The helicopter flies over you, carrying them to the airport; but not the part where you have to go through security and take your shoes off and now have your temperature taken. They go to the other side where all the sleek jets are parked. Their pilot awaits and they fly off to their tens of thousands of acres compound in Montana where they have supplies stocked to last decades, their own personal physician (with their own ventilator and other key medical supplies including plenty of PPE). Their private security personnel guard the gates which are out of sight of the main house; often by many miles.
They’re prepared.
Are you?
Sound like a scary future scenario? It’s already happened. The super-rich left New York City as COVID-19 made landfall. They went to their second, or third, or fourth homes. Whichever they thought best. I assure you that small airports in place such as Kalispell, MT, are packed with private jets right now.
Other super-rich have bought condos in former ballistic missile silos, where the smallest one goes for $1.5 million for 900 square feet. If you desire more Daniel Boone elbow room you can spring for $4.5 million for 3,600 square feet. Get an entire floor in the silo. Which also has a gym, a movie theater and many more amenities.
In these posts, I’ve talked about the economic fallout from COVID-19 being as serious, if not more, than the actual virus. We still haven’t felt the true effect of massive unemployment and the disruption of the supply chain. But there are ripples. How many bare shelves in your local grocery? Not just toilet paper any more, but also many meat products. Are canned soups picked over? Cereals? Frozen meals? On the flip side though, there should be plenty of fresh vegetables for those who live outside large cities as those are usually grown and procured locally.
In Special Forces we’ve seen first-hand what a collapsed society looks like and it can happen fast. Various deployments, including some already forgotten such as Yugoslavia. Remember Yugoslavia hosted the Olympics in 1984. By 1991 it was in the midst of a brutal civil war. There were massacres; neighbors killing neighbors. Americans don’t think it can happen here? We’re closer to it than we’ve been since a little event called the Civil War, that killed over 700,000 Americans.
If people are pissed because they can’t go to their favorite bar, imagine how they will act when they can’t feed their family?
Are you prepared?
You don’t have to be rich to prepare. In fact, some of the things they’re spending millions on are rather stupid, such as the silo condo. The poor man’s ultimate survival guide? Find the nearest survivalist and take their stuff. Yeah, yeah, they think they can guard it. Obviously, they’ve never pulled security at a remote firebase. And if they’re paying guards, how long before the guards realize who the unnecessary people are and how worthless money has become?
Are you prepared?
It’s never too late. In fact, look at recent events: dams collapsing in Michigan. Tornadoes in Tennessee. Hurricane season looms. Earthquakes are rattling here and there. Wildfires?
The first step of preparation is low cost and simple and smart. Do an Area Study. Look at yourself, your team and how well prepared you aren’t. And are. Then your local area. Threats. Assets. I guarantee most of those rich people in their compounds haven’t done an Area Study. They’ve overlooked key things.
Because while the rich are different than you and I, they’re still subject to the same human fragilities.
More to come, including the all-important: when to bug out? We’re not there, but we have to know the signs. Where to bug out to?
The Green Beret Pocket-Sized Survival Guide (same as above, minus the preparation part in order to be smaller in print)
The Green Beret Preparation and Survival Guide. Also in Kindle Unlimited.
I read Lucifer’s Hammer (by Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle) a couple lifetimes ago, and while Trump et al are not an asteroid big enough to end civilization the result of this coronavirus may be similar to such an impact.
By September, we’ll have a wind & solar power grid (designed by my Civil Engineer adult daughter who lives with me) installed. Close to a 1/2 acre of land, we’ll have a flock of chickens and space for a pig, unless our butcher shop continues to offer 1/4 or 1/2 cow & pig in the fall.
I’ve got a garden started, but by next year, it’ll be a 40 x 50 ft space. Between the chickens & eggs and garden, and a new pump for the well & the power we’ll be close to self sufficient.
Of course, I’m doing all of this for my kids, in the event the worst happens and all of that is necessary for an extended period. Because I’m an insulin dependent diabetic and if the shit hits the fan in any real sense, I may get another year, but even if I can find enough insulin to buy, if it stops production then I get to count the bottles to find out when I’ll die.
Maybe it won’t be as bad as I fear. But this isn’t some local war that could be recovered from a year or three, it’s a world wide pandemic killing off global supply chains while we’re watching. In the US in the past couple of weeks there were reports for only a few days about farmers giving away mountains of potatoes and pig farmers slaughtering pigs they can’t get to market because they don’t have feed to keep them alive.
That lasts more than a couple of months, and where will the food to feed 330+ million Americans come from this winter or next year?
I’m not a survivalist, just a realist, and I don’t think the average American has any clue just how badly the United States has been hurt already in this pandemic. But the increasingly empty shelves on the grocery store aisles should be a sign to anyone that something is dreadfully wrong here.
Will Congress & Trump pass enough stimulus to keep enough small businesses and the food supply chain intact thru the pandemic and past that for probably another year? Can the US, in it’s current shape, survive another Great Depression? Will the Republic itself survive Trump and the sycophantic Republicans in the US Senate?
Serious questions, and no one seems willing or able to answer any of them.