Tornadoes, Fallen Grids and 12 Years to Live
AllOutdoor Staff 03.18.19
Disaster preparedness and disaster prevention should be at the forefront of American culture. We have seen disasters rock this nation in every aspect. From water to fire we have seen communities ravaged by mother natures wrath.
In a purely beautiful display, we have seen neighbors and communities step up after these brutal disasters and help one another. Still the question hangs out there to be asked.
Why don’t Americans care about preparing for disaster?
In the last few weeks we have seen another rash of natural disaster and emergencies.
Alabama Tornadoes
Between three and five tornadoes probably touched down in central southeastern Alabama, she said. The Weather Service confirmed that a tornado at least a half-mile wide with 136 to 165 m.p.h. winds — or an EF-3 tornado on the Enhanced Fujita scale — had touched down in the southern part of Lee County.
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23 people lost their lives in this nasty outbreak of tornadoes. There were incredible pictures of things like fallen cell towers across highways. Alabama gets hit by tornadoes but we are watching this problem from a national view and it doesn’t seem to have the affect on people that it should.
We have more covered, deeper coverage but the meter on national preparedness just doesn’t seem to be moving. Could it be that we are just too busy to be bothered by disaster preparedness.
Venezuelan Grid Failure
A failure of the power grid left 70 percent of the nation of Venezuela without electricity in early September.
Venezuela was the world’s eighth-largest net oil exporter in 2010, and, the same year, had the second-largest natural gas reserves in the Western Hemisphere.
The power line failure blacked out 14 of the country’s 23 states and the nation’s capital, Caracas…
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It’s rare that we get to witness a nation suffer a 70 percent grid failure. Its also rare that we watch a nation suffer a full scale socialist meltdown.
The long term power outage is one of the most terrifying disasters of them all. The idea that essential services, supply chain and the modern conveniences of our world could go away for months, is horrible to imagine.
In 2018 the US government drafted a simple document on the affects of a large scale grid failure. The draft mentioned many things, not the least of which was the average Americans neglect of emergency preparedness. They talked about the minimal amount of preps most people have on hand and how unprepared they would be for a situation like this.
12 Years to Live
While this is the least concrete of the threats, it’s the influence and the impact that is worth discussing. We are seeing presidential candidates like Beto and AOC talking about the impacts of climate change in the next 12 years.
The theory is that devasting affects will be felt in that time by some populations across the world. No matter how you feel about human impact on the planet you cannot argue the fact that if you pave the ground that should absorb the water, you get flooding. It’s a simple example of how we negatively affect the world around us.
Having these voices in the highest offices in the world lamenting mass extinction of species and dire consequences for humans is just another layer to the cake. However, we see very little movement on the prepping front.
The Five Factors that Affect Americans from Prepping for Certain Disaster
Debt
Most Americans are laden with debt. They are broke. There is no money saved and they are living paycheck to paycheck. It’s a scary thing but its real. SO, you add to that the idea that scrapping a living also needs to include stockpiling resources for a possible disaster and people just go dark.
As Americans we have to get out from under debt.
Stigma
Whether you fear words like Alt Right or Communist or Neo Marxist, there will always be name calling in the cultural spectrum. That said, we need to get away from the idea of being called a “Doomsday Prepper” and start concerning ourselves with what might happen following a natural disaster or greater.
Many Americans fear being made fun of or called names.
Commitment
Disaster preparedness is just another commitment in an already busy world. People are overwhelmed with all their running and their dashing from place to place. In order to find balance, they spend their quiet time in front of a screen. This leaves very little time to focus on preparedness.
When you start down the path of preparedness you quickly realize how much time you have been wasting!
Fear
The threats we face are terrifying. There is no getting around that. Just the fact that a hurricane can blow into your city and take everything you have worked for is enough to cause a panic attack. Many Americans put up a natural defense to this and just decide to ignore it. The fear is to great, so they turn it off.
Family
Unfortunately, we can also find ourselves in a situation where family forces us to be less prepared. We might have family members that do not agree with our actions and do not support them. In this case we are stopped short of meeting our full potential.
In this scenario we have to become leaders in the household and point to these very real threats to get the rest of the family to see the light.
Conclusion
Now is the time to start setting aside preps. Focus on things like water and food. You increase reliance on self and not on others when you have food and water. There is real liberty in these things.
We are ushering in an age of high population density and an uptick in emergency and natural disaster. That is just the reality of things. Its time for modern Americans to take ownership of their level of preparedness. We can change the culture in this nation one person at a time. So, I implore you, start prepping, start storing and start sharing information about preparedness culture.
