A General Survival and Rebuilding Plan

    Society has a knack for creating apocalypse or world collapse scenarios, but how is one to live through one by the way of one person growing to a small group and all the way to a larger community? While there are many stories to draw from, it is easier to start in one place that goes through all the aspects of surviving a collapse to rebuilding. Though not covering everything in detail, there is a need to secure safety, take stock, contact others, decide who to trust and how to rebuild, and find ways to keep up the morale of everyone, including yourself.

     The first thing to do in case of collapse is to make sure the surrounding area is safe – no matter the food situation, safety must come first in order to fill the food list. For rural areas such as Sacred Heart, Minnesota, it is easier to determine as there is more flat land in the vicinity, but in the case of a more populated area such as Marshal or Minneapolis, the best to do is make sure the building is safe and the doors and windows are properly closed and locked.

     After making sure the immediate area is safe, it is best to see if electricity still works. If it does, head to a computer and see if the internet is working. If so, find 'how tos' and diys of how things were done when electricity is gone and save them offline – even print if possible, though that might require a printer and a lot of ink and paper. This is in case if electricity and the internet goes kaput and you don't know how to do anything before you can make way to a library that might have this information (it also doesn't hurt to get some modes of entertainment whether music, books, movies, etc).

     Once done with the information search, take stock of what is already available in the house, and these items include not just food and drinks, but also other necessities such as medical supplies, personal care items, cleaning supplies, clothing (of all seasons), and miscellaneous items like seeds, food for animals (if any are living with), and hardware tools (nails, shovels, hammers, etc). It would also be good to take note of any camping supplies, gas (car and propane), oil, older equipment, and solar panels of any size (for phones or those for house).

     Once stocks are noted and information is saved (and possibly written down by hand), make a list of immediate needs – such as non-perishable food, flashlights (and lanterns), clothing for missing seasons, medical supplies, cleaning supplies, and hygiene that are not available at home – for the medical supplies, make a list for first aid use and common illnesses as it would be hard to prepare for anything and everything. All of these lists are to know what is already available, and what could be or is needed for future use so that when it comes to going out into a more populated area (there are some homes that are separated from the towns by acres of farm fields) or outside the home (for those living in towns or cities), you will already have a starting point of what to look for when making way through the towns.

     Don't forget to take a weapon when leaving the house, apartment, or building your living in – this can be a sturdy stick, an iron pole, a frying pan, etc. as long as it has a good reach and is sturdy; not easy to break. Sticks are the easiest to pass off as a walking stick, though and can be a good excuse in case there is still some order around. Once in town, go look at stores in the area, and while they may have been look through already, the stores could still have something useful that was missed (such as off-season clothing) and there could be a warehouse or some other storage space that was overlooked.

     When it comes to meeting people in the towns, the ones to fully trust at the beginning is your immediate family because you have lived with them for some time and know them better than even friends. Of course, this trust can go both ways of trusting them to be good people as well as trusting them to be petty, greedy, or bad people. To determine if someone should be trusted or not really depends on how they treat others, both amongst their own and others, as well as the personality that you can see. It would be best to not directly come up to someone else right away and to watch them from a distance first. If you know the person, it would be easier to get along yes, but never trust until you have been with them for awhile and have interacted with them. Taking other's responses to the person helps too. Of course, this not trusting does not mean not cooperating with others as that will not help let others trust yourself and might put them off to you joining them or them joining you.