This is sort of stale news, but watching the aftermatch of Hurricane Sandy was a reminder of what would happen in any widespread disaster. I was struck by the lack of standyby power, fuel, food, and heating supplies. It got fairly cold after the storm, lots of people had no heat and had to leave the area to avoid freezing. As I’ve pointed out, heat is electrically operated in most places and would not function without power, even if the natural gas was still on.  Gasoline either ran out or was unavailable from the pumps (no power), so people had trouble getting out. Telecom was mostly inoperative, payphones became a very valuable commodity, and in some cases the only comms left standing.

It points up the need to be standalone self-sufficient for at least a month, to weather something like this. It’s not some abstraction, it’s reality and Sandy was proof of that. These events are fairly common, so it pays to be ready IMO.