I found two seemingly unrelated links over at Steve Quayle's website this morning, but when looked at together the picture that emerges is devastating because it shows that when a national catastrophic disaster hits, whether it is a natural disaster, a terrorist attack, an EMP, or a economic and societal collapse, the millions of Americans that are unprepared will die in the aftermath. Period.
U.S. INTEL AGENCY EMPLOYEES ARE PREPARING FOR DOOMSDAY
The first link is to an article titled "Official Washington flocking to Doomsday Camps." The article isn't talking about politicians or their employees, or the "Elite," it is referencing members of some of the top U.S. intelligence agencies, such as the FBI, CIA and DIA.
National security officials are joining Fortitude Ranch, who are building "doomsday camps" across the country, which promises protection and a year's supply of food when the "inevitable" catastrophic event occurs, with one member telling he reporter that he and others had joined after "waking up" to the potential of a national crisis, stating "For most of us, something rattled our cages and woke us up."
The list of those potential scenarios addressed in the article includes an attack or even a weather-related electromagnetic pulse shutdown of the electric grid, which the Fortitude founder, a retired Air Force colonel and intelligence officer, called "inevitable"; Financial meltdown or political violence; Nuclear war, and; a possible virus attack.
Each camp is expected to house 50-500 in a crisis and Miller said they will have lodges, underground bunkers and guard towers. In the event of a social meltdown, members will be responsible for manning those towers. Each camp has a shooting range.
Members are paying $1,000 per person, per year to join.
(Image- Houston Whole Foods Produce Section)
FOOD SHORTAGES COMING TO A STORE NEAR YOU
The next link that caught my attention was a Bloomberg piece detailing how supermarkets and grocery store bankruptcies are starting to pile up, such as Southeastern Grocers, owner of the Winn-Dixie and Bi-Lo supermarket chains and Tops Friendly Markets. Southeastern Grocers will be shuttering 94 of their nearly 700 locations to start with and Tops Friendly Markets has about 170 stores where their future is uncertain. Even the bigger chains like Kroger and Walmart are reporting a combined loss of over $30 billion this year alone.
Previously reported stories shows that after Amazon bought the Whole Food chain, they started seeing an increase in food shortages, with some reports stating "Entire aisles are empty."
"It has for weeks had empty shelves, and I shop there twice a week," one customer told Business Insider. "The prepared-food section is not refreshed, and food looks stale."
The Business Insider article blames these food shortages on a "newly implemented inventory-management system called order-to-shelf, or OTS," but the point is that the store is constantly running out of items and do not have the stocks to refill the aisles.
The website Eater details other factors contributing to the food shortages since the Amazon purchase. Such as Amazon's decision to discontinue Whole Foods' local sourcing program:
For years, Whole Foods employed staffers called foragers who went out into their neighborhoods in search of local artisans at farmers markets or state fairs. There, they found home-made jams and mustards and dressings that they’d buy in bulk.
For mom and pop preservers and picklers, selling their wares at Whole Foods was a boon, and over the past decade, thousands of small brands — many of which still put each label on each jar or package by hand — have come to depend on Whole Foods for the bulk of their business. As part of each store’s local sourcing program, the maker was responsible for stocking their items on Whole Foods’ shelves and could pick a few weekends to set up a table and offer customers a sample. Makers said they were far more likely to sell their items when they were present in the store, answering questions about a product and forging a personal connection while making that sale.
“Whole Foods was always an advocate for the small business. They always wanted to support local artisans,” says Erika Kerekes, founder and owner of Not Ketchup condiments. Not Ketchup was sold at Whole Foods locations in Southern California, near where Kerekes lives, for several years, up until six months ago. (Now it’s sold via its website and on Amazon.)
They announced the discontinuation of the local food sourcing program one month after Amazon acquired Whole Foods. According to WSJ, Whole Foods "will no longer allow ‘brand advocates’ in stores, a potential blow to local sellers, because most do not have the budget to fly to Austin to present their products.
(Empty shelves at Walmart in the D.C. area in preparation for snow)
THE UNPREPARED WILL DIE
Looking at these two unrelated stories, along with what is already happening at Whole Foods, and remembering what happens when a massive snow storm hits parts of the country, how unprepared masses start rushing into stores and panic shopping, emptying stocks with hours, and you begin to see what would happen when the "inevitable" national disaster hits. Rather than being geographically specific, imagine this type of panic hitting country wide during a grid down scenario, or a societal collapse or any other number of potential catastrophic events.
The same type of people that emptied the shelves within hours simply because a snowstorm was approaching in 2016, might not even be able to obtain basic items at all, with no possibility of the stores being restocked.
While obtaining numbers on how many preppers and survivalists there are in America is difficult, the last estimate came from 2013, which was approximately 3 million, so even if we doubled or tripled that amount for the sake of argument, in a nation that has 325.7 million (2017 numbers), we are talking hundreds of millions of people that most likely have no more than a week or two of food, and in many cases much less, probably three days of food.
These are people that assume if a catastrophic, nation-wide event occurs, the "government" will be able to rush right in to save them. In the event of an EMP, or an attack on the electrical grid or even a devastating solar event, no one would be there to help, perhaps for weeks or months.
Food isn't the only issue as most preppers are aware, water, medical supplies, just basics would run out in a very short amount of time. The fact is, many millions would die.
BOTTOM LINE
When the "elite" start buying bunkers, or land in areas with their own air-fields, scared the poor will rise up against them, that could be waved away by some as paranoia or fear, but when members of our own intelligence agencies start paying out $1,000 a year, for each person in their family, because they "woke up," and are "rattled," enough to purchase space in a "doomsday camp," then the obvious question has to be, what do they know that we don't know? What exactly rattled them?
Add that together with supermarkets and grocery stores showing signs of failure, stores closing and shelves already empty in some areas, with nothing in stock to refill the shelves, without any type of disaster, the obvious conclusion is that there are going to be whole segments of the country that are not going to be able obtain even the basics to survive.
Note - No one is suggesting that anyone take their last dime and rush out to buy everything in sight, but steadily getting a little extra here and there on each shopping trip to stock up on basic survival needs, will at least give one a better chance to survive disaster than those totally unprepared.
Readers are encouraged to share prepping tips, links, videos, in the comment section to help others.
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