Right now, in my home town...

Just to illustrate how quickly something unexpected can happen, take this example from my home town, where people are currently without electricity, food, water or fuel.

Two days ago, a massive wind storm hit most of Indiana, Ohio, West Virginia, Virginia, Maryland and DC. Millions of people have no electricity due to fallen trees. Appalachian Power is saying that the outage will last for days, and even weeks in some areas. The unprepared are facing many problems: food spoilage, lack of running water (modern pumps run off of electricity), stores are closed, ATMs are closed, cards are unusable and modern fuel pumps are not working. All of that is on top of the high temperatures (seriously threatening the elderly). The older fuel pumps at some stations still work, but have lines of vehicles waiting for hours. It has only been two days and people are already desperate and fights have broken out in many areas where people are competing for resources.

Most people do not store extra food, water and fuel. This could get very serious, very fast, and they call us Preppers the crazy ones...

How would the complete loss of these resources affect your family? Mine could do without these things for months based on what I have prepared.

So much for the "it can't happen to me" mentality.

It is wiser to learn from other people's mistakes, than to make them yourself.

Links:

http://earthsky.org/earth/videos-and-images-violent-us-storm-of-june-29-2012

http://disastermapping.wordpress.com/2012/06/29/6292012-derecho-long-lived-wind-event/

The 8 years I had my boat in Biloxi there were 8 hurricanes and a bunch of tropical storms about as bad. All the things you listed occurred.
We joked about buying up bread and milk because a storm was brewing but that is the first things to go, and lunch meat.
I saw my friends go into stare mode a couple of days before the storms came ashore. They had all been thru them before and acted as if it was no big deal. I showed up in survival mode as the newbee ready to prepare my boat and move to a safer location, prepare for the worst, be thankful for less.
Then when the **** hit the fan they all acted surprised if it was worse than the last one?
As the intensity increased more than in the past I was able to muster up some interest for them to all get together with a plan and back each other up.
Now sadly most of them lost their boats and home in Katrina's tidal surge of 30 feet.
I pulled my boat the afternoon before Katrina or I doubt I would have it now.
It was loaded with provisions and renewable 12v power battery power and a generator if I had to live aboard and it survived. We robbed all of that while I was staying at a friends house.
Until you see food stores in the good ole USA with empty shelves of almost everything you don't realize that it can happen here.
I can see how things could get bad really quick when the unprepared get desperate.

Lots of folks without power. And very hot. I run in the sort of prepared category -generator, water, good old manual water filter, hiking food, propane, bow, firearms.... But only good for a couple of months

A good thread may be a survive in place thread given the density in some locations.

A Wise Man learns from others mistakes, where a Fool has to learn from his own......... Being observant is part of becoming educated, but some people walk thru life with blinders on and they also refuse to listen... My dad is in Southern Ohio and is one of the people that will be without electricity for 5 days and he is 85..... Had his aorta replaced a year ago, pacemaker put in 3 months ago, but he is a trooper and is always prepared and when he is not, he has skills that surprise me sometimes.. Therefore I am not worried about his situation.. But I hope they get it back on quick for those that are not as knowledgeable as him and those that are in bad shape...

A wise man learns from his mistakes. A wsier man learns from other mistakes. The Wisest man is already prepared for the mistake. Glad you guys are doing ok, and can live with months worth left. Hope everything gets back online soon!

Should be a wake up call but as others said, most will soon forget the hardships and lessons they should have learned from this.

A video from some of the gas lines yesterday. Don't be one of these people.

[video=youtube;DCqEyL7ofEA]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DCqEyL7ofEA[/video]

Thankfully, the power in some areas is starting to come back on, though many are still without.

This article is a good read: 10 Sobering Realizations the Eastern U.S. Power Grid Failure is Teaching Us About a Real Collapse.

http://www.naturalnews.com/036355_natural_disaster_power_grid_preparedness.html

All those city folk....got no common sense. Makes sense in a way that people that live in big cities are less prepared. No room to store fuel, generators, etc. I have friends that live in high rise condos and apartments and they barely have room to hang their clothes.

Paladine71 said:

Most people do not store extra food, water and fuel. This could get very serious, very fast, and they call us Preppers the crazy ones...

How would the complete loss of these resources affect your family? Mine could do without these things for months based on what I have prepared.

So much for the "it can't happen to me" mentality.

It is wiser to learn from other people's mistakes, than to make them yourself.

Click to expand...

Sometimes we all need real world examples of "it can happen here" to wake people up into being better prepared to deal with these type of situations.

Lost power at 0430 for 12+ hours on Thursday (7/5). Ran the generator as did several neighbors. Some were expectedly unprepared and unfortunately some had very small children. Of course the most common problem aside from the heat (100+) was the loss of food in refridgerators/freezers. Our neighborhood was one the of the first to get power back - however a few areas were still without power on Sunday (7/8/2012). Area stores had been sold out of generators since Thursday noon.

Good experience and a good run for the Honda 5000. Hopefully more neighbors will evaluate their "possibilities" plans and get a little better prepared. Even a small generator will at least keep the sump, refrigerator, and a small fan going.

Fortunately it was localized and one was able to drive a few miles for fuel, food, etc.

A few years ago we had an ice storm and lost power. I had a generator but was not correctly stocked with fuel. I did have plenty of 116the octane fuel for the camaro. I decided to burn that instead if driving into town for gas. So now I keep extra fuel just invade.incase.