by Daisy Luther, The Organic Prepper:
(The risks?) are incredibly high in the United States right now. I realized that over the past three years, I’ve written that they’re “at an all-time high” far too many times. So, I’ll just say, they’re high enough that all hell could break loose at any moment given the right (wrong) application of fuel to the flame. The number one thing you can do for this situation to keep your family safe is to be prepared for lockdown.
Pretending that it isn’t happening or hoping to hug it out is not a rational response to the chaos that is coming. I know that some cling to their misguided views on the way the world works with the ferocity of a mother bear protecting cubs, but for the rest of us, there’s this thing called reality. When we accept it, we can prepare for it.
People near the border are quite reasonably concerned that if thousands of immigrants push through our border illegally, they and their families could be at risk. People in other parts of the country are concerned about the aftermath of whatever happens when these people arrive at the border. Regardless of what occurs, somebody is going to be unhappy. Add in the fiercely-fought midterm elections and the threat of civil unrest is high.
Which leads me to a very important subject. As the situation in the United States devolves, how prepared are you really? If you had to go into lockdown mode and keep your family safely at home, how long would you last with the supplies you have on hand? If the answer is “a few days” or “a couple of weeks” you need to work on that. Immediately.
By planning ahead, we can avoid the fear, panic, and confusion that leads people to rush to the store and clear the shelves like a horde of hungry locusts. We can stay away from the angry masses, the rioters who will use any excuse to steal, and the hungry people who are determined to feed their kids no matter who stands in their way.
Whether the next few weeks lead to pandemonium due to violent protests provoking some type of martial law, a prepared mindset, a defense plan, and a well-stocked home can help to keep you and your family out of harm’s way.
Keep in mind that the decision may not be entirely in your hands. In a martial law situation, it’s not unusual for the authorities to force people to stay in their homes. Remember in Boston when law enforcement was searching for the young man who, with his brother, was accused of setting off the bomb at the marathon? Residents were not allowed to leave their homes due to a “shelter in place directive.” The directive was presented as voluntary, but if you didn’t wish to have SWAT teams pointing guns in your face during this period of de facto martial law, staying home was the only option. Some people ran out of supplies the same day. Don’t be one of those people.
This isn’t the first time I’ve written about the potential need to lock down. It’s a viable response to a variety of crises. For example, had the Ebola cases on US shores turned into a pandemic, a lockdown period would have been the very best way to keep your family safe.
With situations of civil unrest, it isn’t as clear-cut. It depends on where you live. In a small town, far away from riots and protests, your lockdown area could be much greater than your own home. It could encompass your immediate community, too, and life might go on as it always has for you, aside from the need to stay just a little closer to home than before.
However, if you live in a city or suburb, it may become essential to make a decision quickly. Do you lock your doors and stay home? Or do you get out of Dodge? It is a question only you can answer. One thing that is very important is this: if you need to go, do NOT miss your window of opportunity to do so safely. If the entire city feels the same way, you’ll most likely be stuck in traffic and trapped in your car. Protesters have shut down the highways more than once in recent years, and you’ll be far safer behind the brick and mortar of your home than you will be in your car.
By the way, there’s always someone who chimes in with a snide remark about how cowardly it is to lockdown with your family in order to stay safe. If you want to go get involved in a battle to make a political point, that’s certainly your prerogative. However, my priority is the safety of my family, and as such, I hope to avoid engaging altogether.
If you happen to be away from home when violence erupts, your first task is safely navigating your way home. In a perfect world, we’d all be home, watching the chaos erupt on TV from the safety of our living rooms. However, reality says that some of us will be at work, at school, or in the car when unrest occurs. You need to develop a “get-home” plan for all of the members of your family, based on the most likely places that they will be.
Once everyone is safely home, you need to commit to your decision to lockdown. This could last a day, a week, or longer. There’s really no way to predict it. It’s most likely that you will have electrical power throughout this crisis, but you should be prepared just in case the grid goes down due to damage during riots or attempts by the authorities to gain control of the situation.
You should be set up with the following (at the minimum – hopefully you have these supplies and more):
If you are completely unprepared for this type of thing, order some buckets of emergency food. Keep them in the back of your closet – they last for up to 25 years. This is absolutely the fastest way to create an emergency supply. Choose a high-quality product like the ones from Preppers Market – you don’t want to make yourself sick eating poor-quality food if you normally eat healthfully.
Your best defense is avoiding the fight altogether. You want to stay under the radar and not draw attention to yourself. The extent to which you strive to do this should be based on the severity of the unrest in your area. Some of the following recommendations are not necessary for an everyday grid-down scenario, but could save your life in a more extreme civil unrest scenario.
If, despite your best efforts, your property draws the attention of people with ill intent, you must be ready to defend your family. Sometimes despite our best intentions, the fight comes to us. (Have you seen the movie The Purge?)
Many preppers stockpile weapons and ammunition for just such an event. I know that I certainly do. Firearms are an equalizer. A small woman can defend herself from multiple large intruders with a firearmif she’s had some training and knows how to use it properly. But put a kitchen knife in her hand against those same intruders, and her odds decrease exponentially. I know this is true about the firearm, because I have been in this situation personally, and the gun in my hand was enough of a deterrent to make 3 men leave.
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