Your Own Personal Pucker Factor

Pucker Factor - Tension caused by high stress during a difficult or dangerous situation. So named because your sphincter tends to tighten up or "pucker" involuntarily during such times.

Some of you folks are fortunate to live out in the middle of "Nowheresville". Many of you think that makes you "safe".

"Safe"?

It's an interesting word, because it is all relative.

Yes, most of us are doing the best we can being good little ants as opposed to being grasshoppers like most of society.

That helps make you safer, but does it make you "safe"?

Have you ever really looked around you and noticed what is near you? What installations, facilities, potential targets, or places that handle extremely dangerous materials are just up around the bend? Are you along the flight path of commercial airlines?

It is an odd thing to really consider since many of them are rather innocuous in appearance, and often have deceptive names. Sometimes, like in high flying aircraft, you just don't notice them.

It probably won't be a good idea to be along the flight path of an airliner or cargo jet when a nuke goes "bang" a few miles overhead. Thousands of pounds of stuff will just suddenly drop out of the sky on your head as the engines and flight electronics die.

Near where I live I have two military depots. Not bases. Depots. There's a lot of stuff that transits through there by rail and truck. It is kind of odd seeing plain white semis with a detail of Crown Victorias or blacked out Tahoes and Suburbans escorting them.

You just have to wonder what is inside.

There are places that handle large quantities ( I'm talking the big tank farms) of compressed natural gas.

There's a munitions plant in a neighboring town. Many people don't know it, but they don't exactly advertise in the local paper.

Chemical storage yards, processing plants and refineries.

How about a rendering plant? Tallow?

Canneries? Food processing facilities?

I think we all get the picture about the hazards of military depots and bases. Ditto for the chemical storage yards, refineries, and munitions plants. But canneries and food processing? Rendering?

I want you to picture a time when the power goes out. Not just for a day, but weeks, or even months. Maybe it was an EMP strike, or civil unrest got to the point that society has collapsed to some extent. What do you think will happen to all those lovely organics without refrigeration? Where will all that effluvium go? What will it attract? What will grow in such a noxious environment?

Will it contaminate your water sources?

How many of you have nuclear plants near you? Are you downwind? Sounds kind of silly that a nuclear power plant that generates electricity will fail if the power goes out. If the grid collapses, I understand that nuclear plants will be forced to shut down as they draw power from the grid in order to run normal operations inside the facility. Who will maintain them in a true SHTF TEOTWAWKI situation?

Now the really fun thing to consider is, "How many of you have a bio research facility near you?"

Did you know that some of them are operating illegally?

Livermore Labs is just over forty miles from me. They've been caught conducting prohibited research on their grounds. Yeah, the fun guys in the lab coats have been conducting experiments in recombinant DNA. They've been trying to give really nasty little bugs like Anthrax and Plague resistance to antibiotics.

You can read the results of a FOIA request from Tri-Valley Cares here: Livermore Lab Caught Conducting Illegal Restricted Bio Experiments.

SWEET!

The really big places are obvious. They're the ones that are in the papers and on the TV news because of the animal rights folks. They're the ones you see people protesting in front of as you drive by.

I installed some really cool things at a pharmaceutical research facility one time. The stuff going on there, the sounds and the smell. I can still remember it, and it makes me nauseous. I can't fault the animal rights activists for their outrage after what I saw.

I can not condone the activists' turning loose of the animals. God knows what they were infected with.

Did you know that there are thousands of bio research facilities scattered all across this county? Many are operating in small local industrial parks. Many under government contract. Doing who knows what?

What happens to the stuff in those places when civilization gives up the ghost? What happens when some forager, or scavenger pries open the wrong container?

Or worse, what happens if a well meaning person decides to turn loose all the experimental animals because no one will be there to care for them? Will they be showing up at your house, farm, or retreat next?