Be Your Own Savior!

CW FISHER. When the coasts go and the survivors push inland they're going to need water, food, medicine and shelter immediately. Will their governments come to the rescue? No. Governments will not rescue us--not because they're incompetent (they are), or because they didn't plan (they didn't), but because they can't. Plastic bags can rescue us. Drinking our own urine will rescue us. But our governments will be the first ones out. No reason to get mad. They're just doing what we should be doing, namely, saving ourselves. There is a point on the scale of natural disasters beyond which no government can manage the chaos, because there is no government. Enough ants could lift an elephant if only they didn't get squished. Katrina reduced New Orleans to a swamp overnight, but it took weeks to sink into our collective minds that some disasters are just too big to do anything but (excuse my phrase) cut and run, like George Bush's government could be said to have done. People of authority were the first ones out of the city; people with none were left behind. That's how it's going to work next time too. Global warming is a local problem. And ultimately it all comes down to you, or, in my case, me. Your survival, and the survival of your family, will depend on your ability to get along with others. If you are deficient in this area, cross yourself off. If you do as Ted Koppel advises and put up a vast store of food and water, you may feel silly leaving the bulk of it behind. And when you run out of gas, you'll eventually accept that you have to walk. What you need most is heaviest: water. Food and medicine will be free everywhere while supplies last. Money will be toilet paper. Shelter will be scarce, guns ubiquitous (but eventually harmless since ammo is finite). Wherever people gather will be the stench of rotting bodies and human waste. The smell alone will lead the migration as people try to get away from each other. Every last Holiday Inn will be booked. The first killer to sweep over the population will be dehydration, followed by infectious disease. Starvation and murder probably won't have a chance to get started before the masses are reduced to more manageable groups of, say, fifty. How should these few remaining survivors be advised? I would say dip the ends of your kitchen matches in candlewax to waterproof them. And bring something to finger, like a rosary. Find water first. Eat plants. Dig deep into high ground. If you find a cave, seize and defend. Carry lots of plastic bags for pee, poop and bodies. And yes, drink your pee if it's all you got, or die. It's how desert people survive, even today. It's safe if it's fresh. Let it run a second to flush out surface bacteria, then drink it down with confidence. You used to swim in it, breathe it, drink it before when you were in your mama's womb: her bag of "waters" is just a big bag of pee. So get over it, and live on with a good story for your grandchildren.