This week I've been reading a book called The Jakarta Pandemic, by Steven Konkoly. It is, of course, about a world wide epidemic...a pandemic. A new, and very fast spreading flu bug is especially dangerous to normally healthy young adults. People are dying at an alarming rate, and others are avoiding their jobs and in some cases, other people entirely. You can just imagine what that sudden shortage of workers would do to society. Fuel and food chains break down, and normally civilized people go on a rampage, out of sheer desperation. Coincidentally, I just discovered that this is actually Emergency Preparedness Week.
We have all seen the articles about how to prepare for emergencies. There are lists of things you should have on hand, to get you through the tough times when disasters strike. They try not to mention the sort of panic that appears in this novel, but with today's media access it's hard to have missed news stories of looting and riots.
During the ice storm of 1997, we all had to make do with what we had on hand, and some of us had very little warning to stock up our pantries. Luckily for me, we were only out of power here for five days and five nights, but I know some who had no power in the dead of winter for a good 28 days. When I went to the store for the last minute stock up, I just brought home a few extras of things that we commonly use around here. I remember my hubby asking, "Is that all you want?" I told him I wanted to be sure to leave some for other people. In this book, the few people who did get to the stores on time managed to wipe out the stock in no time. Others became desperate rather quickly, and that's when the trouble starts. The book is making me think about things that could happen if an emergency lasted a long time, or if the nature of the problem escalated into creating more and more problems. I think I'd rather be better prepared and will now take a more serious look at the lists created by those who understand just how bad things could get.
What have you done to prepare yourself for a possible emergency situation?
During the ice storm of 1997, we all had to make do with what we had on hand, and some of us had very little warning to stock up our pantries. Luckily for me, we were only out of power here for five days and five nights, but I know some who had no power in the dead of winter for a good 28 days. When I went to the store for the last minute stock up, I just brought home a few extras of things that we commonly use around here. I remember my hubby asking, "Is that all you want?" I told him I wanted to be sure to leave some for other people. In this book, the few people who did get to the stores on time managed to wipe out the stock in no time. Others became desperate rather quickly, and that's when the trouble starts. The book is making me think about things that could happen if an emergency lasted a long time, or if the nature of the problem escalated into creating more and more problems. I think I'd rather be better prepared and will now take a more serious look at the lists created by those who understand just how bad things could get.
What have you done to prepare yourself for a possible emergency situation?
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