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Simply try to buy a shovel during a major snow-storm (typically only 2 days notice) , stores can't keep enough of them so you would be snowed in unless u pay someone or dig a frozen snowed driveway with your hands and a hammer.
I used to be a grocery store manager at night, doing ordering and stocking. usually we kept 2 days of food and supplies on hand in the back, and that was just the overstock. that means items that would not go on the shelf after getting it delivered by truck.
I used to be a grocery store manager at night, doing ordering and stocking. usually we kept 2 days of food and supplies on hand in the back, and that was just the overstock. that means items that would not go on the shelf after getting it delivered by truck.
A good deal of the grocery stocking I see is actually being done by employees of the company with the product rather than store employees. I've seen this at local grocery stores as well as places like Wal-Mart.
Having once been a department manager for Wal-Mart, I have thought about this a lot - not only from the 'sudden shortage' aspect, but from the easily-interruptible aspect. There are so many links in the chain of providing goods to people that one damaged link and it all falls down.
Most of our goods are shipped in - and that includes food - from other countries. We as a nation buy 70% of our beef from Argentina, most of our fruits and vegetables from South America. Some cleaning and household products are made in America, but for the most part, everything else, from chainsaws to dog food, is made overseas. If the ships stop coming, if the ports are closed, if the trucks and trains stop rolling, if the warehouses are destroyed or stop shipping, if state or city borders are closed, most folks who are not prepared are pretty much going to do without after two days. The transport and supply lines are fragile enough to be affected by anything; political upheaval, pandemic, weather, fuel prices, terrorism, any and everything could have a long-lasting impact. As a Wal-Mart manager, oftentimes my orders were interrupted and delayed by all sorts of things - a sudden freeze where the plants were greenhoused that prevented the shipping of plants in time for a sale, a computer glitch that caused disruption in the stocking of trucks or the transport of items, even in the weekly printout of scanned prices and changes. Delays cost money; stockers get paid for doing nothing or have to be sent home when the trucks don't come, and often don't come back in when the trucks finally arrive (wrong shift, too many hours on the clock) and other employees have to be used to stock - a small ripple of error can cause enormous expense. And there are a lot more errors daily than you can imagine, because the supply chain has so many fallible links. The unpredictability of each human or computerized link in the chain is very fragile. When it all works - or even half-works - people shop. If there is a broken link that cannot be fixed or gotten around - no one shops.
During the spring Omaha/Lincoln NE floods this year, the sole warehouse that distributed dairy products across the state was flooded and closed. For several weeks, stores scrambled for suppliers from out of state, which cost more. The retailers had to raise their prices - and they never went down. Now the TX lack of peanuts due to drought will affect the cost of peanut butter. As a link becomes broken, costs go up - and don't go back down, because everyone from the retailer to the grower will have to recoup their losses.
Where I work most people work on computer's, only they're mostly computer-illiterate and depend on me to help keep machines running right. If there was a worldwide virus or interruption of Internet service, they would panic at all the work being backed up and not know the first thing to do.... meaning our customers (military travelers) would be SOL. My point being people are to dependent on computers, yet not even knoledgable about those. They're use to everything working perfect, otherwise they curse and complain and take no initiative, then they continue to say they're not paid enough while smoking an 8dollar pack of cigarettes and eating an expensive lunch which they throw away. Few people know a little bit about everything. As a modern society we're to specialized. No one person, not even the biggest geek in the world could solve a frozen operation without lots of outside support.
As far as I'm concerned, if you're going to call yourself a survivalist or prepper, you need to have a minimum of 6 months worth of food for each member of your family plus a little extra; better if a full year. We have such a supply. Also, you'll need toiletries (soap, toothpaste, etc), paper goods, a water purifier, fuel supply for heat and cooking, and some gas or deisel stabilized and put aside.
How many days' worth of food the supermarkets have, should not even be an issue for anyone on this forum!
How many days' worth of food the supermarkets have, should not even be an issue for anyone on this forum!
I kinda haveta disagree with you a bit here.
It is very important to know how quickly the situation in your area can deteriorate. If there are endless lines at your nearby Sam's or WalMart today, with people buying baskets full of groceries, knowing the time frame of how soon people will start to get hungry and start looking for other resources is pretty important. You don't want to be caught by your unawares if you live near a town or city where a sudden and long lasting disruption in the food supply will affect peoples' behavior. Everything is algebra (dangit, Ms. White was RIGHT!). If there are more farmers, feed lots, farmers' markets and there is (or can be, or has been in the past)more barter going on for food supplies in your area, then these things have to be considered as well.
As far as I'm concerned, if you're going to call yourself a survivalist or prepper, you need to have a minimum of 6 months worth of food for each member of your family plus a little extra; better if a full year. We have such a supply. Also, you'll need toiletries (soap, toothpaste, etc), paper goods, a water purifier, fuel supply for heat and cooking, and some gas or deisel stabilized and put aside.
How many days' worth of food the supermarkets have, should not even be an issue for anyone on this forum!
Agreed. You have to remember that we have newbies and those who don't post reading this forum as well.
Lately I've been pressing family members and friends who consider long term food storage as "hoarding" to try to look at it from a different perspective, one as investing in their families' future and as a home based insurance policy.
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