What might a SHTF event look like?

 

Following a few articles in these pages over the past month on aspects of emergency preparedness, I've been exchanging e-mails and messages with a few readers who wanted to know what might precipitate a life-changing, society-changing emergency for which all our preparations would be needed.  I hastened to inform them that it was unlikely that any single event would do that.  What we're seeing all around us is a gradual, slow-motion decay that's leaching the life out of our businesses, our infrastructure, and our economy as a whole.  (See, for example, our recent discussions about competence and its absence.). This decay has been happening for several decades, and the pace appears to be accelerating.  Could it "go critical" overnight?  Yes, given a few very dangerous circumstances, but the odds are greater that it'll continue to deteriorate until enough things break down that the overall "system" simply stops working.  It collapses under the weight of its own inertia.  (Of course, if our politicians and other leaders came to their senses, things could be reversed and our problems fixed before that becomes inevitable.  If.  Insert hollow laughter here.)

There are individual, sudden, catastrophic events that might cause havoc.  In his novel "One Second After" and its sequels, author William R. Forstchen tried to describe the impact of an electromagnetic pulse strike against the USA.  He did it rather well, I think.

If such an attack were to happen (or an equivalent natural disaster such as another Carrington Event), it would almost certainly destroy this country as we know it, removing at a single stroke all electricity, all electronic communication, almost all electronic equipment, shutting down air travel and most road travel, crippling food production, and so on.  In such a scenario, survival is doubtful for most of us, no matter how well we've prepared for emergencies, because almost everyone is going to be desperate enough to attack everyone else to get what they need.  Preppers will stand out because they're clearly, visibly well equipped and not starving.  That alone will make the "haves" into targets for the "have-nots" within a very short time.  Only those living in sufficiently remote places are likely to survive that, and those in communities that come together to protect and support each other - and casualties in such communities are likely to be devastating in the medium term, even if they succeed.  (If you haven't read "One Second After", I highly recommend it.  It's very thought-provoking.)

However, most threats to our societal continuity are likely to be an accumulation of failures.  Take, for example, the recent fire that destroyed a bridge supporting I-95 in Philadelphia.  That Interstate highway is the main north-south road transportation artery along the entire east coast of the USA.  Its closure threatened delays and disruptions to the supply chain for every business and every community it served within a couple of hundred miles from the fire.  Fortunately, thanks to heroic efforts by contractors, a partial repair has reopened the highway to some traffic (about 50% of capacity, I understand), which has eased the strain:  but it'll still take much longer (months, possibly a year or more) to rebuild the road to cater for its former full capacity.  That was a major disaster that was narrowly averted . . . but what if it had not been averted?  What if traffic had remained snarled up and down the east coast for the rest of the summer and fall?  The cost in terms of delayed and missed deliveries alone would have been measured in billions of dollars.  Add to that things like train derailments, air traffic snarl-ups, delays at maritime ports, and so on (all of which have happened recently, and will undoubtedly continue to happen), and it's not hard to envision a cascading failure affecting the entire US transportation system.

Add to that:

• Labor shortages (particularly skilled labor) that prevent companies from producing the goods and/or doing the work their customers want;
• Supply chain shortages and logjams that prevent needed parts, medications, etc. from being available when and where they're required;
• Weather such as storms, droughts, floods, etc. that can affect cities and towns where companies produce and/or distribute goods;
• Soaring crime rates that force businesses to close their stores in more dangerous areas, thereby restricting the supply of essential goods and services to the general population in the area;
• Government policy that's intended to focus on "green" energy, but in the process restricts the supply and availability, and increases the cost, of conventional fuels that are currently indispensable;
• Dependence on government aid to survive (i.e. welfare, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, food stamps, etc.) - if that aid is cut back, those dependent on it will not be able to survive.

Put those and other concerns together, and you have a whole host of issues that can cause major problems, particularly if they happen at the same time and/or in the same area.  It's not hard to envision a situation in which such factors combine to bring society to a standstill for an extended period.  We've seen such situations in specific areas before after extreme weather events such as Hurricane Katrina in 2005, or the Great Flood of 1993.  The effects of those natural disasters took months (in some places, years) to ameliorate.  What if such collapses became regional, rather than just local?  What if they affected several states, particularly during periods when getting aid and supplies to them became very difficult (as in, say, the northern Midwest during midwinter, when snowstorms and blizzards are often severe?)  A major earthquake, or prolonged winter storm, or coronal mass ejection (such as the Carrington Event) affecting our power supply, could induce such prolonged effects.

Finally, there are economic issues that might blow up into a major destabilizing event.  Examples:

• Poverty in our inner cities is rampant, and there's very little anyone can do about it, because the scale of the problem has grown so large that there simply isn't enough money available to fix it.
• Millions of illegal aliens flooding across our southern border are only escalating the problem, because they're competing for what little work is available with those already here.
• Rising crime and deprivation are guaranteed to result, and if they grow widespread enough, they're going to provoke a backlash from those who are simply not prepared to see their safety and security threatened like that.
• Most supermarkets and food stores have enough supplies on hand for only one or two days, relying on constant shipments to replace them as they're sold.  If those shipments are delayed or cancelled for any reason, a lot of people are going to get very hungry, very quickly - and very desperate, too.  (See "Nine Meals from Anarchy".)

Any of those factors could provoke and/or exacerbate others, so that a combination of them could easily spiral out of control.

As I said earlier, I don't think it's very likely (although it's certainly not impossible) that everything will collapse in one swell foop, and precipitate a long-term disaster.  I think it's more likely that we'll see a continuation of the slow, steady deterioration of our economy and society, as we've seen for the past couple of decades.  However, that deterioration is becoming more rapid, and more widespread.  By now it's international in scope, not just national;  Western Europe is no better off than North America.  If that trend continues, it may not be long before a combination of problems causes a rapid local or regional collapse, affecting one city or part of a city.  If that's not addressed at once, it can and will spread like a cancer.  I've seen that happen in the Third World more than once, and it'll be no different here.

Preparing for emergencies means having one's eyes open to the reality of life around us in these United States, assessing the risks that may affect us, and trying to plan ahead to deal with them.  Some things are feasible for individuals and families;  others less so, needing a team, or tribe, or clan, or other community to survive them.  The time to prepare is now, while resources are still available to do so.  By the time they aren't - or if they become too expensive to be affordable - it'll be too late to do much about it.

Of course, if you don't want to prepare, there's always this approach . . .

Peter