I'll add my own personal thoughts and ideas on what I would do when I have time later.

However, I would like to touch on one point you made concerning credit cards. In my day job, we work very closely with all the major credit card processors in the USA and Canada.

Remember when you go to pay your purchases with a credit card, it goes through a credit card processor, they then communicate to the actual credit card company.

The processing companies have invested a lot money and resources in ensuring their networks have multiple redundancy and fault protection. This is especially true since 9/11 as many of the big companies had operations based in New York go down that effected their entire system coast to coast.

That being said, nowadays it would take almost catastrophic and far reaching event on one coast or region to effect credit card operations on the other side of the country....I could write a 25 page essay on all this, however I am sure most get the idea.


Do I trust it fully....no but I do have some faith that a hurricane, volcanic erruption, earthquake on the west coast would not stop me from my day to day credit card purchases in the midwest, on the east coast or Canada.