I'm still trying to figure out if the zombies were the home buyers or the bankers -- or possibly both -- but zombies screwing things up is my explanation and I'm sticking to it. Because, clearly, somebody's brains got eaten.

A possible economic collapse is a disaster, albeit one that tends to happen in slower motion than natural disasters, riots, terrorism, enemy armies on your doorstep, your own country's army on your doorstep, or zombies that want to eat your brains. It's wise to be prepared for all of the above, and this article contains some common-sense tips on steps you can take to lessen the impact of various and assorted disasters, from economic meltdowns to that oh-crap moment of utter and terrible surprise as the world goes to Hell in one shattering instant. Many of the preparations you can make are not specific to one disaster but rather encompass lots of unfortunate possibilities.

The good news is that if you're prepared, and smart, and use some common sense, you've got a good chance of surviving most disasters just fine.

You need at least a few month's worth. More is better. Do not assume in a disaster that you will be able to go to the corner grocery store and buy your dinner. The grocery store may be closed, destroyed, contaminated, or full of plague carriers or the walking dead.

Disasters that may cause you to need your food stockpile include:

• Natural disasters -- hurricanes, blizzards, ice storms, floods, earthquakes, pandemics.  
• Economic disasters -- the banks suddenly collapse, and nobody can pay anyone anything and the economic system of the world goes "Pfft!" and your corner grocery store fails to open.
  
• Lesser economic woes -- suddenly, everything costs twice what it did, or gas is $10 a gallon, but your wages haven't gone up. Your food stash will keep you fed until the economy sorts itself out. 
• Lost your job -- it happens, unfortunately. During a disaster, everyone in your area may be out of work. Or you may just be unlucky. If you've got food on the shelves that's as good as money in the bank. 
• Terrorism -- there are multiple ways that terrorism could affect the food supply, from outright contamination of food to an attack on your regional fuel supplies causing farmers to be unable to deliver crops, or even harvest them
  

Note that there are some fairly significant food-related concerns with the current economic crisis. One of the problems we're experiencing, worldwide, is a lack of credit for businesses. This can conceivably affect everything from spring planting (farmers need loans to plant their crops) to freight shipping. Are we likely to see starvation in the streets of modern Western cities? I don't think so, though there could be delivery issues, shortages, and very high prices on certain crops. I am concerned enough about "high prices" to buy more staples than usual now, plus a few of my favorite luxuries, simply to protect my wallet.

When putting together your stockpile, you should make sure to select foods you will actually eat. For example, if you can't stand pinto beans, don't buy them. Don't buy 500 pounds of wheat berries unless you've got a mill, you know how to cook with whole wheat flour, and enjoy whole wheat products. Freeze dried meals are arguably acceptable for backpacking, but canned ravioli and beef stew will probably taste better and are cheaper.

(Fairly experienced backpacker here. Freeze dried meals suck. Okay? I do not have one single freeze dried meal in my pantry.)

Remember, if you hate something on a regular basis it's not going to taste any better on day 120 of a zombie siege. And profound hatred for your menu may provoke you into doing something stupid, like braving the zombies in a quest for better eats.

If you buy food you eat anyway, you can rotate through it, eating the goods that have been on your shelf the longest. (Also, if items you purchase don't have "use-by" dates on them, write a date on them with a permanent marker.)

My personal stockpile contains the following:

• Canned goods -- canned vegetables, fruit, stews, and tuna fish
  
• Staples -- flour, rice, beans and lentils, yeast, baking soda, baking powder, salt, sugar, dried fruit, coffee, powdered milk, corn bread mix, cookie mixes. If you're not sure how to cook from scratch, now is a great time to learn.
  
• Spices -- extra supplies of things like garlic and red pepper and onion flakes.
  
• Gatorade (or generic) powder -- because if you end up working or traveling in the heat and sweating a lot, the electrolytes are somewhat critical.
  

When putting your stockpile together you want to think about likely disasters in your area and how you're going to cook your food. If you're worried about hurricanes, you may want to emphasize canned goods because they're easy to cook and will survive getting wet. To cook canned goods, just open them and heat the entire can over a fire. Conversely, if you're thinking about blizzards as a likely problem in your area, and you have a wood-burning stove, a bunch of lentils and beans in your stockpile might be smart. You can cook them in a pot set on top of your stove.

Also, avoid glass jars if a likely disaster if one of the disasters likely in your area is an earthquake. (Though glass jars do have the added benefit of being good for throwing at zombies.)

For storage of your stockpile, you can do the following:

• Put extra canned goods under beds or in closets, if you don't have a basement or large pantry.
  
• Flour should be stored in a freezer if you've got room. It, and all grain products and dried fruit, should at a minimum be frozen solid for several days. Then you can store it in food-grade plastic buckets. Do check regularly for insect infestations and react aggressively if you find anything. (I've never personally seen weevils in rice or dry beans, but they can be a real pest in things like flour, oatmeal, and -- as I discovered recently -- in raisins. Mmm, protein.)
• Spices need to be stored somewhere dark, cool, and dry
  

If you have pets or livestock, provide for them as well. Note that dry pet food doesn't store very well and bugs and mice love it. Consider buying canned pet food for your stockpile.

Make sure you have a manual can opener handy, too.

You don't need to buy all this stuff at once -- you can start simply by watching sales and buying extras as money allows. Instead of two cans of corn on sale, buy four. Or throw a couple of bags of lentils and five pounds of rice in your grocery cart once a week. It adds up and you'll quickly find you have a comfortable supply of food.

(With the current economic crisis, you may wish to consider pushing your budget to get a comfortable stockpile on hand as quickly as possible. Don't go into debt if you can't comfortably pay it off, but you may wish to alter your budget a bit. One or two nice meals out could pay for a month's worth of staples for a family.)

One thing I don't recommend is going overboard and putting aside several years worth of food. There are people out there who do this; I've known some of them. However, I'm inclined to suspect that if the world's been thrown back to the stone ages and you are now cowering in your basement and living on your canned peaches that some of the several billion other starving people in the world will probably take your preps from you. If nothing else they'll notice you're not getting skinny, and they are, and realize you have food. Then, the hungry torch-bearing mob on your doorstep will make you wish for zombies.

Besides, a multi-year disaster is extremely unlikely. More likely, you'll need to live off your supplies for a few weeks or months while normal services and utilities are restored.

The most probable long-term disaster spanning years will be an economic one. If that's the case there will still be food, and quite probably work, but your living standard may well go down. Your food stockpile will simply serve to insulate you from times when your income doesn't equal the cost of living, and may provide a few otherwise unattainable luxuries.

• Basic medications and first aid supplies -- you need to be able to treat fever, colds, upset stomachs, bumps, cuts, sprains and bruises, etcetera. Make sure you know how to make rehydration salts or have gatorade in your food stockpile. And, if you take a maintenance drug, you may wish to consider having extra on hand. (Health insurance probably will not cover this, however.)
  
• Ample batteries.
• Several flashlights, including one really good thousand-candlepower or better spotlight (the better to pick out the zombies at night)
• A battery operated radio. Consider also getting a shortwave radio.
  
• Sanitary napkins and/or tampons for any women in your family
  
• A cell phone with instant messaging (instant messaging may get messages out where phone calls won't.)
• Tools -- shovels, rakes, axes (for killing zombies or clean up after a disaster), possibly a chain saw and a few extra chains if you're comfortable using one and can safely store the fuel, hand saws, battery-operated tools, and, generally, everything you'd need to clear away downed vegetation or make temporary fixes to a damaged home.
  
• Either a small generator or an inverter that you can connect to your car. If the power's out, you will want to be able to charge things like power tools, cell phones, and perhaps a laptop. If you're using a generator to keep your freezer frozen, note that you do not need to run it 24/7. Running it a few hours at a time is sufficient.
  
• Sunscreen and bug repellent; you may very well find yourself outside in the elements
  
• Extra toiletries
• Good, solid shoes and a couple of pair of work gloves for every person in your family old enough to help with a cleanup after a natural disaster
• A few pounds of useful sizes of nails, duct tape, rolls of tie wire, rope, and tarps, for emergency home repairs
• Bleach and cleaning supplies
  
• Toilet paper
• If you have a yard, vegetable seeds with a focus on high-yield easy-to-grow crops like zucchini, squash, beans and beets. Especially during an economic disaster, veggie seeds may provide fresh vegetables that are otherwise unattainable or priced out of your reach.
  

Having money available is also critically important to getting through a disaster. While zombies aren't much interested in finances, Home Depot, Wal-mart and your local gas station all like to be paid for things you might need. Financial preparation can be split into two categories: cash and credit.

Cash is simply that: have cash on hand. If something happens to the phone lines (including simply overwhelming use during a disaster), or if the power's out, you may need to pay cash for gas, supplies, bus tickets, or home-repair items. It's also possible that credit won't be available during a financial crisis. Have more than you think you'll ever need hidden in a safe place in your home. But don't put your entire life savings in cash in your house -- what if it burns down, or you get an ambitious burglar who finds that cash?

Also, keep copies of your important financial papers in your home in a safe place, and additional copies elsewhere. A safe deposit box is good for this.

Besides a cash stash you will want to have money in the bank and/or a credit card with a reasonably high limit. Your cash will get you out of the immediate area of impact if there's a major natural disaster, for example, but most hotels that don't charge by the hour like to see a credit card when renting a room. Same for car rental companies. And if you exhaust your cash, the credit cards may well be a practical solution to obtaining the necessities of survival if you have to evacuate.

This is very important if you wake up to the zombie horde staggering up your street.

Also useful if the disaster in question is a wildfire, chemical spill, terrorist attack, volcano went blooey, etcetera. The bug-out bag is for unexpected oh shit it's coming now gotta GO! moments.

Your bug-out bag should contain, at a minimum:

• A spare set of car keys and house keys. (Because you don't want to be frantically searching for your car keys in a blind panic.)
• A couple of bottles of water or Gatorade per person
• Photocopies of your personal papers
• Sturdy, comfortable walking shoes and socks
• A credit card and cash (grab your purse or wallet too, if you have time)
  
• A list of contact phone numbers for your friends/family
• Energy bars or candy bars
• A dust mask (to keep from breathing particulates in after an explosion or during a fire)
• Vital meds -- i.e., a rescue inhaler for an asthmatic
  
• If you have diaper-sized children, dipes and wipes
  
• If you normally wear contacts, a spare pair of glasses and something to put your contact lenses in. Many of the reasons for needing to bug out immediately are not contact-lens friendly.

You should also have an appropriately modified bug-out bag at your workplace and/or in your car.

So you turn on the news some morning and there's a harried-looking reporter announcing that the local nuclear power plant has gone kerblooey. Or the cops knock on your door to warn you that the recent rain in your area is stressing a dam and you've got fifteen minutes to get out. Sometimes evacuations are large scale -- hurricanes, floods, wildfires. Sometimes they're small and sudden; a truck with a load of chlorine flips over up the street.

So now you've got to run. You've grabbed your bug-out bag or loaded up your car, if it's a slow-motion disaster that allows for packing. Where will you go?

You need to have several evacuation routes memorized.

First off, figure out how you're going to get out of the neighborhood. Now make a couple alternate plans in case your main route is blocked by accidents (people panicking) or the cause of the disaster itself. Flooding and wildfires can cut off roads. What will you do if the road's blocked?

If flash flooding or wildfires are a possibility in your area, also figure out what you'll do if you can't escape. For wildfires, you need a place to go to ground (a pasture, arena, park, lake, or barren field is good) and for flooding you need some place above the highest likely water level. Know how to get there on foot.

After you establish your local evacuation routes, you need to know how to get out of the general area. Again, you need multiple routes. You may turn on to the main highway and find a parking lot ... What do you do next?

If you need to pick up kids from daycare or school, have multiple routes to get to their location.

Then there's regional plans. You've escaped the main area of impact. Where do you go from there? Have a plan. Get together with your loved ones and agree on a destination. If you can't communicate you all head to the same prearranged location and meet there.

(My "bug out" plans involve going to my father's home 150 miles from mine, preferably by car. However, I know how to get there on foot if necessary, following a river and then cutting cross country on logging and ATV trails -- but I'm an experienced backpacker and figure the trip on foot would take about two to three weeks. There's only a handful of disasters severe enough to make me try that, but it's an option on the table if I can't drive. World War III or extremely ambitious terrorists, and a high-altitude EMP burst over the US, is the most likely scenario for a disaster severe enough to cause me to start walking.)

Some important factors to consider for your evacuation routes:

• What hazards are along the way? 
• If someone wrecks and manages to block all lanes, can you get around it on back roads or will you be stuck staring at someone's taillights in front of you and an oncoming hurricane/wildfire/radioactive cloud/hordes of zombies behind you?
• What amenities are along the way? Gas stations? Fast food?
  
• What sorts of neighborhoods does the road go through? If the disaster involves rioting, you don't want to take a freeway through the most riot-prone neighborhood in the region
• Are the locals likely to block the road and prevent outsiders from passing?
• Do you have to go through any military or border checkpoints? (If so, make sure the checkpoint's not closed.)
  

If you know your neighbors, you will be able to tell immediately if they've been turned into zombies and react appropriately. I recommend a chain saw for dealing with zombified neighbors, but a wood chipper, axe or a 12 gauge shotgun will also work in a pinch.

During other disasters, being familiar and friendly with your neighbors will help immensely. The benefits of friendly neighbors include:

• Multiple sets of eyes watching out for bad guys (looters and criminals) in your neighborhood
• Several families banding together are a lot more intimidating to looters and thugs than individuals who are cowering alone in their homes
  
• They can watch your property while you run off to get supplies, and vice versa.
• They can help you with repairs that need more muscle or hands than you or your own family can provide.
  
• One adult or a responsible teen can cook a meal for a couple of families while the rest of the adults do cleanup and repairs or go wait in the inevitably long lines for ice and gas.
  
• Moral support and keeping each other from going completely nuts from boredom.
• A varied set of skills -- one person might be a good carpenter, someone else a good cook, and a third person good at keeping little ones amused.
  

There are two types of communication you need to worry about: contacting loved ones and getting the news.

If it's zombies, don't worry about your friends and family and definitely don't try to rescue them. They're either already dead or already zombies themselves and you'll only get yourself bitten or eaten in the process. During other disasters, you should try to let them know you're okay. And depending on the scope of the problem, you may also be worried about your loved ones too. You need to have some plans in place to find them. I would recommend doing all of the following:

• Have a cell phone with voice mail and text messaging and make sure everyone has the number. Even if the cell phone service is down, text messaging may work. If neither work, you may still be able to get voice mails from your friends and family later when you reach a working phone.
  
• Share e-mails with each other, and use e-mail providers who are not local. Your work e-mail is probably a bad idea for this purpose. Use Gmail or Yahoo or some other major provider that has multiple datacenters for their mailservers. Eventually, you'll have access to the internet somewhere (if only in a public library) and you can fire off an e-mail saying, "Hey, I'm alive and 1,000 miles away from where I was yesterday. How about you guys?"
  
• Have a person who is not located in your geographic areas as a telephone point of contact. They need to be reliable and easily contacted. So, for example, if you live in LA and there's a bad earthquake and you have no idea where your spouse or kids are, you know to contact Aunt Bertha in New York as soon as you can reach a working phone. Your significant other and the kids also call her. Aunt Bertha then coordinates contact between everyone.
  

Then there's getting the news. You might want to know where there's safety from the zombie hordes -- some brave survivor might be broadcasting about a sanctuary on an island in the middle of nowhere. You won't be able to hear him unless you've got a working radio. If it's a more mundane disaster, you will need to know when the banks will reopen, where you can get gas, what grocery stores are open, if there's a curfew, if the highways are open ... etc. ad nauseam. You need a good radio to do this. Don't rely on rumors from other survivors because quite possibly they'll be creatively wrong with the details.

• Consider purchasing a small shortwave radio; it gives you world news. Disasters of global or at least continental proportion are rare but possible: epidemics, high-altitude EMP bursts, solar flares, zombies, and alien invasions fall into this category. More likely, all your local radio stations may be down for the count but you could still pick up the Voice of America or the BBC via shortwave. They won't give you any detailed local information but at least you can find out if there's still a functional government during that zombie apocalypse.
  
• Otherwise, get a good battery-operated portable radio FM radio
  
• And lots of batteries

If your evacuation plans in case of emergency include multiple cars and drivers, you may wish to obtain a set of walkie-talkies. They could conceivably prevent you from being separated and the car in front can warn the car(s) behind of possible trouble.

A question that often comes up is, "What sort of weapon should I get?"

Quite honestly, most people will probably be better off without a firearm. Panicky, inexperienced people with guns scare the crap out of me; they're as much of a danger to themselves and their friends/family as they are to the bad guys. Exceptions include:

• People who have taken the time to learn to use one properly (classes, etc)
• People with experience (law enforcement officers, ex military)
• People who live in a rural area that really should have a weapon anyway. I live in the country and learned the hard way about not having a firearm when you have livestock. It's not people you need to worry about (or zombies), it's stray dogs if you have livestock or poultry.
  

All three groups I mention above are likely to have guns anyway. I don't need to tell them about the value of being armed -- if you know what you're doing and have a good reason for that gun.

For everyone else ... think long and hard about the responsibilities that owning a weapon entails. Can you keep it safe 100% of the time from children? Can you trust yourself to remain calm in a crisis where you may have to use the weapon, and remember how to use it, and not get a twitchy finger on the trigger prematurely or forget to check what's behind the bad guy before you shoot? Are sure you can use it if you have to, and not freeze up? (And then the bad guy grabs the gun from you ...)

What about the other adults in the house -- are they all trustworthy as well? If it's your spouse who just grabbed the gun because there's a torch-bearing mob of rabid zombies surrounding your house and you're busy beating them off with a baseball bat, will they be able to keep their cool and use it effectively as well and not accidentally shoot someone not undead?

Guns are tools. I can't tell you if they're the right tool or not for you, however. Follow your conscience on this one.

Do learn basic self defense. This is good advice for anyone, anytime, not just during a disaster. Knowing how to throw a punch, put the hurt on a bad guy with a set of car keys, or break a hold can save your ass.

See the previous page, about getting to know your neighbors. During a disaster, you want to travel in groups if at all possible. Don't go by yourself to the store; go with some of your neighbors for mutual protection. There are people out there who are opportunists and who will take advantage of a lack of law enforcement during a disaster. Don't be an easy target. See: opportunistic. If you're a big, tough-looking, unfriendly group, the bad guys will go pick on someone else.

If you have a stash of food, and nobody else in the neighborhood does, you have two choices -- share with everyone or don't tell anyone that you've got a fully stocked pantry. Don't let people know you've got a stash if they're starving and you don't intend to share. Hungry people (or worse, parents with hungry children) will take your food away from you in a heartbeat, and then all your work to prepare is for naught. Also, don't mention prepping for a disasters to your neighbors ahead of time unless you plan to share because they'll certainly remember your year's supply of beans and rice once they run out.

I'm not going to speculate much on the ethics of sharing vs. not sharing except to say it's somewhat situation-dependent. Your decision to share your supplies in the aftermath of a tornado or ice storm (relatively short-term disasters) may be different than what you'd decide if it looks like the problem is going to be of an enduring nature, i.e., the economy's collapsed to such a point that people are starving in the streets and we're roaring full speed ahead towards World War III. Also, you may decide to hide your hoard if you're a parent of small children and you're worried about keeping them from starving, but if you're a single young woman living alone you may think that banding together with your neighbors (even if they eat some of your food) is your best bet for long term survival. "Hungry" is more survivable than, "Killed by opportunistic bad guys after a gang rape."

Strategic decisions about who you talk to about your supplies and who you share with are part of your self defense strategy in a disaster.

You can have all the food in the world, several pounds of gold coins, an AK-47 and a few grenades, and a mountaintop cabin with a moat and razor wire and still die of something stupid in a disaster. Some closing reminders:

• You need to keep your cool. Never panic. You can have a meltdown later, but don't submit to the screaming heeby-jeebies during the disaster. It's counterproductive and only makes things worse.
• Remember that you might not have ready access to modern health care. The paramedics and doctors might be zombies, might be injured or dead themselves, or they may just be really, really busy. Accordingly, now is not the time to take big risks. Don't get hurt, boil your water and avoid anything that might give you food poisoning, and avoid arguments that might lead to violence. What would be survivable under normal circumstances can kill you easily in a disaster.
• Be proactive. Get the hell out of Dodge if there's a hurricane coming and your house is on the beach, and do it before the water starts to rise. Strap down heavy furniture and your water heater if you live in earthquake country. If there's frighteningly dark clouds rolling your way and the air raid sirens just started wailing, get out of that mobile home and find a basement somewhere. If the news mentions avian flu's gone pandemic, avoid public places. If your neighbors keep saying, "Braaaaaiiiiiiiins!" and try to bite you, run like hell.
  
• Have patience with the situation. The authorities will respond imperfectly, your friends and family will be annoying and do stupid things, you will be hot/cold/hungry/dirty/scared. If you're in a shelter you may have to deal with annoying or outright criminal people. These are things that are almost certainly guaranteed. Eventually, however, the disaster will be over and normal life will return (or you'll rebuild with a few friends when the zombies are all dead).

And that is something to remember -- disasters happen, but (barring actual Armageddon) they are not the end of the world. If you're smart, careful, and prepared you have a very good chance of surviving just fine. Life will go on.

Just don't let the zombies bite you.