Officials discover the radical principle of leaving people alone for three days
WASHINGTON, D.C. (Bohiney.com) — Governments around the world are telling citizens to stockpile food, water and batteries. France wants three days. Sweden recommends a week. Germany suggests up to ten days, presumably because even the end of civilization must comply with German opening hours. Americans have one question: what do these people know that we don't?
Washington's answer is reassuring. Nothing specific. Just prepare for war, cyberattacks, power failures, floods, storms, supply-chain interruptions and the possibility that modern civilization has the structural integrity of a folding lawn chair.
FEMA's Three-Day Emergency Kit Checklist
The federal government's Ready.gov emergency kit guidance says households should have their own food, water, cash and supplies to last at least three days, with a gallon of water per person per day. That's practical advice. It also marks the first time Washington has recommended that Americans save something without immediately proposing a tax on it.
Sweden goes further. Its government wants everyone to be able to meet their most basic needs for at least a week without support from society. Germany's civil protection office, in its English-language emergency guide, asks households to be able to provide for themselves for ten days if possible.
For decades, government officials explained that the public could rely on vast institutions, sophisticated infrastructure and cutting-edge emergency management. Now they're suggesting we keep peanut butter under the stairs. Somewhere between the trillion-dollar budget and a jar of Skippy, the experts appear to have revised their estimate of institutional resilience.
Household Self-Sufficiency, Three Days at a Time
Dale Whitcomb, a retired county road commissioner in Marion, Ohio, read the federal checklist twice at his kitchen table. "The government wants households to become self-sufficient," Whitcomb said. "After decades of expanding government, politicians have discovered the radical principle of leaving people alone for three days." He asked a reporter whether the three days were renewable.
The timing is the interesting part. When your neighbor buys six cases of soup, you assume there's a sale. When twenty governments recommend doing it, you start wondering whether the sale ends with civilization.
Authorities say the advice is designed for ordinary disasters, not a secret countdown. Fair enough. Hurricanes, winter storms and outages have been inconveniencing Americans since before electricity was invented. What has changed is the international enthusiasm for delivering this advice with the atmosphere of a bank manager quietly checking the fire exits.
America's New Survival Strategy: Return to 1974
Consider the recommended equipment: flashlight, radio, batteries, cash, first-aid kit and manual can opener. That's not merely an emergency bag. That's a complete technological retreat to 1974, except everyone is still paying 2026 prices.
The manual can opener is particularly revealing. In the event of major infrastructure failure, the survival of the republic may depend on whether someone remembers how the little rotating wheel works. We're the country that landed people on the Moon. We could be defeated by a can of peaches.
Cash is another fascinating suggestion. For years, retailers promoted electronic payments as the future. Now the survival plan includes paper money because the future apparently requires a working wall socket. Somewhere, a grandfather is smiling beside a mattress that has outperformed Silicon Valley.
Congress Reviews the Emergency Preparedness Plan
The House Subcommittee on Emergency Preparedness took up the manual can opener question on Wednesday. The following exchange is from the official record.
REP. HALVORSEN: Mr. Pruitt, the checklist recommends a manual can opener. Does the department own one?
MR. PRUITT (Deputy Assistant Administrator, Preparedness): We're confirming that, Congressman.
REP. HALVORSEN: How long will that take?
MR. PRUITT: Three days, we think.
REP. HALVORSEN: Is that the same three days?
MR. PRUITT: I'd prefer not to speculate.
Customer Review: Stainless Manual Can Opener
★☆☆☆☆ Does what the government said it would. (Verified Purchase)
Bought this for the emergency. Emergency arrived Tuesday, at my cousin's wedding, when the power went out in the hall and the only food left was forty cans of peaches. Nine minutes to open one. Lost a fingernail. Gained a lot of respect for 1974. Would not recommend. Would also not be without it.
Posted to the Maple Grove Neighbors Group
Does anyone have a spare manual can opener? Mine is in the drawer with all the other things I don't understand. Will trade a flashlight (batteries not included, batteries not found). — Carol, Maple Grove Drive
What Preparedness Actually Looks Like
Of course, preparedness itself is sensible. Buy food you actually eat. Store water. Keep your medicine, flashlight and emergency contacts accessible. Check on neighbors. There's no need to convert your basement into a supermarket or wrestle an elderly woman for the last tin of tuna.
But perhaps citizens deserve one additional item on the official checklist: an explanation of what the government is preparing to do while everybody else is eating cold beans.
The public can survive 72 hours without Wi-Fi. It has endured congressional hearings lasting longer.
The harder question is whether elected officials can survive 72 hours without a press conference, a consultant or someone else to blame.
Until then, the American emergency plan is straightforward: keep three days of provisions, maintain a working radio and, if the lights go out, resist the temptation to call Congress.
They'll form a committee to investigate the darkness.
The flashlight will arrive in the next budget cycle.
7 Humorous Observations
- Governments know something we don't. Of course they do. They just won't tell us until I've bought enough baked beans to qualify as a wholesale distributor. I'm at forty cans. I don't even like beans. I'm just scared in one very specific aisle.
- France says three days of food. The French can survive a nuclear winter, but nobody's explained how you keep a baguette fresh until Thursday. That's the real emergency. That's the one they should be briefing us on.
- The US government wants us to stockpile. This is an institution that can't stockpile enough common sense to get through a committee hearing. That's like taking diet advice from a buffet.
- Officials say canned goods. So civilization ends when the power goes out, but the canned ravioli gets another hundred years. Somewhere a can of ravioli has a better pension plan than I do.
- They tell us to keep cash. Twenty years of "go digital, cash is dead," and now the plan is the mattress. My grandfather's been vindicated, and he's been dead since 1996. He's still winning.
- Everybody gets a different survival deadline. The French get three days, the Germans get ten, and Americans get until Kevin eats the last bag of Doritos.
- Politicians say there's no reason to panic, right after they explain how to live without food deliveries, electricity or a working toilet. That's the textbook definition of a reason. https://bohiney.com/?p=45794
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