Good article. It's good to know there are some in Hollywood who have common sense. Although, I know that number is quite low. And yes, he is doing some advertising here, but if someone thinks twice about preparing for an unknown future because of his article, then good for him.
I especially like this:
I'm definitely not an alarmist or fear monger, and I dislike those who are. Succumbing to fear literally robs us of life and paralyzes us from achieving our best.
Well stated!
The article goes on: "Without internet access and power, all commerce and advanced methods of communication would stop. There would be no TV, radio, phones. Credit card transactions and cash withdrawals at banks would be impossible. Paper money would become worthless, and Bitcoin [and crypto currency] would cease to exist, along with the stock market."
I'm not sure I completely agree with this. I'm by no means a 'radio' expert, but the hams and walkie talkies would still work, no?
Also, paper money wouldnn't immediately become worthless. In fact, if the banks no longer were able to process transactions, those with cash would be in the drivers seat. At first people would still transact with cash. It's only after a long term disaster that cash would slowly lose it's worth as bartering became the norm. Cash has worth as long as people believe it does and that belief wouldn't die at the first sign of a SHTF event. Just try and drop some cash on the ground if you think it's not worth something. I doubt it would be there the next day. He also mentioned travelers checks. Do people still use those?
He also mentions "local maps". This reminds me of the last time we went on vacation and were in the car for many hours. We used our atlas b/c our phones are ancient. We got there just fine. Our friends are still laughing at us over that one. However, most of them said they wouldn't be able to do that b/c they don't know how to read a map. It was challenging at times, b/c the more populated places don't mark their roads very well, but we did it.
I have small solar chargers, but don't have solar backups b/c I don't want to bother with the batteries required to store the energy. Solar wouldn't be very useful here most of the time anyways.
As far as the emergency food supplies, you could probably save yourself a lot of money by gettting supplies at your local food store. Items I would start with are canned veges and meats, individual rice and pasta packs (like Knorr that are stored in mylar type bags), canned soup, canned pasta (chef-boy-r-dee), powdered milk, oatmeal packs, protein powder, dried fruits, nuts, etc. Some of it isn't really considered healthy, but when you don't have anything else to eat, it would do. Dollar for dollar, you could probably get more medium to long term storage food at your grocery store than with the buckets. This week my store has chef-boy-r-dee cans on sale for $1 each. Those cans are calorie dense. Pair that with a can of green beans and you could call that a meal.
