They go into overwelm. There are those of us who Preach the Sermon of Preperation, and we bring into it things like hurricanes, earthquakes, floods, et al. The first thing that the average person thinks of is the media images, which are frequently the worst of it, and focus on bigger-than-human issues (levees, overpasses, et al) and every horrible post-nuke/plague/mad max/disaster movie they've ever seen. They think of 55 gallon drums of water and fuel, stacks of MREs, those accursed field surgery kits, and exotic tools, while juggling fall out and brain sucking mutant alien cyborg zombie biker gangs. Ones that are on fire.

Thier brains just shut down.

I start them small, ask them how much they have in thier mad money collection, and either sit down with them with a website or three, or just drag them to wally-world, home despot and a grocery store. Buy NOTHING (ok, at the grocery store buy something or they will follow you). Instead, write down prices and quantities. then sit down with them, and look to see what they do have (chainsaw, shovels, sleeping bags, etc). Take those off the list. First thing is water containers, a thing of bleach, some extra canned/dry goods, and an extra container for lawn mower gas and a sign that says "if I'm empty, fill me" go over the cans. Put a similair sign under the fuel gauge in the cars. Work your way down the list, showing what can be done now, what should be done as soon as finances allow, and what is just nice to have. It suddenly become managable to them.

Only problem is is that you have to hold thier hand while they are learning, it has to be one on one. It's just teaching most people to use a computer if they've only had limited (or no) experince with them. Or drive a stick shift, or to shoot, or ride a horse, or any of a thousand things that you really can't learn out of a book.

Also, no one likes a know-it-all. I think a lot of us might have issues of presentation, becuase a lot of this is just "duh" stuff to us.