In case you've been wanting to see what a "Western" society looks like under actual SHTF conditions, look no further than the current situation in Australia. Bold emphasis mine.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/02/01/us-australia-cyclone-idUSTRE70U16S20110201

"Outside a shuttered night market in the tourist city of Cairns, nervous backpackers tried to flag down cars and reach temporary evacuation centers at a nearby university.

"We are terrified. We have had almost no information and have never seen storms like this," said Marlim Flagar, 20, from Sweden.

At a sprawling shopping center on the outskirts of Cairns, hundreds of people streamed into a makeshift shelter, carrying backpacks, blankets and food.

"We've bought tinned food and cucumbers. That's all we could find this morning," said Natalie Zerbach, on holiday from Germany.

The cyclone is 650 km off the coast of northeastern Australia and is expected to make landfall at 10 pm (7 a.m. EST) on the Queensland coast between Cairns and Innisfail. Its strength is on a par with Hurricane Katrina, which devastated New Orleans in 2005.

More than 400,000 people live in the cyclone's expected path, which includes the cities of Cairns, Townsville and Mackay. The entire stretch is popular with tourists and includes Australia's Great Barrier Reef."

Wow, I wonder if those are the same backpackers Sonnekinder ran in to?!
http://zombiehunters.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=32&t=75853

The local authorities didn't spread word of the impending doom to tourists so they didn't know why everyone was freaking out! It pays to always have an ear on the local news when you are traveling.

-Blast

Yes, horrifying and heartbreaking that they are downed to canned food and fruit. How can anyone live life without the bare minimum of a fresh arugula salad, grain-fed, free-range beefsteaks seared and served medium-rare, baked potatoes with sour creme and chives, a competent burgundy to wash it down, followed by a sorbet and an after dinner coffee?

Well, it's hard to know if they were really being snarky or whiny. They may have just been reporting the facts as they were.

Being in a foreign country and suddenly being faced with a Cat5 storm would frankly put my 05H!T-o-meter pretty close to redline.

Sorry. I couldn't resist the snark.

Being on vacation would make anyone a little more sensitive to hardships and disruptions. But, it has to be noted, based on the the descriptions, it was disruptive, but well short of an actual survival situation.

I do get a little annoyed by the tendency of every inconvenience, insult and disruption to be capitalized on, magnified, reveled in, and dramatized to sound like an epic.

True, it's not an actual survival situation -- yet.

But I'd really hate to be travelling and suddenly discover a Cat5 barreling down on me. This in an area that's just barely out of massive flooding. And most of my preps would be halfway around the world. That's more than an inconvenience IMHO.

More on the coming storm:
http://www.edmontonjournal.com/news/Aust...4581/story.html

Our Aussie friends just can't catch a break this year.

I read tonite that overcrowded shelters are turning people away in droves- and authorities aren't sure if the shelters will even survive. I'd say that $hit is getting real, really fast.

Agreed. I have thought about this scenario a lot, as I travel three states. An issue comes up occasionally where severe weather (tornados) are forecasted or are occurring. The NWS usually refers to the counties and tiny towns for tornado activity updates. Being a traveller, I don't always know what tiny towns or counties are surrounding me. I don't want to trust my life to a hotel clerk who is in the laundry room folding sheets, so I now carry state maps in my overnight bag for emergency reference. I also have a little water and long shelf life food and other essential gear in my trunk

"....most powerful in the country's history...."


Cat 5 -- sounds well worth worrying about. Best wishes to everyone in its path.

http://www.smh.com.au/environment/weather/massive-cyclone-yasi-crosses-coast-20110201-1acgp.html

Cyclone just made landfall

that is one BIG hurricane

http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/41382991/ns/weather/

A number of years ago, Gloria and I pulled out camper over to the side of the road. The weather alert radio had just alarmed and was spewing off a list of county names. All unknown to us. We were hunting for them on a large atlas (very tiny print) when the radio began saying "if you are in the affected area TAKE COVER NOW."

We found a secure location. One tornado went a mile north, another a mile south. Actually the weather did not look all that bad. Probably would have continued driving had we not had the weather radio on.

Scarrrry time.

Nomad

I often bike tour in tornado country, in season. A weather radio is indispensable.

As they cyclone is still heading across the state and the full impact isn't really known, I'd just like to say a few things about communication in the aftermath of a cyclone.

Power is out to quite a large area (estimated around 180,000 people but expected to increase as further reports arrive). HV transmission lines are out and severe damage is expected. Power is expected to be out for at least days, and in some areas weeks.

There are several hundred mobile phone towers operating on their generators which have enough fuel for 6-8 hours of operation. Similarly landline exchanges are without power and operating off generators, although they typically have longer fuel supplies. A handful of mobile phone sites have been taken completely offline in the worst effected areas, but this is not unexpected.

Broadcast transmission is expected to be disrupted. With the power out there is some concern over whether radio transmitters will have enough fuel to continue transmitting.

The ABC (Australia's national broadcaster) is using Shortwave to broadcast into the affected areas. This is a very unusual situation in Australia. There are 3 domestic shortwave transmitters used normally for very remote areas of the Northern Territory and Western Australia, but never for highly populated cities. Very few people have shortwave capable radios.

Sounds, reads, looks on TV, like Queensland is hanging tough, working together, cooperating, and pooling resources to protect those most in danger. The bottom line is that more than one source near Cairn is claiming there have been no fatalities. Another report is that more are coming out of shelters than went in by virtue of at least one lady giving birth.

It would be something of a novelty to have no fatalities. People die. Even in good times it is a constant. In a major crisis people with heart conditions vapor-lock, asthmatics have attacks, medications get forgotten, people panic and run each other over. The death count running backward during a disaster would be truly remarkable.

There has only been one confirmed fatality to date.

A young man operating a diesel powered generator in a closed room and as a result succumbing to carbon monoxide poisoning.

There are two others believed missing in Cardwell, one of whom was attempting to move his boat into mangroves during the cyclone.

Thankfully the cyclone passed midway between Townsville and Cairns, the nearest large (>150,000 population) centres. One suspects the toll may have been a lot higher if either of these cities had been hit directly.

Hey, scrounger, got my fingers crossed for all of you down under. That was a seriously freaky storm. Hoping for the best.
-Doug