Here's a thought. Have your neighbors pool your tools in case of emergency: I'll share a generator, you'lll buy a chain saw, etc and so on.

Spreads out the expense, you get to meet your neighbors and maybe they'll start stocking water.

TRO

I can understand sharing a chainsaw, but if the power is out, are you really going to want to share a generator (and fuel)? I think I'd rather keep my refrigerator, freezer, and water pump going as long as possible.

Depends on the neighbors and how long you expect the power to be out.

Even though Rita missed us, a string of our neighbors along one block were out of power for almost a week. One of them had a generator and gladly ran his neighbor's fridge & freezer off of it.

Even before the storm hit, when talking to a neighbor who had a generator, he volunteered that in the event of a long power outage, we could take the generator from house to house to run each neighbor's fridge and freezer for a little bit each day to keep things cold as long as we didn't open them.

-Kuovonne

...or move all the food to one freezer/ fridge and keep it running. Better to share than to spoil.

tro

During Hurricane Isabel my power went out along with probably 70% of the area. However, there were some areas that had power and so you could find gas. I helped people who didn't have power run their pumps so that they could water their animals. If however, there were no gas stations open, I'm not so sure that I would have been so generous. Where does helping one's neighbors stop and protecting yourself start and end?

Weigh the consequences.....will it detract from protecting you and yours? Then I won't be that helpful...My family comes first. They teach it in medic school...I don't do anyone any good if I'm hurt....so you protect yourself first. The same for my family. Now that is not to say that if I had more than I needed I wouldn't give some up. Some of my neighbors know I have some 'stuff'. They have some too. I'd be willing to give up some of my stuff knowing that he'd be sharing with me too if either of us needed it. It all depends......

A good idea, and would work under some milder circumstances, but don't depend on it. It's good to know who has what, but neighbors may be out of town, might bug out, or in desperate circumstances refuse to share. Be prepared to barter for something they might need - water for electricity, flashlights for food, etc.

"Where does helping one's neighbors stop and protecting yourself start and end?"

I would think that depends on the particular situation. In the unlikely event that you have virtually unlimited quantities of something, you would probably want to share.

If you have a reasonably good supply of something, and take a good hard look at the situation and think it is short-term, again you may be inclined to share, at least with family, friends, neighbors.

But if you have 3 or 4 wks worth of supplies, and you're facing conditions that could last a while, would you want to put your family in jeopardy to help out people who didn't prepare because they thought their goverment would take care of them, or knew you would?

People make all kinds of stupid decisions. You aren't responsible for the decisions they make, and you aren't responsible for helping them to survive or live in comfort. Many/most Americans don't plan ahead, they don't take evacuation advice (or they don't take it in time), they wouldn't think of storing some food and water and blankets and a couple of 5-gal cans of gas. Then, when things go bad, they resort to whining and complaining that they aren't being taken care of.

Some people think of it as Mother Nature cleaning out the shallow end of the gene pool. Some people call it "survival of the fittest". If you can't make an effort to take care of yourself, why should someone else?

Sue

This brings up a point... if you have made preperations for survival and can survive at your home, independent of anyone else, what happens if someone tries to steal your stuff? Will it be considered illegal to shoot and kill someone stealing your survival supplies? Stealing food isn't an "immident danger", but possibly "bodily harm", as a lack of water and food, you'll die.

I think I need to talk to my representative...

Very situational dependant!! During the hurricane my old boss did not take forceful action when someone took some of his gas out of his work truck because it was not worth shooting someone over and did not endanger his family.
But endanger his family and this most generous gentleman who has helped more people than anyone will ever know would defend those he loves with great skill. I don’t know if he can still shoot coins out of the air or not but a smart person would not bet their life on him loosing his skills just because he is getting a little older.

As Rod Serling discovered, this is the stuff from which good drama develops.

I like to think that prudence would dictate that one should prepare for such an event. That being the case, if you are going to go to the trouble of being prepared, you should also make the effort to properly secure your assets. In desperate times, people who are not prepared will do whatever they can think of to secure for themselves the means to survive. If you have assets that are relatively unprotected and easy to access, then you should expect to be challenged for possession, and confronted until you are overcome. My philosophy is to first not advertise that I am well stocked and prepared for a calamity. Of equal importance is that should anyone discover that I have something of value, their efforts to acquire it would not be worth it. If the risk involved in taking something is greater than doing without, then there is no motivation for confrontation. The motivation will be to seek their needs elsewhere.

This is not to say I am averse to sharing things, or otherwise without charity. The point here is that sharing ought to be up to me, and be a voluntary thing, and not subject to duress or challenge. I can choose to share with those whom I share a general interest in, such as like minded neighbors, thus synergizing our survival efforts, or I can choose to mitigate some poor wretch's misfortune, thus providing some measure of good will, but it must always be by my own choice. Anything less is unacceptable, and indicates I have not met my obligations or responsibilities to those for whom I am accountable.

Gee, that sure sounds "survivalist" to me. I guess to me forced charity really is an oxymoron. Kinda like the government spending all my tax dollars to bail out other folks who failed to adequately prepare for a predictable outcome.

To that, I offer this link to a story about Davey Crockett. See what he had to say about our present situation:

http://www.adjutant.com/other/crockett.htm

When our neighbors talked about evacuating for Rita, I made a point of asking who they would leave keys with, and whether we could raid their stuff if things got really bad.

One of our neighbors who was out of town before word of the storm came made a special international long distance call to us to let us know where his gear was so that we could use it if it came to it.

We have good neighbors.

We also try to be good neighbors. Sometimes I get tired with how prepared DH tries to be. But then I remind myself that while he thinks that he is preparing for just our family, he is really preparing so that we will have stuff to share, so I limit my complaining.

Thinking about sharing with neighbors is really a good idea. Of course if TSHTF you might want to hord stuff, but most emergencies are short enough that people who are normally kind and thoughtful will remain so. If your budget or other circumstances precludes you from having some equipment that you'd like to have, working together with neighbors is a very viable option.

We don't have a generator, and I won't let DH spend the money on a generator. One of the reasons is because several of our neighbors have generators. OTOH, I let DH store extra gas so that the neighbor won't have qualms about sharing ;-)

-Kuovonne

Well, here's an interesting quote from Mr. Bunce, who objected to federal largesse to the needy:


That last phrase is the one that I think is relevant to the issues raised in the initial post asking about pooling resources for the neighbors. If the inestimable Mr. Bunce favors it, how can we object, given Col. Crockett's opinion of him?

Phil