budlight
Newly Enlightened
You're at work when the balloon goes up. The civil defense sirens begin to wail and you run for cover (if you're over 40 you run for cover, if you're under 40 you laugh to yourself because some idiot doesn't know how to disarm his car alarm before he gets in). You grab the emergency bag you've had in your desk for a year or two and your EDCs and head straight for the company's basement (yes, there are basements even in California) where you pile in with several paniky people, stacks of boxes containing company records, and that IT guy known to have a digestion problem. Someone pulls the chain overhead to turn on the one light in the room and a couple guys shove a heavy metal door closed and lock it to keep anyone else from getting in. Everyone is dead quiet and the only sound you hear is the air rushing through the ventilation register. Then a cellphone rings followed by another and everyone else tries desperately to call out. All of a sudden the underground room is jerked sideways. You hear screams from both men and women, then the light goes out. The screams are replaced with anxious silence and you notice the air has stopped flowing into the room. The only illumination is from cellphone LCDs as people hopelessly attempt to contact their loved ones. You hear muted screams from people outside scratching to get into the basement and escape the fallout but no one moves to open the door. You know it's only a matter of time, a brief amount of time, when you will be forced to go outside and face the scourge because of the lack of air. You recall preparing for such an event but didn't really think it would be necessary, until now. You had emergency lighting well covered since you were a nut about flashlights, and you even thought of keeping some Mayday food bars and packets of water along with first aid supplies and foul weather protection all which fit neatly inside the bag you kept in the bottom drawer of your desk. You are quite confident that you could make the two-mile trek back home (if your home is still there) on foot, but should you leave now and try to beat the fallout, or wait a few hours until the main threat has dissipated and tough it out in the room with everyone else. Problem is you have enough provisions to last you a couple of days, but little more than a snack if you shared it with everyone else in there with you. Once you did start eating do you think you'd have a choice? Do you make a run for it, or grab your trusty ARC-LS and lead everyone out of the darkness and into the unknown?
I honestly don't think this scenario is that far fetched. Some of us prepare as best we can for what we may think is inevitable but have we considered what we would really do with the options presented to us? I'm old enough to remember the pissing contest between Kennedy and the Soviets over the Bay of Pigs in the '60's and how my folks (and everybody else in the neighborhood) stocked up on canned goods and stored them in a clothes closet (mine!) in case of an atomic attack (rent the movie "Panic in the Year Zero" if you really want to experience the feeling of those times). A pretty futile attempt at civil defense, but are we really better off now that it is our turn? Just a thought.
Mike-
I honestly don't think this scenario is that far fetched. Some of us prepare as best we can for what we may think is inevitable but have we considered what we would really do with the options presented to us? I'm old enough to remember the pissing contest between Kennedy and the Soviets over the Bay of Pigs in the '60's and how my folks (and everybody else in the neighborhood) stocked up on canned goods and stored them in a clothes closet (mine!) in case of an atomic attack (rent the movie "Panic in the Year Zero" if you really want to experience the feeling of those times). A pretty futile attempt at civil defense, but are we really better off now that it is our turn? Just a thought.
Mike-
