Saving For A Rainy Day
To illustrate how society´s perspectives have changed over the last couple decades, I will share a story about an experience we had only a few years after we began exercising preparedness in our own home.
On a late afternoon during the summer of 2000, a fierce rainstorm approached our area and knocked out the electricity for about six hours. Now, as I´ve said, most of us don´t worry too much about a little power outage. In fact, as long as you have some candles or flashlights, it can actually be fun. My wife and I took it as an opportunity to discuss our current level of preparedness. We had flashlights, candles, matches, oil lamps, a propane stove with the propane to fuel it, and so on. A couple of hours passed, and we decided to pack the family into the car and drive into town for dinner. Just before we left, our phone rang. It was our neighbor, a single lady who lived across the street. She asked if we were also without power, and explained that she didn´t have any water. Living in such a rural area, we get our water from wells, and the water is extracted by the use of an electric pump. In our community, unless you have an emergency supply, no electricity means no water. I had an ample supply of water for my family´s needs and wasn´t worried, but our neighbor was understandably concerned. I asked if she needed any assistance. She replied that she would be alright for a little while at least. After dinner, but before taking the twenty-five mile trip back home, I called our neighbor and asked if there was anything we could pick up for her while we were in town. With real desperation in her voice, she asked if I would pick up a gallon of water for her. A gallon of water? Was she joking? We lived twenty miles from the nearest major grocery store, and she hadn´t even thought to keep a gallon of water on hand? It occurred to me just then that I had evidently not only been keeping emergency stores for my own family, but for anyone in the neighborhood who wasn´t prepared. There is nothing wrong with encouraging others to begin to prepare the very basics right now!
Still don´t believe that there is wisdom in having a little extra on hand? One day I was having a conversation with a business associate about personal preparedness and the logic in having a small food storage on hand. He thought I was paranoid and was wasting good money on perishables. After all, a backup store of perishables would have to continue to be replaced over time without ever being used, while there were two or three large grocery chains stocked to the roof with food. These grocery stores, he argued, had completed extensive analysis of the demographic in their area and knew exactly how much food to keep on their shelves at any given time to supply the demand. I asked him what would happen if the trucks couldn´t get through due to a teamsters´ strike or a natural disaster. He felt confident that these businesses, being driven by money and greed, would never let that happen. Three months later the southern states were hit with terrible ice storms and guess what? The trucks that supplied the grocery outlets couldn´t get in on the slick roads. People panicked and the store shelves emptied. After 9/11, local grocery stores quickly sold out of bottled water and gun shops were cleared of their guns and ammunition. Fear, it seems, will almost always trump corporate greed.