The Stand
I'm reading The Stand and wondering.
I'm wondering how I would survive if I survived something like the bug that kills all these people in the book. I'm not even to the part where the battle of good and evil has started. I'm just now to the point where entire populations are wiped out and the survivors are left trying to figure out what to do.
And, it made me wonder.
What would you need to survive? I mean, if you were going to leave the city and venture out on your own. Or even if you're going to stay in your home or squat in someone else's. What would you make sure to have in stock?
Batteries will eventually die, right? So, I mean, I guess they'll last you for a few years. Flashlights, candles and matches. Canned food and affiliated items. Firearms and ammunition. Medical supplies. For women, it could be even worse with your monthly cycle in the way. I think about my son with his birth defect requiring the replacement of chemicals his body doesn't make. If he were to even survive the germs, how would we manage to find enough medicine to keep him alive and healthy?
So, what would you need? A lot you can pilfer from stores and homes for a while, but then what?
I'm wondering how I would survive if I survived something like the bug that kills all these people in the book. I'm not even to the part where the battle of good and evil has started. I'm just now to the point where entire populations are wiped out and the survivors are left trying to figure out what to do.
And, it made me wonder.
What would you need to survive? I mean, if you were going to leave the city and venture out on your own. Or even if you're going to stay in your home or squat in someone else's. What would you make sure to have in stock?
Batteries will eventually die, right? So, I mean, I guess they'll last you for a few years. Flashlights, candles and matches. Canned food and affiliated items. Firearms and ammunition. Medical supplies. For women, it could be even worse with your monthly cycle in the way. I think about my son with his birth defect requiring the replacement of chemicals his body doesn't make. If he were to even survive the germs, how would we manage to find enough medicine to keep him alive and healthy?
So, what would you need? A lot you can pilfer from stores and homes for a while, but then what?
7 Comments:
At 6:40 AM, July 06, 2009,
Anna09 said…
Have you read "The Road" by Cormac McCarthy? This book sounds similar, except the world is burned, not bugged, and there is no enormous battle.
Food and water are the most important things- everything else is secondary, really.
At 8:58 AM, July 06, 2009,
Uzz said…
From one of your fave 80s bands:
"I met the walking dude,religious, in his wom down cowboy boots
He walked liked no man on earth
I swear he had no name (had no name)
I swear he had no name
Come on down & meet your maker
Come on down & make the stand"
At 10:23 AM, July 06, 2009,
Susabelle said…
Food, water, clothing, shelter. Pretty much in that order. Learn to grow and preserve veggies. Settle near a place with a good source of clean water. You can make your own clothes...it's how our ancestors did it, and not that long ago, our own parents/grandparents/great-grandparents. Live in existing housing or create your own. The will to survive is usually very strong, and the strongest would survive the easiest.
At 2:32 PM, July 06, 2009,
Gadfly said…
Immediate needs being obvious. I would pilfer antibiotics and other basic medications and keep them sealed up dry and tight somewhere deep and temperature constant.
While we rebuild, let's have a fall-back position when one of us gets really sick.
At 2:43 PM, July 06, 2009,
Anonymous said…
Beware the book starts to get a little slow,as several of his books tend to do, but it will pick back up very interestingly. Dion
At 3:12 PM, July 06, 2009,
El Capitan said…
You ought to pick up a copy of John Ringo's 'The Last Centurion'. It's a big brawling mess of an post-apocalyptic war story, but he goes into chilling detail of the deep, deep $h!t you're in for if you're a city dweller when the food trucks stop delivering. To cut to the chase, you'd best be prepared to shoot your neighbors dead when they come to take what food you've got stored for your kids. Have fun standing 24 hour watch, too. How long can you keep that up?
The ones that survive that kind of mess are the ones that prepare for it. Kim du Toit had a great post about his emergency escape kits that would keep his family alive for a week or so, but what do you do after that?
I'm telling ya, it's enough to make you want to move to a remote cave with 5 years worth of MRE's!
At 8:53 AM, July 09, 2009,
Kim du Toit said…
Here ya go:
1. Grab 'N Go
2. Survival Kit
Sadly, when it comes to Rx stuff, people who need them are going to be SOL. Even if you lay in a goodly supply, it will run out eventually. Pharmacies will be the second place plundered (after supermarkets).
Strangely, a post-killer pandemic scenario is not as bad as natural cataclysm (earthquake etc) because an 80% mortality rate ensures plenty of the survivors.
Whether you actually want to LIVE in such a world is debatable.
In any event, your family needs to survive a minimum of three months with just the contents of what you have in your home right now. We could last, we estimate, about six, after which time we hope that order etc. will have been restored. If not... I don't wanna think about it.
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