Are your prepping fears rational? Are mine? Does it matter if they are?
I’ve been thinking a lot about fear and prepping lately. As I recently wrote, my fear of an Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) / Solar Storm type event is what originally drove me into prepping.
There’s debate in the prepping community about whether the fear of an EMP / Solar is a rational fear. As I pointed out in my article linked above, I believe it is.
I do, however, have at least one completely irrational prepping fear, so let’s use that as an example for this article.
Prepping Fears: Being drowned when a dam bursts.
As far as I am concerned, this is one of the dumbest, silliest prepping fears that I have.
Not because being concerned about dam failures and flash floods is dumb or silly, not at all. For people who live below dams (shudder), this is a huge concern.
But here’s the thing. I don’t live below a dam. I live on high ground.
My house could be flattened by a tornado, burned down, suffer a sewer backup in the basement, it could be destroyed by an earthquake and it could even potentially collapse from the weight of ash from the Yellowstone Supervolcano.
What isn’t going to happen to my house is it being covered by water from a dam bursting… because I live above the waterline of every dam in the area.
Many things have changed over the years, but one constant has remained. Water flows downhill.
So yes, for me, having prepping fears about being caught in a dam bursting… that’s just silly.
Having said that, millions of Americans live below a dam. Hundreds of millions more will lose their drinking supply if a dam fails… including me.
Huh. I guess that fear isn’t quite so silly after all.
Separating Real Risks From Prepping Fears
Let’s say the New Madrid Fault lets go with a massive earthquake, and shakes the midwest with an 8.5 on the Richter scale. What do our fears tell us?
If we are in a building, will it fall down and crush us? Reasonable, right? If we are driving, will the roadway fail. Will the bridges fail? Will the thousands and thousands of massive dams holding back an unknown amount of water hold, or will they fail? Chances are, many of them will break… so not only do we have dangerous dam-break flash floods, we also have many millions of people without drinking water long-term.
We look at this information (remember, there’s been a huge earthquake of that scale in this area 200 years ago, this isn’t ancient history stuff) and, as preppers, we think “OK, what does that mean for us”?
What Does It Mean For Us
It means alternative housing needs to be available. It means that we should expect transportation to be cut off for weeks (there are a LOT of bridges in our area.
We should know that drinking water will not be available, so we need to have our own sources and filtration/purification options.
It means that, across the board, we need to be ready for a Stuff Hits The Fan event.
But What Does This Have To Do With Our Fears Being Rational?
It shows that whether fears are rational or not, everything is interrelated, and if we prep for something that others think is “just a bit nutty” it really doesn’t matter as long as our preps are fairly universal.
I prep for a dam bursting by having a reasonable food and water supply on hand, because even if I’m not washed away during the flash flood, that dam break can still put me at risk.
https://beansbulletsbandagesandyou.com/bullets/2018/10/28/shtf-last-minute-shopping-bad-idea/