HJL,
A very short but pointed book is How Do You Kill 11 Million People?. If things collapse, there will be radio broadcasts or just assumptions that rescue will come.
The Jews were told by the Nazis that the trains were to take them to safety so they didn’t fight until they couldn’t. I’ve been through two major “grid down” situations in an urban setting. The first was an ice storm in southeastern Michigan, where there was no power for two weeks. The second was the east coast blackout about a decade ago. In the first case, it was just a matter of waiting until the power company restored things, but we were low priority, and a neighbor eventually found the downed link. The second was similar, leading me to learn that cell towers and such only have limited fuel for their backup generators. Fortunately, I was near enough to grid-up to drive there and refuel. But I immediately didn’t assume it would be fixed quickly. I acted quickly and made contingency plans. Most– at least 80%– just sat back and waited for “rescue”. The radio stations kept playing the siren’s song of just be calm and stay put.
If you go back to disasters like a ship sinking, 20% will think about how to get to safety, some of the 80% will follow. If things do get that bad, it will be the 3 percenters– the less than 20% of the 20%– who take action and who will save the day. – T.Z.