72 Hours at the End of the Road - A Scenario

Casual Preppers Podcast - Prepping, Survival, Entertainment.

In this fictional scenario episode of the Casual Preppers Podcast, a quiet suburban cul-de-sac is cut off from the outside world for 72 hour

Key takeaways

• Preparedness often happens in small, overlooked moments—like charging devices or filling water containers before an emergency becomes obvious.
• Social dynamics and pre-existing neighborhood relationships heavily influence group behavior during emergencies.

Main topics

• Short-term emergency preparedness
• Neighborhood dynamics during crises

Notable quotes

"It's like a boiling pot of crazy stew after 24 hours."

"The interrelations between people, the politics of the neighborhood... is such a big deal."

Conclusion

This scenario highlights how even a moderate emergency can expose vulnerabilities

Transcript preview

Speaker 3 (0:02) The threat of disaster is never pleasant. Speaker 1 (0:05) Welcome to the Casual Preppers Podcast. Speaker 3 (0:07) These safety measures are essential. The Speaker 1 (0:09) only place for prepping, survival, and entertainment. This will be your source of survival instructions and information. Every member of the family must be coached in the business of survival. Here are your hosts, Cam and Kobe. Speaker 4 (0:25) Sometimes I just let out a little Speaker 3 (0:27) moan unintentionally in the middle of that opener. Yeah. Just so Speaker 4 (0:33) good. Speaker 3 (0:33) Yeah, it does feel good to let out a moan. I tell you, we got one of the best openers in the business. You know what I mean? Speaker 4 (0:40) Is that you or is that me? Speaker 2 (0:45) Oh, it's you. Oh, halfway unplugged. Speaker 4 (0:50) How'd Speaker 3 (0:50) that come unplugged? I don't Speaker 4 (0:51) know. I don't know. You're over there jacking with stuff. I was like, what is that noise, man? Speaker 3 (0:57) Are Speaker 4 (0:57) we Speaker 3 (0:57) good? Yeah, no. Just keep going? Yeah, we're totally good. We'll just leave it Speaker 4 (1:00) in. Communication error. We just said best opener in the business, and then we went to that. That's true. We did. Interesting. Speaker 3 (1:08) This is Speaker 2 (1:09) a different Speaker 3 (1:09) episode. It is different. And I Speaker 2 (1:11) feel like... The episode setup is like explaining board game rules. I'm not going to do a good job. You'll do just fine. Speaker 3 (1:18) Yeah. Speaker 2 (1:18) But we're doing kind of a fictional neighborhood episode where you follow through for 72 hours, a short-term emergency. Yeah. Speaker 4 (1:27) You're Speaker 2 (1:27) going to go through a timeline. We're going to read kind of what happens on each event, and we're Speaker 3 (1:33) going Speaker 2 (1:33) to discuss it. Like, okay, at this point in this scenario. What would you do? What would you do? How would you handle it? And it's going to play out itself. It's almost like a Speaker 4 (1:42) discussion, too. It's like, here are the things that you would be thinking about. Like, oh, would I actually do this? It's really, it's just basically a scenario episode, but we've just broken it down a little bit differently. Yeah, Speaker 2 (1:53) we did. Right? So you need the setting. The setting, it's Speaker 4 (1:56) a Speaker 2 (1:56) small cul-de-sac with around 15 to 20 homes. You know, pretty standard American community. One road in, one road out. Creek passing beneath the road near the entrance. Sounds like my neighborhood. I know. It really does. Yeah. Behind the homes are fields, fences, drainage channels, and a rough utility path that eventually connects to another road. Speaker 4 (2:15) Pretty Speaker 2 (2:15) common. Yeah. Speaker 4 (2:16) The Speaker 2 (2:16) neighborhood itself is completely normal. Most people know each other pretty well. Some are good friends. Some don't really get along or talk to each other. We just live our life. Sounds right. We just live our life. Yeah. We don't really know who has food. This Speaker 3 (2:29) is the military chief. Chief. This is an Indian chief. I meant to say fire chief, and this is a policeman, and this is a Speaker 2 (2:39) military. You know, you're all living your life. It's kind of a normal neighborhood. Nobody has any special, obvious, particular skills. Right, right. Let's go through it and see what happens. Speaker 4 (2:50) Before we get to that, though, we're going to talk about BattleBox. It is the monthly subscription box full of solid gear for adventure seekers, survivalists, outdoor enthusiasts, and... Casual preppers. Each month, BattleBox sends you the coolest selection of hand-picked outdoor survival and everyday carry gear, all valued at far more than what you'd normally pay. You never know what's in the next box, but here's a sampling of what users received this month. The Roaring Fire Pioneer Pro Tool Bag. Roll bag. Sleeping bag. No, it's a tool bag. Roll bag. It's Speaker 2 (3:22) in Speaker 4 (3:22) brown. Speaker 2 (3:23) I have a small one in my truck. Speaker 4 (3:25) Now I got a big one. Now you got a big one. You got both. And then the BattleBox 12-point shelter and tarp system. Tarps are great. Love them. All this badassness starts at just $34.99 per month. They've shipped over a million boxes and won best subscription box of 2020. Our listeners get 15 % off when you sign up at survive.battlebox.com slash casualpreppers. Get your first BattleBox in 15 % off at survive.battlebox.com slash Speaker 2 (3:52) casualpreppers. Speaker 4 (3:55) Yeah, man. Speaker 2 (3:55) Support them. Get it done. Speaker 4 (3:57) They Speaker 2 (3:57) basically made us. They made us. Yeah. Like, Speaker 4 (3:59) that's where it all began. The podcast that made us. The podcast that BattleBox made. Speaker 3 (4:04) The box that Speaker 4 (4:04) led us into what we do today. Yeah, Speaker 2 (4:06) they Speaker 4 (4:06) really did. So let's talk about this. We're going to start on Friday, 3.30 p.m. This is when the warning. comes down, Cam. Phones across the neighborhood buzz with a severe weather alert warning of thunderstorms, flash flooding, damaging winds, and hail. I'm going to go through this. It spits pretty Speaker 2 (4:23) good for this. Yeah, it does. We've had a lot of this recently. I'm Speaker 4 (4:26) going to get through this, and at the end, Cam and Eric are going to kind of make a little discussion about each portion of this. Most people glance at it, move on, because they've seen warnings like this plenty of times before, and nothing feels particularly unusual yet. A few residents make small preparations such as moving vehicles, securing outdoor furniture, and checking basement drains. One quietly prepared household goes a little further by charging battery banks, filling a few clean water containers, checking flashlights, making sure the generator is accessible, and setting an emergency radio on the kitchen counter. One family has a teenage daughter working across town. They send a text suggesting they should probably come home early. But the response is the shift is almost over. They'll leave when they get off. Nobody thinks much of it here. Sounds pretty real. This is like a scenario that actually happens quite frequently. Yeah. I mean, it's happened to us in the last month a couple of times probably, right? It has, yep. It really has. So the thing that I was thinking about on this is how seriously do we actually take these warnings? We talk constantly about you've got to get these warnings set up on your phone or wherever so that you – understand the threats that are coming down the pike to you. But how seriously do we actually Speaker 2 (5:37) take those sometimes? Not enough. I agree. The thing is, they come through all the time. Speaker 1 (5:44) And Speaker 2 (5:45) it does cross my mind. I'm like, hmm, am I set up pretty good? Speaker 3 (5:49) And Speaker 2 (5:49) then seconds later. I'm back to going to get a Snickers bar down at the cafeteria. I know. It's like, I'm almost off work. And Speaker 4 (5:56) that's the whole thing. And we're going to find out, like, especially within this scenario, like a lot of useful preparedness can happen in like 10 minutes. If we act before the emergency is obvious. Yeah. Right. Including the things like charging the devices and filling water and finding medication and moving vehicles and all those kind of things. But. Consider this too. If we're at work or something, Cam, it's like 3.30 in the afternoon or whatever, we get one of these. Would we actually leave work early because of a flash flood warning in our town? You know what I mean? Or would we do exactly what the other person did? Look, I'm almost off. I'll Speaker 2 (6:35) just wait. We'll wait it out. We'll see how it goes. Speaker 4 (6:37) High Speaker 2 (6:37) chance it's probably not going to do anything because that's what happens here all the time. Crowl. Speaker 4 (6:43) Yeah, I guess so. But like wolves, they'll bite your face off. Speaker 2 (6:47) This could, yeah. Like Speaker 4 (6:49) really? Speaker 2 (6:49) Yeah. You know, that would be hard for me to leave at that point. I'm like, I'm almost done. The problem is like when I think about this, like where I work, it's like I don't have any windows to Speaker 3 (7:03) the outside. Speaker 2 (7:03) The front does, and they can kind of see, and they'd probably say something. But I'd probably be like, well, is it raining out there? I don't know. And so I can't Speaker 4 (7:12) follow Speaker 2 (7:12) along with that. I probably would just brush it off. Speaker 4 (7:14) Like a lot of times these will happen and I may like text my wife or something and say, Hey, you know. let's watch the house or whatever, you know, or if somebody's home, like, hey, will you just make sure, because I do have a window welded. And you'll read that Speaker 2 (7:28) own text when you guys are sitting on the couch together. Exactly. Oh, you didn't see that text earlier, did you? You Speaker 4 (7:33) didn't Speaker 2 (7:33) see it, did you? But, yeah, Speaker 4 (7:35) I guess it's just something to consider because they can't, they're real, they don't send those out just because. Speaker 2 (7:42) Right. Speaker 4 (7:42) Right, like they send them out when there's a real threat. Speaker 2 (7:45) Yeah, we did, I think it was like three or four weeks ago, we had one that was specifically like, flash flood warning or watch in effect. And I was like, oh, I haven't seen that. I think I did think a little bit more about like, where could it affect and could it go through our neighborhood? Yeah. You know, we sit a little higher in town than the middle of town. You know, I thought a little more about it. And I think I shared it with a few people, but I didn't do a whole lot beyond that. Speaker 4 (8:12) Yeah. I mean, and that's the whole point of this exercise. We'll see what happens when it does happen. This whole exercise, I think, is just to get everybody. considering these things and thinking about, you know, think at least when you get the alert and a lot of times, and here's the thing too, I wanted to talk about this. I might've read this, wrote this in one of the notes somewhere, but like, this isn't like, um, an end of the world scenario. Like, yeah, this is, but it's also not like, Oh, the power's out for two hours. So I wanted to try and do a scenario that Speaker 2 (8:40) was sort of in between. Can build a little bit more but not be jets flying over. Yeah, Speaker 4 (8:45) like there's threats. There's things that could happen. Like there's real threat to property and life. But it's not like the entire world is going down the drain. Not a TV show. It's not a TV show. And so that's why this one feels really real to me. And it might feel more like on an end of the spectrum that's maybe not going to happen. it's still, it's more real than like an asteroid hitting us. Yeah. You know what I mean? Yeah. So that's why I wanted to do something like this. Definitely Speaker 2 (9:12) more thought provoking. Exactly. Yeah. So almost an hour later, 4.20 PM, the storm hits and the rain goes from heavy to violent within minutes, which it definitely can in a lot of like here it does for Speaker 4 (9:24) sure. Yeah. We've seen that several times in the last couple of weeks. Yeah. It's just like Speaker 2 (9:27) a few like. flashes of lightning, and then you get that ton of rain all of a sudden. And that's Speaker 4 (9:32) the Speaker 2 (9:32) problem. And we don't handle it here. Speaker 4 (9:34) Where we live, our ground just like... Speaker 2 (9:36) No, it does not absorb anything. It doesn't absorb Speaker 4 (9:39) it. Speaker 2 (9:39) It's so crazy. And then the next day, your grass is dead because it's dried out. Exactly. It's great. Speaker 4 (9:44) Makes a lot of sense. The worst of everything we get. Speaker 2 (9:48) But yeah, the rain goes, it gets real heavy pretty quick. Houses across the street disappear behind sheets of water. Gutters overflow. Branches start coming down. Made me think, too, during this. I'm like, I have not cleaned my gutters. Don't tell me that. And I just watched when this rain hit. I was watching how my rain gutter was like. It was like shaking on the side of Speaker 3 (10:09) the Speaker 2 (10:09) house and spitting out like foam. I'm like, I probably should clean that. It's Speaker 4 (10:12) funny because like a couple of weeks ago, I was mowing my backyard. And one of the gutters comes down like over the grass just a little bit. And I hit it accidentally. And like a little bit of like dirt fell out. And I'm like, oh. I better look at that. So I stopped and there was like dirt, like up about a foot and a half, just stuck in that thing. It was Speaker 2 (10:31) worthless. It's crazy, man. It was worthless. You don't think about those. No. And Speaker 4 (10:34) so like, I, I. got it out and then i didn't even think about any of the other ones i finished mowing the lawn and now i got to go back at some point yeah i Speaker 2 (10:41) need to so it's like yeah these storms are hitting have you thought ahead of time for any of that Speaker 4 (10:45) power Speaker 2 (10:46) flickers twice and then the entire neighborhood goes dark there always the one you're like oh crap but you're kind of excited about it exactly Speaker 4 (10:51) wi-fi Speaker 2 (10:52) disappears immediately cell service becomes inconsistent messages start taking longer to send yes goes from blue to green for most people yeah um Several people are still outside trying to save things. They're rushing, oh crap, I left my windows down. Oh crap, I Speaker 4 (11:07) left my windows down. You said they were Speaker 2 (11:09) rushing, right? Yeah. Did I sound like a Russian? No, you said they were rushing. Oh, they were rushing. Sorry. They were rushing. Really bad joke. One resident stands in... In moving runoff, clearing the drain. See, that would be me. Yeah. With a rake and the other one. It's Speaker 3 (11:26) like Speaker 2 (11:26) pulling your shorts down. Speaker 4 (11:28) It's like the water flow. Speaker 3 (11:31) It's like pulling your shorts down while you're trying to get stuff out. Exactly. It'd Speaker 2 (11:35) be great to see that. Speaker 3 (11:36) Lightning cracks close Speaker 2 (11:37) enough that everyone feels. You know, it's pretty intense right now. You don't really want to go out in it, but you're like, crap, some of the things maybe need to be moved closer in. All your garbage is tipped over and blown halfway down the street. Oh, yeah. That happens every single time. For sure, Speaker 4 (11:49) yeah. Speaker 2 (11:50) The problem, too, is across town, the family member trying to get home sends one more message saying the roads are flooding and that they're trying another way. Speaker 4 (11:58) That'd Speaker 2 (11:58) make you nervous because that's maybe the last message you get. Speaker 4 (12:01) And it's a teenage daughter. And then nothing else Speaker 2 (12:03) comes through, yeah. So, yeah, this is where people start risking themselves to save property. You know, the storm has worsened and they didn't prepare for it or they didn't think about it. Now they're like, I'm going to go out and do it right now. Great time to do it. It's not a good time to do it. You know, flood water can hide drains, debris, electric hazards. It's just chaos out there. And this is, it does seem to be when most people are out trying to like fix, secure and do stuff. Speaker 4 (12:28) Or it's like when things start to flood. And so then they're outside trying to deal with like a. Something flooding in your house. Trying to redirect water from the gutter Speaker 2 (12:36) out to the street and stuff like that. It's bad. It's always crazy to me how many people do that. I know. Can't say that I'm not partly one of those because you're like, maybe I can do something. And most of the time you're rushing around, rushing. Speaker 4 (12:48) You're Speaker 2 (12:48) rushing for one. Speaker 4 (12:49) Yeah. Speaker 2 (12:49) And then you just don't, you're not effective. No. Like you're just running around kind of in a panic like, oh Speaker 4 (12:55) crap. And that's the whole point. Kids lay down, redirect the water to the street. Speaker 3 (13:01) Lay on top of each other. You're too damn skinny. Need more Speaker 4 (13:05) height. It's going over you. Speaker 2 (13:07) Do Speaker 4 (13:07) something different. Yeah, so that's part of this thing. You've had 50 minutes from the moment you had that alert to this. And then now is when you're taking action. Now is when most people do take action because they don't look at the alert and go, let me take five minutes. Let me take five minutes. Just walk outside and make sure things are... you know, where they should be or, but you don't, you're just like, I got one more game of FIFA to play, you Speaker 3 (13:36) know? Speaker 4 (13:37) Um, and so you don't. A few more videos scrolled. Yeah, exactly. Like 10 Speaker 2 (13:41) minutes is gone. So yeah. At what point do you stop trying to save the basement, the vehicle, the shed? You know, that's the, that's a hard thing to think about because you, it's your property and you don't want to cause more damage or create more problems. So. It's Speaker 4 (13:52) a Speaker 2 (13:52) hard thing to think about. A lot of emergency calls happen because someone turned a property problem into a life-saving problem. You don't want to do that right off the bat. Speaker 3 (14:00) My lawnmower is getting wet. I got to go out there and save it. Speaker 4 (14:06) Swim out of there. Yeah, it's like, no, at that point, you're risking yourself to save property. It's not the greatest idea. Like, okay, if you can run out there in two minutes and fix a major problem that might exist. You might think about it, right? But don't be out there for 20 minutes in this torrential downpour flash flood, you know, floating around trying to fix things. It's like, yeah, not a good idea. Putting a snowplow on your four-wheeler to Speaker 3 (14:32) push dirt to make it dike. Speaker 4 (14:34) To push water, probably. Okay, so then 5.05 p.m. At the worst, as the worst of the rain begins moving away, several residents hear a deep... cracking sound near the entrance to the neighborhood. Does not sound like thunder. It's not thunder rolling like Garth used to talk about. It sounds more like 3.30 in the morning. 3.30 in the afternoon. Neighborhood wet. It sounds more like concrete or pavement breaking. And so two neighbors walk towards the creek, see the muddy water flowing across the road. The culvert's completely overwhelmed. The current is cutting into both sides of the road. And while they're watching, a section of asphalt drops several inches, and they immediately back away. Yeah. And this is what happens when you have a creek going under a road and probably a cheap-ass culvert sitting put in. Speaker 3 (15:27) You know what I mean? Exactly. Yeah. It's Speaker 2 (15:30) probably been stormy. The last 20 storms, the water's been disappearing somewhere into a crack. Exactly. And you're just like, I don't know what's happening. Speaker 4 (15:38) It's like the culvert's got like a beaver dam in it or something. Some raccoons, like 50 dead raccoons. Speaker 3 (15:44) It's like, yeah, probably about 20 pounds of sagebrushes packed on top of each other. 100%. A couple of dead kids that we Speaker 2 (15:51) haven't found. Speaker 3 (15:51) That's how most of the stuff Speaker 2 (15:52) around our town is. I know. There's all these washouts that you're like, what's down in there? I know. Jackets and like shoes. 1,000. Speaker 4 (16:00) 1,000 monster cans in there. You know, that is the Speaker 2 (16:04) truth. Speaker 4 (16:06) Yeah. So all Speaker 2 (16:07) that starts to flush out. Yeah. And Speaker 4 (16:09) it loses support. It's cleaning Speaker 2 (16:13) the earth. Yeah. Danny. So after staring at it, you know, people staring at it for 40 minutes. Yeah. By 545, the road is gone. Oops. You know. Once the rain weakens, half the neighborhood gathers near the entrance. A large section of the road is collapsed into the creek with chunks of pavement hanging out over open space. One narrow strip of pavement is connected on both sides from a distance. It looks like it's almost unstable. You can't really get across that. This Speaker 3 (16:37) is where three Speaker 2 (16:37) or Speaker 3 (16:37) four Speaker 4 (16:37) kids go run around and jump on it. Speaker 3 (16:39) Yeah. Speaker 2 (16:40) Then you lose a kid. One Speaker 3 (16:42) will get sucked down Speaker 2 (16:43) into a pipe. Then Speaker 3 (16:44) you lose a Speaker 2 (16:44) kid. Then there's a neighborhood. Yeah. Yeah. But yeah. One neighbor says his truck probably could make it across. He's like, I want to push it. I think I can get out of here. Pretty sure I can make it. I got truck Speaker 4 (16:57) nuts. Did you even see? And it's going to be the dude with the jacked up Ford or Dodge. The heaviest, widest truck. Yeah, it's like a 3500 Dodge. Weighs a million pounds. Got truck nuts. He's going to go across that thing. Drop hitch is dragging on the ground. That's the thousand percent. Speaker 3 (17:17) Brush Speaker 4 (17:18) guard. Yeah. Weighs 9,000 Speaker 3 (17:19) pounds. I'm going to try and cross this. I'll get down. Yeah. Speaker 2 (17:22) So I'll get in the time. Um, but yeah, uh, dispatch confirms the washout has been reported and tells everyone to stay away from the edge, remain sheltered and call again. If there's light. threatening emergencies. If the Dodge Speaker 3 (17:34) guy Speaker 2 (17:34) is upside Speaker 3 (17:35) down in there. Tell people to stay away from the edge. Where are they going? To the edge. What's Speaker 2 (17:39) at Speaker 3 (17:39) the edge? They didn't want. It's a conspiracy. Seriously. Yeah. When Speaker 2 (17:44) the family with the missing household member asks whether crews can help get across, they are told the crews are dealing with flooded homes, trapped vehicles, down lines, and injuries everywhere. Yeah. The neighborhood is stranded, but... Everyone still has shelter and nobody's seriously hurt. So they're like, okay, just go back, stare at the dark. And that's the whole thing. Like you Speaker 4 (18:02) don't, you're not on top of, of the emergency list. If everything's, if you're all just, you're just stuck in your house. Fine. Stay in your house. Nobody likes leaving their house. They're like, they're safe. Speaker 2 (18:13) They'll just go back to their homes. Yeah. You guys stay home. Yeah, Speaker 4 (18:16) exactly. Speaker 2 (18:18) It's Speaker 4 (18:18) a Speaker 2 (18:18) different story when your house is getting swallowed. It's true. That would change things. Yeah, Speaker 4 (18:23) and I think that's one of the main premises of this episode. It's like nobody's coming because technically there's not. There's no need to. There's no need to. Especially when the rest of town or the rest of the county or whatever is in much worse conditions. You know what I mean? There's Speaker 3 (18:38) a Speaker 4 (18:38) lot of things going on. So like thinking about like how long could you, me, us. comfortably remain at home if these emergency services were just like look stay we can't get there yeah um and i thought about this quite a bit but and honestly i feel like this is an area i feel really good about my preparedness yeah like if i had if it was like a mid-level emergency similar to this and you know we had to stay at home for three days or something without power um without emergency services i'm like i actually feel pretty good about that um And that's good because, I mean, literally Speaker 2 (19:14) this is pretty much what most scenarios are going to be. Yeah. It's something like this. Speaker 4 (19:18) Yeah. If it gets to a point, like, this is as bad as it gets most of the time. Yeah. Speaker 2 (19:23) This Speaker 4 (19:23) is, yeah, this is like the end of the spectrum. Yeah. Speaker 2 (19:26) You know. I feel like this is kind of probably where my sweet spot is too. Like, I'm good. Yeah. And you're kind of excited. You're like, I've got stuff. We're comfortable. We're just going to ride this out. It's only going to be a few days. Yeah, Speaker 4 (19:37) and that's, again, doing this episode, one of the reasons why is because people in the preparedness space, you know, podcasts, YouTubes, whatever, they don't talk about a scenario like this very often. It's not very sexy. No. It's really not. They want the extreme. Nobody's getting hot and horny looking at this going, oh, gee. Oh, wash out at you. Neighborhood. Truck nuts, I heard that. But, you know. That's why I wanted to do this because most people aren't talking about this in the preparedness space. And I think it was a good chance for us to just discuss it. Speaker 2 (20:10) Yeah, for sure. This type Speaker 4 (20:12) of Speaker 2 (20:12) scenario. So where most people are comfortable, though, like the only thing is there's that dangerous temptation to cross that remaining piece of pavement. It's like, is this the only chance, the last chance to get out? And like, where are you going? And Speaker 4 (20:24) you know what? Speaker 2 (20:25) To be honest, it would Speaker 4 (20:26) be tempting. Yeah, Speaker 2 (20:27) for sure. It would be tempting. Like we could get out. And it should like, a lot of times, if you see that you feel it's safe, you're like, I know it's, it's holding up. I'm probably fine to cross. It's just like all those people that think it's safe to cross like a river in their car. Yeah. How Speaker 4 (20:44)