Survival Groups Miss The Point

James Figueroa wrote an interesting piece about a big survival group in LA that is getting ready for something bad to happen. Some of the members think that 2012 is the end of the world, but others are prepping for a different disaster. Either way, I think that they really miss the point of it all. Families in our country have traditionally been prepared for emergencies. It is only within the last fifty years or so that we got used to grocery stores always having more food on the shelves than we could eat, limitless electricity on tap and  24 hour gas stations ready to filler’ up. But, with industries that run on just in time delivery systems, there is often no inventory “in the back” to draw upon if something bad happens.

During a large-scale event, everyone in a state or region can be affected. Our goal should not be for you and 149 of your buddies to be ready to fend off your hungry neighbors. Rather, we should be working to get everyone in our neighborhoods up to a basic level of preparedness that makes fighting the kid next door for a box of Corn Flakes unnecessary. It would not be all that hard for most households to have enough supplies on hand to take care of their own basic needs for a few weeks.