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Stages of The Panic
General uneasiness; nagging concerns
Worries about lack of preparedness
Fear for safety should the worst happen
---------------------THE PANIC--------------------------
Terror brought on by events
Dread that everything was left too late
These first few stages happen over days and weeks. You might notice them in other people before you do in yourself. Everyone seems subdued, less eye contact, fewer smiles. THIS is the time to begin your final preparations. Whilst others are simply stocking up on three weeks worth of groceries rather than one, or buying a gun "Just In Case", you should have done this months ago, and all you need to do is make sure all your batteries are charged, you have plenty of fuel for your vehicle, and everything is packed and ready to go at a moments notice. You may have even noticed it lately, with the Swine Flu paranoia.
The second stage is where you should be either Bugging Out, or Bugging In. (For new members, this means running to a pre-determined safe destination, your Bug Out Location (BOL) or fortifying your existing location and preparing to ride out the danger.) What you choose to do will be based on your own preparations and locations. I have no way to recommend either course of action, since each situation is unique.
The third and fourth stages happen quite close together, and there is often only a slight discernible difference between the two. Third stage people are more visibly scared, but can still be seen holding it together. But as soon as they cross that line, they are a danger to themselves and others. They are acting on instinct, rather than logic, and making decisions without really considering the consequences. It happens almost like a domino effect when in a crowd. One person will snap, then those close to them, then the others nearest, and so on, like a chain reaction. Ever wonder why a protest can so easily turn into a riot? This kind of herd mentality. He's scared, so I should be scared. He's angry, I should be angry. It's a self preservation technique, but will not serve you well on Z day.
The difference between the last two stages is noticeable and obvious, though from the descriptions it seems as though the two are the same. However, terror spurs someone into action, usually either running or fighting. Dread paralyses a person, their ability to act frozen by a constant thought that the next action they take will lead to their death.
If 50% of the town tries to Panic buy, then 7,500 people will be turning up. Know what that looks like?
Like a full house at the Madison Mallards Ballpark.
And all of them will be fighting to get as much as they can. Sounds like fun.
But that's the largest percentage, so it can't be as that bad if only 25% turn up, right?
That's the capacity of Ebbsfleet United FC. Or how many people go to see an exhibition on leprosy in a month. Think about that. 3,750 people went to see a leprosy exhibit, and you expect them to NOT Panic Buy when there is a genuine emergency?
Down to the low end now. 10% of the town, 1,500 people.
But how little is there? Well I was sent a few examples of stores which had their supply lines cut off. Most agreed that within 48 hours of a missed delivery, the shelves were bare. And this was under normal conditions: regular customer numbers, regular purchasing choices.
Quote provided by Freelancer47, talking to a store manager:
"Dude, perfect example was the snowstorm of Dec 08-Jan 09. We had food, water, booze, medicine, etc... to last for a good few weeks with constant truck shipment resupply. When the road's were in-accessible (I.E. Seattle WA wasn't prepared for a Snow-Storm of that level, King County WA has only 27 snow plow's at its disposal for a snow storm at any given time) we had NO resupply for 2 weeks. We were bare bones at about the 2 & 1/2 day mark."
He also provided another anecdote from the Obama election, where he ran out of alcohol in the space of an hour. When you consider that though this was a celebration, the buying conditions were similar to The Panic, albeit a subset of the products, and it shows just how little there is in one of these stores: if people were motivated to go there en masse, and grab essential food items, the store would be empty in as little as an hour.
But let us indulge the fantasies of our WalMart planners: the store has been freshly stocked, then abandoned. They have the run of it all to themselves. So how long will their utopia feed them for?
Well let's start with the fresh food. After one week, it will be rotten. So with the exception of irradiated produce (stockage will vary by state and supplier, but usually it is only a small proportion, since the public is distrustful of anything which has been exposed to radiation, no matter how safe it actually is) after 7 days, all the fresh produce will be rotted.
Frozen food? Well that will last for up to 24 hours after the power to the freezers has gone out. Whilst most places will have backup generators, they are typically only rated to last for 36-48 hours. So that's a maximum of 72 hours for the frozen food.
So that leaves the packaged food and canned food. It's a wide range of dates for this. However, most dry food will last about 6-12 months, and cans will last for about 2 years before they roll past the Best Before date. So the only question is which will run out first, food or time? Well, one pallet of baked beans is a dozen layers, with 144 cans per layer. If you can survive on one can per meal, then a single pallet will last you 576 days. 1.57 years.
That means that if you are in there in small numbers, you could potentially survive for 2 years, providing (a) you are there in small numbers (b) you don't mind getting creative as your options dwindle (c) the store is left intact.
Caveat C, the store being left intact, is the biggest problem, especially since we have shown that Panic will make people try and stock up on as much as they can, that the store can be stripped of all it's goods in as little as an hour, and that the sheer number of people is likely to make it impossible and dangerous for you to get anything yourself.
So, are you rethinking that WalMart plan yet?
Keep on Truckin'? I don't think so...
Newly added, Panic: Fuel section. This one is for all those who want to Mad Max it, or believed the survivors in Resident Evil: Extinction were realistic.
Fuel goes bad. No way around it. It happens over time, and it happens in three ways. Evaporation, Oxidation and Contamination.
Evaporation is what makes gasoline such a good fuel. It is volatile. But if left sitting, the best parts of the fuel just disappear into the air. It will be safe to use in the engine, but you will get a slightly worse performance. Evaporation is the least worst of the three.
Oxidation, quite simply a reaction with the oxygen in the air to form new compounds. These compounds suck. They are trash. Quite literally, some of them become solids that will sit at the bottom of the container, like lumps of gum in a urinal. You do not want to put these in your engine. Oxidised fuel is quite easy to spot: it goes dark, like whisky, then rum, and smells bad. Not the worst of the three, but for survivors, the most common bump. No storage container is completely full. There is air inside to allow for expansion and contraction due to temperature fluctuations. So this one is inevitable.
Contamination is the worst of the three, because it is often quite hard to spot. The most common contaminent is water. It gets in through cracks in the storage container. Because both are clear liquids, you can't really tell unless you know what to look for: put a small amount of fuel in a clear container (plastic cup, glass, lid, etc) and leave it to settle for a minute or two. You will see the fuel sitting on top of the water. Any mechanic will tell you that water in an engine is bad news. Other more obvious contaminents include rust, soil, really any dirt.
Any of these is bad, but worse still is a dry tank.
How likely is that? Well depending on the population of the area, and the amount of Panic surrounding the impending disaster, it can be very likely indeed.
Cities will suffer more than rural stations, because of the sheer number of customers. There are typically three types of fuel on offer; regular, premium and diesel. Each of these will need two, sometimes three deliveries a day. At 30,000 litres (7,925 US gallons) per delivery, sounds a lot, right? But that is only 4,500 cars a day if you assume an average of 20 litres (5.2 US gallons) per car. 187 people per hour. With 16 pumps (the largest in the UK have 20 or more), assuming 5 minutes per customer, that is 192 cars an hour.
So a run on one fuel type might cause a shortage. But with three fuel types and an equal usage, that is enough for three days, right?
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article4136886.ece
This was the second fuel shortage in 2008. They had advance warnings it was happening, they had plenty of reserves on hand, and they STILL ran out. People were Panic buying fuel, taking up to three times their normal purchase. The supply chain was simply not fast enough to cope. Stations were running out within 24 hours of resupply, of ALL fuels.
In a zombie outbreak, people will be buying more than they usually do. It will start unconsciously, just as with the food. "I'll get a full tank instead of half, Just In Case", or "Better fill up today instead of Friday, Just In Case". As the situation becomes more obvious, so will the rationalisation for consumption. And the worst part is that the resupply will not be coming when people need it most to try and flee the populated areas. The drivers have families, and typically live in more rural areas. Why would they risk going into the city at that point?
But what about rural filling stations? They don't get as many customers, so surely they would have some left? Well, maybe. But the companies that run them are pretty slick at judging how much they will use based on how much they did use in the past, and keep the resupply to a similarly tight schedule as in the city. Either they will deliver every day, but only a small amount, or for the really rural places, deliver once a week.
So it's a week old, right? No. Refineries don't make it and put it straight in the tankers. It goes into holding tanks. That way they can ride out any supply problems. The gas you put in your car could be up to two months old.
Occasionally, you will hear stories about a "bad batch" of gas. Most of the time it has been contaminated rather than oxidised, but occasionally it will happen. One of the holding tanks at the refinery was left standing a little longer than it should have been, or it had been drained and not refilled, allowing more oxidation to occur than normal.
But still, rural stations will possibly have some fuel left. And it might be okay to use. The final question is: can you access it? All the pumps are driven by electric motors. If the power is still on, do you know how to work the fuel cutoff system inside that controls the pumps? But with the Panic hitting, the power might well be out. So do you know how to get into the fuel tanks manually? And can you identify which is the correct fuel type for your vehicle? If you can do all that, can you siphon it from the underground tanks? (You can't just suck on a hose and then put the end in a container. That only works if gravity is on your side, which it isn't here.)
Convoys might well be how they do it in movies, but real life will get in your way if you try it yourself.
