It occurs to me that a good way to extend food & water supplies is through modified hibernation.

In large community shelters, you could enforce mandatory rest and sleep periods for those individuals not necessary for maintaining the shelter and you could rotate the personnel so that everyone works.

Those whose turn it is to sleep and remain inactive could be given less food and water because their bodies will expend less energy and those that are working could be fed according to anticipated caloric output. Fat people (I am one of them.) could be fed proportionately less as their bodies have reserves to use.

This would stretch the resources of the group in the shelter and allow the supplies on hand to last longer. This same tactic could be used in a smaller family shelter situation, but would be hard because of the emotions that would tend to interfere. An autocratic entity in a large common group shelter would be able to keep a detached position and therefore would probably be more efficient.

Bountyhunter