What Will Kill In A Long Term Disaster? (~1 Year)

[sevenhelmet]

We talk about all these lethal threats to survival, but what we don't often discuss is the numbers. What do you think is going get most folks? This is intended to take into account the initial panic, fighting, etc. and your honest views of how your region would evolve to manage permanent and total shut down of modern convenience.

To bound the problem a bit, imagine a permanent scenario (e.g. "One Second After") that removes your access to all utilities, supplies, and anything that comes from outside your immediate locale. Any community or trade should be based solely on what is available to you right now at this moment. After after about one year, things begin to slowly come back.

For me, it's sickness, followed closely by hunger/thirst/etc. I think a ton of people will get sick, and with weakened immune systems, it'll spread like wildfire. Starvation is a potential player, but I think that the 1 year limit prevents that from taking first place.

ETA: This poll is intended as a thought experiment. What's your weakest link? Lately, mine has been medical self-reliance. Things such as prescription meds, basic antibiotics, antiseptics, and bandages are always in short supply, and there are obviously limits to what you can keep on hand and what people with limited training could accomplish. You may not find the scenario stimulating, but it can serve to highlight some of the more tenuous aspects of our modern "civilized" society. Food for thought, perhaps.

[pinzgauer]

1) sanitation related Sickness with lack of medical treatment
-may be triggered by lack of safe water or enough food, but it will manifest as sickness

2) epidemic type sickness, for the reasons you mentioned

3) violence from have nots/ unprepared / mobs

4) everything else

[Arik]

Mostly probably sanitation and diseases/sickness.

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[Evel Baldgui]

I disdain playing these games. In the USA, the long term disaster scenario is really only hypothetical and remote, most likely non existent. Short term nonsense, due to weather, fine, but given even a severe hurricane/tornado or massive flooding, daily life usually all back to normal within 2-4 weeks. Barring a nuclear calamity which effects the entire nation, no one will really survive. All this gloom and doom end of times scenario is at best, laughable.

[sevenhelmet]

I disdain playing these games. In the USA, the long term disaster scenario is really only hypothetical and remote, most likely non existent. Short term nonsense, due to weather, fine, but given even a severe hurricane/tornado or massive flooding, daily life usually all back to normal within 2-4 weeks. Barring a nuclear calamity which effects the entire nation, no one will really survive. All this gloom and doom end of times scenario is at best, laughable.

Your condescension is unwarranted. It is intended as a thought exercise anyway, and as a distraction from the constant political threads. I don't think this would actually happen overnight.

ETA: While some may find this thought experiment "laughable" or "disdainful", I think it can pay dividends in introspective value and finding where our lives could use a dose of extra robustness. Even if the scenario itself is extremely improbable, a degree of self-reliance is healthy, don't you think?

[The_War_Wagon]

Look at the flu pandemic that followed WWI. The battlefield was in Europe, but the flu killed 675,000+ in America alone. Disease will kill more than the bullets will.

[afff_667]

Sickness and Preexisting Health Conditions make up 50% of the responses...interesting.

I can't recall what the stats are on the number of Americans who rely on daily prescriptions and other medications to get through the day, but it seems like it was staggering. It's not just Type I diabetics, but it's also cancer victims, COPD patients, and other chronically ill people who will genuinely suffer. Some with more serious conditions will die more quickly than others, but there are many, many others who will suffer slow, wasting deaths.

"Mercy killings" would likely become common in a long-term situation. It sure didn't take medical staff at Memorial Medical Center in New Orleans too long after Katrina to start relieving some patients of their mortal burdens. I think The War Wagon hit it...more will die from disease in the first year or so than from lead poisoning.

[sevenhelmet]

Sickness and Preexisting Health Conditions make up 50% of the responses...interesting.

I can't recall what the stats are on the number of Americans who rely on daily prescriptions and other medications to get through the day, but it seems like it was staggering. It's not just Type I diabetics, but it's also cancer victims, COPD patients, and other chronically ill people who will genuinely suffer. Some with more serious conditions will die more quickly than others, but there are many, many others who will suffer slow, wasting deaths.

"Mercy killings" would likely become common in a long-term situation. It sure didn't take medical staff at Memorial Medical Center in New Orleans too long after Katrina to start relieving some patients of their mortal burdens. I think The War Wagon hit it...more will die from disease in the first year or so than from lead poisoning.

Another potential weak spot is mental health. Those folks won't die without their meds, but their mental state will change markedly, and some will go through withdrawal. That would to add a lot of stress to an already bad situation. I wonder if there's any data on this from local disasters such as earthquakes, Katrina, etc.

[pinzgauer]

I disdain playing these games. In the USA, the long term disaster scenario is really only hypothetical and remote, most likely non existent. Short term nonsense, due to weather, fine, but given even a severe hurricane/tornado or massive flooding, daily life usually all back to normal within 2-4 weeks. Barring a nuclear calamity which effects the entire nation, no one will really survive. All this gloom and doom end of times scenario is at best, laughable.

Really sounds like you have minimal experience in those type of events. Yes, life does return to normal. But even in coastal gulf areas impacted by Katrina less than New Orleans, shelter life was very disease prone. "Barracks cough" type respiratory develops almost immediately due to crowded conditions, poor ventilation & impaired sanitation. Stomach virus also usually hits many. And common showers with reduced frequency often creates staph type skin infections, etc. I know personally of aid workers impacted by these. I stuck to sink baths, kept away from the common bunk areas due to my role, and did not eat unpackaged food. (stuck to MRE's and heater meals)

Those conditions also tend to magnify dehydration risks, etc.

Point being even in that 2-4 week period sickness starts, people have issues due to insufficient meds and reduced access to medical care.

Katrina was a shocker as our entire relief system was based on highly localized events. (Single large metro area, few counties, and pretty much always, a single state. Just hit with LA, MS, and a bit of AL, the relief systems were not setup to deal with it both from a volume and structural aspect.

So I can absolutely see problems occurring if a regional or national level event took place, though I agree with you that it would most likely not be nuclear.

Another comparison point is the occasional ice storms which nearly always cause deaths. We were without power once for 3-4 days in 10-15 degree weather. We did OK for a variety of reasons. But it was an eye opener, and others had difficulty. Yep, regional, did not last long. But you see how few are prepared to deal with even that.

[Moose-Knuckle]

When things go pear shaped, the old adage "We're only nine meals away from anarchy" bears to mind.

It takes a long time to die from starvation, it takes a while to die from dysentery, but a bullet to the right place, a knock on the head from a tire iron, or a knife to the organs will kill instantly or within minutes from sustaining said injury.

Long term, anything can kill and will depend upon various variables.

If we look at the 1,836 deaths post Hurricane Katrina we'd see that they were mostly from obese and or older people who succumbed to hypothermia after the air conditioners stopped when the power went out and or they couldn't make it to their weekly kidney dialysis, obtain insulin, etc.

Apart from those deaths the next major cause was murder from feral humans once the illusion of the rule of law went out the window.

Very few deaths resulted from actually drowning in the rising waters or from the storm itself and I do not believe there was one death recorded as a result of starvation, dehydration, or dysentery. Now had Katrina been a world wide or even a continent wide event we would have seen such deaths in the weeks and months following.

So my vote is violence and preexisting medical infirmities.