What have done towards your prep?

[Mortblanc]

Opsec is dependent on what the "normal" happens to be for your area.

My area subsidizes installation of solar through the local utility. Our entire county is powered by a huge solar farm on the edge of my village. Power enough for 15,000 homes.

Where I live there are plenty of solar panels on the roofs and 2 out of 3 homes have a gen-set. Those that do not have a gen-set would be operating inverters off their vehicles or tractors as alternate power.

Most newer American vehicles have inverters built into their systems for powering electronics and tools. These days the first thing that happens in the suburbs when the power goes down is everyone runs out and hooks a power cord to their car and runs it into the house.

The noise of generators running and the use of solar powered lights would mean that the neighbors were home and nothing more. We are not much for cowering in the shadows over here.

At least that is the case when the power goes out now, don't know why it would be different long term, at least until the fuel ran out. Then it would be just the solar.

[Jonas]

Not so much for us, but for the kids and grand-kids, solar phone chargers and tactical flashlights...

[Pete Grey]

[quote='Mortblanc' pid='101832' dateline='1524196556']
Opsec is dependent on what the "normal" happens to be for your area.

My area subsidizes installation of solar through the local utility. Our entire county is powered by a huge solar farm on the edge of my village. Power enough for 15,000 homes.

Where I live there are plenty of solar panels on the roofs and 2 out of 3 homes have a gen-set. Those that do not have a gen-set would be operating inverters off their vehicles or tractors as alternate power.

Most newer American vehicles have inverters built into their systems for powering electronics and tools. These days the first thing that happens in the suburbs when the power goes down is everyone runs out and hooks a power cord to their car and runs it into the house.

The noise of generators running and the use of solar powered lights would mean that the neighbors were home and nothing more. We are not much for cowering in the shadows over here.

At least that is the case when the power goes out now, don't know why it would be different long term, at least until the fuel ran out. Then it would be just the solar.


Hi MB
This again shows the difference between our home areas, you in a rural location with a low population density and us in an town with 6500 people per square mile.

We are in a nice quiet street of private houses sandwiched between two council housing estates, it’s a good area but only one house in our street has solar panels, it sticks out like a sore thumb, that’s the one that will be a target if TSHTF.

Its not case of cowering in the shadows but quietly biding time while others run around like headless chickens, and you know what happens to them.

[Mortblanc]

Pete the solar panels do not make the house a target, nor does the population density. Looting occurs in rural areas also, when it is tolerated.

That house with solar panels will be looted in the same order that all the other houses on the street will be looted, and be certain that all the houses will be looted. The "gray man" thing does not work during riot or looting becomes widespread.

One of the aspects of looting is that every structure is systematically searched and looted until some force causes the looting to stop.

Looting only occurs where the fear of retaliation, or fear of use of force, ceases to exist.

What we see in large scale civil unrest is not homes or buildings cherry picked with other houses or structures untouched. Looters usually start at one end of a street and leave the entire street picked over and in flames when they reach the other end.

Usually what stops the activity is the looters come to a definite line which they do not cross due to the danger present. In almost every situation over here there will be a burned out area and then a sudden edge where everything over that edge is untouched.

[LAC]

(21 April 2018, 07:58)Mortblanc Wrote: Pete the solar panels do not make the house a target, nor does the population density. Looting occurs in rural areas also, when it is tolerated.

That house with solar panels will be looted in the same order that all the other houses on the street will be looted, and be certain that all the houses will be looted. The "gray man" thing does not work during riot or looting becomes widespread.

One of the aspects of looting is that every structure is systematically searched and looted until some force causes the looting to stop.

Looting only occurs where the fear of retaliation, or fear of use of force, ceases to exist.

What we see in large scale civil unrest is not homes or buildings cherry picked with other houses or structures untouched. Looters usually start at one end of a street and leave the entire street picked over and in flames when they reach the other end.

Usually what stops the activity is the looters come to a definite line which they do not cross due to the danger present. In almost every situation over here there will be a burned out area and then a sudden edge where everything over that edge is untouched.

And what might the danger present be that would stop them crossing the line?

[Pete Grey]

Food for thought MB. So now i need a rethink, we can’t stop looting if rioting breaks out, just me and the OH, we need numbers. So how do we get neighbours out on the street if the worse should happen, without them realising it’s not a spur of the moment reaction to looting, so they don’t guess i have been making plans, i don’t want to appear to be a leader with what that involves just give “advice” from the sidelines.

[MaryN]

You could start by sounding out your neighbours, Pete - as tactfully and as casually as you can. We have the same situation in my own little lane. I know my OH will step up and sort folks out if things go south, but our neighbours know he is just that sort of person anyway so they would probably listen. Presenting a united front to any potential problem is the best way to meet it. You just have to clue in to the mindset of your neighbours.

[Midnitemo]

If you have got and you want to keep it then you will have to be prepared to use force to defend it

[Mortblanc]

Pete,

as Mary has pointed out the very act of shaping thought and guiding a group to consensus IS leadership.

If a group does not take your advice they will take advice from someone else who appears to have more insight and more training, or the loudest most aggressive person present. That does not mean they will follow the "best" person in the group unless the "best" person makes himself available to lead.

And be assured that someone will step forward, perhaps someone with no training who has only their own best interests in mind. That person might even shrug their shoulders, say "each man for himself" and return to their home to watch as the neighborhood is systematically disassembled.

When I lived in the suburbs I knew my neighbors. My wife had lived in our house for 10 years before we married and the neighbors were all long term residents. I met them. I spoke to them almost daily. I mowed their gardens when they were sick and their kids mowed mine after I have my heart attack.

We stood outside and discussed the weather, drainage problems, trees that needed trimming to prevent road blockage and discussed their kids grades in school as well as the work ad career plans of each individual.

I made preppers of them. As storms and severe weather came through each crisis was met as a group effort and advice was passed around. I was the one that showed the IT guy across the street that he could run a couple of lights off the inverter built into his Mercedes, kept the neighbors deep freeze cooled by sharing my generator and promoted a neighborhood cookout to salvage as much refrigerator contents as possible by grilling and eating it all. That was one fine "hurricane party"!

By the time I moved from that house most of the neighbors had gen-sets large and small, adequate food stores and means of organization for any event that might happen. It was a tight knit community with its own separate identity within a larger community.

I have attempted to act the same way here in the rural area I now inhabit. Except here the people are more self reliant from the start. That simply goes along with rural life here, as well as expected friendliness, hand waves and head bobs to everyone, even if they are not your favorite people.

With intrusions into residential neighborhoods the looters generally probe the outer boundaries. Over here that tends to be incursions of automobiles loaded with looters driving into the neighborhoods specifically looking for unprotected homes or those apparently evacuation vacated by now refugee families.

Yes the authorities try to block off and guard the neighborhoods but they can not be everywhere and our police are not mandated as a "protection force" but as law enforcement agents who interdict criminals engaged in illegal behaviors. During riots or crisis they are often thinly distributed and very "busy", and more and more the police themselves are the target of the mob.

It is still the responsibility of the individual to provide for his own safety.

This is the reason one hears so much about people over here not leaving their homes during "mandatory evacuations". They are not avoiding the shelters as much as they are intent on guarding their property.

Yes, they make a show of force. Often that show of force is their presence on the property. At other times it is the presence of groups obviously alert and standing sentry. In most cases over here that line of alert sentries, sometimes armed, is usually the thing that promotes that clear line of demarcation between looted and left intact.

Weapons are not always visible, but over here there is always the threat of their presence in the back of the looters minds. If there are 10 home owners present there are probably 8/10/12 firearms standing behind the chairs, door frames, or under their shirt tails.

During Hurricane Katrina TPTB attempted to confiscate the firearms of the residents and drew immediate attention from the public. Our Supreme Court upheld the right of the home owner to offer armed resistance to protect their lives and homes and mandated that TPTB had no right to confiscate firearms from private homes. The Governor of Puerto Rico attempted the same action last summer during their hurricane and drew immediate national outrage even before the storm had arrived.

Over there I assume that you would be restricted to gathering larger numbers of people and presenting torches and garden implements while hoping the looters were no better armed than you.

Still, consider that looters are not an organized force. They do not have a chain of command and each person is his/her own commander, quartermaster and medical team. They do not have reinforcements under unified command or provisions for court marshal if they do not show courage under fire.

You stomp a couple of butts and break an arm or two and they will not go get others to help, as everyone seems to think. It does not work that way. There is no help to go get.

They will spread word that the group on such-and-such street is not to be messed with!

[Midnitemo]

Have analysed my immediate neighbours and there will be no help or threat coming from those quarters , it's the rest of the estate I live on that concerns me , i know who the rad cases and trouble makers are but its the quiet ones with talents that are likely to catch me out