Is it possible we are all just kidding ourselves?

[Mortblanc]

One of the other forums I frequent has just been through a similar incident to the consideration here.

Recently one of the members was the victim of a wild fire that burned his house to the ground while he was away. That happens in our western states where population has extended into areas that should never have been inhabited and wildfire abound.

This person is a Veteran of several combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. He is a member of the local SAR unit and is an EMT first responder by profession. He is a skilled wilderness technician with survival and SAR skills out the wazoo. He does this for a living.

He was also prepped for a year with food, water, meds, weapons and ammo.

It all burned to the ground!

Physically and mentally this man could operate with the best if the situation involved someone else and was presented to him as another person's emergency. He was ready for TEOTWAWKI beyond the realm almost any British prepper could imagine. But when it involved him and his possessions, leaving him with only the shirt on his back and a pickup truck, with no prior warning or work up, he went off the deep end.

Completely psycho!

This happened three weeks ago and this man is still addled, incoherent and intoxicated. He has required intervention by friends and a suicide watch and it appears he may never completely recover from the trauma.

And this was just a local wild-fire that burned only 13 homes.

If you can't handle the little stuff, or don't know how you would handle a local problem beyond hiding under the bed or running off to the woods, don't even start thinking about advising folks on a larger national and international situation!