Think back to when you were in school. When you had a big assignment, say a term paper, that accounted for a large part of your grade, odds are pretty good you had someone else, a friend or perhaps a parent, look it over before you turned it in, right? Knowing you’d get docked for any spelling errors and such, you’d want another set of eyes checking for those things.
I think it is probably safe to say that prepping for a disaster, especially potentially long-term ones, is one of the most important assignments you’ll ever complete. And the final exam is likely going to be absolutely brutal.
If you’ve not done so, consider letting someone else check your work. I don’t mean giving anyone a guided tour of your preps, simmer down you OPSEC junkies. What I mean is, sit down and lay out your basic plan to someone who is also a prepper. No need to give detailed locations or anything like that. Hell, give fake location names, that doesn’t matter.
Here’s where I’m going with this. A short time ago, I had an online conversation on a message board with a couple guys who were independently planning on putting together variations of a “survival community” after TSHTF. They laid out their basic plans and invited discussion. I jumped in with both feet and asked several questions:
–How are you going to feed 50+ people, long term?
–Have you thought about sanitation issues?
–Where are you finding all these people to join your group? How are you vetting them to ensure you’re getting people you want and need?
–What do you do with people who don’t follow the rules?
–What makes YOU the ideal leader?
The discussion didn’t go very well after I started poking holes in their plans. That might partially be because I’ll never win any awards for being the most PC guy in the room.
The fact remains though that they’d given little to no thought to issues that are going to be pretty damn important. Instead, they’d focused on the “fun” stuff like being something akin to post-apocalyptic warlords and rulers of all they survey.
Personally, I’d rather go through a detailed criticism of my plan now, rather than find out after the fact that I’d forgotten to include some things.
You can plan for years and still miss a thing or two. We’re all human, we all make mistakes. Better to make those mistakes now, on paper, rather than later in real life.
Get together with another prepper and let them poke holes in your plan and do the same for them. Odds are excellent that each of you will probably have valuable input for one another.
