Countless billions have been spent to make Washington, D.C. “secure” from terrorist attacks and potential military assaults by rival powers — yet an unusually severe summer thunderstorm left the capital city of the world’s leading power paralyzed and all but helpless.
Notes the Governmental Accountability Project: “Three days later, countless traffic lights are still out, hundreds of thousands of residents are without power, including myself, grocery stores and gas station are closed for lack of power, and the federal government is encouraging employees to telework…. Is this the work of a terrible terrorist attack? No, it is the complete disaster non-preparedness a decade after 9/11. Despite the fact that billions if not trillions have been spent since 9/11 on counter-terrorism and so-called “homeland security” measures, one of the major terrorist targets, the nation’s capital, cannot cope with a severe thunderstorm.”
As the survival-focused SHTFplan.com website observed, this state of affairs is representative of government-supervised “crisis management”:
We’ve seen it time and again over the last decade. An emergency strikes and panic grips the city or region for days or weeks on end.
We saw a complete breakdown of emergency response and law & order during Hurricane Katrina. The 2011 Snowpocalypse on the east coast led to runs on grocery stores and empty shelves within a matter of hours. Widespread blackouts during Hurricane Ike left large sections of the Houston power grid down for up to four weeks. In all these cases gas was almost impossible to find, what was in your pantry was what you had until food distribution resumed, local water was not safe for consumption, and government response was limited to reinstating essential services first and foremost.
“Essential services” in this context means “services essential to the interests of the tax-consuming class.” Fortunately, disasters of the kind we’ve seen unfold in Washington, D.C. and Colorado have been localized. We may not always be so fortunate, as SHTFplan points out:
Imagine, for a moment, what happens in a scenario that affects not a single city, but an entire multi-state region, or, perhaps the entire nation. And imagine that the event(s) is so widespread that government is totally overwhelmed – food transportation stops, refineries can’t get gas to local areas, water and power utility workers stay home to care for their families, law enforcement is faced with widespread looting, the internet becomes inaccessible as do all avenues of communication due to blackouts, and grocery store shelves remain out of stock for weeks or months.
Ironically, the same federal government that has distinguished itself for incompetence in crisis management — and whose Homeland Security Department routinely emits “studies” describing “preppers” and “survivalists” as security risks or even potential terrorists – urges Americans to acquire at least a two-week supply of food and other emergency necessities. It must be remembered, however, that emergency preparedness is just one facet of self-sufficient living. Stockpiling food and other vital supplies is crucial, but acquiring a skill set and mental attitude appropriate to dealing with radically changed circumstances is just as important, if not more so.
Read more here.
