http://sites.google.com/site/longemergencyplan/?tmpl=%2Fsystem%2Fa...

The Long Emergency Plan

The most important needs of any group of people during a long-term crisis are: Security Medical Services Resources Development Open Markets

____________________________________________________________________________

When a tornado, flooding or an earthquake destroys a town, the effects are terrible. However, within a few hours the emergency services (like police and similar authorities) show up from the surrounding areas, the people that are injured and/or needing shelter get assistance, and then the only thing left to do is clean up & rebuild the town. That is a temporary crisis.

A Long Emergency is a major crisis which has the potential to drag on for weeks, months or perhaps even years without any relief. One example of this could be a deadly world-wide pandemic that leaves only a portion of the population still left alive; another example is a partial or total collapse of the world financial system. Regardless of the cause, a Long Emergency results in most large corporations & small business becoming unable to function, governments are shut down partially or completely and local police departments & military organizations are unable to provide reliable safety for the population. A Long Emergency is wide-spread & has the potential to spiral down into dangerously low food supplies, disruption of crucial services such as electricity & water services, causing severe break-downs in the social order and chronic lawless behavior. The Long Emergency Plan was developed to address these issues.

Today, in every city and town, there are already groups of people that know each other, trust each other and would coordinate their efforts toward improving their lives if there was a major long-term emergency. These people will naturally band together in an emergency even if they do not know the concepts in the The Long Emergency Plan, but oftentimes when people form into groups during distressing circumstances, they experience internal conflicts, disorganization and a steep learning curve as they attempt to figure out how to work together. Worse, they may not have a clear picture of what to focus on as a group and so will waste large amounts of their time in some directions and have chronic lack of efforts in other directions however, every need that is listed at the top of this page is vitally important to a groups continued survival during a long emergency. By having the concepts that are shared in the Long Emergency Plan to assist them in creating a more structured yet flexible organization, they can cut out a lot of the wasted efforts and needless social politics/drama that often destroys the ability of groups of people to work together. These well-organized groups will also be able to easily coordinate their efforts with other similar groups in a way that is non-confrontational, eliminating a lot of the friction that comes from different groups that have vastly different structures & dynamics. In fact, even if a particular group has decided to set their groups structure up like a Patriarchal hierarchy, another group is functioning with majority-rules Democracy and another group is ruled by a form of Despotism, they can still work together in an efficient & profitable manner. The Long Emergency Plan can help a rag-tag collection of various people become an efficient & flexible organization, allowing them to accomplish many goals that other people will fail at and in a Long Emergency, you cannot afford to fail. Your own life and the lives of the people you care about depend on you not failing.

The success of the Long Emergency Plan depends entirely on the cooperation of people who want to work together in groups, in order to improve their lives and ensure the safety of themselves & their loved ones during the Long Emergency. The overall social structure which is created involves various groups of people who are organized in the same way. For example, a small group of people could be made up of several neighbors who all live on the same street, a different group of people could know each other from a church,

Click here to get your free novaPDF Lite registration key 1 of 10

2009/11/16 03:11 nm

http://sites.google.com/site/longemergencyplan/?tmpl=%2Fsystem%2Fa...

and perhaps another group is made up of the residents who live in the same large housing subdivision. Even a family that has a minimum of five hard-working adults can function as a group, and over time their group could naturally grow into 10 people participating in the group, maybe there would eventually be a thousand people all working together in the group. Regardless of the number of people in a group or the way they know & trust each other, the groups are organized in the same basic structure: They will have specific people who coordinate the groups efforts on specific needs, meaning that one person is coordinating the groups efforts on Security, another person coordinates the acquisition of Resources for the group, another person is coordinating Medical services for the entire group, and etc. Each of the persons who are focusing on a specific need are known as Coordinators. Their role in the group is to facilitate smooth and effective cooperation of the groups members toward accomplishing specific goals which benefit & enrich the individuals who are putting forth the effort as well as benefiting & enriching the group as a whole.

Everyone who is working with a Coordinator has the same basic goal, to make their lives better, so by cooperating together to accomplish goals, the tasks can be finished easier and faster. This is the main reason people in a group will be willing to work with a Coordinator toward accomplishing goals doing so has benefits for themselves as well as their friends, neighbors & loved ones who are also members of the group. The Plan is highly effective because it employs dynamic cohesion in the groups structure. For example, at some point the members of the group might be working together to improve their water supply, a project which was planned and coordinated by the Development Coordinator. When that project is completed, the group moves smoothly into the next project, which was planned and coordinated by the Security Coordinator. Moving from project to project, task to task, the group gets its needs fulfilled through the cooperation of everyone working together for the benefit all of the participants. Coordinators will know what the priorities are for the need that they focus on, and they will develop a plan to handle this as efficiently as possible, to maximize the groups time & efforts. Coordinators will naturally be some of the hardest working members, for various reasons. They will want to work hard on their own projects because they know the value of the projects for themselves as well as for the people are working on them. Also, when they are working with the other group members to accomplish other Coordinators projects, they will understand what its like to need people to be dependable & hard-working to get an important project completed.

One group of people organized like this can function alone without dependence on other groups if necessary, but that same group of people can also work very well with other groups that are organized in the same basic way. Also, the people who are working hard are well-rewarded in this system and lazy people in the group will find themselves mostly left out of the natural flow of supplies, food, services, information & etc that result from working to improve your own life by coordinating your efforts with people who share common goals with you. In this system, if someone doesnt work, they naturally dont get much, but if they do cooperate & work with other people, they can be well rewarded for their efforts.

The role of a Coordinator is not to act as an over-bearing boss or military sergeant the reason they are titled Coordinators is because that is the best description of their role. They coordinate the efforts of skilled, intelligent people, for the benefit of everyone who is participating. A Coordinator has no authority or special privilege over anyone; they have only the respect that they have earned from their peers through producing valuable results. Naturally, people who do a poor job of coordinating the efforts of multiple people will eventually be replaced or people will simply choose to work with someone else who is more adept & skilled. A poorly-skilled Coordinator must either get better at producing results, or simply quit what is obviously not working and find a better way to work with their group.

On the larger (macrocosm) level, the collection of many of these small organized groups is referred to as a Community. The various small groups can easily work together through their Community, for example: the various small groups should each have one or more Security Coordinators, and the various small groups will be able to work together to increase security for all of the participating groups through the Security Coordinators working together to accomplish this specific goal. The efforts of the various small groups (which want security for themselves) can combine naturally into an overall effort throughout the entire Community which creates security & law in the area. All of the various groups Security Coordinators can be in contact with each other on a regular basis, sharing information, trading supplies, protecting each other from criminal elements and etc. Over time, the different groups Security Coordinators will naturally look toward one or several of the most skilled Security Coordinators in the Community as reliable people who can coordinate the efforts of all of the groups toward the effective spreading of law & security throughout the area. Because this well-respected person is focused on coordinating the security of the entire community and not just their own group, this person or persons would eventually become known as a Community Security Coordinator. Again, just like any Coordinator, they have this position due to their skills & the respect of their peers.

On the level of the larger macrocosm, some of these Community Coordinators will be focused on Security, others focus on

Click here to get your free novaPDF Lite registration key 2 of 10

2009/11/16 03:11 nm

http://sites.google.com/site/longemergencyplan/?tmpl=%2Fsystem%2Fa...

Medical services, others on getting Resources, and etc. Their primary reason & motivation for being a Community Coordinator is that they will be working closely with the other Community Coordinators in focusing the efforts of the various smaller groups toward accomplishing larger tasks that are outside of the ability for a small group to handle. They will also be able to promote the exchange of ideas, techniques and knowledge, which could have many benefits for themselves & their own group. This position of Community Coordinator has no special privilege or authority over anyone, but the person who fulfills this role helps the various groups to work together as a cohesive whole to accomplish large goals that benefit everyone.

To get the Plan into action, Coordinators must be either appointed by the group of people or they must establish themselves as being capable of the task. The Coordinator must find people they trust & work well with, and then begin to accomplish important tasks in relation to their chosen focus. For example, when there is little or no chance of getting reliable security & assistance from local police services, a Security Coordinator must organize a number of people who are willing to work together to protect their neighborhood from looters & violent criminals. In the tradition of the citizens militia, they would act as police or military units in order to protect their loved ones & each other. Being a Security Coordinator will take long hours and often involve working out personality differences, scheduling challenges and even philosophical differences with the various members of the Security crew. The decision about who will be the Security Coordinator does not depend on who has the best aim with a gun or has the strongest muscles the Security Coordinator is the person who knows where to tactically position the person with the best shot and how to best utilize the strength of the person who is physically strongest. Regardless of whether there are only five people that want to coordinate their efforts toward creating Security or a thousand people, the person who is most effective at maintaining the cohesion & motivation of these people to work together is naturally the groups Security Coordinator. In large groups, there could be several Security Coordinators working together, for the common good of everyone who wants to create better security in their lives. This system creates strong cohesion in a group of people and, at the same time, dynamic adaptability.

If a group of people are facing a large-scale crisis that happens quickly, their groups Coordinators need to be appointed immediately, which usually happens without the benefit of that person having years to prove themselves first to their peers. In these instances, their prior skills and education will give the group enough insight into the capability of the person to effectively fulfill the role of a Coordinator. Over time, the group will continue to coordinate their efforts through that person if that person can continue to produce good results for the group. If a person cant produce the necessary results required by their role as a Coordinator, the group with naturally gravitate toward someone that they feel is better able to coordinate their efforts toward getting concrete results. Because there could be several Coordinators in any group, this would be a very fluid method of determining who the best person for the job is. It can get quite messy trying to remove a politician who was voted into an office by winning a popularity contest, but then produces little results or abuses their authority over other people. With organic structuring of the group, people simply gravitate toward those people who are best qualified & most skilled at producing results. This works the same way on the macrocosm scale: as the groups are working together toward common goals, they will naturally be drawn to those Community Coordinators & groups who get results & are effective. By the same token, people will work little or not at all with those persons who like to call themselves Coordinators but are ineffective or inept at coordinating the efforts of many people to get results. It is a very natural process.

__________________________

The following info will contain simple outlines of what the various Coordinators could be doing to fulfill their roles. Bear in mind that the explanations of these roles could be viewed at different times & under different circumstances, and so there will be times where there is more danger to the group & times where there is less. Therefore, there are two different phases to the plan, depending on the level of need. Each phase has a correct level of response that is needed. To over-react to a situation would be a waste of energy, but on the opposite extreme, to not respond enough to real danger could cause major long-term problems, including the very real possibility of injuries or even death for people in the community. Differentiation between the correct levels of response helps the reader to understand the amount of danger & how to properly respond to it. Phase 1: This means there are intermittent disruptions to such things as Food supplies, Medical services, Security (such as police or military), as well as limited access to Resources, & etc. For example, in Phase 1, if the local hospitals are still providing sporadic services, but those services are only available at restricted times, the group will need to have some kind of Medical services to bridge the gaps. Therefore, the Medical services would only be needed during the times when the local hospital is unavailable to provide services. The Medical Coordinator would work with those people in their group who have medical training to make sure that the groups nurse or doctor could simply stabilize wounded or sick persons until the local hospitals services become available again. That would be an appropriate level of response to a Phase 1 situation. Phase 2: This means that there is a complete lack of such things as Medical services, reliable Food supplies, and Security

Click here to get your free novaPDF Lite registration key 3 of 10

2009/11/16 03:11 nm

http://sites.google.com/site/longemergencyplan/?tmpl=%2Fsystem%2Fa...

services such as police. There is severely restricted access to Resources & etc. For example, Phase 2 would go into effect when there was no possibility of the local hospitals services becoming available soon enough to save lives if someone becomes wounded or sick. That person will likely die from lack of any available form of medical care, unless the group has one or more medicallytrained persons ready to provide the appropriate treatments that are needed. The Medical Coordinator would work with everyone in their group who has medical training, in order to maintain a constant staff in the groups own medical center. This would continue until the situation was either downgraded back to Phase 1, or the Long Emergency ended and all normal Medical services resumed.

___________________________

NOTE: In each Coordinator outline which follows, there is a reference to The Law of Threes. This is a practice based on the traditions of the Nez Perce Indians, which ensured their safety & survival. The Law of Threes states that for everything which sustains life, there must be three sources three separate sources for water supply, three separate sources of food supply, and etc. For example, if the main source of food, growing crops, failed due to a bad drought, then there is the option to fall back on the second source of food supply, hunting & gathering. If this failed too, there would be a third source of food in order to stay alive, storage of food such as jerky, grains, and etc. These are three separate and distinct methods of ensuring that there would be a reliable supply of food to avoid starvation. The other small or large groups of Native American tribes who did not use the basic concepts of the Law of Threes often experienced starvation because of inadequate food sources, dehydration from lack of reliable water sources, exposure to the elements if their shelters failed due to flooding/bad weather/etc and some were killed by outside attackers because they did not have enough methods of security. Equate their situation to your own groups situation these were small groups of people living in harsh conditions, and anyone who learns from them can avoid some very nasty consequences.

____________________________

Outline for Security Coordinator

Establish the Rule of Threes in regards to Security: Security through protecting yourself as an individual, as well as creating security through members of the group protecting each other, and security through the general community coordinating their manpower/defensive strategies/resources & etc. Do NOT attempt to depend on just one means of keeping safe, all three separate sources of Security must be solid & dependable methods of protecting the lives of the group. In a Phase 1 situation, local police services might be severely stressed or spread thinly to the point that there are long delays in police response times. In the past, lack of strong police presence has always resulted in wide-spread looting and lawless behavior by criminal elements. The group would need to organize themselves into armed militias to warn off looters and criminals from the area, otherwise there could be injuries or even deaths resulting from sporadic gunfights as lone homeowners try to protect their own property & loved ones without having any help from their neighbors. Each group maintains a constant crew of militia members who are in some way on-duty, by walking around their neighborhood, moving together in high risk areas and/or meeting with neighbors to discuss safety issues this show of united force should immediately cut down on most criminals attempts of looting, violence, rape and etc. This would usually be all that is required in a Phase 1 situation. As soon as police services are resumed and normalized, the militias would naturally be unnecessary, and so would disband. However, if the Long Emergency spiraled down into an even worse situation, this could cause a Phase 2 situation that had no reliable police or military presence; there would be a need for larger militias, greater defensive postures, and longer-term coordination of the groups members to create security. Not only is it important to have regular militia members who handle the bulk of Security details, but ALL of the members of the group (men, women, teenagers, etc) need to be ready to respond in the old Minuteman tradition of the American Revolution, to protect the group from large-scale attacks. Large numbers of law-abiding citizens working together to maintain security would be a powerful incentive for criminals to go elsewhere. Setting up these neighborhood militias may involve teaching some inexperienced people how to use a gun, how to tactically defend their home, and how to function within a military-style unit in defensive and offensive modes. Those people who had no defensive weapons would need to trade or barter with those who own several. The best recommendation for tactical weapons is a long-range weapon (which could be as simple as a high-power hunting rifle with a scope & carry sling) and a holstered side-arm used for close-quarters combat. Only purchase high-quality weapons that have easy-to-find ammo, and never buy low-quality ammo... it must

Click here to get your free novaPDF Lite registration key 4 of 10

2009/11/16 03:11 nm

http://sites.google.com/site/longemergencyplan/?tmpl=%2Fsystem%2Fa...

work every time. Get training for any willing person (including women & children) in the techniques of hand-to-hand unarmed combat & other forms of self-defense. This would help these people to be able to defend against attackers who might have intentions of violence, murder, robbery, perhaps rape, and etc. Obtain verification on the reliability of potential Security crew members, and establish means of positive identification. If a person is approached by another person who is claiming to be connected to the local Security crews, there needs to be a way to prove this reliably & quickly. Picture IDs are preferred, especially ones that are difficult to fake. Of course, nothing is a better substitute for simply knowing who the local security crew members are by meeting & working with them. Secure high value areas that could be targets. This includes the meetings attended by neighbors & coordinators, community food storage areas, childrens schools, the medical centers, the Open Market which will have large amounts of valuable items, & etc. Assess and critique the security issues of the groups local area and work to solve those problems before they become dangerous. Some entrances & exits may be obviously risky, certain traffic areas could be better secured, security may be too weak in some homes, etc. The Security Coordinator & crews could work with the Development Coordinator & crews to improve the safety of the area by building defensive projects. The groups must understand that there will be some people who will have philosophical aversions to bearing arms and creating militias. However, in a major crisis that results in lawless criminal activities, most of these people will soon experience enough violence around them to change their minds or they will naturally die off. It is not the responsibility of a Security Coordinator & crew to force anyone to bear arms in order to protect themselves & their loved ones. However it would be in the best interest of the group if they did what they could to maintain the safety of all people in their area as best as possible. The best analogy to use is: if there are no sheep available for the wolves, they will go away if they keep finding prey in an area, the wolves will stay & get bolder. Attempt to maintain law, following the strictest adherence to the original spirit of the U.S. Constitution, a document created by freedom-loving & freedom-protecting people who lived in a land with few or no laws, no police, no government services & etc. A lack of coherent government, police or military presence does not change the fact that we are citizens who respect each others basic rights by the same token, we do not tolerate anyone attempting to infringe on the same basic rights that we deserve. True long-lasting freedom only comes through the establishment & maintenance of fair laws & human rights. Maintain communication with any police and/or military presence in the area, for valuable manpower/supplies/support and to aid in upholding the law. Any operational police and military will welcome the support of law-abiding citizens who are using Constitutionally-sound methods of providing their own security and law, which makes the job of the police & military a little easier. It could also be vitally important to have police & military understand that the armed militias are law-abiding citizens, instead of dangerous groups of looters or criminals. By initiating peaceful & cooperative communication, this will avoid potential misunderstandings and conflicts. Providing them with a copy of this plan will clarify your groups intentions quickly & efficiently. When they understand how your group is structured, they can interact with and support your group with far more efficiency. They know exactly who to contact about Security issues, about Medical issues, about Resources, and etc. They may encourage other disorganized rag-tag associations of people to get re-organized into this efficient structure. As the structuring of groups of people spreads, the initially-chaotic behavior of the local population organizes into efficient groups providing for themselves and working together to improve the situation.

Outline for Medical Coordinator

Establish the Rule of Threes in regards to Medical issues: encouraging the members of the group to learn how to take care of themselves as individuals, how to work with other members of the group to help each other, and encouraging the larger Community to make major medical services available. Do not allow the group to depend on just one means of getting medical care. Maintain an appropriate level of response to the prevailing medical needs of the group & the community. This means attempting to predict the possibilities of medical emergencies arising and being ready before it happens. At least one to three medicallytrained persons should be on-call at all times during Phase 1, able to get to the groups medical center within a few minutes of a medical emergency occurring, in order to stabilize a patient the patient could then receive necessary treatment later at a hospital when it becomes available again. If there is a Phase 2 situation, there should be 1-3 medically-trained persons physically waiting in the medical center ready to treat wounded or sick persons from the surrounding community. This could save lives that would otherwise be lost without the quick medical care provided by the Medical crew. Maintain an over-supply of medicine, disinfectant, gauze, surgical tools and etc. as well as have an area sterilized & ready for medical emergencies. This could be set up in a neighborhood schools Nurse Office, in an available room in a church or in a community clubhouse. The chosen medical area should be able to expand into additional spaces or contract into minimal space depending on the needs that arise. Security should be strong to protect the patients & the medical supplies. This would be a good place for teaching the

Click here to get your free novaPDF Lite registration key 5 of 10

2009/11/16 03:11 nm

http://sites.google.com/site/longemergencyplan/?tmpl=%2Fsystem%2Fa...

members of the group about how to take care of themselves in medical emergencies (i.e. CPR training), as well as how to improve their lives by maintaining proper hygiene standards & practices. For example, many people would assume that when the water in their sinks shut off, their toilet will no longer function as well. They might then be tempted to throw their human waste out into a local river or lake, no realizing that other people (like your group) might need to use the lake as a source of drinking water or irrigation. A Medical Coordinator could share the knowledge that a toilet can still function by simply pouring a bucket of water into the back part of it (the tank), and the waste can be flushed away into the underground sewage systems. The sharing of medical knowledge as well as everyday tips & techniques would be very useful to the groups health. Consider what the communitys medical capabilities could handle, as well as the R.O.I. (return on investment) in regards to allowing the Medical staff to treat persons who are not connected to the community. Giving medical services to those people will cause a dramatically increased need for more medical supplies, a possible drop in the services rendered to the actual community members, and the real possibility that persons who have no investment in the community will not pay back the community for the medical services they received. However, treating those outside people will create good-will and increased propensity for these outside people to support the communitys efforts. Perhaps this issue could be addressed fairly by giving medical services to anyone with non-life-threatening issues but only if they pay upfront. Of course, any life-threatening injury that must be immediately treated in order to save a life will be handled by the Medical staff regardless of the persons ability to pay them back no medical person would stand idle and let someone die simply because the patient had no payment. However, everyone needs to pay for their medical services, otherwise the situation will be unsustainable and eventually there will be no services for anyone. Note: if there is a person whos irresponsibility or inability to provide for themselves is resulting in starvation, the Medical staff needs to realize that this is not an immediate life-threatening medical issue which they should fix without upfront payment they cant give free hand-outs of food to malnourished people. If this happens, those people will continue to expect free-handouts and will not feel the need to work as hard for themselves. As the saying goes, Feed a man one fish, you feed him for only one day teach him how to fish, you feed him for a lifetime. If a person seems to be struggling with the tasks of survival but seems willing to work hard to fix the situation, help them if it is possible, but give them this plan so that they can establish their own group which can provide for itself... perhaps that new group will eventually earn a place in the Community. A Medical Coordinator and the medical staff would need to have some kind of compensation for their efforts, so that they will have the ability to focus on peoples medical issues instead of trying to find food & supplies for themselves & their loved ones. The group must decide what they can reliably offer to the medically-trained persons for fair compensation, as well as what constitutes fair compensation for the efforts of the Medical Coordinator.

Outline for Development Coordinator

The Development Coordinators develop new methods & projects to improve the groups situation, and coordinate the construction of these projects. An application of the Law of Threes for the Development Coordinators would involve creating at least three reliable and secure methods of getting water for their group, at least three separate methods for getting food, creating three methods of securing homes and supplies, etc. The group could create electricity for charging up power tools and for using electrical appliances (such as a refrigerator for the medical supplies or for running electrical systems like lights for the medical center). Batteries pulled out of abandoned cars could be daisy-chained together with appropriate means of converting the power into usable electricity. Solar panels could refresh the banks of batteries on a daily basis. Developing & building useful methods for getting larger amounts of food, for example: ladders or poles for picking citrus, wooden boxes for citrus storage, wheeled carts for transporting the food, etc. Working on Security projects would be very important, such as using plywood to block off broken windows that would otherwise entice looters & squatters to enter homes in the neighborhood. In Phase 1, entrances & exits to the community that present risk could have a large sign installed that warns away looters & criminals. In Phase 2, high-risk areas could be blocked by barricades, downed trees or barbed wire. The Development crews could build better defensive positions for the residents to use for protection. General activities could also include removing fire hazards, putting up fencing for animal enclosures, securing abandoned & burned-out homes, removing dead animals that might spread disease, preparations for burials of those people who do not survive the long emergency, and etc. Most public schools would be closed in a Phase 1 situation, but in a Phase 2 situation the public schools would be useful for various reasons, the main reason being the newer public schools were often built by the government as a community shelter against

Click here to get your free novaPDF Lite registration key 6 of 10

2009/11/16 03:11 nm

http://sites.google.com/site/longemergencyplan/?tmpl=%2Fsystem%2Fa...

tornadoes & other bad weather, so they will work fairly well for large-scale shelter of refugees. These buildings were also built to resist the actions of small-time criminals who might want to break into the school to steal items like computers, as well as thwarting young vandals trying to "burn down the school", so these buildings are designed with security & safety in mind. If possible, contact the public schools administrators or even maintenance crews, they will have access. Local police officers or fire crews may agree to assist with this as well, even if the Police & Fire Departments are no longer functional. It is not recommended to attempt entry without permission into a government-owned building of any kind if the government still exists. If a Phase 2 situation is in effect, with no functional police/government/etc., it may be necessary to open the school building up for shelters without their assistance. The buildings may be difficult for the crew to get into without compromising the buildings defensive capabilities, but the effort would be worth it. Replacing a lock would be recommended, because the key for the newly installed lock allows access only to the authorized members of the group & the refugees. It is recommended to increase the security of the building to avoid criminal elements attempting to steal supplies or in some way abuse the refugees. One or more families could convert each classroom into a comfortable place to live, and the combination of a strong building with a large amount of people defending it would make it relatively safer then the usual "field full of tents" that most refugees tend to make. Do not use a poorly-built school, the hassle of converting a school into a secure living environment for a large group of people needs to be worth the effort. Local people in the groups area could pay/trade to use the groups completed projects, such as water-purification systems, and that payment would go toward the construction of other large projects which would benefit everyone involved. The group might even find this to be a fairly lucrative method of bartering & trading for food & supplies, if they can develop & build useful projects. Without the construction of large and small projects, the group will unnecessarily suffer from their restricted capabilities this is a situation which could be soon alleviated with the cooperation of people working together to construct what they need in order to make everyones lives better. Every group needs at least one person or a group of persons who is skilled at designing & constructing what the group will need. Of course, the group should contribute fair compensation to the person(s) constructing these projects so that they will have the means to provide for themselves & their loved ones. Otherwise, the skills & talents of these persons will go to waste while they are forced to focus elsewhere to get food & supplies.

Outline for Resource Coordinator

The Resource Coordinator approaches the acquisition of food, supplies and other resources on a larger scale then most of the other members of the group or Community. Most other people are only looking to get enough food and supplies to help themselves & their loved ones, and do not usually think in terms of their group or Community at large. The Resource Coordinators are often times traveling outside of their local area on behalf of their group, in order to make deals with local farms or functional supply depots. They would be looking for opportunities to trade what the group/community has in exchange for truckloads of wheat/fresh corn/citrus/etc. These would be amounts of food & supplies that would be too large for a small family or a few people to handle, and most individuals would not own enough items of value to trade or barter in order to take advantage of such large deals. By pooling the assets of the group or several cooperating groups in the community, the Resource Coordinators can amass larger quantities of food in order to level out the food supply. This means that even if there are dips and peaks in the level of food & other resources that are naturally flowing through the community due to normal trade & barter, the group/community will have a better shot at being able to sustain itself in the long-term. The smaller groups (like a microcosm) will have their own Resource Coordinators who will be pooling the resources of their neighbors, and on the macrocosm level, the Community could have a person or several persons who coordinate many people toward very large scale acquisitions of food & supplies for the people participating in the effort. All of the Coordinators will work together to find the best deals & trades for the groups and the communitys benefit. In most instances, the Resources Coordinators and the group will need to find ways to compensate the people who contributed items of value into the pool, such as giving them a fair cut of the large deal. Or, the group might instead agree to have their available items pooled to become property of the group or community (like donations) in order to maintain fairness. The food & supplies that are gained by trading/bartering the groups pooled items can then be sold or traded to the group and/or the community members at relatively low prices. The residents can then either keep these items for themselves or sell/trade them to other people for higher prices/profits. Either way, this encourages the community to give to & expand the pool, so that the flow of items like food & supplies increases as well as levels out the supply through the natural dips and peaks which WILL occur. The Resource Coordinators will work with the Security Coordinators to protect the food, supplies & other resources. They would put together armed Security crews to ride shotgun as they drive to various places looking to barter the groups valuables for large-scale amounts of food & supplies. If the caravans of pooled goods were foolishly guarded with light defense, they could be more easily robbed by bands of determined, armed looters. Also, when the food & supplies are put in the groups storage area, it must be viewed as a target that WILL be attacked at any time from the common lone scrounger looking for a big score, to the determined small groups of armed looters, to a larger well-planned attack by heavily-armed members of street gangs that exist in your area. These very violent attacks could result in the deaths of significant numbers of the community if there is NOT a powerful and united response of overwhelming force by all Security crews and all armed Community members.This underlines the importance of coordination between Security crews, Resource crews, Medical crews as well as the importance of defensive preparation by Development crews armed attackers will have THE most powerful weapon, the element of surprise. The only tactical advantage that a group has to combat that powerful weapon is preparation by the defenders & good information. In the past, there have been small groups of soldiers who have

Click here to get your free novaPDF Lite registration key 7 of 10

2009/11/16 03:11 nm

http://sites.google.com/site/longemergencyplan/?tmpl=%2Fsystem%2Fa...

successfully defeated far larger attacking forces, through preparation & tactically-useful information. If there is little or no police or military presence in the immediate area, the members of the group must defend themselves with overwhelming, united force or they will be violently overrun. Throughout all of human history, many men & women just like you were violently killed because they had depended on poor defenses to protect their resources. Do not be like the people who are dead today because they thought they were somehow immune to this. Delusion & wishful thinking never saved anyones life, but realistic assessments, intelligence and preparation has saved many lives and in this instance, the life we are talking about saving is YOUR LIFE as well as the lives of people who are depending on you to get it right. Anyone who has information for the Resource Coordinator & crews about possible large deals and windfalls for the community should be rewarded with payment similar to a finders fee. Oftentimes the person with that info might have been unable to take advantage of the deal anyway because they do not have enough tradable items of large value in order to take advantage of the deal, so at least they will get something instead of nothing. This kind of finders fee compensation creates positive reinforcement that encourages both the members of the group as well as outside people to establish & maintain networks of information about possible large deals for the groups & Community. The Resources Coordinators & the people working with them should have fair compensation for their efforts so that they are not forced to focus elsewhere in order to provide for themselves & their loved ones. The group would need to agree on what constitutes fair payments for services rendered, keeping in mind that generosity will encourage Resource Coordinators to work harder, and selfishness will diminish their desire to continue to undertake this oft-times risky job (which could include traveling through dangerously lawless areas to meet with armed & perhaps paranoid traders at food & supply depots). It is possible that the group will be compensating the efforts of their Medical teams, Security crews, Development crews and Open Market coordinators through the profits that they get from making large deals for food & supplies this makes the efforts of the Resource Coordinators and the people who work with them extremely important to the long-term survival of the group. For example, if the Medical person is not compensated for spending most of their time helping people stay healthy, they must stop and focus instead on getting the basics such as food & supplies for their family. This could result in them being too far away when a medical emergency happens, and the injured person could possibly die from lack of medical care. The group must support & maintain a large flow of Resources coming into their group, and the importance of this cannot be over-emphasized. Often times in extreme circumstances, there will be some homeowners who will simply abandon their house, hoping to travel far away to live with relatives or start a new life in other countries. Vehicles that have no gasoline available or that have broken down are often considered worthless to this type of person. Abandoned homes, vehicles, and other large items of value are administered by the Resource Coordinators, and these items need to be used for the benefit of their own group as well as the larger Community. For example, vehicles which have been verified to be abandoned would be usable by the Resource Coordinators for the benefit of their group, by working with the Development crews to fix them up to trade/barter for large amounts of food & supplies. The same would apply to similar large acquisitions the group makes. Abandoned houses would be difficult or even impossible to sell/barter, therefore these could be offered for little or no charge (by agreement of 3 or more local Coordinators) to deserving families that have lost their own homes due to fire or other issues. Three or more local Coordinators would have the support & backing of many different people who live near the abandoned house; therefore, without the agreement of 3 or more local Coordinators, the people who live in the neighborhood of the abandoned house might view the new persons moving into that abandoned house as illegal squatters or possibly criminals. This agreement should not be hard to get if they can prove themselves trustworthy. Even if the new people decided to move into an abandoned house without the support of 3+ local Coordinators, they will then find it an uphill battle to earn the trust of the local groups and this would mean little or no assistance for Security, Medical & other needs that the local groups can provide for. If banks have collapsed financially and become non-functional (rendering mortgage agreements meaningless), and there is no government/ police/ military presence, the Resource Coordinators need to keep track of abandoned homes in the area to prevent looters & squatters from destroying the area or criminal elements gaining a tactical foothold. Resource Coordinators would work with Development crews to clean out and secure homes that have been abandoned or the homeowners have died. When the local Resource Coordinators are working in cooperation with many people, any still-functional authorities such as police, military, and government will be less inclined to be upset & cause problems when they see the groups acquiring & using large-scale abandoned items. The group is doing this for the benefit of many people, in an orderly manner, and they are not just selfishly hoarding these large-scale items for themselves this will go a long way toward legitimizing the groups claim on abandoned large-scale items. Any known member of the Community who is looting or stealing from abandoned houses, vehicles or other Community-wide property will be viewed as stealing from the people who trusted them to work toward the benefit of the whole group. The U.S. Constitution and the rule of law always apply in all matters of crime & punishments for crime, so harsh capital punishments are illegal; however there is no such thing as a jail when there is no legitimate police. Sadly, in Long Emergency situations, having an offender locked-up is a potentially lethal form of punishment for the offenders dependents, who would probably face greater risk of starvation or predatory actions from criminals. Instead, the punishment for theft of Community-wide property by a recognized member of a group in the Community could become community-wide sanctions of that person. In a Phase 2 situation of a Long Emergency, sanctions could be a very harsh deterrent to this sort of crime, knowing that the entire community around you would refuse to share their food storage, their supplies, you are denied medical services, there is reluctance from your neighbors to provide security to you & your property, you are not allowed use of large-scale projects built by groups in the Community and most people will not conduct business trades or deals with you. The people around you would feel that you are sanctioned because you are the sort of person who cheats & steals from their friends

Click here to get your free novaPDF Lite registration key 8 of 10

2009/11/16 03:11 nm

http://sites.google.com/site/longemergencyplan/?tmpl=%2Fsystem%2Fa...

& trading partners, so naturally, why would they risk working with you? It is better to keep the respect that you have today, instead of being forced to earn it back. If you dont want to play by the rules, thats your choice, but you dont get the long-term rewards that a group & community can provide. On the macrocosm scale, if a group were to engage in this sort of selfish behavior by stealing property from other groups or hoarding these items without helping other groups, they would find that other groups will naturally not want to deal with them this is a natural and self-reinforcing behavior that would occur, but could result in a very difficult situation for a group over the long-term. Instead, when a group found/acquired a large-scale abandoned item of value, they could trade it for food and/or supplies from supply depots, and then trade some of those food & supplies at low prices to other groups only. This would be conducted between Resource Coordinators, and this sort of trading would strengthen the bond between local groups in the Community, because both sides win. There is little incentive for groups to hoard or be selfish, because other groups will be far more inclined to return the favor of bartering low priced resources, which could include tools & supplies that the first group cant get anywhere else. In the long-run, with multiple groups giving each other low-priced offers, the over-all result is lower prices for everyone who is participating people who try to charge high prices will be pricing themselves above the market & staunching their own flow of goods & supplies. With this form of natural organization, selfishness is actually a long-term liability that could have painful consequences. Generosity, on the other hand, has the ability to eventually result in prosperity.

Outline for Open Market Coordinator

Oftentimes a person in a Long Emergency will have a crucial need for a particular item, however there will be no places to go to buy or trade for it, because hardware stores, supply depots, and grocery stores have been forced to shut down or were completely looted. If the person were unable to buy it from anyone, they will feel they have few options if they are law-abiding citizens, they will attempt to make the item, or find something that might be a low-quality substitute, or they will be forced to try to survive without it regardless of how painful their situation becomes. People who are not law-abiding may attempt to steal it or even kill for it. With food & supply places shut down and the local population beginning to get desperate for crucial items that they need for the survival of themselves & their loved ones, Open Markets must be established quickly to avoid having part of the general population in the area feeling that they have no choice but to engage in stealing, robbery or even murder in order to feed their own children and loved ones. The Open Markets will be as powerful a force for stability as the armed militias, because when people can do business with each other, they dont need to fight each other to survive. They can use their mind instead of their weapons. Open Market Coordinators will organize the set up of places for people to meet in order to conduct business & trade. Similar to the local swap meet or the marketplaces in third-world countries, people will bring their valuable items to the Open Market, and spend a few hours making deals, trading for supplies and even developing business relationships. All of this encourages stability in the area, because people would naturally develop a vested interest in the continuation of this system of Open Markets. They will begin to find that the Open Markets are reliable ways to get food, supplies & etc., and so will begin to search for ways to bring their own valuable items to the Open Market. The Open Market Coordinators will work mainly with their own group, coordinating the members efforts to have them meet together on an agreed-upon day for an Open Market. This usually starts on Friday & Saturday mornings just like most rummage sales/bake sales/yard sales/swap meets are done already, and these Open Markets would also have big signs out on major roads & high-traffic areas pointing the way to the Open Market. By simply starting a small Open Market in a Long Emergency environment, it will naturally grow quickly when local people realize that through barter & trade they can get the items that they cant get anywhere else. A core group of people can get the ball rolling, but when other local people realize that they can also set up a booth to barter & trade items, the Open Market will expand more & more every time it is repeated again. Anywhere from a local park to the side of a major road will work well as a location for the Open Market, but the safest & easiest method is to use a large empty parking lot; each person who has items to barter/trade uses one parking space as their booth, simply setting their items on a small table or down on a blanket. This technique usually allows for the groups Security militia to have good views of entrances & the entire Open Market, positioning themselves to protect their groups valuables with overwhelming & united responses to threats of criminal behavior. In time, local people who are not even connected to any groups will realize that Open Markets are safer places to do business then other supply depots and will soon gravitate toward these places when they have larger items of value that they dont want stolen from them. Eventually, some of them may become regular vendors/participants in the Open Markets and perhaps earn the groups trust, being included as a member of the group. Or, by you sharing information about the Long Emergency Plan with trustworthy people, they might start their own well-organized group & become allies. By using the proper name of Open Market on signs and advertisements for the event, this will be sending a message to other groups who are familiar with this plan that your group is also using this plan and therefore is a well-organized and law-abiding group of valuable allies. The different groups various Coordinators can find each other through the Open Markets, making mutually-beneficial deals and establishing cooperation agreements on large-scale projects which will improve the lives of the people in both groups. Simply asking a vendor or trader that you meet if they are connected to a group that uses the Long Emergency Plan will be a simple way to find out if they have a valuable connection to a local well-organized group that is interested in large deals & making new allies. The Open Markets are the place where the majority of interactions between different groups would occur, and this will happen naturally, without artificially-contrived schedules, inconvenient demands on peoples time and missed meetings. If desired, people can simply agree to meet at a certain time of day at a specific up-coming Open Market, so that as they are both walking around together while looking for deals in the Open Market, they can also be discussing ideas for coordination of the two groups efforts. During the discussion, they may

Click here to get your free novaPDF Lite registration key 9 of 10

2009/11/16 03:11 nm

http://sites.google.com/site/longemergencyplan/?tmpl=%2Fsystem%2Fa...

find a way to work together to accomplish something valuable that just one group would be unable to achieve on its own. They can coordinate the efforts of their groups toward accomplishing the goal in such a way that there will be large benefits for both groups. The value and the advantages of the Open Markets are too numerous to list here. The group absolutely must have a way to reliably maintain & even increase the groups flow of food, supplies, information, etc.

A plan is an incredibly valuable tool if it is put into action, and it is worth nothing if it is not used.

Your actions or your failure to take action will determine what you and the people you care about will soon be experiencing in the future.

_____________________________________________________________

10 ofClick here to get your free novaPDF Lite registration key 10

2009/11/16 03:11 nm