Sometimes TEOTWAWKI Isn't TEOTWAWKI

A Single Home Survives After Hurricane Ike in Gilchrist, TX - 2008

Source, and many more pictures here.

When "preppers" talk about "The End Of The World As We Know It", they're usually talking about something major, possibly global, like a total economic collapse, the hemispheric impact of a solar flare, or an EMP event that takes out the USA.  But to these home owners, Ike was the end of the world as they knew it.  Two days before, this was a beautiful beachfront community.  Anyone who didn't bug out of the rest of that island didn't survive it. 

We are living in a time of such massive unemployment that it's not always on the front of our minds that these can be TEOTWAWKI events for the people going through them.  One of my regular reads, MikeH at Behind the Parapet talks about moving a grown child, spouse and a grandchild into his home, after just this sort of event. It's what families do - and should do. 

I just want to remind us all that we should be preparing for these sorts of things.  These events are far more likely than the world-ending flare or the Zombie apocalypse. Maybe you don't get hurricanes where you live, but I'm sure you get some sort of natural disaster: tornado, blizzard, earthquake, mudslide...  Virtually every place gets something. 

Don't just be prepared.  Be useful.