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