I am amazed at GIs who are preparing and yet are staying home in the burbs or the city.

Their biggest worry seems to be how to keep from getting killed by their neighbors. In our desperation to make Y2k simple so people will understand (Y2k = power outages = better stock up on beans and ammo)we have often neglected dealing with the BIG picture. The total ramifications of what *no power* means. People seem to love to debate endlessly how many of their neighbors they might have to kill. I suggest that the debate is moot as people will obligingly die on their own by the millions from disease. Face it, the biggest enemy you will face in Y2k doesn't give a damn how many guns you have or if worms will get into your flour.

No power = Raw sewage

No power = Limited emergency response (fire, ambulance etc...)- if any

No power = Limited health care - if any

There will be plenty of food. Stock up on rubber gloves and surgical masks. Get together with your neighbors and determine the best place to set up the funeral pyre. There is no AMAZING PREP BUBBLE which will make you immune to Staph, Typhoid, and Hep. No magic GI shield which will protect you from Y2k shit. It will be everywhere you want to be.

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

Answers

Yes..... have gloves, masks, bleach, etc. Also acquiring vet antibiotics, antiseptic, etc. in the hopes of being able to heal as well. Am preparing to try to make the best of whatever Y2k brings. Live in a nice rural farming community - I don't see any better place to be which is feasible for us to acquire. Some folks aren't as lucky. Some are luckier than us. Get to know your neighbors, learn who you can trust - and those you can't. Sorry, the advice to talk to the neighbors about where to set up the funeral pyre IMHO is not going to help convince them to prepare. Instead they will turn away from you and the issue at hand. Good luck wherever you are.

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

Kristi -

I have no intention of really discussing pyre placement with my neighbors. I was being a tad facetious.

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

One thing I'd like to point out:

Humans aren't that bad. During the Chernobyl crisis many a firefighter came to the rescue even when they knew they were being exposed to lethal amounts of radiation. During the second World War Russian ambulances and firefighters also risked certain death to bring supplies to isolated villages. People all over the world have banded together to help each other in times of strife, riots, and yes even certain death/dimemberment.

I know Y2K and the related problems are new to the text books, but I firlmy believe that even in the event of a mile wide comet hitting Earth and killing half the population instantly there would still be people going out of their way, risking their lives, SACRIFICING their lives in order to help other.

Or maybe you might remember these words:

"Never have I seen so many, give up so much, for so few".

I know there is a criminal element to society, but think about it... if Y2K is as bad as some people think, and it destroys life as we know it , then there won't be anything to fight fo as we know it. The order of the day will be survivial,and regardless of how cynical you people are of your urban neighbors, we will help one another.

-- (tedjennings@business.net), June 23, 1999.

R,

Excuse me, but if I don't leave my home, and shoot at anyone who gets too close, how exactly am I going to be exposed to these diseases?

-TECH32-

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

Not to be pedantic . . (well actually, to BE pedantic). . the words were . .

"Never, in the field of human conflict, has so much been owed by so many, to so few"

But I got the idea.

-- W0lv3r1n3 (W0lv3r1n3@yahoo.com), June 23, 1999.

GO-STUDY-BRO,=SQUIRREL-HE DON,T-PUT-ALL-HIS-STASH-IN-ONE-PLACE.

-- al-d. (CATT@ZIANET.COM), June 23, 1999.

Sorry, total recall is not my forte. Glad you got the idea =)

Now how about me reciting the Gettysburg Address? (Four beers and several drinks ago... I was a sober man...)

-- (tedjennings@business.net), June 23, 1999.

TECH 32.....

Airborne diseases care little that you are inside your house...just a thought.

-- Barry (barryjaynes@usenvitech.com), June 23, 1999.

ted--

We've never before experienced the magnitude of the events about to spread themselves upon us. You'd better take off those rose colored glasses my friend. Mass hysteria on a global scale will be a truly historical rendering. There's 6 billion stories in the BIG PICTURE Or maybe you haven't you checked out any the news from overseas yet?

-- Michael (mikeymac@uswest.net), June 23, 1999.

Get your vaccinations up to date. Hepatitis takes 3 shots over 7 months. You are now in the final month to start the series!

Get rat poison in significant quantities, cheapest form you can. Keep it sealed and dry. Get cleaners, etc.

Y2k has lots of levels; we are all thinking in ways we couldn't DREAM of, a couple years ago. Stay flexible, think out of the box.

-- bw (home@puget.sound), June 23, 1999.

Good God, What do you think people did before electricity was put to use? It is stupid to think that just because the power goes out there won't be any emergency response available. I'm a paramedic and my wife is a speech pathologist and I can tell you just because the power goes out doesn't mean the knowledge we have will evaporate. And neither will all the other medical people and firemen and police and plunbers and electricians and everyone else in the world. Neither will our desire to HELP! Some of the worst calls I go on are when we meet some EMS unit from another county (volunteer firemen EMT_basic here can't give injections) and the patient is in real bad shape. If they were closer to trauma units and skilled nurses and Docs they would have a better survival rate. But they aren't and they don't. So when people say its going to be better in the country, from my perspective I can't agree.

-- Johnny (JLJTM@BELLSOUTH.NET), June 23, 1999.

Michael,

I cited Chernobyl and WWII and I have rose colored glasses on?

I was just saying how people can get together in times of crisis. And last I heard nobody was sure there was going to be global rioting and billions dead so maybe you better take off whatever colored glasses you have on. And what makes you think that everyone in the world has as much to lose as we here in the USA have to lose? I bet there are at least two billion people who couldn't care less if the electricity goes out and they can't get cable or phones to work. To them those luxuries are as alien as well, aliens. Assuming that the world is going to be plunged into eternal darkness is as ignorant as assuming nothing will happen.

My point was that people aren't so bad. Maybe in your case I was wrong but I think I did mention that "criminal element" in society before.

-- (tedjennings@business.net), June 23, 1999.

Johnny,

Doctors, nurses, and EMTs will only be valuable if they can actually meet up with sick people.

Get a bicycle and get ready to make house calls. Get armed and/or escorted because some people will be too stupid to realize that you are more valuable alive than your bicycle is to them.

The use of electricity in this country coincided with the use of indoor plumbing and city sewage treatment. If the sewers back up or if there is no water to flush with, people will be crapping with no idea as to how to keep themselves from getting sick because they are unprepared. Public health could decline precipitously.

People in the country typically have wells and septic systems. They won't have as much crap to deal with as us folks in the cities.

-- nothere nothere (notherethere@hotmail.com), June 23, 1999.

How long is it going to take a Doc to ride a bike to some homestead way out in the other side of his county after a pack of rapid dogs attacks a family?

I may be wrong but when I was stationed in Italy didn't I see aquafers and indoor plumbing amoung the ruins?

-- Johnny (JLJTM@BELLSOUTH.NET), June 23, 1999.

hm? country-vs.-city? more e.m.s. in city=more patients. riot,s traffic-jams-gang-bangers-mobs-disease-fires-limited natural-recources.--if i die in country-from=natural-causes, it beats not being able to sleep-at nite.country-folks stick to-gether.not saying there arn,t some great folks in big-cities.but are they vastly-outnumbered?? just an=IMHO.

-- al-d. (CATT@ZIANET.COM), June 23, 1999.

In your planning, keep feral pets in mind.

Most people don't have what it takes to put down the family dog. The folks weren't raised on a farm, the kids start crying, blah, blah. So they'll let Spot out to run when the food is low. Wild dogs pack up instinctively, and they kill humans or anything small enough to attack.

Within a few months of a major food shortage, our streets will be plagued by the standard mongrel - 35 pounds, fairly short hair. All the soft and cuddly ones will die quickly. In colder regions, husky types will do better.

You need to be aware of them in your neighborhood, keep kids indoors or watched, keep appropriate weapons for the threat. Don't need an SKS, just a .22 or .410 or 16 ga. Don't want high-power slugs zipping through the neighbor's wall, just enough to take out a dog.

I've hunted wild dogs, seen what they can do to a herd of cattle. It gets pretty messy. Dogs are fast, smart, fearless until they know you'll shoot. The dog problem may get really nasty in some cities.

-- bw (home@puget.sound), June 23, 1999.

Johnny,

Just think things through a little more.

Yes, you saw well developed plumbing systems, put together over the course of hundreds of years by the Romans. What make you think we're going to whip a few of these together in a couple of days after raw sewage begins to come up from the manholes? You saw what had been developed over a long period of time. How many people would have to die before such were built here?

Remember, too, that ancient aquafers were built to support a few thousand people, not the millions that live in modern cities. Would an ancient set of stone water ways support NYC or LA or London (or modern Rome)?

You avoided the question of how your EMTs get together with people who need treatment? How do those people get to hospitals if we have a horrendous oil shortage? How are the hospitals powered if electricity is off? What drugs are used if the relatively thin supply on hand at the hospital has been used and the supply line has been broken?

-- al (v@wx.yz), June 23, 1999.

Oh yeah at the stroke of midnight everything is going to just fall apart. People will forget everything they have ever learned, and ingenueity will just go out the window. And the only people who can help will be the "end of the world" people who have been quietly gathering knowledge and through their emense benevolence will share their know how with the shivering, starving, begging masses. "You avoided the question of how your EMTs get together with people who need treatment? How do those people get to hospitals if we have a horrendous oil shortage? How are the hospitals powered if electricity is off? What drugs are used if the relatively thin supply on hand at the hospital has been used and the supply line has been broken?" No I didn't avoid it-I just don't beleive that it will get to that extent. But how are you going to get someone WAYYY out in the country to medical help? I guess that first aid book you bought will give you everything you need to pull a bullet out of you son after you accidentally shoot him?

I guess while we've been bombong Belgrade their civilization just shut down because we bombed their power plants first?

-- Johnny (JLJTM@BELLSOUTH.NET), June 23, 1999.

Knock knock hey come quick Mr Tucker just cut his arm real bad and needs some help!!

No I can't help cause the powers out and every since this y2k thing I've lost all my skills.

-- Johnny (JLJTM@BELLSOUTH.NET), June 23, 1999.

Johnny,

1) I know of only a handful of medics that can work more than 40' from the truck, or however far they can easily carry the jump kit, the airway bag, the monitor, the fluids bag.

2) SOME people believe that it will happen in a flash. i'm NOT one of them. the steady and either rapid or slow (scaled in weeks) deterioration will cause shortages in things like Oxygen (#1 drug of choice for most everything, check your protocols), NS, LR, D5% in your choice, injectable drugs like Lidocaine, Epi, Narcan, Mag Sulfate (interesting story about a doc who uses this as first line cardiac drug on pt's refractory to anything), etc. You will find that the skills you can use, with the tools available will get more and more basic.

3) As you lose your tools, and often your contact to Med Control, you will either become incredibly frustrated, or will go over the line and do things NOT in the protocols. Please think this particular issue through, now, while you can kick it around over a few beers. Mrs. Driver and I have decided that on each other, the protocols will probably not be a bar to what has to be done. We are still kicking around what we are going to do with others who know we are old medics.

Chuck, whose skills may be a bit corroded, but who expects to have 'em polished off soon enough.

-- Chuck, a night driver (rienzoo@en.com), June 24, 1999.

I agree fully with bw, feral dogs (and cats) can be quite vicious. This is what actually convinced me to obtain any kind of fire arms. I wouldn't think twice about shooting anyone's pet that has been turned loose to fend for themselves (sorry pet lovers--keep 'em, eat 'em, or shoot them yourself) We live in the countryside, what a lovely place to leave a dog or cat! They'll be able to hunt for themselves---there goes the local wildlife, my chickens, my pets, then the goats, and when the pack gains strength, possibly small neighborhood children. Have a look at the following urls----- (I may have mixed up the order of these articles) http://www.survival-center.com/buckshot/dogs3.htm http://www.survival-center.com/buckshot/dogs.htm http://www.survival-center.com/buckshot/moredogs.htm

-- kat (safe@home.net), June 24, 1999.

Johnny,

Wake up and smell the iodine. Here is how your view comes across, "See I know this guy who fell in the shower when the power on his block went out and we got to him just fine. Take that you Doomers!"

We at this forum have made the following point enough, let it sink in. GI's don't prepare for your "isolated" scenario. If a city loses power EVERY person in that city will be effected. Along with every company, government agency, public utility, and disaster releif effort. I gaurentee that in the event of complete power interuption in any sizable city, NO cross town travel will be any thing less than extremley hazardous. And likley deadly. Someone bring Flint back, Johnny here is comatose.

-- Mike (midwestmike_@hotmail.com), June 24, 1999.