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Sunday, February 28, 2010

Reply: Earthquake in Chile

Well of course people are already shungry and looting supermarkets, the army on teh streets trying to keep control of the situation.
Most saught after items?
Water
Bread
Diapers
Candles (I suppose that battries/flashlights as well... but thats just my speculation)
Bread is selling for around 8 dollars per kilo, ATMs arent working and credit and debit cards arent being accepted.
The government has set up generator in the Plaza de Armas so that people can charge their cell phones.(get a solar/crank cell phone charger)
The situation is pretty complicated and havent heard from cousin and aunt since yesterday.


Notice how its always the same basics: water, food, shelter and lighting. Means of comunication. Money buys you stuff as long as you have cash. Medicines or supplies for babies or the sick.
There's a number of disasters and events that can be much better dealt with if you have some basic supplies at hand.

FerFAL

8 comments:

Adventures in Self Reliance said...

Good lord and butter Bread prices are insane. I think I may look into this as a "Collapse Business"
I'm glad you and your's ferfel are making it out. Mom asked about you.
I'm sorry your family went through this but I'm glad you are safe.

RJS said...

Good advice. A retreat or fancy survivalist plans aren't necessary in this situation. What matters most is a stockpile of water, food and weapons/ammo until systems get running again, and cash or precious metals (or some other barter item) so that you can buy what you need. Reminds me to check my prepardness locker. Thanks.

Don Williams said...

Transport to evacuate is good to have, depending on the geography and nature of the disaster.

If things turned to crap in New York City, you are buggered if you don't have a boat that can get you down the Inland waterway. It is tedious to get off Manhattan into New Jersey via the tunnels (under the Hudson River) even in the best of times.

Obviously, boats wouldn't help in the mountains of Chile, although a sailboat would have been handy in Haiti.

A small plane is nice, but expensive. Some of them -- the taildraggers like the Piper Cub -- can takeoff/land on rough terrain
in short distances (100 meters) if equipped with the tundra tires. People in Alaska use them because Alaska has few roads.

The thing about Chile is that it is a very narrow and long country -- only 50 to 100 miles wide. I would think someone with a backpack could hike down to the Pacific Coast or across the border into Argentina in 2 or 3 days. Especially since this is summer in the Southern Hemisphere.

With some money, a refugee could be in Buenos Aires, sipping a rum drink and saying "poor buggers"
as he reads the newspaper and awaits his steak dinner.

Ask the people who fled New Orleans a few days before Hurricane Katrina hit if they wished they had stayed behind.

Is Argentina getting any refugees, Ferfal? Or do most people in Chile seem to be sitting tight and awaiting government rescue?

Loquisimo said...

I would think that having some canned carbohydrates, such as chicken noodle soup, would be the way to go. When I lived in San Francisco, the people were told that after an earthquake there will still be water in the lines for a short period, so immediately fill your bathtub with water and use that for drinking. Canned meat and Vitamin C candy to ward off scurvy would be important too. I've never seen solar/crank cell phone chargers, I'll have to look into that. If you're a licensed ham, having an HF transmitter running on batteries would make you The Man.

Anonymous said...

Can you call it looting of supermarkets if the government is too inept to respond to emergencies? Wouldn't you temporarily steal from a big company, not your neighbor, to save your family?

Capesurvivor

Anonymous said...

Almost ALL governments are inept, so nothing new there. But even those that are not inept cannot be everywhere at once.

If people even had a SMALL amount of preparedness/stockpile, illegal looting of supermarkets should not surface.

When are people going to realize that they are the only ones with real responsibility to themselves?

There are reasons why you should "save for a rainy day" and that the story of the fat cows and the thin cows has been handed down to new generations.

Why are people so stupid? Just because it is 2010 does not change fundamental laws of existing on this earth.

I am sick of the grabby, needy hands EXPECTING handouts. I am hardened to the lazy, stupid masses in that way. The more this occurs, it has the opposite effect - burnout of the good samaritan.

Chile seemed to have a pretty good plan and their building codes are good, considering. An 8.8 will result in fatalities as that is one, huge quake. I survived Northridge and wonder how LA would fare in an 8.8. Much, MUCH worse than Chile, I expect.

IMO, their gov't response was much better than a lot would have been.

Prepare and help your neighbors. Is there any better plan than that? If you always rely on gov't. for all you issues and problems, you really are too stupid to live.

Just_In_Case_The_SHTF said...

U.S. Prepared for a Major Earthquake?

The big weakness in the USA is individual citizen preparedness:

http://cosmos.bcst.yahoo.com/up/player/popup/?rn=289004&cl=18396091&src=finance&ch=1316259

Anonymous said...

Ferfal-Thank You for your informative website and for sharing your first hand knowledge of surviving economic collapse.

I've stocked up on ammo,canned food,have a vegetable garden and eventually keep some chickens.
Again, Thank You!