Originally published at Notes from the bunker…. You can comment here or there.

I was talking to someone the other day about preparedness and he asked what my version of TEOTWAWKI looked like. See, everyone has their own flavor of apocalypse. Religious/superstitious prophecy, nuclear war, invasion, pandemic, economic collapse, Red Lectroids, zombies, whatever…. put ten survivalists in a room and eventually you’ll hear someone yelling “Yes, but the real threat is….” every couple minutes.

I used to fall into the ‘terrorist attack that plunges the US into chaos’ school of thought…dirty bombs, suitcase nukes, etc, etc. Tom Clancy kind of stuff. I think I started re-thinking that around 2003 or so. I havent really discarded any of the likely scenarios but I did re-rank them. Terrorism-related scenarios dropped to the #2 or #3 position and economic turmoil took the #1 slot. Looks like I may have been prescient on that one. Is what we’re going through now part of that scenario? Well, certainly the symptoms are. I never really gave any thought as to what the cause of an economic malaise would be, I just figured one would happen. Even a broken calendar is right once a year, it seems.

This doesnt discount the possibility of a cargo container passing through some US-Canadian port with a stolen nuclear artillery shell tucked inside it. That sort of thing could very well happen. But I think the current situation validates my concerns when I re-prioritized.

But, you know what? Whether its Black Helicopters or Helicopter Ben the fallout (so to speak) is pretty much the same – you still need food, you still need fuel, you still need a roof, you still need money. Even if your particular ragnarok du jour is different than most other folks’ it is still a fairly safe bet that preparing for it gives you a head start on being prepared for all the other harbringers of doom.

I suppose it could be summed up as “It doesn’t matter what apocalypse youre preparing for as long as you prepare”.
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Did I mention that it was numbingly cold here last week. I was sifting through the closet looking for something warm and pulled out an UnderArmor turtleneck cold weather undershirt. Wow…spendy piece of gear but holy Drokk does it work. Just that and a heavy cotton shirt and I could go walk the dog in five-degree weather. Yeah, its got a certain tacticool stigma about it but the darn thing actually works. I might have to pick up a few extras. Keeping one vacuum sealed away in my bag would be very handy if I get caught somewhere when the weather changes or I’ve underdressed. Not cheap, none of their gear is, but I’ve had plenty of times where I was cold enough to think “You know, maybe $45 isnt alot to pay for a shirt”.
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Speaking of stranded, how the heck do you get stranded in one of the most populous cities on the planet. I read an article about the snowmageddon in NYC and that some poor slobs on a subway train were stuck on the rails, immobile, for around nine hours. In the cold. I’d imagine that lighting and heating may not have worked the whole time. Amazingly, although not surprisingly, the train folks would not let the passengers disembark. Not safe. If the train isnt in the station theyre not gonna let you off. Third rail and all that. Passengers did say they could see the station from the train, which must have been maddening. Normally Im a big fan of ’stay with the vehicle’ but I think I’d’ve jumped from between cars and hoofed it to the nearest station. Staying in the train car was probably tedious and uncomfortable for the passengers. If it had been me, and I had my usual everyday bag with me I’d probably have been able to ride it out in much better comfort than the rest of the crowd. At least until it turned into Lord Of The Flies. Most likely I’d pull out my cold weather gear, suit up, jump to the tracks and start walking to the station. The point, though, is that even in the middle of a place like NYC it isnt necessarily a bad idea to carry some of the more useful essentials like a flashlight, a bottle of water (or two), and some compact spare warm clothes. Proper mindset helps too. Although I cant imagine that it takes a special frame of mind to think “Why am I sitting here in a dark, cold subway car with fifty strangers when I can jump down to the tracks and walk to the station from here?”