Bug Out Scenario #001 - New England - Viral Pandemic - Prologue

[Practice in Paranoia - Truth in Fiction]

Autumn days swept by like dead leaves over quiet sidewalks. Inside old walls, baseboard heating clicked away to counter the dropping temperature. Fiona, our three-year-old Pit bull mix was curled up on the back of the living room couch like a cat. While sitting I leaned back, using her rump as a pillow. A low grumbling of displeasure came from her, so I immediately sat back up to leave her be.

The news was on and it was hard to avoid the repeated failures of the CDC. Containment of the virus seemed futile as cases began to exponentially pop up up all over the U.S. after Black Friday. I shut the TV off in frustration and brought my attention down to my coffee table, which had a disassembled hunting rifle on it. In the corner of the table a mug of tea steeped with curls of steam rising.

I clicked on the radio receiver and turned it to 99.5 Boston Classical. Giovanni Gabrieli's Canzon Duo Decimi Toni filled the room with beauty, although Fiona seemed less impressed with the noise. As I carefully wiped down the rifle's bolt, she stretched out and pushed past me to get off the couch. She shook and clicked across the wood floor to the nearest window. She used the warmed baseboard heating as a step-up in order to look outside. After a moment I leaned forward and noticed that it was the season's first snowfall that had caught her eye. I walked over and stood  motionless for a moment to see the snow building up fast and to see her eyes of curiosity meet mine.

I couldn't help but smile at least a little.

Photo by B. Cardoza (2013)

(Chapter 1 coming soon...)

-Written by Benjamin Cardoza

Gas Masks - SGE 400/3 (Update)

[Stereotypical Fear in a Capitalist Regime]

SO FINALLY after over a month the SGE 400/3 Gas mask I ordered FINALLY shipped. I put in the order on October 8th and today, the 21st of November it shipped. Can you believe that? When I called them mid-last month wondering what the status was the sales person told me (in a rather rude tone) that thousands of orders had been put in in a very short period of time and literally everything was back-ordered.

It's the perfect combination of the ease of modern capitalistic consumerism and that classic easy-spun public fear in the U.S. (of Ebola) that lead to this ridiculous situation. And of course shipping may be delayed because of winter storms. Maybe I'll get it just in time for Christmas and conduct a holiday review of it.

Ugh...

Original Post

Gas Masks - SGE 400/3

[New Paranoia]

Now that Ebola has skipped the pond to both North America and Europe I feel it is time to get a new and up-to-spec gas mask. With a new one I can retire my more or less novelty ex-Soviet and Czech masks as well. Just ordered an SGE 400/3 NBC gas mask to help ease my mind on the subject. I'll be looking for a decent-priced pack of 40mm filter cartridges as well to pair with it.

 Full review to come soon.
















*Update 10/27/2014*

Called the vendor to get an update on this mask and it seems that it's now back-ordered 2 months due to the Ebola scare. Sadly I'm not surprised.

Ebola Virus in 2014

[Dangers of the Modern World]

Long have I pondered and even conceptualized a post-apocalyptic world - natural disasters, global economic collapses, the ever-popular zombie hordes, but not Ebola.

The Ebola virus is something else entirely. It's incredibly deadly with a 50-90% mortality rate and although it is not an airborne virus much like SARS it is still extremely contagious through food, fluids (even semen) and close contact. Since its discovery in 1976 there have been at least 7-8 major outbreaks, but none as bad as the current 2014 one, which the World Health Organization now estimates at least 20,000 being infected before it can be properly contained due to dense pockets of population, lack of education and knowledge, and poor infrastructure in parts of West Africa.

Looking back at August 1976
In Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo) the first recorded victim - village school headmaster Mabalo Lokela was touring an area near the Central African Republic border along the Ebola River (from which the virus is named). On September 8th he died from the disease first thought to be the similar Marburg virus. After the WHO had helped contain the Ebola virus infection there was 318 cases and 280 deaths in Zaire - a mortality rate of 88%.

The 2013/2014 current outbreak is only the second case of the Ebola virus infecting over a country's borders, the first time being in 2001-2002 between Gabon and Republic of Congo, which also marked the first time the virus had been recorded in the current country of the Congo.
 

From: http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/07/31/world/africa/ebola-virus-outbreak-qa.html

Not only is this the worst outbreak of the Ebola (EBOV strain) virus in terms of pure number of cases and deaths, it's also the fastest and widest-spreading outbreak thus far of any of the  known strains. It's been reported in four countries in West Africa with an overall mortality rate of 64% with over 3,000 deaths (as of late August 2014). Although the chances of the infection spreading outside of the African continent is somewhat limited it is still a possibility via air or sea transport as the symptoms sometimes don't present themselves until a couple weeks after initial transmission.

Most First World countries do have multiple fail-safes in place to prevent massive epidemics as well as the ability to transmit news and media very quickly (if the government is operating correctly, that is). In the United States the CDC and military have multiple planned scenarios and fail-safes, but still you never know...

Public awareness is of the utmost importance on a local and global scale when events like this take place. In the U.S. especially it's too easy to pass over an internet article or change the channel on TV when news like this comes up. People need to take an active interest as the whole zombie sub-culture has historically shown that a lack of public awareness will inevitably be the end of us all. Quite frankly something like this has already happened due to a long period of little to no public awareness in the U.S. Can you guess what it was? How about a little thing called HIV? By the time HIV\AIDS was properly understood it was basically too late. As of now the death toll is over 30 million and growing.

Like times of specific flu (ex. H1N1) strains being prevalent being extra hygienic is always important. Wash your hands as much as possible, don't share food or drink and generally be careful with close contact with others. As I mentioned earlier the five known strains of Ebola are not airborne, but if someone coughs hard enough they will expel saliva which could contain the virus if they were infected so be weary. Basic rule of thumb would be to take the precautions everyone followed during the 2009 Swine Flu pandemic, which killed 14,286 people globally and 3,642 in North America alone - one of which was a dear childhood friend of mine.

Be safe and be mindful of your surroundings and be aware of developing news.