To prep or not to prep? That is not the question.

before you start throwing things, I might point out that revere hasn't said 'do not prep', just do it smartly based on reasonable expectations. I am comfortable with whatever people want to do, and I have not been an advocate of 'you must do this my way and not some other way', and I've had things thrown at me, as well. Some things stuck, though, and I am glad they were thrown. ;-)

I know others in the PH field who worry about JIT disruption of goods, and so are more concerned with the food and medicines than the water. I think 'at least' two weeks is reasonable, and go for what you can go for, if you can afford it, store it and cycle it. I do think it's important to note that our preppers are not doing panic buying but rather thinking through how to store and how to cycle best. More power to them, literally and figuratively.

The power grid is generally not a PH concern so much as a DHS concern, illustrating the spectrum (spectrum, not split) I referred to. But rather than look on it as a disagreement, I'd rather emphasize the idea of looking at your community once you finish the flight attendant part (put your own oxygen mask on first before you help others). Just remember to help the others.

Revere and DemFromCT: I thoroughly agree.

The perception of risk which emerges in communities when 'extraordinary events' like pandemics occur is almost always skewed towards a heightened sense of danger to the individual. This is one of the major determinants of social disruption in epidemics - as people withdraw from society because of fear of contamination, and potentially, refuse to help the sick for fear of contamination themselves.

There are a few people who are writing on why this occurs, and what policy makers can do to alleviate unnecessarily high levels of perceived risk in pandemic situations. Colin McInnes at Aberystwyth is one:

http://www.nuffieldtrust.org.uk/publications/detail.asp?id=0&Pid=200

To my mind, it is the behaviour and planning of communities which will make the single biggest difference to our experience of a pandemic. If the actual risks are communicated clearly and effectively then a lot of the panic and social disruption surrounding a pandemic event is likely to dissipate. The problem, as you have touched on before Revere, is knowing what the actual risks are before a pandemic starts...

PS: Have either of you delved into the role that psychologists and social scientists can play in pandemic planning? IMO, the natural and the social sciences don't talk to one another enough...which is a shame because I think they would both add a lot to planning for a pandemic.

Some excellent points Revere and DemCT. I also, thoroughly agree.

I worry, that our elderly, "The Greatest Generation", as given us a false sense of security. They were truly a great generation and were drawn together through the common hardships of war and economic depression. They were self reliant, thrifty and efficient. They could weather, it seems, any storm. I don't have the same confidence in todays generation, including my own. I could say more, but I hope you understand what I'm saying.

I have prepped, to some degree although not nearly enough by the standards of some here. I'm not sure how one can prep for every contingency, without becoming obsessed. How can a majority of individuals realistically plan for months of power outages and the ramifications of such outages?

I believe, as you do, that essentially services MUST remain operative to at least some degree, perhaps by heroes of tomorrow.

In the twenty-first century, it still takes humans to run systems...

...I guess all of this will be determined by the virulence of the pandemic, the question being what is the 'tipping point' in terms of warm bodies.

Also, panic is not controlled by reason and outcomes in cities may well be determined by the response of the mob...

They seem to be telling us that the Attack Rate for pandemic influenza is a fixed variable - 25%. I hope they are right as nature doesn't seem to work quite like that.

If they turn out to be wrong and attack rate can go higher than infrastructure is lost through sickness in essential workers families and panic...I'm not sure a pay check will be enough to keep them at their desks.

Patch:

Does a hero let his or her family die for the greater good...the infrastructure?

A pay check is only good if you have a bank to cash it and a store to buy the goods you require for your familly.

I'm hoping desperately that the next pandemic is a mild one (aka 1957) but the fact is H5N1 is very persistent and does have the potential to be much more than 1918.

I guess it is easier considering the possiblities now then after the fact when the damage will be done...

...and unlike a tsunami or an earthquake or a terrorist attack or a war...the likelyhood of our loved ones being untouched is pretty slim at best.

Thanks.

As an NGO I would say that partially Revere is right, and wrong. If the pandemic (whatever it is) is light then no big deal a lot of people get sick, some die and we have the "5% solution" to world over population. On the other hand, it its harsh we will see something on the order of the end of days.

In particular the NE and West Coasts are vulnerable if you can define that. If the power goes out then yes the water will flow as it does already from gravity. But after that, the pump has to go back on or the water fails to flow. Collapsed mains will then finish that system off. Most of the plants in CA and NE are either oil, gas or coal fired. ANY disruption in supply for gas or coal and things will go south fast. You have a three to five plant redundancy in the NE, four on the West Coast. If indeed its a harsh pandemic and there is a high CFR, then all bets are off for both. Diminishing supplies would cause all sorts of problems. Dead people leaving light switches on kind of thing. or broken water mains from lack of pressure in them. Waer towers as a rule are evacuated in 72 hours for water. Yep, they use that much.

Coal mining is a young mans sport and everyone is in close quarters down there. I have written before that TVA for all of the SE has about a 25 day supply of coal. They have hydro but coal is the big gig here and out in the midwest. They only have about 5 days at the plants and well, they wont let you build a new plant for just about anything nowadays because of the environmental concerns.

Gas fired plants depend on electric powered pumping stations. There are hundreds of them across the country. They can survive for some time without backup, but one failure and the clock starts ticking for millions. Add in the lack of redundancy for fuel to power backup systems (yet again environmental concerns) and primary ones and the stage is beginning to set for a disaster almost as big as panflu.

Ask yourself if a question if you are a Canuck or someone above the 35Th parallel. If the power went off, the trucks that deliver food to the stores stopped, the gas on your stove quit, and the water quit pumping...How long could you last? That 35th is a line you have seen before.... The Day After Tommorow. Its not a new line but one that has been established that in a normal winter the temp drops on average below 38 degrees at night. You can wrap up in a blanket up until that temp and then you have to be able to warm yourself periodically.

Webster said for the record on two different occasions that he had first three months supply of food/water etc in his basement. Then he pushed it out to four. He delivered a speech here in town that sat them all back on their ears and said that if it comes it will basically shut everything down. Frist tried to get an additional 400 million for the states for preparations and was turned down by the majority of both parties. Too much money on the maybe...Swine flu had a lot to do with this and the politics of that and now this.

So if it happens and if you dont have a really good answer to the question then likely you will go from primary cause BF or secondary causality cold, excessive heat, dehydration, lack of medical care for other reasons, electrocution (you really cant hook that 110 generator into your A/C), carbon monoxide poisoning where you tried to bring the genny into the garage, death on the road from cold induced exodus from the major cities, same from starvatiion/dehydration or any number of reasons beyond what is normal and that also means anarchy. Yep you are told to stay in your home and you go out for food, you get shot.

Still not convinced you should prepare? I can see Revere who says he is old (relative) not prepping. I say its horseshit though as he has a new grandbaby who if it takes out mom/dad might need him, but thats a decision. Really this is what its all about, a decision. There isnt a thing on those lists that are out there that you wont need for an ice storm, tornado, quake, hurricane all the way up to an asteroid or comet. Sitting on the shelf is just that. Having to try to find it post of something like the above is very hard to do. Hurricane Rita shut the power and ability to pump gas down for a month in most places on the Bama/Florida coasts. Have to drive 100 miles round trip just to get fuel.

I have said it before... You get this one wrong with a high CFR pandemic and you will be on the rolls. Make your choice, roll the dice, take your chances. As it is and I agree with Tom, chances for someone you know not to be affected are slim. If you are affected then your chances are also slim.

You're right, Revere, power likely won't be out for 90 days. And that's great were there to be just one wave during a pandemic. But history tells us there is likely to be at least two waves and possibly three. From my perspective, that is where the 90 day recommendation stems from.

Your assessment of the U.S. power grid is naive. Power needs are being met in major cities on high heat index days due to large businesses receiving financial incentives to reduce power consumption to reduce overall demand on that part of the grid. Yes, power can be redirected to failed or at-risk parts of the grid. But a straw as simple as overgrown trees can break the camel's back, triggering cascading outages across an entire geographic region as was seen throughout the Northeast in August 2003.

The Northeast Electric Reliability Council's report on the 2003 outage gives a fuller picture of the true state of the U.S. electric grid for anyone who cares to read it at:

ftp://www.nerc.com/pub/sys/all_updl/docs/blackout/NERC_Final_Blackout_R…

As for water storage, I don't know a single pandemic prepper who advocates actually storing a 90-day supply of water. Doing so is impractical. However, having the means to gather, store, and treat water to sustain your family during that period of time is not. Depending on one's location, it can generally be done with some careful planning and at a modest cost.

I love this blog, and I usually agree wholeheartedly with what you have to say Revere, but if I didn't know better I'd say you are channeling the illustrious Agwunobi. Tsk. Tsk.

Most people who are preparing for pandemic and have attempted to engage their community leaders have hit the proverbial brick wall of bureaucracy, and the writing on that wall is pretty clear: Communities, even the "best" prepared, aren't particularly well prepared to deal with a pandemic emergency.

For that reason, personal preparedness is not only a necessity but a moral imperative.

Is the sky falling or not? (The last time it didn't fall was Y2K.)

Possibly. Don't camp in an arroyo, don't live or build on a fault, and prep.

No amount of prepping will cover every contingency.

But cities are probably not a good place to be.

MRK -

First, you start your post with only two scenerios. 5% and unthinkable. There are other possibilities, including one that is less than 5%.

Second, how do you arrive at... "Collapsed mains will then finish that system off"? I'm completely confused by that.

The rest of your post is filled with every possible worst outcome. And you are unwilling to see it any differently. Your military background definitely promote the "security" approach Revere and DemCT were talking about, proving their point.

From your previous posts, I understand that you have made admirable efforts to prepare your neighborhood. That is certainly more in line with the community approach that they are talking about. You must see the value in it, but it gets lost in posts such as this.

Nancy, you told Revere:

....."Your assessment of the U.S. power grid is naive. Power needs are being met in major cities on high heat index days due to large businesses receiving financial incentives to reduce power consumption to reduce overall demand on that part of the grid."

I'm confused by this as well....so are you saying that during a pandemic, we won't have the workforce to keep the power grid up, but we WILL have enough workforce to keep our factories and commercial business operations at full force??

I think Revere's plan of community type survival is the appropriate direction. There is nothing wrong with individual prepping, but I do believe there is something wrong with an exclusively individualistic approach. I hope I live in Revere's neighborhood.

A lesson from my driver's ed teacher in high school: If you're getting tailgated, increase your own following distance. Allow more distance between you and the vehicle ahead, and you'll be making some of this distance available for the unthinking clod behind you who neglects to maintain a safety margin of his own.

Certainly, whatever people do for themselves will relieve pressure on the system. This may not be a complete solution to the problems communities are likely to face, but I still see it as an indispensible part of one. Confused and underfunded public officials may succumb to the temptation to point to this as an excuse for failing to initiate community-based measures, and my guess is that Republicans will be somewhat overrepresented among those least able to resist.

Patch:

What I'm saying is that without any other stress on the existing grid, and with power crews healthy and fully staffed, we are just barely meeting the electricity demand on peak heat days.

What I am saying is that when you factor in even ORDINARY problems (such as run-of-the-mill human error and trees that haven't been properly trimmed) the grid is prone to failure.

What I am saying is that during a pandemic we will have peak heat days, and we will have ice storms, and we will have other natural disasters that will strain the electric grid.

What I am saying is that while we will still have the normal strain on the grid, we won't have the hands on deck to expedite infrastructure repair.

Finally, what I am saying is that the interconnectedness of the grid which Revere extolled as a benefit (i.e., we can shift resources) is, in fact, a liability due to the domino effect that was so clearly illustrated during the 2003 Northeast power outage.

At least store a minimal amount of water revere. Goodness. The body really can do well without a large amount of food, but water? You will need to wash your face off too revere, it can get very uncomfortable when the crust in the eyes isn't washed away.
We've prepped because our dearest and closest friend advised us to do so, period. We're not obsessed with surviving a pandemic either but we're certainly not going to be caught with our pants down.
And I'm on the fence when it comes to power being on. Just don't know. Will count on it Not Being On more than anything.
Flublogians have learned a great deal and should be ready by now. At this point and in my mind, remaining neutral and objective is a sane policy.

Patch, I love reading your compassion towards the elderly. They are due and deserving of so much more respect, love and care than this world delivers.

You make perfect sense to me Nancy.

I wish I was smart enough to format this post correctly. But let me try to respond as best I can.

I'm not sure, that "barely meeting the electrical demand on peak heat days" has much bearing on our discussion here. I don't doubt what you say....but so what? If there is one thing I KNOW we can do together as a community in the event of panflu is to band together to conserve energy. Especially if it's our little part to ease suffering.

Secondly, the grid does pretty dang good with the current daily ORDINARY problems. I don't see the grid down very often. Local outages....maybe. But the grid? PRONE to failure? If that's the case, I have a new respect for the line workers out there! They must be miracle workers. I just don't believe it. I've heard how delicate our power grid is but we WILL be taking precautions if we HAVE to. Maybe I'm naive, but I think the problems associated with a pandemic, would have lessen the effect on the grid, with the demands of a energy hungry society during a normal day. Again, it speaks to Revere's suggesting of cooperation. We could all do our part to conserve energy. Not washing clothes quite as often...or cooling our home...flushing less often....all these things could be done by ordinary people to assist in the effort. I certainly hope we will all pitch in at least THIS minimal amount!

We MAY have other natural disasters (like ice storms) during a Pandemic, that's possible. But I'm not sure it's a given. Give the amount of work to perform, our electric company has most people back on line in short order. With absenteeism, it might take a little longer and I think Revere has acknowledged that. But it doesn't mean it'll never come back up!

I can't comment on the redundancies of the grid and it's ability to tolerate failures. I'm not an expert. But I understand what you are saying. That does concern me, if true. Experience has shown that it's still relatively short term.

I think you are suggesting, like MRK, that there are no possibilities other than worse case scenario. I truly believe that necessary services may not be at 100% and may not meet our wants, but they will certainly be available enough to meet needs. They will have to be.

For me, the bottom line is that I will have a house full of people in their twenties, and will try to keep them sheltered in place if the CFR warrants it since they may be among the most vulnerable. It is for that reason that prepping is important - to keep us away from the public places like stores and pharmacies. We will have extra of what the neighbors might need, as well, things like firewood, matches, bleach, etc. So, it doesn't matter if the utilities are on or not, staying home for as long as necessary is one way to survive a deadly pandemic.

Patch: I am not suggesting anything of the sort. I do not believe that there is no option other than worst case. In fact, I think those suggesting doomsday situations are the most likely to occur are over the top.

However, if you spend any time at all actually researching the electric infrastructure in the U.S., you will see that the line workers are indeed miracle workers. When crews are down by 30-40%, a local outage could easily blossom to a regional disruption through a series of unfortunate--ableit not unpredicted--chain of events. The fact that the power stays on as regularly as it does with the aging infrastructure and increasing demand is astounding.

But whether a local outage blossoms to a regional event is not the point. If the power is out where I live--which it is very regularly even on a good day--I have no water. I'm on a private well. If I don't prep for an extended power outage (be that hours, days, or weeks), I would be negligent in my duties to provide proper care to my children.

As for conservation, my family practices conservation and is gradually converting to solar power for reasons having absolutely nothing to do with pandemic but to do with preserving the earth for future generations. However, I doubt you're going to find lots of people changing power consumption behavior during a pandemic.

Anyway, take some time to learn more about the state of the grid. I think you will find it perhaps even more disturbing than the state of bridges across the country. And as the unfortunate people in MN learned last week, just because all the failing bridges across the U.S. don't collapse simultaneously doesn't mean that one collapse won't be catastrophic in a given region.

In my European country there is NO communication possible between individual preppers and PH officers. I have tried to contact a lot of them. I dropped questions or asked contact to persons in a.o. national religious or church organizations, veterinary clubs, water supply plants, at different levels of working people. I was pissed off or I didn't get an answer at all.
That's different at the US, in New Zealand and Australia e.g. But still.
If public services or politicians are apparently deaf to concerned civilians and they won't consider some minimal information has to be given to a population in advance, then IMO it's started to become an individual preparation issue and a security matter of the highest priority.
I agree with MRK and Nancy on this and I'm afraid some virus isn't going to 'listen' to arguments like 'but it's needed so badly'(power supply) or 'we're not estimating this kind of disaster'. Whether it's H5N1 or something else.
Moreover than only trying to influence the public health sector is that I'm convinced everyone himself or herself will be needed to do whatever he or she is good in, me being a psychotherapist and a mother. I will try to survive to help others and I'm not betting on a system to provide water, food or power to my house. I'm advising some clients who are very dependent on medical drugs to have some stock because I think it's my professional obligation to do so. But that's a new discussion: e.g. is it immoral when a physician who is informed about BF keeps his mouth shut to his patients to get them preparing, will he discriminate between persons who can and who can't afford it and can one as a professional have more weight to influence the Governmental networks to have some backup systems?
How about the security of professionals who are known to the public as being fully informed about BF and how to prepare?
I myself am not so positive about possible answers, while as a psychotherapist I'd like to be asked to help in preparing the communty in the way that's proposed above. For the bloggers who don't know me from before, I'm not particularly obsessed by prepping but I am following this and other blogs for a couple of years now. I think I'm an example of how prepping can be done and one of the main ways is to keep informed and to isolate as many people as good as possible once pandemic signals are seriously appearing.
By the way, I'm on holiday now so I can't look it up, but wasn't it in some East European country where they quarantained about 3,000 or more people some time? I do recall they wanted to become a member of the European Union and they would show how well they managed to handle the outbreaks.
When it came to the point of food distribution yes or no, after about one or two weeks, and when people were openly neglecting the regulations of staying in their houses, they stopped the whole campaign.

HOW long did people wait on rooftops and in the superdome after Katrina?

That times a gallon is the MINIMUM amount of water every person should have stored at all times. Not for panflu only; there's blizzards, tsunamis, earthquakes, mud slides, and cars breaking down in the desert among other things. (Yes, I have a case of water....and first aid kit, spare jacket and shoes in the trunk of the car.) I know most people don't prepare for the *expected* and that's why stores empty out ahead of hurricanes and blizzards, but I really don't understand it. Too much hassle for me. I stock up at sales and avoid the crush.

And yes, I expected my government to provide the equivalent of the Berlin airlift effort for my own FELLOW CITIZENS, and I'm still not over the shock that they didn't.

Patch-Legitimate question. Re: the water mains. In most of the older cities the water mains are made cast iron and they are disintegrating. New York, Chicago, Boston, Philadelphia for example there are so many things laid over the water lines that when one breaks it is a mini-disastr. They cant get to them

They break because of the age and pressure on the pipes from the outside. Cast iron in particular is subject to internal and external crumbling and internal moving water erosion, but in most cases its the depth they are buried. Its like using a whacker packer every day from trucks driving by, people pounding the street, buildings being built. That force is directed into voids and the dirt slowly fills it in when there is one. The pipe be it plastic or iron is an empty void when the water pressure is off. It tries to fill it.

Four years ago last month when there was a duratio wind event dubbed Hurricane Elvis in Memphis, the entire power grid save two circuits dowtown was snapped. ALL lines in the city and county were literally torn from the poles (think of an ice storm from hell). 440/660 lines down along with the towers and local house to house wire structures and the trees were down and into the streets. It took two weeks to bring up 50% of the city (many couldnt be powered) , and three weeks where I was. Some didnt get power back for almost two months. Cars smashed, homes destroyed with trees going thru them and it was only a 110 mph wind for 30 minutes. It was so bad that the entire downtown had to be evacuated as a crane that was building the new arena threatened to topple over having been bent and stood at almost 500 feet. It was enough to pick up a 10 yard dump truck and dump it inside of a building down on Beale.

So the power was restored and all was happy right? NOT. Serious other problems began to arise and in the downtown and older sections it was immediately apparent that we had been hit a lot harder than we thought. The mains began to blow all over the place. The power and water had been back on for only two days. As it fully pressurized into the buildings downtown the pressure from simple gravity backflowed into the pipes and the pipes having been bent in, were now pushed out and thats all she took. Water erosion started cutting the pipes like one of those water lasers on TV. It was like a flood in some places. Then they had to isolate the problems and begin fixing it. Like the above mentioned cities, we have very old pipes and it required many instances where plastic pipe was run from building to building above ground on the sidewalks while the figured out where this gas line went, this telecom cable pipe there. You got the idea. So if, the water pressure dropped off for more than say a week to two to almost nothing, they would find that upon loading the system that it was like a piece of swiss cheese. Then who is going to fix it.? To do so requires people in close proximity in a pandemic. If they worked in bio-gear then how can they do it other than slow?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memphis_Summer_Storm_of_2003

As for the power grid. ITS OLD!!!! Some areas have lots of power such as the SE, but no way to deliver it to the North except thru old REA power lines. Some of those lines are as old as I am and not able to take the loads, but they can also return the favor and pull the load out of a needed line. California/Arizona/Oregon and to a lesser degree Washington state have a very tenous hold on the grid. It has been addressed by the Administration post the election but it takes literally years to build that kind of infrastructure. The EPA problems alone with power lines are enormous. E.g. an ice storm in 96 dropped a 660 KVA line into a swamp just down the road in Miss only 30 miles killing some 10,000 migrant ducks and another 5000 were so screwed up that they had to be put down. The EPA's answer to that? Remove the power line. That line fed over 300,000 in North Miss from corner to corner. It took them six months to just put it up on poles that were vulnerable to car/ truck hits on the side of the roads while they gain right of ways, did environmental studies etc. It was 2004 when that particular line was back up on the towers. Until that time they had to do without water out in the boonies on the farms and there was no irrigation and the governor had to call out the Army Guard to run water every day to the families in a lot of areas. Ever seen them maintain a high voltage line? Two ways of doing it. First is crawl out there with the power off. Second is via a helicopter and a guy on an isolated cage. If something brought the towers down or they needed maintenance and its above 8% its going to be tough, really tough to keep the lights on. That should be your warning bell in the NE, Midwest, the Northern West and Canada. If the power goes out, it might be time to head south if its winter and quickly before everyone else gets the same idea. But back to the grid.

There are ways to route power, but there is no way to route it over the wires that are there. You generally need about 2.5 times the total required power to boot the system. If the grid goes down for whatever reason, the total that is needed cant be sent down the wires or they'll melt. So say your requiirement is 440, then you are going to need a surge of 2.5 times that to get it on and going and not have it trip again. If panflu comes, the dead will have gone with their TV's, computers, A/C, garbage disposals, what have you on. It would take YEARS if it snaps to bring it up section by section if we get say 8% CFR or more. 30% assures the grids destruction.

It wont be just us. As Tan06 points out it takes quite a bit of time in Holland to close the gates for a N. Sea storm. No power or fuel to power the backup system and it will make the 53 dike failures look tame. Katrina a country instead of a state. VERY highly populated country at that.

It would be the same here as well. The dams might be able to run their locks with their power, but what if there is no fuel for the tugboats to push them thru? Bottlenecks. Same with trains. Have to have power to turn those frogs and shift the track switches. .

Redundancy? There is some but its all based on the total system being integrated together and on line for water, fuel, food, tugboats, trucks, JIT, military. One thread starts to unravel and this quilt comes apart and doesnt stop until it reaches a state of equilibrium for the population to food/water/shelter. Then we get to begin again. Thats your reference to the reductions in drains on it. That will be partially true.

As for prepping, is this kind of stuff necessary? I dont know Patch, I really dont. BUT as I said, you get it wrong and you or someone you know will be dead if its past 8%, maybe you and from a plethora of reasons. My gig is simple and its like living in bear valley. If you have a bear invading the house, you dont ask what kind of bear it is. You simply prepare for bears and when they come you fire at their heads until they go away or until you run out of bear ammo. If the bear gets in, it wins. If it doesnt you do and its just one or more less bears to deal with. But you still live in bear valley. So you prep for the next time as soon as possible.

Ipmat-They did provide the B. Airlift but it was not fast enough and it was born in law. Screwed up but that is indeed the law. States rights, governors not signing disaster declarations and requests for federalization, Brownie doing a heck of a job, Nagin, Bush, the arrival of the 3rd Herd into N. Orleans. Too little too late. Then too much and expecting more. Personal responsibility from this point on for all Americans to make their decisions as to what they are going to do or not. I chastise Revere all the time for not preparing because in a post panflu world we are going to need dissenting voices. He wont be around if he hasnt at least prepped for food. Bird Flu will pass him over if he does prepare with food as he will discuss it into submission and show it the way out the door.

The jug of bleach in your laundry room will kill all the little swimmers in many months worth of drinking water. Eight drops per gallon and a couple hours should be more than enough http://www.epa.gov/safewater/faq/emerg.html. Most towns are near a river, you're probably within walking distance of all the water you need. Put away a couple of empty 5 gallon jugs, 20 lbs beans, 20 lbs of rice. You don't need heat if you stay dry, so keep your roof in good shape. If the disaster comes, get know your neighbors and enjoy the down time. I've always wondered why it's good to relax but bad to be lax in the first place.

Kelly: This isn't a blog about prepping, so I am not going to totally belabor the point (only partially!) except to say that your generalizations are (and I mean this in the best way) presumptuous.

A) The half life of a bottle of bleach is 6 months. How old is your bottle? How full is your bottle? Scented or unscented? Cuz you can't use the scented to sterilize water.

B) 20 pounds of beans and 20 pounds of rice would cover my family of five for about a week and a half.

C) We live in a northern climate where temps are routinely in the teens and 20s from Oct/Nov through April, so yeah, we need heat.

D) There will be little down time when doing "life" manually in the absence of conveniences (otherwise known as electricity). Doing as much relaxing as I can today and every day. :)

Nancy,
I honestly didn't mean to be presumptuous. I've spent much of my life voluntarily out near the weather. I scored 41 on http://www.piepalace.ca/blog/asperger-test-aq-test/ perhaps I'm best out in the boondocks.

MRK I understand your point about water mains now. But I'm not sure they are any more prone to failure while void of pressure then they are with water pressure. Even if the entire water delivery system in a municipality was void of pressure, I'm not sure that water mains would be any more prone to breaking. I can't say for sure, although I have repaired water mains during my college days. You make a good argument, but some of the the factors you mentioned that promote breaks in mains would likely be less numerous during a pandemic.

I'm not sure how you can know so much about so many things and speak with authority on each. I don't have the time necessary to check the accuracy in your statements. If they are true, then I have to concede, as you make a good argument. I am aware of some of the power grid issues. We are fortunate in our area and outages are very rare and usually short term.

But in your post, you mention that "once the thread unravels, the quilt comes apart." That may be true, but while a tattered quilt might not be particularly comfortable or pretty, it may still keep you warm. I think that was the basis for Revere's post and I agree.

No worries, Kelly. I didn't think you meant to be presumptuous. That's why I made the note in parentheses about meaning it in the "best way."

Patch-Again, I am an IC-800 command level NGO operating in the SE USA. This level has the same horspower as a 3-4 star general, who are by default 800's but still have to by their military training complete all the same courses.

The water main issue is not something new. The cast iron pipes or that black ferrite/concrete/asbestos was never designed to last more than 75-100 years. The cast iron pipes are subject to external corrosion and internal erosion. The issue about pipe collapse has been addressed many times in many papers. You can look that one up on your own.

The other is the NERC which is the electric power grid. There are few points of interconnectability and they have load shedding programs on the computers. Those arrowed points are the ones that are interconnectable. The others arent. The loads that would be incurred if even one plant goes down might be picked up by one or more regionals but if you get two or three off line or the lines go down, then that causes an overload and the redundancy is gone. One more after that and its over. This would happen if there was no coal to fire those plants and they would slowly but surely go off line.

http://www.sandia.gov/LabNews/LN02-11-00/grid_story.html
http://www.nerc.com/
http://www.nerc.com/regional/NERC_Regions_BA.jpg

As for the knowledge on this stuff Patch its not complete. I still have to ask a lot of questions and some that are as oblique as they come. I also again say that if Panflu comes in anything beyond 8% it will likely become uncontrollable as to what the population wants to do as opposed to what the government says they have to so as not to spread it. If its winter, there could be an exodus of more than biblical proportions out of Canada and the area above the 38th parallel. So you would have a flu problem, a refugee problem and a food/water problem all coagulating on the government that they will say didnt do enough. There is no way to do enough as this is a personal responsiblity issue. Government cannot do 500 Katrina type operations on mulitple scales. So they have left it to the states as its really a states issue. Another reason you should not allow government to get you under their control anytime possible

http://www.nerc.com/pub/sys/all_updl/docs/pubs/LTRA2006.pdf Its only 134 pages long.

For those of you who have questions as to what really is going to happen if certain things go down. Gas fired turbines are in the same boat folks and if there is even a week where its completely shut down on gas production from the SW or LNG doesnt de-boat in Port Elizabeth and places like that then there is going to be hell to pay.

Better yet. Prep and say well I am going to go and read War and Peace. You should finish it about the time of the vaccine announcement.

Anyone else have any questions about what would happen? Tom DVM is likely going to be one of the ones that makes it, even in the cold of Canuckland.

Of all you said, only this didn't make sense to me:

In other words, the grid is resilient to the kinds of shocks a pandemic would produce -- intermittent, rolling sporadic outages. Even with widespead absenteeism in an area, it is not a likely consequence the grid will go down.

It is? My impression was that the grid is actually pretty fragile operating near peak capacity much of the time with outdated infrastructure, and the potential for cascading effects of outages. We've seen these in just the last few years. I suppose you mean it's not so fragile that no one can fix those in a matter of days, but it wasn't a phrase I was expecting.

As you said about pharmacies needing to have stockpiles, do you think it would make sense for electrical companies to have stockpiles of their energy sources? (Is that even feasible?)

IMO, the best approach is for both communities and individuals to prep to the point of being as self-sufficient as possible. The problem has been getting either group to do so. These are not mutually exclusive choices, which is why those who are pandemic-aware like Revere but fail to prep are being irrational, IMHO. ;~}

As pointed out above, the issue is and always has been how severe the pandemic will be. I have been reading Gina Kolotas fine book Flu. In it she reports quit thoroughly on the Swine Flu Debacle from 1976. Dr. Spencer (CDC Director in 1976) and the Ford Administration did the right thing given the data because there was a risk > zero that a pandemic was going to begin in the fall of 1976.

In medicine, we take preventive measures against risk that a disease might cause an unfavorable outcome. We have better evidenced based information now on what to do, on whom, and when than ever before. It is very hard to see what the impact of our preventive actions is but they are pretty small overall for the most part. For instance, to prevent one hip fracture with Fosamax requires treating 100 patients for 3 years. This is the number needed to treat statistic based upon the FIT registration trial for that drug (see the Fosamax Product Circular). Thats 300 patient years of treatment for one hip fracture prevented. The cost of the drug alone is about $120,000 and the Cost of monitoring etc are probably at least $45,000 for a total cost of $165,000 less the cost of the hip fracture (about $36,000). The point I am trying to make here is that we spend a lot of time, effort and resources preventing low frequency adverse outcome in medicine. It is useful to apply this same logic to the issue of pandemic preparedness.

Today as in 1976, the risk of a pandemic is not zero. The probability of pandemic is 100% but the time to the event is unknown. The severity of the event is not known but my opinion is that H5N1 will become pandemic and when it does it will cause an event equal to or worse than 1918. This is not an off the cuff remark, it is an issue that I have studied extensively and written about in the past and is the subject on my next book. For the sake or argument however, lets just accept the premise that I am correct in this view.

So then, we have an event that has a 100% probability meaning it will occur and there is a reasonable possibility that when it does it will be severe (for the sake of argument). The timing is the greatest unknown but we are overdue for a pandemic now given the regularly irregularly periodicity of 30 years or so with 1968 when the last occurred. If you accept these assumptions, then the logical conclusion is that pandemic risk is high right now and since very few communities or individuals have any degree of preparedness, we are at very high risk for devastating primary (disease caused) and secondary (economic and social infrastructure failure) effects of pandemic.

It is my belief based upon this analysis that the risk of this scenario occurring is very high especially if we were to consider the event as if it were a complication a patient might have with a specific disorder such as hip fracture in an osteoporosis patient. What is the risk? Well, we dont know but it is sure a lot higher than zero and the 1% absolute risk reduction of treating 100 women with osteoporosis for 3 years with Fosamax to prevent 1 hip fracture.

Again for the sake of argument, lets say the risk is 10% each year with a 100% chance that we will have a pandemic by 2017. In medical terms this would be a red-hot emergency condition that we would aggressively manage. And 10% is conservative IMO but I would be interested in hearing what those in public health would say about this.

So, a 10% annual risk, a pretty high risk medically when you consider the consequences to the patient, in this case humankind. I actually think the risk should be graded rather than linear because of the rising biomass of H5N1 increases the number of individual virons replicating within its population which makes it more likely that mutation, recombination, or reassortment will occur resulting in efficient H2H transmission and pandemic. My actual guess is that the risk for the above scenario occurring is 40% in 12 months, 60% in 24 months, 75% in 36 months, 80% in 48 months, and 90% likely in the next 5 years. Again, I would appreciate it is the public health weenies out there would critic this view as I have read that this approach to pandemic risk is not supported but dont understand why being a simple country doctor and a lowly internist at that.

So then, it is my view that the community will not prep adequately, the pandemic will be severe with the direct and indirect effects disrupting civil order and a collapse of the economic infrastructure worldwide. This is a global view not a local one. I fully concur with the notion of Revere and others that the fate of our society hinges on the function of the US Power gird. Thinking that the power grid can be quickly brought back up under the above circumstances is very doubtful IMO but again we move into the realm of probabilities. Making accurate predictions based on multiple probabilities is quit hard since the robustness of the model goes down as you add new terms to the equation.

Nonetheless, the power grid could be down for a very long time on the East and West coasts of the US in my view, much longer than 90 days. Water and then food are the two most fundamental requirements for life, not access to medications. Certainly heat in winter is next. Security would follow and while the effects of a loss of civil order is not something that easy to predict, sadly though if we loose power, water, and food, civil order will surely collapse. That is the spanner in the works IMO. The process of bringing the grid back up will be enormously complicated by civil disorder. This is the greatest secondary risk of pandemic in my view and the reason why individual preparation for at least 90 days (I now favor 12 months) is rational.

I also think that the civil strife will be exponentially worse in the large population centers and these areas will be too dangerous to even consider remaining within them during the pandemic. There will be just too many thirsty, hungry, and angry people to contend with and why I am planning to move to a rural area for the duration. This is a new plan for me as I had intended to remain in suburban Atlanta. No longer, it is simply too risky and makes no sense to me now as it would be futile. If there was good community and individual preparation, then this option would be viable but I no longer think that this will be achieved. Hence, it is off to the farm for my Pandemic Survivor Group and me. It is irrational to die in the city simply because you wish to make a public-spirited statement. This is suicidal not enlightened. Doing so will simply make picking the pieces up in the aftermath all that more difficult and will do little to help the least fortunate among us.

Of course, this is just one persons view. Having a variety of survival strategies is good since some will work while others will fail. Those that work will ensure that at least someone will survive to carry on. Having no strategy is a failed strategy sure to result in devastating consequences to those who follow this course and their loved ones who depend upon them should the event occur. Please consider this Revere and others of you who have not prepared. We could sure use people like you on the other side.

Grattan Woodson, MD, FACP

Just two things for Gratten:

1. There is no evidence that we are "overdue" for a pandemic as it has never been scientifically established that pandemics occur in regular intervals. Instead pandemics appear to be rather random events and in statistics it is not possible to be overdue for a random event. For example, if you flip a coin 5 times and it comes up heads each time the odds of it coming up heads again are 50/50 and the outcome is not influenced by the first 5 flips.

2. It is quite obvious that your message is deeply rooted in your desire to sell books.

The Doctor is IN!

Shawn: I agree with you about the "overdue" statement although for different reasons. The probability of a pandemic exhibits serial autocorrelation, so each year is not independent of other years. However we don't know what the underlying stochastic process is, so "overdue" is a very misleading notion since we can't easily estimate the expected value of inter-event times.

I don't think your assigning motives to Grattan's opinions is very helpful. It is much more likely he wrote the book because of his opinions, which he holds to strongly. That doesn't mean we can't disagree (or agree) with his reasoning. Let's stick to the arguments, however.

Shawn,

Before you cast aspersions on Dr Woodson for his motives, ie for selling books, you should have been aware that he provided his pandemic planning guide FREE as a resource on Fluwiki in the very early days. His work was one of the prime motivators for myself and our family to begin serious preps, for which we are now very thankful to him. (Thanks Doc)

It was a cheap shot, and personally, I think you owe him an apology.

The issue of the possible/likely degree of severity of the pandemic is under discussed, I feel. It seems nobody wants to countenance the real worst case scenario, let alone prepare for it. Therefore the planning, such as it is, all assumes more of a best case scenario. There are fundamental differences in both the planning , and as importantly, the real preparations when we are talking about a severe pandemic, Category 5 with CFR considerably greater than 1918.

So anyway, our family has prepared Plan A, and Plan B, depending on the pandemic severity and the degree to which our community is prepared for the big issues.

Plan A is shelter in place in our home in a big city here in Oz. Based on that, I'm trying to get the local community woken up and to take proactive preparation action. So far it's too slow for my liking and so recognising the probability that our community won't be prepared for a severe pandemic with food shortages, it looks like Plan B is more likely. Plan B is head for the hills.

Thanks Shawn and Revere for your comment about whether the pandemic is overdue or not.

I understand the probability of heads or tails is always 50/50 irrespective of what occurred in a previous toss but disagree that this is the case for pandemic risk. For instance, if we restricted the virus to only one method of becoming pandemic, mutation, then it is only logical to assume that the probability that it would achieve this status rises as the number of individual replicating virons increased.

Compaired with other candidate pandemic strains H5N1 has been the most successful with regard to host and geographical range and the sum total biomass of replicating H5N1 virons is growing exponentially.

Since influenza can gain new genetic combinations by reassortment and recombination in addition to mutation, an increase in replicating individual virons must result in a rising probability of H5N1 becoming pandemic rather than the probability remaining static as in the coin toss example.

While one can quibble about whether a virus is technically life form or not, it certainly is animate and "behaves" in a way that enhances its adaptation to its environment. These characteristics are what makes influenza different from an inanimate coin that cannot adapt or evolve nor can it increase or decrease its numbers. This is why the odds always remain the same for the coin but not for the virus.

While there is no fixed periodicity for pandemic, they have occurred relatively often with a dozen or so in the last 400 years and probably many more before then. Where pandemics are random or not is an interesting question that deserves careful study rather than simply stating that it is because it appears to be meaning we can't see the pattern if there is one. My guess is that it is not random rather its periodicity could be described as conforming to an organic standard rather than an artificial nice repeating number. I often forget that numbers are not real and are just constructs of the human imagination. That being so, why should any real thing ever conform to a number?

I concede that since we don't understand pandemic periodicity it is inappropriate to say that one is overdue. However I do think it is appropriate to conclude that the probability of pandemic occurring is not static and while it is not possibly to accurately enumerate its probability it is possible to judge if the risk is rising or falling. In my opinion it is rising quickly.

Grattan Woodson

Revere,
Call it what you like but he is selling a bird flu preparedness guide on Amazon. Why do you think he was so sensitive to your post on preparedness? His opinion is conflicted similarly to a spokesperson for the poultry industry. You and I both know what the reaction from those here that are defending the good doctor would be if someone from the poultry industry suggested that bird flu was no longer a threat.

Shawn with all due respect. 5 bucks for a book on BF preparations is hardly a money maker for the good Doc. If you showed up at his or Revere's doorstep and had no money they would have to treat you anyway. IMO if someone experienced a cost to get the word out, get them to do something or in general inform the public then they are due some compensation for that. Most here dont even ask.

I use the internet to send my stuff out and it costs me to have a UHS DSL which allows for big file transfers and high speed delivery. It costs me. I also am an NGO and I would and will make a lot of money if the infrastructure starts to go down in BF or a quake. Just like the doctor and Revere who went thru training in med school to become what they are, I did too. It cost me a lot of money.

The Doc like all of us we had to buy equipment, provide facilities, and establish a staff. E.g. Revere comments on having to buy a subscription to get some information in one of the posts today or yesterday. If its not in his dept budget and he wants it, he begs, borrows or steals to get it. Or he has to pay for it. He also provides his God given talents free to literally the world as long as they can read English and log onto his blog. He donates his time for free. Its damned good medical information, some political that I agree and disagree with, but all in all one of the best blogs on the internet....It costs him.

I see no self-agrandizing or beating the bushes by Doctor W. saying, "And what you need to do is buy my book" . You can likely see my point. If a doctor takes his/her time (Lisa the GP, Dr. J down in Indonesia) and others to post up what they think, what they know, and what they would like to prove I am ALLLL for it. I havent seen a one of them ask for one red cent. In fact when one of these medical bozo's post up something that I havent ever heard or seen before I am on the net learning about what they just said. Now whats wrong with that?

I have never met a researcher, or a doctor who didnt like to talk shop and while they are doing it they are indeed doctors again back in med school. They get to go back to what they started off to do most of them and that was to help folks. You can of course have a contrarian position on this and assert that a 5 buck book is going to make a lot of money for Dr. W. I have never seen him even post the name of the book. Anyone can read beyond the lines understands that he has a position and has written some primer information that could be nothing less than useful on the low side and save peoples lives on the high. If you dontaed money to the Red Cross or paid taxes and got a manual of some kind from them on how to prepare for a disaster then that was paid for. Guess who are the types they ask to tool them up???? Revere and Woodson types...

Money? It wont make a crap if High path/high CFRBF comes because the money will become just what it is.....paper. Zero value. A can of pork and beans would be worth more and they books would be burnt to stay warm.

Dem from CT has it right from the beginning here. Put your mask on first and then assist others if able.

Thats my read on this and I am sticking to it.

MRK,
The cost of the individual book is irrelevent and you know it. It's like saying that Starbucks has no financial interest in what they preach regarding beverages since the cost of a Grande Latte' is only ~$3.50.

The facts about the doctor speak for themselves. He has a financial interest in what he is preaching, Period! No amount of blather from you changes that one simple fact.

And I have a financial interest in it too Shawn. As do you along with everyone else on the planet. That is unless you are under 18. Either way, if it comes property values will plummet, massive deflation will occur, and jobs will be lost either from BF attrition or lack of demand of product or service.

Best way to ensure that it only happens minimally or not at all to you and family is to prepare. Guess how many people I know that even know that its killing people in SE Asia and Egypt? Those would be the same sheep that would be slaughtered by the bug or worst case scenario's playing out. Even the least case will take 5%, or so they say. Its 56,000 in the TN from primary cause, I would actually put it at three times that from all causes as the infrastructure was either tasked or in various stages of collapse.

If you convert your life to a monetary number if there is one, then how much would you pay to stay alive in a pandemic Shawn? Would you like to have a guide that says two weeks of preparations or one that says this could lay us down like cotton at harvest time and gives you enough information to get by with? Would you have cared whether you got it for free or whether it wasnt?

We need MORE doctors out there screaming that this is a real possiblity rather than an off the wall event. Statistics, bad feeling, voodoo whatever you want to call it, pandemics kill a lot of people and if he wants to write ten books on it and make a buck then more power to him. Trick is to get someone to read it and that isnt what I am reading into it here. Revere writes papers, G. W. writes books. Revere has to publish or perish, G.W. writes them to prevent you from perishing. You can buy a subscription to the research paper production mills, or the book mills. Both will provide a lot of answers that we can draw on.

Shawn has a bone to pick with the good doctor, wonder what the hidden motive really is behind this attack?
You've made a sound agrument MRK, now it's time to starve the troll.

Dr. Woodson: Thanks for writing out here what you did. I am in agreement with what you've written. Was glad to read it and admire your courage in expressing those words.

And Kelly, if you read this, come on back. Don't let a few words chase you away, develop a thick skin because sometimes the hits are hard. Frustrations abound in our world, and rightfully so. And no, you're not best out in the boondocks, we (I) want to hear from all people(s).

Lea, completely agree. We're being diverted by troll like behaviour. Blind Freddy can see that Dr Woodson's motivations are not primarily self centred, as has been shown (to no avail). Let's move on. We're missing the opportunity to discuss a really important issue here.

For instance, I am trying to understand at what point the CFR drives massive absenteeism. In other words, if the publics perception is that their chance of dying is acceptably low (whatever % that is), they may well keep on going to work, albeit with N95 masks perhaps. But once they get wind of "the killer flu" and indications are that it is killing LOTS of people (whatever that % is), then the authorities won't have to issue isolation/quarantine orders, everyone will hunker down as a natural self protective reflex. And at that point, that is where the store shelves will empty and stay empty, and large metropolis cities will have societal breakdown. Am I wrong on this? And if not, then how is our planning taking this into account? Do we all just resign ourselves to having a Plan B, ie escape from the cities? Or is it possible to convince the relevant local authorities to develop Category 5 plans and preparations for food shortages etc. so that communities can become resilient?

Thats the 64,000 dollar question RobT. I honestly dont know what % it would be but I am told a rapid onset of even 3% would start us on the road, then a subsequent 5-8% on top would do us physically. The ability to get thru it is based in personal preparations. The government needs to prepare for those who cant, not those that can.

RobT, that's for the agreement. On the left hand side of this blog are categories, click on pandemic prepardness and move around to read the volumes of information. Your answers are there.

As far as people going to work, ugh. In America it's ingrained into the brain that one goes to work whether they're sick or not, and unfortunately almost to the point of dropping dead. Fear of losing one's job or being replaced, in addition to huge debt's incurred as everything has become doubly and triply expensive has created an even heavier burden on people who can't seem to live within their means.

When it gets to the point where it's apparent that the flu is a killer it will be too late for many due to ignorance or whatever excuse they can manifest to justify their lack of knowledge. There's a huge "victim" consciousness embedded in our society so "someone else" will have to be blamed for their lack of preparation.

Sorry MRK, didn't think you were going to post so I attempted to answer RobT.
Also I made an error, it should have said "thanks for the agreement".

I would be curious MRK to hear, to what degree, you believe the government needs to prepare for those who can't.
I just don't see the government providing for anyone that can't. It will surely rest on the big hearts and souls of all peoples that are willing and capable.

Thanks MRK & Lea. Lea, I think I've read pretty much everything there is on preps on several sitesover the past couple of years, and don't recall seeing any real info on trigger levels for pandemic interventions.

The point is, at some point in an emerging pandemic, the authorities are going to have to make some judgement calls on what measures are
enforced. Here in Australia the Quarantine Act gives sweeping powers to the federal government to do pretty much whatever is "necessary" such as enforce social distancing, restrict all travel etc etc etc.. I gather TPTB will assess the CFR and infectivity to make that call, I just have never seen any discussion on what CFR leads to what actions. Here they are talking like it is business as usual, whih is stupid if the CFR is a Cat 5.

Has there been any discussion in the US of whether householders will be given relief on mortgage repayments if they need to stay at home for, what?, 12 weeks? No discussion of it here (of course), I assume it would require legislation changes. Will employers be required, by law, to make salary payments for "forced leave of absence" when families shelter in place?

Lea-There isnt anyway the government could prepare to feed and house even a 10th of the population.Hurricane Andrew was a tent city and lasted for two years and there were no jobs or anything else. People got pissed when government didnt rebuild their houses!

The ones I am talking about are the non-mobile such as old people. If it gets down to a High CFR flu they would likely survive the flu but starve during and post of it. These are the ones that cant provide for themselves. I am not kidding here. Think about the Great Depression when the unemployment went to about 9% and the effects of it. The people were still available to work. Think about what happens if you have 8% dead, and 30% more that are sick at any given time. We are told that genetics, age, country of origin might help or hurt you but whole cities at that number will grind to a halt. 911? Who is going to mantain it? Services at best will be a total joke.

Then there is fire. If it gets cold and things are going or have gone south then some idiot is going to start a fire and a wind driven event could roar thru a city. No water, no firemen.

At what level should the government provide for the people who cant? I havent a clue in the face of this because of its magnitude. Thats the reason its personal responsibility first and fellow man second. Some will reverse that but until the situation reached a state of equilibrium I think chaos would be a good word.

Robbie-Yes, mortgage rates would go to zero as a plan. So you would only have to come up with the interest portion of your loan. No, no salary payments. Wouldnt matter anyway, zero percent interest is just that. The rich companies would run in and scoop up property like the did after Katrina and the economy would start to crawl out of its hole if its less than 8% inside of five years. Any more than that and its incrementally bad. Lose 30% of the country and especially the young (remember my ref to not letting a child starve?) and we lose the country in a generation.

The Flu Wiki has lots and lots and lots of prep information.

Evolving Earth has more.

Don't believe I've seen any of that information either RobT. Might it not actually boil down to an unanswerable question for now? It has nearly become information overload for me too.

That's an interesting site Melanie, the music gave me the chills. Have to check it out more thoroughly later.

Off topic but related to the 'Come Together' song. There's another opinion article I read about the volcanic eruption from Toba caldera. Lake Toba is a large, serene and pastoral body of water roughly 100 km long and 30 km wide (sixty miles by eighteen) in Sumatra, Indonesia.
The article talks about global warming and the title is Concerning Catastrophes and Cooperation.
While it's a personal story so to speak, the writer does share that after a horrendous volcanic eruption there were few "tribes" left, and how they had to share and cooperate while communicating with others (strangers from other families) in that they could not expend inordinate energy and time in battle in lieu of primarily focusing on obtainment of enough food and clean water.
In other words, those tribes that chose to fight, for the most part, died off and their genetic legacy did too.

I only went to this site from a link on another blog that I visit on occasion. I know nothing about this site, just read the article.
If you'd like to read it: http://www.bestcyrano.org/THOMASPAINE/?p=189

Yes MRK, our elderly. If there's an opportunity to really provide for them on a personal level then I encourage it. On a personal level, my elderly mom and senior sister are out of reach and laugh at me when I mention BF. Plus they're in a large, large city on the west coast and my mom is overly attached to her house.

It really is personal responsibility first and fellow man second. While it sounds cruel and self-serving it is not in my eye. Should this, or any other event occur during any one of our lifetimes, unless someone has a death-wish, then you must care for yourself first.
Detachment, extreme detachment will be key you see.

OK MRK, now you are stepping into something I AM an expert on. How can mortgage rates be zero (0%) and you still have to pay the "interest portion"? You said:

..Robbie-Yes, mortgage rates would go to zero as a plan. So you would only have to come up with the interest portion of your loan.

That's a complete contradiction. If it's 0%, what interest is there to pay? I think you are a bit confused.

I highly doubt that banks will simply "forgive" interest, unless they are allowed to "forgive" the interest owed to those who have deposits there. Banks charge interest on loans so they can pay interest to depositors (as well as make a profit). It's an unequal equation if they are not allowed to earn interest from borrowers but still have to pay it to depositors. They can't do it. How many of you are willing to "forgive" the interest owed to you for your CD's and Savings and Investments??

Now, I suppose there might be ways to "defer" interest payments on loans. The gov't would have to loan banks the money to pay interest to their depositors and then be repaid by the borrowers when they CAN afford to pay interest.

It's much more complicated than that, especially if borrowers are deceased and unable to pay.

Interest rates to the banks would go to zero. From the Fed to the banks. You might have to pay out 1-2%.Thats pretty much nearly free money. Sorry for the confusion.

I didnt say anything about forgiving interest. They will need the float between the two to infuse billions into the economy and then slowly draw it back via higher interest rates after the slack is taken up and out of the system by those that are still here. Inflating an economy in the face of a deflationary bubble is the only thing that can slow it down. E.g. Oct 1929 the banks were not as regulated and they were borrowing from the borrowers who were borrowing from the banks just as the borrowers were. They were allowed margins of nearly 100%. When the bubble burst they didnt have the capital to cover everything and the Fed wasnt the force it is now.

Last point is the biggest one. This would deflate the housing market to the nth degree for new homes. Existing homeowners would be able to refinance, but refinance on a deflated value house?

Here in Memphis there was a tremendous hit from 1918 flu. The housing market shattered and there were many homes where the entire family died. In the center of the city which was E. Memphis back then there are literally dozens of driveways that lead into lots where houses once stood. Dates on the concrete say 1916 all the way up til 1919. The houses where so many died were called flu houses and were abandoned for much cheaper houses and with a lot more room. There are accounts of La Grippe taking whole blocks out. And the housing market fell apart.

Wonder what it would do in todays world? Past is pretty much prologue.

The Doctor is IN!