They're not looking for a riot, only answers. They are frightened, a little smelly, and wondering when the hell the power is coming back on. Pretty much feeling the same way you are, no matter how much you have prepared.

So they have pretty much blown off the Y2K thing this year. Perhaps now they are ready to listen. And who in the neighborhood knows more about the topic of Y2K and survival than you do? Chances are the answer to this question is "no one". So what do you do now? Sit smugly in your warm home, munching on Cheetos, thinking "serves them right...they had every chance to prepare like I did"? If so, you are just begging for a fight.

These are questions my husband and I are struggling with right now. How to deal with organizing our neighborhood in the event the disruptions last more that a few days to a week? What is the game plan? How to help others without jeopardizing the well being of our family? How to prepare our community to ride out Y2K AFTER it hitsit's pretty obvious to us that there will be precious little preparation before hand. We feel we need a contingency plan and these questions beg for some careful analysis.

As far as food and water go, I strongly believe that there will be distribution centers set up. I just can't see masses of people "starving in the streets". Of course we will visit these centers too if necessary, so as not to raise suspicion among our neighbors. And we will have extra provisions for them for "emergencies" which we will part with feigning great reluctance.

So my question is, on January 4th, you suddenly find yourself in the role of "Y2K Block Captain". Will you be prepared for the role? Have you thought through what will need to be done? Have you prepared survival information for distribution in advance?

I would truly appreciate any input my fellow suburbanites who also feel that "holing up in your house" is not necessarily the way to go. At least in the short term.

R.

-- Roland (nottelling@nowhere.com), June 23, 1999

Answers

To the top, for those who only read the "recent answers" :-)

-- Roland (nottelling@nowhere.com), June 23, 1999.

IF that were to happen, even then they would not get it. There would be reassuring rumors that the power will be back on Wednesday, or Friday. Using Kubler-Ross terminology, they would remain in denial, even after the diagnosis is ascertained. Later, when they start to get sick and hungry, comes the anger. The power being out for four days will do little to disabuse the American populace of their dearly-held notion that the technowonderland is forever. After a month, maybe, just maybe, they'd realize that they're not in Oz anymore.

-- Spidey (in@jam.commie), June 23, 1999.

I too have given this situation a great deal of thought. I agree that to maintain a low profile we prepared ones should wait on the food and water lines and just be one of the great unwashed. This poses a moral dilema however. If we have provisions at home we have no right to take the government's bread. If we do, we truly become hoarders. If we don't, we become obvious. If I saw a peron accepting food and water and later learned he had food and water at home, I would want to lynch the mutha.

Bill in South Carolina

-- Bill Solorzano (notaclue@webtv.net), June 23, 1999.

Bill -

I agree with your comments. But I feel that "making a show" of needing it is far better than having folks line up at MY door. We plan to get minimal amount, only occaisionally.

And what I plan to stock and distribute if necessary (TP, first aid supplies, hygeine items) will make up for the small amount I get from the relief efforts. It's a trade off.

R.

-- R. (nottelling@nowhere.com), June 23, 1999.

Tough questions, no easy answers. Still haven't figured this one out - will have to play it by ear. At this time I give out copies of the Calif. OES Y2k prep. sheet and if they respond favorably I recommend at least 1 month minimum supplies. I put the sheet on bulletin boards, etc. My immediate neighbors are preparing for at least 2 wks and starting to increase that. If big problems happen I will be thankful for my solid neighbors close by but will have to refuse to share provisions stored for my family (including my 3 year old son.). I will know I did everything I could to get others to prepare. If they chose to not, I will not be responsible for them. If it gets bad enough that people are hungry then it is bad enough to be uncertain that all will be ok next week/month.

-- Kristi (securx@succeed.net), June 23, 1999.

Here they would freeze. They would be dead in a few hours. Save your ammo. Move north.

-- FLAME AWAY (BLehman202@aol.com), June 23, 1999.

If one neighbor knows you are prepared for Y2K, all will know. People will still be able to talk, though their stomachs are empty. In fact, they won't have much else to do, except try to figure out who has food. I don't have any good answer to this, if you are planning to stay in suburbia.

-- Tom Knepper (thomas_knepper@intuit.com), June 23, 1999.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, if you think you and your preps will remain secret if TSHTF you're fooling yourself. All it takes is a whiff of some food cooking to send some very hungry people your way. I'm not hiding my preps from anyone.

In answer to your question, don't go to the distribution centers. If you can stick it out, do so. All you're doing by going is exposing yourself to unnecessary danger (that's what you were trying to avoid by prepping wasn't it?). Help who you can, and turn away anyone you can't. If someone won't take 'no' for an answer, well, that's why so many of us are stocking up on guns and ammo.

I have no desire to shoot at my neighbors, but as of this past January no one can use the excuse "I didn't know about Y2K". Like all adults they will either benefit from, or suffer the consequences of, their actions. Not being smug here, it's just a fact of life.

-TECH32-

-- TECH32 (TECH32@NOMAIL.COM), June 23, 1999.

I came back from a trip this weekend to find a neighbor having a well drilled! We live in the middle of a town of 20K people, with city water and sewer. He is preping, big time. I am not worried about being a target now, if anyone asks I will point over to his house and say "he's got a well, all I have is a small above ground kids pool" Plus, I am not going to be spending a great deal of time with my neighbors anyway. We plan to stay in, stay warm, stay full, play board games and read. Got books?

-- y2khippo (y2khippo@yahoo.com), June 23, 1999.

I live in a community where we have a y2k taskforce. One of the tasks is organizing neighborhoods and meeting your neighbors. Do you already know your neighbors? That's the first step, y2k aside. Establishing trust is the most important step. I found out that most of my neighbors are preparing for at least 2 weeks. Some for 6 or more. The majority of the people in our county are either ignorant or quietly preparing....not many come to the task force meeting. We are using the boy scouts and other youth groups to distribute the meet your neighbor campaign. Have a neighborhood bbq now and break the ice, while life is good!!!!

I posed a question to a coworker whose sister is totally preparing for y2k. I asked her, "aren't you going to feel stupid if y2k is really bad and you have to go searching for food, even though you were forewarned?" The next time I saw her at work, she told me she had started stocking up!!!!

-- Kathy (i_think_so@hotmail.com), June 23, 1999.

What do you say to migrating people working their way out from the inner city core? And what do you do when they beg you to take in their kids?

What do you do when formerly cynical relatives show up and then just stay? What would your neighbors say? (If he/she can afford to feed THAT many...we have so little...hmmm...)

-- Greg Lawrence (greg@speakeasy.org), June 23, 1999.

One of the reasons I avoided a generator was the noise, that and having to operate it outside (susceptible to vandalism). However, the sight and smell of the smoke from my wood-burning stoves will label me pretty quickly.

Roland, one thought that came to mind reading your post was that there will be instructions that anyone could benefit from, whether or not they have prepared in advance, such as hidden water sources and hygiene issues and tricks on how to keep warm. Maybe putting together a flyer on some of those issues to hand out would be a start. (It may not feed them, but perhaps they'll be less likely to pass around dysentery.)

-- Brooks (brooksbie@hotmail.com), June 23, 1999.

Everyone has to make a judgement call. I looked at where I lived, in my suburban home in Fairfax, VA, and came to the conclusion that no matter how prepared I personally was, the close proximity to others who were not prepared, the dependence on a public water/sewer system, the problems with being so close to a big city like Washington, D.C., all added up to one big word: Move!

Which is what I did, to a farm in Northwest Arkansas.

-- Jack (jsprat@eld.net), June 23, 1999.

Howdy--

Interesting thread. Let me say up front that my assumptions run along the line of 2 weeks of rolling utility outages, panic and disorder scattered across the country and then a long economic downturn lasting years. Hard to prepare for the latter unless one has already had experience as a bankruptcy lawyer.

As for the former: My personal concerns stem from the fact that I've got friends out in the country who would welcome me with open arms for the duration of the crisis. But my family doesn't "get it" and so I am stuck right here in Dallas doing what I can to prepare and protect them if the going gets rough. It may be fun.

My wider concerns stem from the fact that I believe that individual communities and this country as a whole will get through this only through teamwork and strong leadership. And the only place I've seen any real leadership on the Y2K issue is pretty much right here in this forum.

I recognize and accept the concept of triage; I also appreciate the folks here who candidly state their refusal to take food out of their children's mouths. But anyone who thinks that they are going to ride out the storm in suburbia, concealing the fact that they've got food, heat and light hasn't thought through the scenario.

The first time you open your door to the DGI neighbor from across the street, they are going to be able to tell that it's warmer in your place than theirs. Think you can continue the charade by standing in bread lines with the folks next door? Well-fed looks real obvious next to starving. And are you going to leave the wife at home with the shotgun to face off the looters--sorry, the neighbors? Tactically inadequate. Are you going to send her or the kids to stand in lines for water or food? Also inadequate. Sooner or later, someone will try to trade them back to you for a five pound sack of rice.

As I see it, if you are stuck in a neighborhood of quarter acre or half acre lots, there is only one thing to do--and that is get those people organized. As I recall from the hurricane survival stories posted on this forum, it was the neighborhoods that organized and closed off their streets to outside cruisers/looters that hung on to their belongings.

If the neighbors don't get it till December, that's better than nothing. If the neighbors don't get it till January 4th--that's still better than nothing. At that point, they are desperately going to need someone to show them a way to survive the immediate crisis.

Let me suggest this: In addition to your family preparations, lay in a supply of the cheapest foodstuffs you can find--personally I prefer pinto beans. Throw in a couple of hamhocks, a jalapeno, and some peeled tomatos and it's pretty good eating.

Donating food to the neighborhood will buy you some essential credibility in getting them organized. There are going to be some other leadership types nearby--people who are level-headed and hard-working, but may not buy into the Y2K scenario just yet--and they just won't need you--you will NEED THEM.

And don't hand out that extra food piecemeal. A pound of rice to each neighbor that shows up two days after they've eated their last bad of Doritos--no. A pound here, a pound there--frugal, but it reinforces the idea that everyone is on their own--exactly the wrong way to go, in my opinion.

Rather, the first time the lights go out--before panic sets in--invite those level-headed types over for a big dinner and tell them what you are prepared to do to see the community through the crisis. You're going to have to be persuasive, but hopefully shock, and the idea that someone actually has a plan to survive--both of those will work in your favor.

Make some plans now, not just for your family, but for your community, because your family's survival surely depends on your community's survival. Try to figure out where a decent perimeter might be drawn...inventory the trees that in a pinch might be harvested for heating...and the swimming pools, if you live in that sort of neighborhood. Who are the gun people on the street? I'd rather have them organized on my side--sorry, make that OUR side, than sitting around outside thinking up ways to get into my family's warm little cocoon.

And if you try to organize them, and fail....well, I think you've got to bugout. Suburbia without organization is untenable. A bugout takes planning now as well, but it has been discussed throughly in this forum by more thoughtful people than me. One note--don't think that getting to a country refuge two weeks into the crisis is going to be easy. If you have to travel more than fifty miles, you may come across small towns that that built their own checkpoints and won't let you through. Smart on their part, unfortunate for us suburbans.

Let me sum up this overly long post. If those of us who are far-sighted enough to make plans abandon our society, our neighbors, our country--it's over. And we are not the Americans that we flattered ourselves that we were. This country was built on teamwork, and teams require leadership and sacrifice. Through teamwork, I believe this country can weather any disaster. But teams require leadership.

Look around folks--it's you.

As always, interested in any comments.

-- William in Dallas (bcheek@onramp.net), June 23, 1999.

William for President...

Thank you for your eloquent post. This was exactly the type of input I was looking for.

Will you be my neighbor? :-)

R.

-- Roland (nottelling@nowhere.com), June 23, 1999.

Get out of town. Its beyond worrying about being the only non- starving person in an entire world of famine. Its about shit. People using their backyards as toilets as treatment facilities come to a sloshing halt. Not to mention what will happen when said treatment facilities back-up into people's homes. 400 gallons will look like a little creek compared to the oceans of raw sewage which will flood suburbia.

Worried about the smell of your cooking attracting the hungry? Don't be. They won't smell your food over the stench of our waste run amok.

Get out of town. Best of luck to you and yours and all those who think they can live inside a "prep" bubble while all of civilization comes to a grinding halt. I don't care if that halt lasts 3 days, 3 months, 3 years or 3 decades. Staph, Typhoid and Hep don't give a damn how much ammo you have or how much you care 'bout your fellow American.

Get out of town.

-- R (riversoma@aol.com), June 23, 1999.

My vote goes to Jack Sprat for posting the best answer.

-- A. Hambley (a.hambley@usa.net), June 23, 1999.

Moving is not an option for everyone, myself included. I am looking for input on how to make the best of a suburban situation.

I still vote for William :-)

R.

-- Roland (nottelling@nowhere.com), June 23, 1999.

I hate canned veggies but if I was hungry enough they'd probably taste pretty good. I am stocking up on them, cases and cases. If I get hungry neighbors at my door they'll get a can of veggies and be sent on their way.

Here in Minnesota if the NG goes out, few will have heat. When my house was built 5 years ago I installed a heat pump rather than the usual air-conditioner. I found out from the manufacturer that my heat pump will still be able to pull heat out of the winter air even if that air is 10 below zero. And I have a generator to power it. So if there's no electric AND no NG my house (and anyone with a wood-burning whatever) will be the only one(s) with heat. Taking my genset from me won't help anyone either unless they have a heat pump. (I don't think anyone does). So I figure I may have people asking me if they can stay at my place. I'll certainly take in all I can possibly handle but they all will need to bring food and gas and guns. We will be able to ride this out.

-- rick (I'mset@home.house), June 23, 1999.

Roland,

Thanks for posting this thread. My own thoughts have been turning this direction for some weeks now. Like you, moving is not an option for me. No easy answers.

I do plan to meet all the folks on my street soon (helping to organize a block party in August) and planning to either expand the existing neighborhood watch program... or start my own, with anyone who is interested. My family just moved into the area last year, but fortunately, we have several close friends within a 4-block radius (suburbia... 1/4 & 1/2 acre lots), so I think we can get something going.

Most of all, I think it is imperative to build a stronger sense of community BEFORE the year ends. Then, together, face whatever happens as best we can.

-- M.C. Hicks (mhicks@greenwich.com), June 23, 1999.

Roland, I agree with William also, but you must consider that I'm considered a polly/troll on this forum...perhaps less for what *I* post than the 6 posts for every one of mine by imposters.

We recently had a power outage, and knowing that my next-door neighbor has an infant, I offered to provide a means of heating whatever may need heating (food-wise) for the infant. I live in a suburb not THAT far from Dallas, so can understand William's concerns. IMHO, if folks have no water and no food, I have no alternative than to invite them to dinner. Throwing them a bag of rice or beans without any means to cook it, nor any water to cook it is suggesting they eat raw beans and rice. Doesn't sound very neighborly to me.

DFW is fortunate in that the cities have for the most completed remediation. Problems with power, water, sewage, shouldn't last long. I suspect a few days at the most, yet have supplies for several months, with helping out neighbors foremost in my mind.

We have no alternative heat because our winters are typically mild enough to just bundle up indoors to stay warm. With more folks in the house than normal, the heat level will rise accordingly, not to mention the good conversation.

If problems extend beyond my estimates, I'll at least know that I did my part to help my neighbors. I doubt very much that they'll see me as a threat thereafter.

Just my opinions.

Anita

-- Anita (spoonera@msn.com), June 23, 1999.

Although better than nothing, William's answer is too simplistic. For instance,

- If neighborhood A prepares, but surrounding 'hoods don't - same problem.

- If you wait until January to fell some firewood - you'll freeze trying to get it to burn.

- If you wait until Dec or Jan to organize - you're too late for preps.

These are the things Paul Milne has been talking about for over a year now, and his concerns are starting to become mainstream. There are only two optimum solutions to a meltdown scenario: Make substantial preps early, and get out of the cities.

-- a (a@a.a), June 23, 1999.

Last year I/we made the decision to stay where we were. We feel called to help others. We are within 5 miles of a 7-11 but it is semi-rural. We have made contingency plans if things go meltdown. If the power goes off and stays off, it will be every person for themselves. As a Christian, I reject this approach, but I'm realistic to know I can't help everyone and it won't take long for people to figure out you have food etc. Desparate people do desparate things. Our Lord said when danger arises, in some situations, flee, like His parents did when Herod was after them.

Our contingency plan is to hook up with other preparers we know up the road in a more rural setting. There are about ten of us that will come together and help each other through the worst case scenario. Community will be the only answer to meltdown.

I talked to Gerri Guidetti about what she was going to do at her Ark Institute when everyone showed up on her doorstep. She said her plan was to go public about what she had and to help everyone realize that the only way to get through it was to come together. She would show them how to plant gardens etc. and make it through. Same commmunity idea.

Someone asked me today about the lack of readiness. I told him, if I end up giving all my food away to hungry children and the poor...what a way to go.

-- BB (peace2u@bellatlantic.net), June 23, 1999.

I think trying to organize a community is an admirable thing. Many people are doing just that, now, all across the country. In small communities this may be possible and beneficial, but not in large populated areas. Remember the LA riots several years ago? The outcome of a trail caused looting and attacks on people. Many people looted and burned their own communities. No power, what a perfect time to get everything from the stores, or fellow Americans, that you want. It won't take long for the inner cities to explode in unstoppable chaos. I have flown over LA during the night several times and have seen the lights, as far as you can see. I am amazed at the amount of technology required to keep it running, but it's hanging by a thread and that thread is going to break. When this happens it's over for this area of 8 million+.

-- Rick (rsarge@aol.com), June 23, 1999.

There are 9 people on my block, which is 1 mile on each side. Nobody likely to need leadership and if they need food to hold them until things start to grow then we'll give them some. Not charity as much as investment on our parts. They're all good folks to keep around.

-- Gus (y2kk@usa.net), June 23, 1999.

Don't forget the churches, people!

Every GI should encourage his pastor to prepare. (This encouragement can take many forms, including donation of real goods.)

When your neighbors knock on your door, send them to your church; don't tell them to go to hell.

In my view, any Christian church which isn't ready to feed the poor this January isn't doing its job.

-- GA Russell (ga.russell@usa.net), June 23, 1999.

There are 6 houses and 4 apartments on our street. Two of the houses have wood burning stoves. Our weather is mild so nobody will freeze. We plan on gathering the kids at the houses with stoves for homeschooling, arts and crafts, music and some kind of food. We are thinking about "stone soup" dinners. My husband will rig up a 12 volt system for some TV (we have 12 v tv, thinking about getting vcr player to go with it) for entertainment. We know that some of the young families in the apartments can't aford to do much in the way of preparations, so we are putting away some extra food just in case. They can help out by hauling water and by digging pits in vacent lot for garbage disposal. Our sewer lines are downhill so no worry there.

We have a coleman stove with lots of fuel and a coleman oven to go on top. I plan to bake bread for as many as possible. We live in a small town where everyone knows each other and we always help out when there are problem.

We know several people with wells and hand pumps so good water is available. Rain water or creek water will be good for laundry and toilet flushing.

-- Homeschooling Grandma (mlaymon@glenn-co.k12.ca.us), June 23, 1999.

William,

In past days when I was trying to get a bunch of people to work together toward a common goal, I trotted out a copy of my dictionary's definintion of teamwork, which is:

"...joint action by a group of people, in which individual interests are subordinated to group unity and efficiency..."

I used a pro football team for a real life example, where sometimes the star wide receiver stays back and blocks for the fullback.

It did a real good job of eliminating the ones who were only in it for the ego trip.

Good Luck down there.

-- LP (soldog@nohotmail.com), June 24, 1999.

Great thread -- our forum at its very best. (And, contrary to stereotyping smears, not one "survivalist" itching to pull a shotgun trigger.)

I haven't thought so much about cautiously feeling out organizing our new, rural neighborhood in the 8 months we've been here as in the last 5 minutes of reading you all, or felt as much encouragement to go meet those "level-headed" neighbors who might be out there. I hope William is right, and the time for like-minded people to surface is soon to come.

Thanks, all.

-- jor-el (jor-el@krypton.uni), June 24, 1999.

I have lurked on the board for some time now. Had to respond to this. The bottom line is....my family. The only thing that will prevent us from being lower to the ground is our buttons. I have stocked up enough to last a long time. I did so because I listened, studied and learned. Everyone else in the country had the same chance.I CAN NOT take care of anyone but my family, no matter how much I may want to or how much I think it is the right thing to do.

I will be sorry if the people around me do not make it, but not so sorry that I will in any way put my family in danger. Every bite of food and every drop of water that I might give away would be that much that my family did not have. I know that some of you do not think the way I do, that's ok I am not asking you to agree. Just know that IF it becomes "dog eat dog" nothing will outweigh my duty to my family. Some may turn up their nose at this, that's ok, but what would you NOT do to protect your loved ones?

My family will survive if I can help it, if not, I tried. Which, by the way, is more than the DGI folks are doing.

-- sorry for them (my@house.com), June 24, 1999.

I've already addressed this question some under What if Y2K problems evolve into a Milne scale 10? What will you do, then?

It seems to me that, in order to protect our own stockpile, that what help we provide the neighbors has to appear to have been produced by our own ingenuity and sweat, expended after TSHTF. Therefore, for example, I'm going to stockpile a few hundred $3 pasturization indicators, but also some materials and instructions for making them myself. I will present the idea of making them, and how it is done, and offer to round up the materials needed and make some. Then, I would dole them out to people ASAP, starting first with those who have absolutely no preparations. Similarly, I would stock materials for making solar ovens. These two items together would save our community a lot of fuel and water. Hopefully, most of of the neighbors will not have been complete idiots, and will have put up at least several weeks of food.

This kind of helpfulness would help in establishing me as a can do person worth listening to. I'm sure there would continue to be, even after several days, a majority of people who think that the worst will soon be over. Having some level of credibility will help in trying to organize an effective neighborhood watch program using tired and hungry people possessing few weapons and communications tools.

Having some credibility would also help a lot in convincing folks to not use their toilets, contrary to widely available advice. Many disaster tip sheets recommend using non potable water to flush toilets. This would be real bad news for the people downhill from us. I plan to have materials on hand for building a large community latrine. The selection of a location in which to build it will be highly politically charged. Nobody will want it too close to (or too far away from) their own home, and many will continue to believe that it will not even be necessary.

-- Dancr (minddancr@aol.com), June 24, 1999.