Oldie, but goodie:

With recent world events (Hurricanes and stuff) I was drawn back to read Alas, Babylon by Pat Frank again. Basically it is about a guy in Florida in the 1970's or so, who lives through a nuclear war. It is basically a worst-case scenario of the Cold War era. It really contrasts amazingly with the situations that people must have felt for that week in New Orleans when there was that federal response vacuum.

I have never been that much of a survivalist, but Michelle and I have agreed that having a couple of camping water containers (each holding 25 gallons of water), always full and fresh wouldn't be a bad idea. And a few years ago I was thinking of taking my guns over to a place in town that buys them, and get some money for them. I'm actually kind of happy now that I haven't done that yet, and think that I should actually buy a cleaning kit for them. In the back of my mind, I am considering going out and buying a bunch of medical supplies from CVS (a bunch being $25 to $50 worth of sterile bandages, and medicines), but I don't know if that would be crossing some kind of panicky reaction to seeing all the troubles that other people have gone through.