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Emergency Preparedness exercise?

Whether caused by sudden unemployment, natural disaster, stupid politicians or whatever, if you went outside right now and turned off your electricity and water and gas and pretended you couldn't use your car, could you survive for 2 hours? 2 days? 2 weeks?

What would the answer be in winter?
@Becky:
With the electricity off the store cash registers (scanners tracking inventory) won't work and the dolts there can't make change without them. With no price stickers on each item, just finding the total would be chaos. Also, once the shelves are cleaned out by the unprepared, if the trucks don't come every day, they've got nothing.

PS: Hospitals are in the same "just in time" supply mess. They depend on a constant flow of delivery trucks. They have no big storerooms of supplies, that ties up $ and space. If the trucks stop today, they start running out of stuff tomorrow.
But yes, bicycles are allowed in this game.

Public Comments

1. FEMA CAMPS

2. i could survive for a while but unfortunately i'd get arrested because if i were to wander into a shopping centre and start helping myself to what i wanted (as you do in such situations) and told them it was an emergency preparedness exercise i think they'd call the feds.

3. Do I get to ride my bike to the grocery store? If not...I wouldn't do too well as my garden is not producing yet and I have no stored water.

4. I like your style. You serve up common sense questions. You make the rise and
fall of the Obamanation think. What the average city dweller never considers is
what happens when the corner store is out of food. What happens, when the
services you take for granted are NO more. These lame sorry ass losers who
depend on government and services to exist will turn into roving gangs of losers
who have no options but to attack and steal what they need to live.

We have a saying in our world of surviors, YOUR WELCOME TO TRY and COME and
GET IT.

Farmers Ranchers Growers of Food items will always survive. You folks in the city
will become the new terrorist of the country. And will be treated as such, Unless you
take on a posture of working together to take care of one another, IF not you will
pile up and smell really bad.

5. With 20 gal. of gas for the generator at minimum fuel use, I'm OK for about 6 weeks. In winter you can add 10 more weeks. Minimum power will run 'fridge, fan, computer & recharge phone. Have a bicycle with rear baskets. Want a well. Have a solar powered calculator. NEED MORE TOILET PAPER ! (Can Never have too much toilet paper)

6. How long do you want me to be able to survive.
We have food to eat (Pantry) a fireplace that could serve as a cooker, iron wear to cook with, Gas grills outside patio, spare tank of Gas for it. We have game up the road with Deer, turkey, fishing right on the waterfront.
I could rough it on what I have for about 3-4 months.
Awe to stay home, no tv, no computer, battery operated radio, candles and flashlights.
We had a 2 week power outage here with snow storm in 1993, buried food in a snow cooler and ice coolers.
I can survive I am ex SF.

7. As long as the government didn't want us to pay taxes it might work out.
The power was out here for 9 hours just yesterday because of a storm that went through.
Used to go tent camping a lot when I was younger then got married and he had to have all the luxuries of home. I would miss electricity first because the freezer would thaw out and there went all my food. Since I live in the country I keep pretty stocked up because I don't like to drive miles to the grocery store for every little thing. The power was out for 13 hours one cold winter day with the wind howling at a -20 wind chill and it only got down to 58 deg in my house. Went to bed with lots of blankets on that night. I can make a fire in the back yard fire pit to cook my food and hide out behind the sheds for a bathroom. When the power goes out we don't have a water pump for running water either. So the best thing to do is be prepared. I bet I could survive at least a month. Are you getting ready for Armageddon?

8. couple weeks easy.

9. I follow the FEMA guidelines and can manage on my own for at least 5 days in reasonable comfort. After 5 days then we will be smelly and really tired of cold canned food but we can renmain healthy for about two more weeks.

However - you would be surprised at the level of prepardness and planning that already exists for major emergencies. After 9/11 ther was a major revamp of US emergency prepardness and planning and after Hurricane Katrina a careful post-mortem was conducted and many planning and prepardness changes implemented.

For example - warehouses full of emergency rations, bottled water and medical supplies are located just outside of every major metropolitan area. In the case of a majoe epidemic - there are detailed plans as to how to distribute medications and vaccines - and what people have priority. (One of the groups with priority are workers involved in food distributition.)