What if you turned on the TV and saw this? Are you ready to help?
The last few weeks have seen some crazy weather here in the U.S. Severe snow and ice in Seattle, a devastating tornado in Alabama, and Oregon saw record flooding. Some of that flooding wiped out Turner, Oregon, the town I grew up in.
Notice the concrete retaining wall around this house. The owner built it after record floods in 96. Notice how the water is almost breaching the wall.
Seeing the images of people stranded, caught off guard, without power, and many now without their homes or any possessions got me thinking: What is preparedness worth when Mother Nature sticks it in and breaks it off?
What could you do to help these people? Would you if you could?
Last week, thousands of Oregonians essentially had no warning and were caught off-guard with feet of water in their homes and businesses within a couple hours. Yesterday, near Birmingham, Alabama, 211 homes were destroyed and so far three people are confirmed dead following a tornado that swept through Jefferson County.
So what do you do if all your awesome prepper gear, guns, Zombie plans and outbreak maps get covered in sewage filled river water? What happens if all your ammo cans, water purifiers, and bug-out-bags get haphazardly tossed into the next county by the portal to Oz? What then?
Truth is, I don’t know a good answer for that. There are drills that will help with floods, fires, tornadoes (if you have enough warning,) rolling blackouts, riots, and of course massive hordes of the walking dead. Red Cross, FEMA, and a few other agencies offer lists of things you should have on hand at all times. The drills go something like: Place a tarp in your living room, then run around your house like an idiot grabbing all the items on the list and placing them on the tarp. Goal time is to get under 5-minutes to get everything on the tarp so you can have it all in one place. Not sure what good that will do you when the water is running into your living room, or a tornado just relocated your neighbor’s boat into your kitchen.
What if you came home from a movie and your street looked like this? What could you do to help?
Other things you can do is keep a Bug-out-bag or 72-hour bag – or whatever you want to call it – in a friend or relative’s house that is miles away on high ground, or keep some cash and a pre-pay cell phone in a bank’s safety deposit box. You could always get a storage unit across town and put some stuff in that. That of course has logistical problems like getting to it when every road in town is under water.
What do you do if you are cut off from your super prepper 1000 kit you bought online?
What I witnessed over the last week, isn’t how awesome everyone’s prep was, but how awesome people come together to help total strangers – countrymen – in their time of need. Several members of Zombie Awareness International came out to Lowes home improvement store in Salem, Oregon to help fill sandbags for anyone who needed them. My wife posted that we were doing this on Facebook, and one of the guys she recently deployed with drove nearly 50 miles through flooded counties to come help, just because he felt a need to do something to help.
This is truly what we at ZAI are all about. Our catch line “Keeping your ass alive” paired with our motto: Semper Vigilans Semper Paratus (Latin for always vigilant, always prepared) are about more than talking which gun is better than which, and what is the better plan, bugging out or staying in during the Zombie Apocalypse. It is about being ready to not just protect yourself from disaster, but making sure you are in a position to help others. Get to know your neighbors. Don’t approach them and say, “Zombie Awareness International told me that I need to be prepared for the Zpoc,” but rather, cite the recent emergencies and talk to them about their state of preparedness or readiness. Who knows, you might actually find out that they are more prepared than you, or posses valuable skills for your Zpoc team.
Are you able to help these people? Even just a blanket, a shower, or a hot meal could do wonders for these people right now.
If you see someone in need, true need, help them. This isn’t giving a bum on the corner a five spot because he looks sad at you at the traffic light. What we are suggesting is that you get involved. Don’t freak out and buy a reflective vest and set up neighborhood patrols, but be prepared. Get your family prepared. If your home is undamaged, and you are able to take in a neighbor whose house was leveled or flooded out, let them stay with you a night or two, at the very least, offer them your shower. Who knows, it might just pay off when the dead rise.
And no, this isn’t us going all soft. This is about who we are. What kind of people would we be if at the first sign of trouble, we took our ball and went home? That being said, we still operate under the premise of be polite, be vigilant, and be prepared to kill. It may work in a combat zone, or during Zpoc, but it doesn’t apply when your neighborhood has been waylaid by Mother Nature. This is the time to roll up your sleeves and do the right thing as a human and a survivor.
What if this was you? Yesterday you had a house. Today, you only have a sewage pond. How do you prep for this?
Semper Vigilans Semper Paratus
Eric
ZAI
Zombie Awareness International 