Beyond the Lessons of Katrina

A friend of mine lived through the devastation of Hurricane Katrina. Her stories of weeks without money, gas, electricity, and potable water were enough to turn anyone’s hair gray, even a pagan and medievalist like me.

Fallen trees blocked the roads, and we’ve all heard the horror stories of how slow the government was to get to the rural areas. Imagine that your home survived with only “minor damage” but you’re suddenly thrown back into the era long before electricity, grocery stores, cars, and all the modern conveniences.

At first, they had all the foods stored in the freezers and refrigerators to eat. Like FEMA tells us to do, they had enough potable water stored in gallon containers to survive for a few days. Charcoal grills provided a way to cook. All the candles housewives decorate with provided light to see by at night. Batteries were thriftily saved for emergencies. Canned and preserved food was hoarded and used sparingly. Gasoline was siphoned out of cars to provide power to a generator and chain saw shared between local families. The water wells didn’t work without power to run the electric pumps.

At the one gas station they could reach, the pumps were electric, so no way to get to the gasoline stored below ground. The attached convenience store, with the perishables rotting on the shelves, was locked. Its owner had fled ahead of the storm. He wouldn’t return for months. No one wanted to become a looter and a criminal, because eventually civilization would return.

Eventually however, all those remnants of civilization ran out. They tried their best to be frugal, but nothing lasts forever. Not only the people, but also the pets were going hungry. They’d put buckets on poles and every morning someone from each household made the half-hour long trek to a local stream for two buckets of water, which had to be boiled before it was drinkable.

Do you have cast iron pots to cook with over an open fire? Do you have a container large enough to was clothes by hand?

Can you:

Milk a cow? Pasteurize the milk?
Make candles?
Weave a rug or cloth?
Tan a hide with either brain or pine tannin?
Fit together logs to make a sturdy shelter?
Thatch a roof?
Cook on an open fire?
Start a fire without matches?
Find edibles in the woods?
Do laundry?
Make soap?
Use local clay to make a pot and fire it?
Make mud bricks?
Make edible salt from seawater?
Distill liquid until potable?
Make a broom?
Store food without refrigeration? (Smoking, drying, pemmican, salting, below ground?)
Make a safe latrine or outhouse?
Brush your teeth with salt or baking soda? Where would you get those things?
Take a bath?


Think about it. How would you survive if civilization went away for an extended length of time?

Lena