I put together survival kits, spend time reading books and blogs and forums (fori?) about survival. It gives me comfort to do so. It gives me the illusion of control. Control is in fact an illusion. Disasters are chaotic, and chaos theory indicates that survival of any individual in chaos is determined in large part by chance. The strongest, best equipped and trained survivalist will not survive being hit by a tornado-tossed truck. Archeology, anthropology and Heinlein indicate that the minimum unit of survival is the village. The village can be autonomous, the individual, in the long run, cannot. Well thought out survival strategies involve a group: a neighborhood, a congregation, a scout troop-whatever. It is much easier to plan on individual survival, but that simply means that you will have to build your village on the run.