What intrigues me about the SHTF/TEOTWAWKI crowd is their lack of regard for adaptability and "thinking outside the box" when faced with a tough situation - characteristics which are prominent in most real life survival stories, such as the Lone Woman of San Nicolas Island (reputedly 18 years alone, but home court advantage) or Poon Lim, WWII life raft survivor (133 days alone), as well as the plain old "will to survive." For that matter, there is the Donner party, which should be counted as a success, because there were survivors.

What you see on many of these sites are threads with titles like"How Long until Everyone Dies of Starvation," "Knife, Gun, or Both," "Gourmet Meals for Two people without Heat or Refrigeration" (my fave!), "In What Situation would guns NOT be Confiscated when SHTF,"etc).

Yes, wars are tough. I remember WWII as a young kid growing up in the USA - we had enough to eat, although it was often enough pretty ordinary and plain, but a whole lot better than those in Stalingrad during the same fracas.m My point, again derived from historical examples, is that the coordinated, cohesive group will fare better than the hoarding lone wolf. Consider the success of the Mormons in settling the west during the late 19th century....

In general, I go for the proposition that if I unite with and reach out to my neighbors, together we will be able to persevere. Perhaps we shall see how that will work out.

We recently experienced a widespread fire (the Thomas Fire) which burned some homes in my neighborhood. No significant disruption of the food supply, but a good test of individual emergency preps (we did well).

I definitely feel that a more severe test will come with a strong earthquake - disruption of supply chains and services for a significant time, but there will be outside aid in due course. For that eventuality, I do maintain a stock of emergency essentials, good for at least two weeks easily. Due to disruption of the road network, etc. I don't think bugging out will be a feasible option. i will basically camp in my backyard, which fortunately is in SoCal.

I might mention that I have been a firearms owner from childhood and I do own weapons, although not vast quantities of ammo. Violence is a possibility, but other less violent situations are far more likely.

Geographically and sociopolitically, we are a long way from Venezuela. In other locations, I might come to different conclusions.