I know I'll never be prepared for what you describe. And I'm okay with that.

In this nation of 300 million the prospect of an entire year of not having water, electricity and food (the cataclysm which causes it surely would not stop at our borders) on a mass scale falls into the TEOTWAWKI category of scenarios that I have decided simply cannot really be prepared for.

Even if you could stockpile enough to get you and your circle through such a scenario -- does anyone think the 99.9% of the population not so prepared is just going to stand by and respect property rights in that scenario?

Without those basic services, our society cannot sustain 300 million people. For darn sure Mexico couldn't handle that situation. We cannot even conceive of the chaos -- riots, violence, despair, starvation and disease -- that would ensue.

If you have Warren Buffet's resources, you could buy an island, stock it and hire some guys to torpedo any boats that attempt to approach.

Most of the rest of us in the modern world are going to sink or swim together.

So I'm happy to be prepared for the reasonably likely threats - hurricanes, earthquakes, even small scale terrorist attacks.

TEOTWAWKI? No, I'm not even going to try. I'll only pray we never get to that point. And I am confident we will not.

So I urge you, Jeanette, to continue preparing, first and foremost, for the prospect that you will live to the ripe old average age of 87 or so because there will not be an armageddon in your lifetime. And the worst disaster you'll ever have to deal with will probably entail a power outage lasting a few days, maybe a week or two, and it will be caused by some precedented weather event.

At least your family is nearby. Mine are not even all in this country. I'm just going to have faith as well as some extra food and candles.

P.S. Have you done much camping? A sleeping bag doesn't take much space. A lot of people can cram into spaces and sleep for 8 hours. It just won't be pleasant long-term. Groups can also sleep in shifts, and you'd need to since 24/7 some peops are going to have to be guarding the supplies that everyone else in society ran out of months ago.