Over at the FAL Files Forums there’s an excellent thread revealing what can happen to a well-laid-out family emergency plan when the Significant Other doesn’t fully buy into it — or, more charitably, is willing to abandon it when the situation seems to him or her no longer to be an emergency.
How many of us, I wonder, have SOs who are just humoring us by going along with our preparedness “hobby,” and don’t really take it seriously? No great harm until SHTF, and then it’s potentially a big problem. And there doesn’t need to be a large regional disaster for the S to HTF  — if your home’s on fire, the S has HTF for YOU.
One practical item I noticed in the thread is that the poster tried to contact his wife on the radios they’d agreed to use in an emergency, and she didn’t answer — she was taking the dog to go potty. Had this family used their radios for routine communications around the home, this might not have been an issue.
As one character noted in Mr. Rawles’ novel, without communications you ain’t got jack.
I think from now on I’m going to make an effort to use our MURS radios instead of our cell phones for routine communications — for example, when one of us is at home and the other is walking the dogs, jogging, or running an errand to the nearby shopping center. It’ll be cheaper, too.
Anyway, read the thread. Lots of valuable food for thought there, particularly in posts nos. 1 and 12.
What, you can’t read the thread ’cause you’re not registered? Fix that here.Â
I’ve been thinking about the concept behind this post a lot, Phil, because you have nailed MY situation. My spouse DOES think of my SHTF preparations as over the top. She KNOWS how much actual disaster training I have had, and has even participated in some of it, but she still takes her everyday comfort and security for granted.
If it comes to the SHTF, and I was away, I would have to contact her to give her the combo to the safe. I’m sure she can shoot a revolver, for the first cylinder-full, and there’s one in there. I’ve gone through the drill with her for reloading, so I’m sure she could manage that. She does NOT go with me to the range, I can’t talk her into it. If I could find one of her women friends to go and make it a foursome with that couple, she might.
She has a pacifist streak in her, personally, sort of like a Quaker, which she isn’t. She put up with my years of duty with the USAF, fit right in as an aviator’s wife, but could care less about flying (in the cockpit) herself. Same with my years as a cop. Learned about the criminal mind, but has no interest in arming herself, dispite some risky behavior, such as riding public transit through some ugly areas of town.
You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make them drink.
When the SHTF, I’ll try to get to her to protect her, if I’m not already at her side. My preparations can carry us both through, if I can connect up with her.
I can understand this one. My wife makes fun of some of my preps. Not the food, water, and medical stuff. Mostly the ammo, weapon, and tactical gear stuff. But over all she supports me in my SHTF endevors.
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