Preparedness Begins

It started one night as I was watching the SciFi channel. They ran a marathon of Jericho episodes. I was hooked. I should have been working. I should have been writing but instead I watched. I was fascinated, intrigued, and thinking.


If you've never seen Jericho, here's the scenario. Jericho, Kansas, population 5,000 is cut off and fending for itself after 23 nuclear weapons are detonated in cities around the country. They receive Homeland Security messages to sit tight, help is on the way. Then they are hit with an EMP pulse that knocks out most electrical circuits. Winter comes and food is getting scarce. If that scenario intrigues you, as well, then stop by CBS.com and catch up on all the episodes.


Twenty-three nukes exploding on US soil would be devestating to this country and mind-boggling to many of it's citizens. In this fictional account, Washington, DC was one of the targets. So it's safe to assume that a good portion of the government as we know it would be destroyed. Our government hasn't shown itself horribly efficient at handling emergencies lately but it is nice to know that there is still a government. Without a defined goverment, many people try to become the government usually for their own best interests.

The writers for Jericho have been quite imaginative or maybe it's just realistic. After the attacks of 9-11-2001, government officials commented that they'd never imagined someone flying an airplane into a building. Perhaps they need to watch a few more television shows and read a few more books...after all, Tom Clancy imagined a plane flying into the capital building in one of his books and he imagined it before 9-11 happened. So if writers can imagine these things, then so can the bad guys. There are hundreds of things that can be used to attack this country; just spend a little time reading about EMP bombs. There is little that a country can do to protect against it without ruining the things that make this the country that we love. So what do we do? Cower in fear? I suggest preparedness.

Other than being observant of things around me and performing self-defense tactics in the face of danger, there is little that an ordinary citizen does day to day that fights terrorists. It's sort of like fighting Mother Nature. Do we give up? No. We continue to build dams, control avalanches, predict the weather. But what do we do when Mother Nature hits us with a devastating blow from a hurricane? We pick up the pieces and try to be prepared for the next one. That's the big lesson that I learned from watching Jericho...preparedness. Everyone, everyday can do small things to be better prepared for a disaster; buy an extra bag of dried beans, a couple of extra cans of food, an extra pack of toilet paper. You don't have to buy 300 pounds of rice, 20 cases of bottled water, and a generator in one trip. Just a little extra here and there.

So there's the first lesson from Jericho. I'll be writing and letting the thoughts flow as they come along. That may mean two posts a day or one a week. The topics will be wandering and varied. Lots of things interest me these days. It's been a circular trip lately through wind power, moon shining (ok, ever wonder how to make a still?), solar power, hydroelectric generation, storing vegetables in the ground for winter, hydroponics, seed storage, and earth sheltered dwellings. I'm an expert on none of these but after watching Jericho, some knowledge on the topics might prove useful. Knowledge is power. Let's learn more.

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