply don’t see the writing on the
wall. The following article may serve to assist you in convincing those
who simply don’t know, don’t want to know, don’t care, or have never
even thought to contemplate. Some of the scenarios outlined below may
be frightening, as they should be, because when it hits the fan
millions of people will be thrown into desperation with no hope of a
solution. Be Informed provides a variety of point-by-point details that
may (and hopefully will) convince the non-prepared individual to at
least insulate themselves with the basic necessities. The consequences
for not doing so, as you’ll see, are severe and often deadly.
I
have become personally so disenchanted with the way people fail to
prep. People still don’t understand how important it is to put away. I
have gotten into arguments over this and had cretins call me a fool
because I put away food, water, and supplies. I thought about this and
the frustration that other preppers have with this laid back idiotic
attitude that there is no need for preparation. There are good people
that just can’t/won’t start preparing. They have the money to do so, but
just don’t want to. Many have only seen what happens to non-preppers
on TV, but it still doesn’t make an impact.
In this article I
detail some hard core realities to show just how awful it will be for
those that don’t prep. Every one of these scenarios is something that
has occurred to the non-prepper throughout history. While strong images
come to mind, the purpose is to jar some people out of their inaction
and into action before it is too late.
Preppers are good people
and care much about those around them, and unless something does jar
those around them that choose not to prep, their own survival chances
could be reduced. For every bit of food, water, ammunition, or supplies
you sacrifice to the non-prepper, the fewer irreplaceable supplies are
left for you and your family in a crisis situation. It is hoped that
the following can help certain people put into TRUE perspective just
how horrific it will be for those that don’t prepare.
Here are the awful consequences for those refusing to prep.
As
the world continues to decay at multiple facets, the common person has
and continues to be lulled into a sense that everything is improving
and will continue to for the distant future. After all, to them
unemployment has peaked out and will drop until everyone that wants to
work will easily be able to find good paying work, North Korea is no
threat because all their long range “bottle rockets” fizz out,
sanctions will eventually make Iran give up their nuclear program, oil
prices will start going down after June or so, Europe will bail out
Greece and Spain and everyone else, and U.S. debt will eventually come
under control.
After 2012 everyone that has prepared themselves
will go back to more “sensible” lives. “Good times are coming”,
baseball season is here, let’s get back to watching some more
crackerjack news.
It is amazing how people become good
conversationalists with most others discussing all the gossip related
news, while becoming mentally tranquilized into a totally deceptive
state of denial of truly dangerous issues of the times. It’s the blind
leading the blind… right off the cliff.
Rather than dealing with
harsh reality, people surround themsleves with easy to digest material
that can be talked about without directly influencing anyone’s lives.
Meaningless chatter. Even for those unwilling to even think to
prepare for a societal catastrophic event, there is also no desire to
even face the extreme possibility of a sudden loss of one’s employment.
A personal SHTF.
Look at some of the terrible personal pain
experienced in America right now – and it hasn’t even hit the fan on a
grand scale. Those people who have lived it up on credit, who failed to
put much of anything away for a rainy day, who’ve lost their job, and
who eventually lost their unemployment benefits are experiencing the
first level of collapse. This is happening to millions of people in our
own country, all around us, as we speak.
These Americans, who
once enjoyed the luxuries that modern living had to offer, are now at
their wits end, with very little hope for a return to their previous
lives. They are no longer able to pay most or any of their bills. Many
have to humiliatingly turn to others for help to pay for food, or worse,
to obtain old, unhealthy and poor tasting food from locally funded
food banks. Their credit cards are totally worthless. Many have been
evicted from their homes and have uprooted their families to live
either on the street, in tent cities, with relatives, or have been
forced to live at homeless shelters, They’ve have had their vehicles
repossessed, or simply can’t afford the gasoline anymore. Their living
conditions often make it difficult, if not impossible, to look
presentable for job interviews. For many, the life of stability they
knew just a short while ago is gone, replaced with fear and a constant
stress to the point of nervous breakdown.
A personal economic
meltdown is confined to the individual or family, or at worst a few
families. The human civilization remains intact and so do society’s
safety nets.
With food assistance, rental assistance, homesless
shelters, and family to turn to, even the most destitute are almost
always able to find some sort of help – however menial.
It is no
wonder with these known assistance programs, then, that people have
forgotten or never thought to consider what happens IF and WHEN human
civilization goes through a strong enough SHTF event. If that happens
on a mass scale what happens to everyone that needs help that has not
prepared ahead of time? What happens when governments are in such
total disarray or destroyed altogether that they can’t help even if
they wanted to?
The media and others have portrayed the good
people that sacrifice much if not all “luxuries” of life to prepare
themselves and their family and friends for extreme times, as chicken
littles. Those who have made the choice to store up emergency food,
water, and other necessities to avoid extreme life threatening risks,
including suffering horribly during and after a widespread SHTF event,
are laughed at and ridiculed often for “wasting” their lives on
delusional paranoia.
But who is delusional? Those who see the
signs around them and understand how vulnerable the system is, or those
who believe that things never change, that politicians have their best
interests at heart, and that if the worst happens the government will
be there to provide everything they may need?
How many have
considered the dire consequences of their failure to prepare in the
event that the infrastructure and everything a country’s people depend
on totally collapses?
The misery from long term unemployment and
lack of money is like a walk in the park compared to the severe
anguish and dangerous conditions that await those who have failed to
prepare for the aftermath of a large scale cataclysm. The “minor”
problems of unemployment that seem extremely major and painful to most
today should serve as a wake up call to what life will be like when
something much, much worse happens – when those proverbial safety nets
are no longer there to catch us.
Many preppers have become
deeply frustrated at those around them, especially those that truly
mean something to them, because they simply refuse to put away anything
at all for emergencies. The prepper is usually a person that cares a
lot and it is often difficult for them to take a tough stance towards
the people that they care about. However, unless someone changes the
habits of those people that fail to get ready, decisions will need to
be made, and they won’t be easy.
The choice of what the prepared
prepper should do will boil down to either either adding these people
to their own circle or survival group and reduce the group’s safety,
supplies and self sufficiency, OR, they will have to let the
non-prepper fend for themselves. This is a very personal choice, and
each of us will need to decide based on our own morals, ethics and
personal relationships.
As a last ditch effort, discussing the
following scenarios with the non-prepper may help them understand what
life will be like without what has sustained them so comfortably for so
long.
This is the hard reality the non prepper needs to understand:
Without power the water company cannot get water to their faucets.
Without water dehydration occurs within 24 hours. Dehydration causes
much suffering before death.
Toilets in homes, unless they
have an incineration toilet that still need power to work, don’t flush
without water. Where will they go to the bathroom and then where will
they dispose of human waste?
There will be no clean water
available anywhere, especially in major cities, and they cannot live
more than about three days without it.
Drinking dirty and polluted water will make them incredibly sick and accelerate the dehydration process.
Polluted water must be purified and that means having a good
filter, bleach or other disinfectant, or fuel and something to boil
water with.
Understand just how fragile the power and the
infrastructure is that pumps water to the public. A breakdown in our
power infrastructure or a cyber attack against utility systems will
render them useless.
A single event can rapidly lead to a
cascade of other events that would certainly collapse almost, if not,
everything. This is why major snow storms, hurricanes or solar events
in the past have affected millions of people in an entire region all at
once.
A single, seemingly unimportant event may become
quite terrible as its repercussions spread; this can include a far and
away disaster.
Understand that the economies of the world are so interwoven that when one major economy falls it affects everyone.
Not having any food in the house means that if the stores are
emptied suddenly in a bad enough situation that there will be no food
available for a long period of time afterward. Recent history during
disasters around the world has shown that stores can literally be
emptied in minutes.
Think about how totally horrible the
feeling of being very hungry is and what circumstances would cause one
to be desperate enough to eat anything.
ALL stores can be closed instantly under martial law.
Understand that you may not be able to purchase anything after it starts, especially with any credit cards.
Understand the complexity of food and water distribution; breaks in
these chains can stop anything from getting to the people.
What life will be like if no toilet paper is stored?
Understand that without light sources, the night will be pitch black, often with zero visibility.
There will be no communications, other than probably martial law
type of instructions over the radio, that is if they have batteries for
the radio.
Other than ham and shortwave radio, any
information that is available will be sent out by the government as
filtered propaganda that “they” want everyone to hear.
Without power consider what it will be like to not have any heat to stay
warm, or air conditioned air to stay cooler – with no way of
alleviating the situation.
Travelling will likely be by foot or bicycle, as their will be no fuel and roadways may be blocked.
Realize that ANY travel outside of the home or neighborhood will be
extremely dangerous as ANYONE who moves becomes a target.
Non preppers will be pushed way beyond their limit because of lack of supplies.
The non prepper must realize their government does not really care
about them individually, that they are a mere number and help will
likely not come from them.
They have to figure out somewhere
to get food. This can mean wild plants which they must know how to
identify as safe, or risk poisoning themselves.
They have to
understand that when we refer to “having no food” it doesn’t mean not
having the food they are used to enjoying, it means no food to eat at
all.
They have to understand that if they are fortunate
enough to have any running water, they will probably have to bathe in
cold water for lack of stored fuel to heat water.
They have
to realize that the very strange and totally unexpected is going to be
all around them, made that much worse because of lack of any reliable
self defense stores or skills.
They might have to remain on the run constantly because of looking for water and food.
They must understand that bad will be magnified magnitudes to
living misery because of lack of food, water, and other necessary items
that they took for granted for so long.
Okay, now comes the
“truly ugly and unthinkable” life that most, if not all, people that
have failed and refused to prepare themselves will deal with. Clear
vivid visualization is key here for anyone that ho hums the idea of
prepping.
What horrors they will likely face after a cave-in of
their nation’s economy, war, geophysical upheaval, or whatever crisis
is bad enough to disturb or stop their nation from working and
functioning? There are plenty of very potential SHTF events that are
simply awaiting a catalyst to trigger them.
The Non-Prepper
(NP) has to realize right off the bat that 911 and other emergency
calls in will be met with silence or some recording telling the caller
not to panic.
The (NP) that has no reliable self defense
that can stop an attacker, will not get help from public services, and
will become a victim of rape, assault, torture, or murder.
The (NP) that has no reliable self defense and will not only be at the
mercy of criminal elements, but also have to contend with many
desperate animals, some with rabies.
The (NP) that has no
food will either have to find food or be ready to beg for food or
worse, like sacrificing their bodies or other horrible acts or things
to get a bite of food.
The (NP) will have to go through the
worst, most rancid conditions of garbage to just maybe find what they
should have stored up.
The (NP) will go through panic and
near if not total psychosis looking for any water source right before
their bodies begin shutting down during advanced stages of dehydration.
The (NP) will go through unbearable trauma when their children and
other people around them are crying, screaming, and suffering with
intense hunger pains in their stomachs.
The (NP) will have
to deal with the awful stench of rotting wastes from many sources
because they have not taken the effort to even store up waste disposal
plastic bags.
The (NP) will have disease and pathogens
everywhere, not only because they have no trash disposal means, but
because they haven’t prepared how to deal with trash and waste.
The (NP) will have to live in very primitive conditions after
things around them deteriorate rapidly, because they have neglected
putting away anything to make life more bearable.
The (NP)
and those around them will likely develop all sorts of infective skin
rashes from the lack of insight of storing up toilet paper. Imagine
the smell for a moment.
The (NP) will have to handle biting
insects and other vermin that will collect amongst the filth that will
pile up. No pest control stored up along with no other supplies.
The (NP) will have no way of treating sickness certain to follow a
SHTF event, no first aid and likely no training or knowledge about how
to treat the ill on top of this.
The (NP) will have sick and
dying people around them because of not being able to treat minor
injuries. Didn’t even stock up on disinfectives. Unsanitary
conditions lead to infection.
The (NP) and others around
them will experience much grief as they watch helplessly as their
family members literally die of starvation right in front of their
eyes.
The (NP) won’t believe how desperate hunger drives
them and those that mean everything to them to “trying” to eat food
that taste so bad it gags them and comes back up.
The (NP)
will likely have family and friends around them that have also not
prepared committing suicide because they can’t take it any longer.
The (NP) will witness some of those people around them lose any
sense of civilized humanity in them and behave like wild animals after
some time from lack of necessities.
The (NP) and family
members, maybe friends also, will at some point end up barbecuing or
eating raw the family dog, cat, bird, any pet dear to everyone for food.
The (NP) will likely get into physical fights with other family
members over any scrap of food available as rational thoughts are lost
to wanton hunger.
The (NP) as many other (NP’s) will
eventually go out of any safety of their home looking for food and or
water, become disorientated and lost, and die a hard death somewhere.
The (NP) that is “lucky” enough to find some government help will
likely have to almost sell their soul, probably all their freedom, to
get tiny rations – just enough to keep them alive.
The (NP)
will see widespread violence and barbarism that will shock them to the
core and will wish that they had purchased some form of firearm and
stocked up on ammunition.
The (NP) better get used to
attempting to explain the children and other adults why they wasted all
that money on junk, and didn’t buy any emergency food and other
supplies.
The (NP), no matter how positive they are will drop
quickly into depression and lose willpower as having nothing to hold
on to does this, along with lack of any nutrition.
The (NP)
will feel the worst guilt imaginable as they hear their family moaning
in anguish from lack of anything to eat, knowing they could have done
something to prepare.
The (NP) will most likely not see the
rebuilding and recovery after A SHTF event. They will, like almost all
NP’s, be statistics. Some will die hours or a day before help arrives.
The (NP) from lack of food, drinking bad water, no light at night,
the horrid smells, no good self defense, the overall horror, will often
be paralyzed with fear and despair, blank stare.
The (NP)
is totally helpless after SHTF, will have to rely totally on charity of
those prepared to live. They will take all sorts of desperate
measures likely to get them shot. They’ll attempt to eat hazardous
foods like an animal trapped in a house will do, and get sick and
suffer much before dying. The (NP) will likely die (ugly and hard) as
they lived, unprepared for anything.
If we were to use one
single word to describe the torments that someone who “chooses” not to
prepare will go through after a true you know what hits the fan it
would be “PREVENTABLE”.
Almost every single person, even a very
poor person, has the capacity to put away emergency food and supplies.
Even homeless people have stashes of something just in case things
become so bad that the normal hand outs and thrown-away items dry up.
Many people with good sources of income don’t even have an extra can of
food or any water put away at all. This is stupidity beyond words.
Every
day lightweight disasters happen in all parts of the world that
disturb services enough that people are confined to their homes for a
certain amount of time. While recovery is short, people are still
uncomfortable during these times. Look what happens after a power
outage at night and you will be mystified at how many homes are
completely dark for hours. People have not even bought an extra couple
of candles or any battery operated light sources. Even in well-to-do
neighborhoods you may hear only a lone generator going after a
blackout. This lack of preparedness is truly frightening and plays
itself out again, again, and again every time services are disrupted
for minor to major reasons. It’s as if there is something wrong with
storing extra food, water, and supplies.
Even after “lessons”
played out to what happens to those non-prepared, most people still
feel that it just cannot happen to them, or won’t ever happen to them
again. It should be proof enough to people what happens to those
unprepared after disasters simply by looking at those that have gone
through it firsthand. The difference, though, comes in that these
disasters have had recovery periods and help from others. Even Haiti
received some help and conditions remain putrid over there.
After
a TRUE SHTF, it is presumable that government help and others coming
to the aid of those in need WON’T happen for long periods of time.
During that time those that have chosen to not put food, water, and
necessities away are going to be in life threatening positions. Most
people just don’t get that when the supermarket shelves are empty they
will stay that way for an extended period. When the utilities go down,
especially water, it may be weeks, months, or longer before they come
back, if ever. Without what someone needs to survive each day, it is
not going to magically appear, and depending on the goodwill of others
to feed them and sacrifice their own family’s survival chances is a
terrible choice.
People MUST know what life will be like after
SHTF in mega fashion if they refuse to prepare. This is NOT new.
Terrible events have plunged people into the deepest levels of
desperation and hopelessness, and they will happen again and again.
While
the above consequences to the non-prepper are extremely abysmal for
anyone to read, the simple fact of the matter is they have already
happened time and time again to those that have nothing put away.
People have resorted to cannibalism and gone to levels of primitive
savage behavior out of shear desperation and out of literally losing
their minds to the physical depletion of food and water that keeps the
physical body operating. Sometimes showing the extreme severity and
results of a person’s lack of action, such as failure of the simple act
of putting away extra food, water, and supplies, can be the kick in
the complacency that they need.
It’s really easy to put away
food and supplies. All one has to do is add a little bit of extra food
to the grocery cart for long-term storage. Over time this adds up to a
well stocked pantry of supplies.
There is something that is in a
can of food that everyone can eat and enjoy the taste of, so talk to
family members about their nutritional preferences and start stocking
up. Toilet paper and other supplies that really don’t have any
expiration date can be put away and forgotten about ’til needed.
There
MUST be common sense and intelligence to see what happens IF they
don’t stock up for the future. There has to be the DESIRE to get
started, and this is the real problem with so many.
Once
started, however, prepping becomes a type of life saving routine or
positive lifestyle habit. It is easy and can and will save one from
misery. It may save their life and the lives of their family from ruin
when SHTF, which is almost inevitably going to happen someday. Every
month and year that goes by without a true SHTF event, makes it more
likely that it will happen. Basic statistical chance shows this to be
the case, but people continue the same pattern of behavior that has led
them to the same devastation countless time before.
For those
preppers that have people around them that refuse to prepare, you can
at least have some degree of solace knowing that you tried to show the
non-prepping person(s) what not having anything will mean to them and
their families.
All we can do is try. Once we’ve given it our
best shot, all we can do is let those who have been warned about the
direness of the possibilities live their lives the way that want to.
They will, unfortunately, live in a world of regret and suffering if
the nation and the world falls apart around them.
To every
action there is an opposite equal reaction. Preppers will see their
efforts have been more than worth it. Objects that are motionless tend
to remain motionless and non-preppers will find there are horrific
consequences for their lack of effort and motion to put away “life
insurance” preps for themselves and their families.
Author: Be Informed
Date: May 12th, 2012
Website: http://www.SHTFplan.com