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As editor for Final Prepper, I think it’s fair to say that I might think of Doomsday more than a lot of people. I think all preppers do to varying degrees. I try to imagine a world on the other side of collapse; a future that is soaked in chaos and anarchy, of people on the edge of survival. I think about these things not because I am a deviant psychopath bent on seeing the world burn while I assume some throne atop the wreckage of civilization; I think about the worst our society can become so I am hopefully able to plan in some way for contingencies like this. I figure if I plan for the absolute worst case scenario I will have at least spent some brain-power now trying to figure out solutions to the challenges in my imagination. If nothing happens, that is perfectly fine but I don’t want to be shell-shocked and unable to act if something horrible really does happen. In reality, that may be what happens regardless, but I do consider mental practice a worthwhile exercise.

We talk about combating violence with violence on this blog a lot, but usually from the standpoint of protecting yourself, your home or your loved ones and that is a very real and tangible possibility even now. If you add some SHTF event on top of the regular evil in the world, I believe violence will become extremely more prevalent. We in the U.S. have been largely insulated from violence and war inside our borders anyway for a very long time. Strangely enough, the rest of the world has not. I believe it only takes the right scenario or chain of events for our nation to see tanks rolling down our streets, massive protests with hundreds injured or even killed in the name of ‘restoring order’, martial law, and many thousands arrested for dissent. I also think it is possible for the right trigger event to completely destroy all semblance of society and with it our understanding of law and order. When there are no rules anymore, what do you do?

When there is no more Rule of Law

As preppers we prepare for disasters and unplanned events of all shapes and sizes. I like to believe that the actions I take to be more prepared can be used for millions of different scenarios and enhance the lives of my family even if there are never any disasters. Just the other week, I was fortunate enough to put out a small fire in our home with one of the fire-extinguishers I had purchased expressly because I was thinking about living without the benefit of the fire department. This simple prep we made was able to potentially save our home from burning down. In this case, that small act of preparing for fire actually made me prepared to act in a way that protected my family for a situation I had planned for. Go Figure!

We plan for losing the ability to purchase healthy food, losing access to water, health care and yes for bad guys coming down our street to loot or destroy, but eventually the fires will die down and we will have to restore our own semblance of society. In a worst case scenario, there will likely be no police force. We call this WROL (Without Rule of Law) You won’t have courts, lawyers, probation officers or detention centers paid for and run by taxpayer dollars. What happens when these legal process systems we have relied on to deal with the criminals among us are gone?

At some point in the bleakest future we can imagine, maintaining the rule of law might be our responsibility. Your community might be the police force, the judge and in some cases, the executioner. Instead of protesting police, you may find yourself along with your neighbors in the role of dealing with the bad guys.

All crimes are not equal. Different punishments for different offenses will be wise.

Crime and punishment when the grid goes down

We are a nation of laws and regardless of what you think about the particular laws, civil society needs rules to live by. To enforce the laws we have consequences and those are all sloppily handled by our local governments in various fashion. If you ask me there are entirely too many laws on the books now, but that’s an argument for another day. I do agree that some laws/rules are needed to keep everyone responsible or to hold people responsible for their actions. These will be no less important in a SHTF scenario, but your problem could be codifying the laws your community agrees on and identifying some process for carrying out justice when everything has gone to hell.

In this case I am referring to communities of people. When a group of people are together and relying on each other for mutual support, they will need to answer some questions if they want to formalize a process. Lone Individuals who are on their own will be ruled only by their own individual morals and ethics I think in a SHTF scenario. If you are living out on your remote piece of land and someone comes into your house at night, or is caught stealing some livestock, you will be left to your own devices I think in dealing with them.

In a community and maybe even in large families you will have to deal with consensus and agreement more so I believe unless you plan on running things like the Governor of Woodberry. In order for communities to get along, the rules will either need to be agreed upon or enforced under penalty of threat of violence. For the sake of this article, let’s assume your neighborhood has formed a small survival community, the worst of whatever disaster has passed and now you are trying to rebuild your own society piece by piece. This is TEOTWAWKI here, not some regional disaster that you would eventually recover from.

Justice in a WROL world may mean the death penalty.

What could you possibly have to consider when it comes to the rules and laws of the community?
Who decides what the rules/laws are? – In a survival community, I don’t see anyone electing a single leader, but that could happen. There should be some form of leadership and this can be made up of several adults chosen by the group. The community should identify what rights this leadership has and the extents of any power provided to the leadership. No point in giving someone control over the community who will be a dictator.

What are your rules/laws? – This might sound easy at first, but over time it could become more complex without clear wisdom. I think it might make sense to deal with offenses against people first such as theft, injury or murder. These crimes may have clear-cut victims but for the sake of your conscious, a method of determining beyond a shadow of a doubt; the guilt or innocence of someone is key. You could start with the Bible and use elements of Levitical law, but that will set you up for harsh penalties that may not always seem fair. Do you really want to cut off someone’s hands for stealing? What if the person who stole was a child?

How are the rules shared with the survival community? – If you make a law/rule for your community you will have to ensure that everyone knows about the rules. You can’t simply say, the penalty for dumping poop near the stream is death and start killing people if they didn’t know the rules. Publish the rules in a common place and have a meeting with the community to go over all of the laws and give them a chance to offer feedback or ask questions.

How do you come up with penalties? – You can assume you won’t have access to a prison to incarcerate anyone as punishment for their crimes. Even if you did, you would have to spend resources feeding and taking care of the person. Punishment should be swift and effective so that the community isn’t burdened by the person who committed the crime. Could you make them spend the day in the stocks like they did as recently as the revolutionary war? For the penalty or punishment, this should be agreed well in advance so the rules come with penalties that are publicly known ahead of time by all members of the committee. Outsiders, if they are let in should be notified of the community rules immediately. Another reason to keep them simple.

Who will establish guilt or innocence? – I think an impartial party or group of people should be responsible for deciding guilt or innocence when it comes to punishment. This could be as simple as three people from the community who each get a vote after hearing the evidence. The people chosen could be different for each “Trial” to keep things fair.

How is punishment carried out? – I don’t think the people who decided the laws or a person’s guilt or innocence should be responsible for punishment. In the case of the death penalty, who will be the executioner? Who will slide the hangman’s noose around their fellow community member’s neck? This is not a job for a sick or vindictive individual. It should weigh heavily on anyone responsible with carrying out death in the name of justice.

As many problems as I have with the justice system in our country, I am not excited about the prospect of potentially being responsible for dispensing justice in my community. Again, this is an extremely bleak vision of a future that I don’t believe anyone wants, but topics like this do interest me with the potentials they highlight.

What about you? Have you thought about community rules and laws after a SHTF event?

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As preppers we prepare for disasters and unplanned events of all shapes and sizes. I like to believe that the actions I take to be

Introduction

If you happen to have worked on a military base in the past, I’m sure you’ve encountered guards standing at the guardhouse routinely waving traffic through the gate – maybe stopping the occasional vehicle to ask a question or two before waving them through. Such a relaxed approach may be adequate during peacetime, however post-disaster these procedures will be wholly inadequate. This article will describe how small communities can establish and manage effective post-disaster roadblocks.

With the recent unrest in Ferguson, MO we’ve actually had a rather ugly preview of coming attractions regarding the need to control and monitor the movement of people. The image of a large gang of criminals, intent on looting, migrating to a neighboring community and shooting their way into a locked store, is an image that should be forever branded into the consciousness of every prepper. This is precisely the reason that the movement of people will need to be controlled, and it’s going to require more than a smiling face and a wave of the hand.

In the wake of a major disaster, those living in small to mid-sized communities will be faced with the challenge of quickly reorganizing to cope with new and immediate concerns. One critical need will be to “control the perimeter”, which will involve establishing security checkpoints to control and monitor comings and goings. Without such controls the risk of disease and lawlessness could threaten the community’s very existence.

While, at first blush, it may seem trivial to set up a roadblock (“Hey, you two guys go down the road and check anybody passing through town!”), during times of disaster an effective roadblock requires more serious consideration.

Selecting Locations for Roadblocks

As with many aspects of life, when establishing a roadblock “location is everything”, and factors that should help to identify the best location for a roadblock include distance from population centers, availability of sufficient space to meet the roadblock’s missions, ability to be defended and potential for line-of-sight communications.

Ideally a roadblock should be a minimum of 0.75 miles (1.2 kilometers) from any dense population centers. This distance corresponds roughly to the range of a high-powered rifle. In other words, a defensive perimeter is much less useful to a community if an adversary can effectively shoot at members of the community from outside the defended perimeter (a roadblock should, if possible, be that distance from any location where a member of the community lives or works).

Military snipers have been known to, on rare occasions, hit targets at distances approaching 1.5 miles. Obviously a bit larger safe zone should be considered if one anticipates adversaries having military sniper training.

Roadblocks are staffed by people, and in the long term people require supporting infrastructure. Such infrastructure potentially includes provisions for the sanitary elimination of human waste, protection from the weather, storage of supplies and space to be used to detain travelers without blocking traffic. Any location considered for a permanent or long-term roadblock should address these real-world needs.

The security of those staffing a roadblock should be a primary concern when selecting its location. It is inevitable that there will eventually be security incidents at any roadblock, and the personnel there should be able to ward off any anticipated attack until reinforcements can arrive. The availability of hard and soft cover should be considered, as well as local geography (with regard to both offense and defense). In some situations it may be important to have a concealed shooting position located nearby to provide supporting fire in the event of the most serious situations.

Yet another important factor to consider when selecting the location of a roadblock is the availability of line-of-sight communication to the community. This can be important in case other more conventional means of communication become unavailable. For example, flags might be flown to request reinforcements or to visually indicate other abnormal situations. In some cases it may be necessary for a central headquarters within the community to have a line-of-sight to the roadblock, while in other cases it may be sufficient for the roadblock to be within sight of any population center (from which communication might be relayed to the central headquarters).

In addition to the factors already mentioned, a roadblock should be established at a location that is a natural traffic bottleneck. Otherwise it is possible that intruders could simply bypass the roadblock.

Sandbags are an often over-looked prepper supply that can make very effective cover for fighting positions. Just add hard work.

Facility and Equipment

Without certain basic features necessary to meet the needs of those who will be staffing it, the ability of a permanent or long-term roadblock to accomplish its mission will be significantly degraded. The roadblock station should feature:

  • A latrine or other means of eliminating human waste in a sanitary fashion
  • A source of clean water
  • A structure that provides protection from the weather
  • A flagpole (and various colored flags) for backup visual communication
  • A siren or other device for producing a loud and distinctive audible alert
  • A lockable storage bin that is protected from the weather
  • Sandbags or some other form of hard cover
  • Nearby access to places of concealment
  • A movable barrier to control the flow of traffic
  • A radio or other device for security-related communications
  • Chairs
  • A temporary parking area where one or more vehicles may be detained without blocking other traffic
  • Signs posted at appropriate locations to provide instructions and cautions to approaching travelers

Flags of various colors should be available to, at a minimum, signify abnormal security conditions (perhaps yellow and red), requests for unscheduled personnel rotation and requests for medical assistance.

In addition to the equipment listed above, those who staff the roadblock (and anyone providing them covering fire) should carry weapons that are appropriate to their role. Holstered handguns, along with spare magazines and a good supply of ammunition, are probably a best fit for those staffing the roadblock; with a rifle close at hand in the guard shack. The advantage of holstered handguns is that they leave hands free for signaling and conducting searches.

Communications

Good communications, both among the personnel staffing a roadblock and between the roadblock and other security personnel within the community, is vitally important. Efficient non-verbal communications between the personnel staffing the roadblock can be quite useful. For example, hand signals might be used to guide traffic or to quickly and silently communicate ‘caution’ or ‘danger’ to other personnel staffing the roadblock. They might also be useful in communicating with any concealed locations that are tasked with providing covering fire during times of heightened security.

Radio or other forms of electronic communication between the roadblock, a central headquarters and/or other roadblocks or other security personnel can obviously also fill a vital role. If non-secure radio communications are utilized then standard code words (similar to the ’10 codes’ used today by law enforcement personnel) should be employed to augment communications security (‘COMSEC’).

TA-312 field phones can still be purchased in surplus stores.

An alternative to radio communications is the use of military grade ‘field telephones’. Such phones provide the advantage of increased COMSEC. Military-model phones worth consideration are the TA-1, the EE-8 and the TA-312 field telephones, which have been used by the US military throughout the twentieth century. The TA-1 offers a range of up to four miles and requires no power source (it is voice-powered). The EE-8 offers a range of up to 17 miles, but requires batteries. The TA-312 has a range of up to twenty-two miles under dry conditions, and features a built-in hand generator so that batteries are not necessary for operation.

Small military switchboard devices can be installed at the central headquarters to enable point-to-point telephone communications between multiple locations. There would also be a need to obtain sufficient lengths of telephone wire to interconnect the desired stations.

As has already been mentioned, flags and sirens can fill an important role by providing a means of communicating certainly critical conditions to the entire community.

Staffing

It is typical to have a roadblock staffed by a minimum of three individuals; two members of the team typically process foot traffic and vehicles through the roadblock in accordance with standing orders, while the third oversees the operation from the guard shack and is ready to react appropriately if an incident develops. Occasionally the duties associated with manning the roadblock can be physically demanding (for example, if the station comes under attack), so it is important that all team members be physically fit.

Under normal circumstances teams should work in shifts and rotate on and off the roadblock in accordance with a pre-established schedule. As already suggested, in times of heightened alert it may also be prudent to employ a concealed sniper to provide support on an as-needed basis.

Using Roadblocks to Gather Intelligence

Roadblocks can be excellent (and cost-effective) sources of critical intelligence information about potential future security threats to the community. Question and answer sessions conducted with passers-by can provide a wealth of information which can often be corroborated by multiple independent observers. When collecting information from travelers about potential adversaries they may have observed, the following ‘SALUTE’ questions should be remembered:

  • S)ize of potential adversaries
  • A)ctivity a potential adversary was observed being engaged in
  • L)ocation of potantial adversaries
  • U)nit Types Capabilities of potential adversaries
  • T)ime the potential adversary was observed
  • E)quipment possessed by a potential adversary

Policies and Procedures Governing Roadblocks

The individuals manning a community roadblock should be governed by policies and procedures in addition to and standing orders. Policies governing a roadblock should include:

  • If possible the personnel staffing the roadblock should wear common uniforms or otherwise present themselves to travelers as members of a disciplined and professional unit.
  • To the greatest extent possible, roadblock personnel should maintain detailed notes of all incoming and outgoing traffic, including answers to the ‘SALUTE’ questions described above as appropriate.
  • The maximum number of consecutive hours that individuals should attend a roadblock without being relieved.
  • Identification of different classes of travelers (e.g. community members, vs. known locals vs. unknown personnel)
  • Standard operating procedures for handling each class of traveler.
  • Policies regarding personnel taking necessary breaks during their work shift.
  • Regularly-scheduled check-ins with the central headquarters.
  • The use of special signs or signals for identification purposes.
  • The procedure for evacuating the roadblock in the event that it is overrun (including the destruction of sensitive materials and equipment)
  • Criteria for pursuing vehicles that attempt to flee the roadblock

Conclusion

The use of roadblocks to control and monitor the flow of inbound and outbound traffic (foot traffic and otherwise) is important to the community from many perspectives. In addition to strengthening the defense of the community, it can be a valuable source of strategic intelligence. The presence of roadblocks also increases the community’s sense of security and well-being, which can itself translate into increased productivity and economic activity.

To paraphrase the great poet Robert Frost who once proclaimed that “Good Fences Make Good Neighbors” it can be said that “Good Roadblocks Make For Secure Survival Communities”.

Somehow my version just doesn’t seem as poetic!

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Introduction If you happen to have worked on a military base in the past, I’m sure you’ve encountered guards standing at the guardhouse routinely waving traffic through the gate – maybe

Many preppers have formed a mental picture of the ideal bug out destination being a cabin located in some remote wilderness, well away from any population center. Others imagine an underground bunker where a mutual assistance group (“MAG”) can hunker down and ride things out for as long as is necessary. While these images have their appeal, they also present serious challenges of their own.

In the process of authoring “When There is No FEMA” I had the opportunity to give quite a bit of consideration to the ideal bug out destination, and one question persistently nagged at me – if a survival group is defending a small property in a remote location, then what is to stop a concealed enemy with a high-powered rifle from picking off members of the community one-by-one?   For me this highlights a fatal flaw in the “remote cabin” scenario, and underscores an important principle that should apply to any bug out location … any survival group should control a sufficiently large area that their base of operations is outside of rifle range of the perimeter they control.

This principle suggests that a small group is not necessarily the best group for a survival scenario. A small town, by comparison, has the physical size and raw manpower necessary to control a larger geographic area on a 24×7 basis. Additionally, a small town often has infrastructure such as machine shops, heavy equipment and agricultural land that can allow a local economy to be rebuilt.

Of course no scenario is perfect, and the small-town-as-bugout-destination scenario presents its own set of challenges, perhaps the largest of which is that only a small percentage of the population will be even remotely prepared in advance. While my book has the pages to go into great detail on how to quickly adapt a small community in the wake of social collapse, this article can at least provide an overview of the important topic.

Because great majority of an area’s inhabitants are going to be unprepared every second that passes will be critical. In the immediate aftermath there will be a lot of nervous energy, and this will be the absolute worst time for the clear thinking needed to define a viable survival community. However, that nervous energy could be constructively channeled into executing a plan that has already been developed. This article will cover the basics of such a plan (with this stipulation that there are always 1000 ways to skin the proverbial cat).

russianroadblock

Physical security should be one of the first priorities.

All small communities are not created equal. While an urban neighborhood or small suburb may provide the manpower and geographic size to meet post-disaster survival needs, unlike small towns they often do not have the agricultural or industrial base needed to support an independent economy. Additionally, inhabitants in these more urban locations are much less likely to possess the survival skills their rural counterparts take for granted.

There are some critical prerequisites to successfully adapting a small, unprepared community to survive a major disaster. They include:

  • Mitigation of all immediate threats to life and property
  • Producing a community charter that will govern the community.

Mitigation of immediate threats includes such basic activities as putting out fires, tending to the injured and placing sandbags to prevent property from flooding.

The community charter is a document that identifies elected offices and the terms of such offices, sets forth the procedures for electing officers, and defines their responsibilities. It should also specify those within the community who are eligible to vote and the procedures for carrying out elections (in recognition of the crucial factor of time the charter might describe the use of a fair coin toss to decide the outcome of tied elections, rather than requiring time-sensitive runoff elections). The charter should also specify if capital and corporal punishments are to be considered for some offenses and have provisions for such things as amending the charter and the recall of elected leaders.

NOTE: Chapter 14 of “When There is No FEMA” provides a complete, detailed community charter.

The charter should also cover:

  • Printing and minting of new coins and currency for the community
  • Identifying the initial elected and appointed leadership positions within the community and specifying their wages (in the community’s currency)
  • Processes for bringing outsiders into the community
  • Ownership of property
  • Crime and punishment – specifically identifying those crimes for which capital punishment, corporal punishment, or banishment from the community may apply
  • A minimum wage for those working within the community (this critical factor will be discussed in more detail below)
  • Defining guidelines for assessing the value of all physical property within the community
  • Specifying the oaths of office to be taken by all elected and appointed leaders

If the community votes in favor of capital punishment for select crimes It is a good idea to consider counterfeiting as one of the crimes that are candidates for that ultimate punishment.   The corrupting of the community’s monetary system is a direct threat to the lives of all members of the community; thus counterfeiting can reasonably be equated to attempted murder.

Those leaders who are best-suited to lead during non-disaster times are not necessarily the best post-disaster leaders. As a result it would be optimal for new elections to be held to allow those leaders to be installed who are best suited to the new circumstances (NOTE: While new members of the community may move into leadership positions, for obvious reasons those who have best knowledge of critical infrastructure such as water and sewage systems should almost certainly be retained in those typically appointed positions.) In my book I describe the election of a Council consisting of an odd number of members of the community. The odd number is to avoid the possibility of tie votes. Once elected, those council members might vote for who among them will be the council leader. In addition to normal council responsibilities, the Council leader is responsible for scheduling and organizing Council meetings and setting meeting agendas.

Once elected, the council members should appoint various others to leadership positions specified in the charter, and assign those appointees the tasks of developing plans for organizing those areas of the community that are within the scope of their responsibilities (any such tasks must have aggressive deadlines assigned).  Appointed positions might include a head of defense, a chief of police, a director of public works, the community banker, a property assessor and directors of health, education, agriculture and finance.

Jump-Starting the Local Economy

As the post-disaster clock ticks, growing seasons for crops come and go, and the members within the community grow more hungry and desperate. Hence it is vital that the local economy be restarted immediately. In the aftermath of a major disaster anyone who does not make this their primary focus is courting misery and death. One of the most important roles in restoring the economy is that of the newly appointed community banker, and the banker’s first job should be to identify a means for the printing of money and the minting of coins.

NOTE: Depending on the nature of the disaster, the role of banker may be one that is not particularly popular.   However, the post-disaster community banker is an entirely different beast than any international bankers who may be considered to have brought about a financial collapse. The role of community banker is critical to the survival of the community in the aftermath of a major disaster.

shutterstock

A currency replacement will need to be created.

The polish and appearance of the community’s new currency is not particularly important because it can be upgraded at any time (all the banker has to do is to announce that the old currency will become worthless at some specified date, and invite community members to trade that soon-to-be-worthless currency for any superior version of the currency that is developed). The total amount of currency produced should be a fixed value, with all future printed currency either being produced in accordance with a pre-existing plan or as part of a program to replace and retire old, worn currency.

As new currency is produced a quantity of the newly-minted money should be distributed to each member of the community based on their age (and possibly other criteria). This will allow members of the community to immediately begin to make purchases, thereby restarting the economy. A substantial amount of the printed money should also be retained by the new government for purposes of paying wages, purchasing services from other members of the community, or to stimulate certain strategic sectors of the economy. Needless to say, the amount of money printed and minted for the community will be substantial – probably the equivalent of many tens of millions of pre-disaster US dollars in the case of a small town. At the same time, 80%-90% of that money should be held in reserve and dispersed into the community over a period of 5-10 years. It is not even necessary for that reserve money to be printed or minted until there is a need to disperse it; it can simply be kept “on the books”.

A minimum wage is yet another of those factors that are fundamental and critical to the community’s survival. While most communities are not sitting atop piles of precious metals that can be used as the basis of assigning value to its money, the setting of a minimum wage has precisely that effect. Rather than setting a single minimum wage, however, tiers of minimum wage might be set based on the age of the worker. This has the effect of helping younger workers to gravitate into the economy (by creating demand for their less-skilled labor) while at the same time providing a healthy incentive for older workers to nurture their own careers before they can be displaced by younger, lower cost workers.

Another important appointed position within the community is that of the property assessor, who is tasked with the responsibility of assigning value to all physical property within the community. Depending on the size and composition of the community, the assessor may have a need for a staff to work under his or her direction to meet the needs of this position. Using guidelines provided by the charter, the assessor should be able to appraise the value of virtually any physical property for purposes of taxation and/or purchase.

Property Ownership

Ownership of property is another critical linchpin to the stability of the post-disaster community. If property rights are not clearly defined then members of the community will have no faith in the system and will have far less motivation to work. The community charter should take into account the cases of those who owned property within the community pre-disaster, those who have been renting property from current community members, those who have been renting property from outsiders and property within the community that is owned by outsiders. It may be desirable for the community itself to assume ownership of all property owned by outsiders that lies within its physical boundaries.   It would be better for such assets to be contributing to the local economy than for them to deteriorate while waiting for an owner who never appears (and if they do eventually appear then accommodations might be negotiated at that time).

Initial Task Assignments

During each public council meeting new tasks should be assigned to elected and appointed officials and the results of already-completed tasks should be discussed. Initially these tasks may take the form of assignments to develop plans. For example, the head of defense may be tasked with developing a plan for the defense of the community. The director of agriculture may be assigned a task to develop plans for foraging and growing the next season’s crops. These plans can then be reviewed, revised and approved, and would result in work assignments for members of the community (or for companies that exist within the community).

Crime and Punishment

In a post-disaster scenario perspectives on capital and corporal punishment may very well change. For example, given the expected scarcity of the basics for human life, the crime of looting might be equated with attempted murder, which the community may decide warrants capital punishment. Also, because the community may not be able to afford to incarcerate a convicted criminal who could otherwise be working constructively, it may be necessary to carry out corporal punishment for certain offenses (in reality corporal punishment may be more humane than incarceration – would you rather suffer through several lashes from a whip or to be separated from your loved ones for months or years?) Additionally, some crimes may simply merit banishment from the community and forfeiture of assets.

Integrating Newcomers into the Community

It is inevitable that outsiders will eventually wish to become part of a successful community. Any such petition should be considered from multiple perspectives. Does the newcomer have a special skill or knowledge that could benefit the community? Is the community in need of physical labor which the newcomer is capable of performing? Is some member of the community willing to speak in favor of the newcomer or to otherwise sponsor the newcomer into the community? Ultimately the decision to accept the newcomer into the community should rest with the Council or those it appoints for this purpose.

Merging with Other Communities

Historically the merging of small communities under difficult circumstances has been a very bloody affair. Often the reluctance of two communities to merge simply reflects the resistance of the community’s leadership to loss of authority. The community charter should outline a means through which two communities could merge while avoiding wasteful conflict. One approach might be to make all decisions regarding potential community mergers through majority vote. Another approach might be to provide a “golden parachute” (e.g. highly desirable employment) to any displaced elected community members in the event that their position is eliminated due to such a merger.

Conclusion

I will paraphrase the American inventor Thomas Edison and say that, while it is essential for a community to adapt itself in the wake of a major disaster, and that adaptation does require establishing leadership and developing plans, the ultimate survival of that community will consist of one percent inspiration (electing officials and planning) and ninety-nine percent perspiration (carrying out those plans). Deadlines assigned for planning should be aggressive, and work under those plans should commence immediately and have its own tight deadlines.

As most members of the community have not prepared themselves prior to the disaster they should work as though their lives hang in the balance – because that is exactly the case!

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Many preppers have formed a mental picture of the ideal bug out destination being a cabin located in some remote wilderness, well away from any population center. Others imagine an