This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2016, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
How prepared are you for the moment when your entire world turns to crap? It's a timely question given that most of the South is completely underwater right now.
Somewhere, thousands of people are huddled in shelters, their sole possessions consisting of the clothes they're wearing and a smelly pet.
It's good to be prepared, but short of wearing that 72-hour emergency backpack on you every minute of the day, there's no guarantee that you'll have time to look for it.
There are really four types of disaster: war, plague, famine and natural catastrophe.
OK, OK, there's a fifth, but don't make me go there. I don't have the space to address immediate outbreaks of mass suicides, cannibalism and bloody religious sacrifice. So let's just pretend that the internet will never shut down for good (or longer than a day).
WAR. Most Americans have never had to experience their communities being transformed into moonscapes reeking of decomposition and explosive residue. We experience war on the nightly news.
But how prepared are you for ISIS or some other merciless army rolling through your burg in tanks? How much can you cram with you into a hastily dug hole? What if your wiener dog Hormel and your youngest child won't both fit?
PLAGUE. For some disasters there's no hole deep enough. Whatever's wrong on a biological level stands a good chance of finding you. In an effort to fight the disease, suppose the government comes along and burns down your house and quarantines you in a box labeled "Do Not Open."
Most of your family is already dead from the Trumpzika virus. If you could only grab one small thing to take with you into the box, what would it be?
FAMINE. This might not be too bad if it were a short-lived famine. After all, America needs to lose weight. But let's imagine the kind of famine for which there is no end in sight. You're subsisting on whatever the gutter brings. How long would it take for an emaciated Hormel to start looking delicious?
This is a particular concern given that America is accustomed to exporting humanitarian aid. What are the odds that the rest of the world will feel sorry for us and reciprocate?
NATURAL DISASTER. Now this one is a distinct possibility here in Zion. Unlike tornadoes, massive flooding or volcanoes, earthquakes are historically a Wasatch Front specialty. Scientists have long warned that we're way overdue for God to use the Salt Lake Valley as a trampoline again.
It's something to consider. Suppose tonight a devastating earthquake strikes the valley. Before you can round up items to complete a 72-hour emergency kit, the ground shakes and forces you to run outside and watch your house sink into a giant crevice.
Yeah, just you and your family in jam-jams watching all that food storage, emergency kits and zombie apocalypse firepower grind itself into oblivion. If you're lucky, the cat (dog, hamster, bird, snake) made it out with you. What now?
But wait, there's more. Cataclysmic loss doesn't have to be widespread. It can be just a personal thing — divorce, employment loss, death of a spouse, medical conditions, etc.
We only ever seem to consider these things when they happen to someone else. In that moment what we most experience is relief that they didn't happen to us. Yes, there might be some empathy mixed in there. It's natural.
What doesn't seem natural is to see these moments as what they really are: personal warnings.
Robert Kirby can be reached at rkirby@sltrib.com or facebook.com/stillnotpatbagley.