Mr. Rawles,
In the past few days, I have noticed many articles and threads from preppers regarding the northeast and our recent snowfall. The general feeling is that we (from New England/New York) did not learn anything from Hurricane Sandy, and were again caught unprepared. Multiple news clips and sound bites seem to support this. What the rest of the country seems not to realize, is that empty grocery stores, power outages, and blocked roads are a way of life here in New England, and have been for as far back as we can recall. The prepper community is always speculating on what they would do days or hours leading up to a SHTF situation. I can speak for the majority of us northerners who can say "been there, done that, doing it again next year". We all gassed up our vehicles, snow blowers etc, stocked up on perishable groceries, batteries etc. stayed home and weathered the storm safely. Because in general, we know how to handle this type of event. It is in our blood.
The take away for your readers, is that wherever they call home, there are certain hazards which they will have to deal with on a semi regular basis, be they weather related or otherwise. You cannot prevent them, nor become impervious to them. We all can only be prepared enough to weather the storm best we can. It is up to each individual to asses the dangers presented by their region, and make the necessary preparations. I for one am not prepared for flash flooding, it is just not worth prepping for in my area, if I lived along the Mississippi, I might feel differently.
I think it is a testament to the preparedness of my region, that only three days after the most recent "snowstorm of the century" things are pretty much back to normal. Businesses are open, people are back to work, and we are merely waiting for power to come back on for a few thousand customers. We had no looting, food riots or bank runs.
Thanks for all your work, – Rico