When searching for the one-year supply of food, a Google search surprisingly turned up some mainstream stores. Normally, this search provided links to suppliers related to one or another religious group. But this time, Google listed places I have shopped.
To explain, I’m not in the market for a one-year supply of food. However, being interested in preparedness and surviving natural or man-made disasters often led to searches for “one-year food supply.”
This latest recent search identified the of the most popular warehouse clubs. And both are really carrying a one-year supply of food.
The good and the bad of mainstream: anyone want a rat
On one hand, we can take comfort that a disaster preparedness food supply is locally available and at a reasonable price. On the other hand, seeing such things in the store is somewhat unsettling.
Consider the rat. In normal times when there’s plenty of food and life is going well, the rat is a pest. Except for pet stores, no other stores sell rats. But let a famine or disaster wipe out the food supplies. In times of famine the butcher shop may carry rats. And rats become a delicacy at premium prices.
In times of plenty, people shop for food weekly and some even daily. When mainstream stores carry long-term food supplies, there must be a market for it. People are thinking about survival in some form or other. People are worried that the food won’t be on the store shelves for their frequent trek to the grocery.
Worrying about the infrastructure
Several years ago, the Southeast experienced a bad drought. The dryness and lack of water was disconcerting. Upon searching for information on droughts, one article showed that this area typically has a major drought every 10 years or so. Our droughts are a common and expected occurrence and we needed to take this into consideration.
The Atlanta metropolitan area has grown so much over the past many years. The water usage and infrastructure to support water supply was fine for most of the time. However, it wasn’t prepared for handling the drought in conjunction with the large growth of the city. What a collision. Some estimated the city had only six weeks of water left when the rains returned. Six more weeks of drought and we would have been out of water.
Imagine a major American city running out of water. How does a city of this size cope without water? Not very well.
A sign of the time
Now that the mainstream stores are carrying the one-year supply of food, I am both glad and worried. Guess I will save up my money and get me one of those, just in case. And hope I never have to rely on it.
