I spent a significant portion of the last four months looking at resilient communities all over the country for John Robb’s site www.resilientcommunities.com. I have a post there today, about how to jump start a barter economy. We’re seeing the exact thing happening in Greece, Italy, Spain…everywhere the economic structure is collapsing. There’s some useful information in there. Click over and have a read.
Some other random observations:
The recent earthquake swarm in Southern California disturbs me and many of my geologist friends. If you track that fault line and you see the unprecedented surge of significant activity (3-5 magnitude earthquakes, over 400 in the last several days, including a major one off the coast of South America), it might be a good time to review basic preparedness. The implications of a major earthquake affecting southern California are significant and national in scope.
Likewise with the pending storm in and around New Orleans, almost 7 years to the day from Katrina. I’ve noticed already a huge jump at the gas pumps because of the rigs closing down ahead of the storm. Gas has gone up between $.30-$.40 cents a gallon in the last two days here. When I returned from my trip, gas had averaged around $3.50 or so. It’s right at $4.00 a gallon today.
Today on the bus, I sat near a number of local gang members, who had a long and loud conversation about the pros and cons of different robbery approaches targeting the new students in this college town. According to these experienced street robbers, walking up and demanding iPads, laptops and backpacks from students, especially the young Asian students, is safer for them (the robbers); less likely to get resistance, and if the police come and arrest them, the charges and subsequent sentencing is “two years more, if you show a knife or a gun or lay hands on ’em!” Their prospective prey, most of them teenagers at their first week of college, sat frozen and scared and stared straight ahead.
More specifics in coming posts about resilient strategies, along with some recently tested and vetted emergency gear reviews, and some more posts over on John’s blog.