What do you think is the first item to disappear during a disaster?

I was wondering what everyone thought the first item to disappear during a disaster? When I say items, I am thinking about things like can openers, propane, water etc, etc. I think the number one thing that would go is gallons of water. If you watch the news during hurricane season you can clearly see the shelves empty in the water isle. I also think that canned goods will be another thing to disappear. What do you guys think?

 

Right now what comes to my mind based on my experience is food - it disappears when there is disaster. On my first experience with flood when I was married, the floodwater stayed in our rented house for more than 12 hours sometimes. On one occasion, we had the caprice to have a fastfood meal for lunch. My husband treaded the inundated streets only to find that all stores were closed. Nada, nothing. It's a good thing that we always have a stock of food but we had to be content with biscuits and pate or sausage and canned sardines. Even the convenience stores were shut, bakeshops as well so practically there is no source of food anywhere near the flooded area.

That disappearance of food items is the primary cause of lootings and riots because the desperation is heightened when the public gets the notion that they will die of hunger. So out of panic, they were willing to die just to get food via looting or rioting. This happened in March when the drought hit a southern province and the farmers have no harvest. They were picketing outside a government office and the picket protest led to physical encounter but did not reach looting because of the presence of the police and firemen.

 

I agree with you in the gallons of water dissapearing first.Everyone needs water to survive,and the search for water would increase immensely, and therefore, saving up water for disaster occasions can reveal to be very useful.After the water, canned foods would dissapear after, as it's very portable,small, and easy to carry.And finally,the other products would slowly dissapear as well,as more and more people sink into the reality of the disaster.

 

Disaster supplies?
Small bottles of water are the go
and mueslie bars
and rubberbands!
strap one of each together with the rubber bands and consume together!
One a day will get you through!

 

I think of something refillable such as cylinder gas. During and after a great scale disaster, many services will be unavailable, perhaps wired internet and electricity in some areas. Besides that, anything could be the first item to
disappear, from the fuel tank of a vehicle to gallons of water.

 

I think it would be a toss up between food and water which would sell out first. However, if it is a situation such as a hurricane and evacuation ordered, gasoline might be sold out first. I have watched this scenario happen twice in the neighboring state of Louisiana.

 

Food, water, kerosene heaters, gasoline....those things go pretty fast. Like another poster, I was a volunteer during and after Hurricane Katrina and I had never even seen such melee in my entire life. It is an awe-inspiring site, even if it is a disaster.

 

Anything that is currently mass produced will be hard to come by. I think that means almost anything. If a lot of effort is put into it, when the effort disappears, it won't be easy to find it. I think depending on the disaster, food will be real hard to come by too. Animals will likely be dead, so farming is no longer as easy. Canned goods are about the best you can hope to find around that doesn't expire quickly. I think water would also be hard to come by. Uncontaminated, clean water, will also be hard to come by I feel like. I think raw materials at least will be fairly easy to come by, so there's that.

 

This is for sure right!! Then water...I don't know why. Even when the water is still flowing from the taps people seem to think that only bottled water is good. I personally just fill up a hoard of gallon jugs that I save for just that sort of emergency. Then bread and milk go followed by batteries, propane and canned goods. Around here meat doesn't go so fast. Most of us are to worried about what we already have in our freezers to buy more. Somewhere in there all the soda pop disappears. ???????? Can you imagine trying to make soup with soda pop??? Sodas, candy bars and chips are a stupid waste of resources. Buy STAPLES; potatoes, rice, beans, cornmeal, powdered milk, flour, canned tomatoes, canned corn, canned soups and canned meats.

I already have a lot of that sort of stuff and multiple nonelectric ways to cook and heat.

 

Most people wait till the last minute in the face of even a moderate snow storm. In a major event, I feel as Keith said, everything will disappear in an instant. So for the most part if you didn't have supplies beforehand you can forget about it. I'm certainly not going to risk entering a riot zone for a roll of Charmin.

 

In major urban areas, it is the most popular and expensive tennis shoes first lost to looting. Next up is liquor. The semi-intelligent steal water.

The intelligent made water filtration and purification tools their first choice of survival equipment. Such folk will be sitting on their porch, reading a good book, forking a section of peach out a can, waiving at their friends who also have prepared. Behind the reader, propped against the house, will be the shotgun or rifle the reader may need should the not-so-intelligent wander out of their purgatory to purloin that which they should already have had in their possession.

The reader need not go anywhere. He or she knew what inevitably would come, having read the histories of their species. Preparation was the order of their day, so now they can do as they may.

 

Most everything worth buying will be gone from grocery stores in the first 4-5 days. Gas stations will be running out (if they have power at all) and most building supply store will have sold all the generators and heaters if it's cold. I've seen it happen during Hurricane Floyd.

For about 4 days there was no way in or out of our county unless you used a boat or a helicopter.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Floyd

 

Here it's bread and milk that go first closely followed by diesel.
A person on another forum reccomended a brand of dried milk called Nido, we also keep a couple of months worth of UHT milk in cartons. We make our own bread. I store agricultural (red tax free) diesel.
I can sit at home feeling smug while the rest of them fight over the last loaf of bread.

 

Basing my prediction on what I see looters coming out of stores with every time they think of an excuse to loot , I would say television sets , and phones . It would take a little longer for these folks to realize reality and start looking for food .

 

Does anybody here work in a Wal Mart or a large grocery store? They would be the experts on what goes first. I would agree it would probably start with Bread, Milk, and Water. I have plenty of those, and I'm not to worried about living without them, well, not water. Can't live without that. I'm heading for the toilet paper aisle. That is what I don't want to run out of.

 

I know of, and have the alternatives, but "C'mon Man" it is not the same.

 

...still, better not to run out of loo roll.
Something that I have a couple of boxes of is the very cheap unscented liquid bleach for water treatment. It's something that I really reccomend everyone keep a stock of, I doubt it will be the first thing to fly off the supermarket shelves but it's still worth keeping in since it's very cheap to buy and has no expiration date.

 

Maybe a better translation would be "are you kidding me?" That is just something I don't want to be without. All in fun.

 

This would certainly be a short term event. As you mentioned old newspapers, oddly enough old phone books (very similar to newsprint), wash rags, maybe a home made bidet all viable options.

 

I'll show my age and say I remember when families looked forward to receiving their annual Sears and Robuk catalog . That went to the outhouse and for as I know was the years supply for the family . The good thing about that paper was it wasn't waxed and worked reasonably well . Today other than newspapers nearly all paper is waxed . Try wipeing your butt with waxed paper , the result won't be good . There is a plant that grows wild here that has large , soft leaves that I usually save and let spread for the apocalyptic period . I saw an article on this plant on some survival article , but I don't remember the name of the plant . If you have ever wiped your butt with dry crunchy leaves you know all about that crunchy feeling every time you take a step . It could get worse I know a guy that wiped his butt with poison oak .