Tomorrow

Date: 11 March 2022

Time: 00:21

This blog post is different… I have time-stamped it. As I write this it is Sunday 13 March 2022 13:54.

I titled this blog: Tomorrow!!!

A few years ago, I was fortunate enough to attend a survival seminar. The seminar was titled: “What if there was no tomorrow? I had just worked almost seventy-two hours straight and I thought that this survivalist was full of s**t!

After the seminar I had an opportunity to talk to him and asked him where he got off telling us that tomorrow as we know it was, going to change. His message was that we as security officers needed to help others prepare. I managed to stay in contact with him for a while after that. I have always remembered what I had learned that day and prayed that somehow his words would never ring true.

I don’t have a crystal ball and I don’t know what tomorrow holds and I want to state this has been the hardest blog post I have written yet. I’m writing this because the words spoken all those years ago haunted me this weekend. I realized that everything I have ever learned, everything I have spoken, news, social media – It’s all true.

You may not agree but if this blog helps only one family I would have achieved my goal.

Over the weekend I have raised questions about this subject to random people living in my neighbourhood. I realised that many people think tomorrow will be just another day and everything will be like it is today.

What if it’s not?

What if you wake up tomorrow and like any normal day, drive to the petrol station to fill up for the week just to find there is no fuel? You run to the shop for a loaf of bread for your kid’s lunch just to find there is no bread? What if you woke up tomorrow and find that Eskom has shut down?

You can’t pick up your phone to ask Google what is going on. Because Eskom has shut down you don’t have a cellular network? You can’t get in touch with family or friends. The solar panels you put up a year ago help to keep the lights on. But then your kids start crying they are hungry? How would you cook your food if you cook with electricity now?

I’m asking these questions because when I asked these questions over the weekend the first response was that I am overreacting. Everything is going to be fine. The second person told me: “Ag we like to braai so we will just use wood.” The third person was at least honest and said I have never really thought about it.

I want to raise some points. Do you remember a time when you could fill up your car with less than R500 and still have enough money left for a pie and coke? A time when you could walk into your favourite supermarket with R1000 and come out with a trolly full of food? When seeing a doctor cost R100. The days you could buy bread milk and have a bit of change left with R20 are long gone. All these things are five times more expensive these days.

I don’t like to talk politics but as you all know Covid-19 has left its toll on our country. Now we are facing yet another crisis – Russia and Ukraine. Since the war has started oil prices shot through the roof. Predictions and rumours are stating on social media that we will be paying R23 for a litre of petrol soon and some even say that R30 a litre of petrol by December is a real possibility.

We had a taste of the anarchy that is possible in our own country in July 2021 when mobs ran rampant in KwaZulu Natal and Gauteng. They laid entire city blocks to waste in a matter of days. These were ordinary people like you and me who were either desperate or opportunistic. The criminal element was as always present, and the country’s armed forces struggled to regain control.

Law-abiding citizens were left to fend for themselves. People faced food and fuel shortages after ONLY 5 days of vandalism and looting. The vulnerabilities in our country’s ability to withstand any sort of crisis were laid bare.

The one glimmer of light in all of that – those law-abiding citizens who stood together to fight off the criminal element and to defend their homes and their neighbourhoods.

For those who think that we can just start cooking with wood, let me ask this question. Where will the wood be coming from? How sustainable is the source of wood that you are using now? How will that source be affected in a time of crisis? How will the price of wood be affected when more people turn to wood as a source of fuel? How will the price be affected if the price of diesel rises out of control?

If you braai every weekend then right now you use between 20 and 50Kg of firewood a month. Let’s say that it costs you R100. If you had to cook with firewood every day, you will now need seven times the amount of firewood. So now we’re talking about 350kg of firewood. Remember that there are a hundred other families in your neighbourhood doing the same thing. Due to scarcity the price of firewood suddenly becomes more expensive.

While wood is very sustainable if managed properly, there is still an environmental cost. Right now we are destroying the big forests of the world at an alarming pace. Where will you find firewood wood when the normal supply dries up?

Why is this important and how could this be relative? Well firstly without trees we wouldn’t survive. Secondly, as the price of fuel increases how much do you think the wood will cost two to three years from now?

This war between Russia and Ukraine has a greater impact on our lives than so many of us realise. Without the oil from Russia, things can soon start shutting down.

Let’s say Eskom does shut down. Let’s say the fuel reserves in this country did dry up. Let’s say our cell phones become useless. What would happen if everyone started looking for wood and chopping down trees?

We need to discuss this with our loved ones and start working on a backup plan. We need to think about a means of cooking our food. How to collect water. We need to think about the food we have in our homes and whether or not we will be able to keep stuff frozen. We need to think about alternatives and the kind of food we keep in our homes.

You might wonder what has this to do with security? My answer – it has everything to do with security. Imagine that we have no power for a month. What about two or three months or even a year? Without electricity, 99% of our communication infrastructure shuts down. Generators won’t help either as the cost of fuel – if you can find any – will be ridiculous.

I had a taste of this over the weekend when people I love and care about were out at sea with no communication. Having them cut off from the rest of the world has kept me awake at night. Not being able to phone my family because there was no cell phone signal was nerve-racking.

 I’ve realized things can go from bad to worse very quickly and we need to prepare. So, I ask how will you survive tomorrow? You can be rich or poor it doesn’t matter. The fact is that this country’s infrastructure is vulnerable, and we could find ourselves in darkness and without a means of communication much quicker than we could imagine.

Can you imagine the increase in crime during such a period?

What can you lose if you start preparing yourself for a day like this? Start thinking about radios, dry foods and water.

We will delve into this in much more detail in future posts, so please be sure to subscribe to our e-mail list.