Photo Credit: (New York Times) A woman in St. Martin carries a jug full of water.
Hurricane Irma ravaged the Caribbean islands last week and wiped entire islands off the map. Now that the food and water have been scavenged from every grocery store on St. Martin, people are resorting to violence.
The people obviously started with the grocery stores, scavenging what they needed for sustenance; water, crackers, and fruit. But according to the New York Times, by nightfall on Thursday, what had been a search for food took a more menacing turn, as groups of people (some of whom were armed), swooped in and violently took anything of value that was left. Things like electronics, appliances, and vehicles were all stolen.
The social fabric has begun to fray now that people are without the most basic of essentials: food and water. “All the food is gone now,” Jacques Charbonnier, a 63-year-old resident of St. Martin, said in an interview on Sunday. “People are fighting in the streets for what is left.” Residents of St. Martin, and elsewhere in the region, spoke about a general disintegration of law and order as survivors struggled in the face of severe food and water shortages, and the absence of electricity and phone service.
As reports of increasing desperation continued to emerge from the region over the weekend, governments in Britain, France and the Netherlands, which oversee territories in the region, stepped up their response. They defended themselves against criticism that their reaction had been too slow, and insufficient. Both the French and Dutch governments said they were sending in extra troops to restore order, along with the aid that was being airlifted into the region. –New York Times
“There was some looting in the first few days, but the Dutch marines and police are on the street to prevent it,” Paul De Windt, publisher of The Daily Herald, a newspaper on the Dutch side, said on Sunday. “Some people steal luxury things and booze, but a lot of people are stealing water and biscuits.”
The storm directly hit the region beginning on Wednesday. Irma destroyed entire airports and ports, knocked out power and potable water systems, and left tens of thousands of residents and tourists isolated and increasingly desperate for food and water, and unable to go anywhere to get it. The crisis then worsened on Saturday as Hurricane Jose rumbled through the region. Though the islands hit by Irma avoided a direct blow from the second hurricane, its arrival forced the suspension of relief and rescue operations, prolonging the agony for many already desperate to survive.
According to NBC News, the State Department said Sunday that more than 1,200 United States citizens have been evacuated from the hurricane-damaged island vacation hot spot of St. Martin amid reports of looting and violence — but the Dutch government said reports of a rumored prison break were “unfounded.”
As preppers are well aware, when the needs of the population cannot be met in an allotted time frame, a phenomena occurs and the mindset shifts in people. They begin to act without thinking and respond to changes in their environment in an emotionally-based manner, thus leading to chaos, instability and a breakdown in our social paradigm.
When you take the time to understand how a breakdown behaves and how it progresses, only then can you truly prepare for it
. –Ready Nutrition
People get violent when food and water are scarce. Even minimal prepping and a small safe space for non-perishable food and water would have been an asset to those in the path of Irma.
Hmmm….,wonder what the firearm laws are on these islands.
I guess the same as they are anywhere
if your part of the government ..than its ok
if your a surf.. no guns for you
It comes down to , if you have them, keep them
F the gov. and state gov.
NRA wants you to have govt permission but if you had a fellony 30 years ago or you argued with a daughter who turned you in for abuse the: no gun for you.
see, the NRA was right to help ban arms
This is a major concern to me. My plan upon retirement (10 years? 15?) is to buy a blue-water cruiser catamaran sailboat and spend whatever days I have left cruising the Caribbean. I obviously have a lot to learn before then, but some of my primary concerns revolve around what to do when a hurricane is coming, where I can legally carry my guns in my boat, whether it’s possible to create caches on islands, how to deal with piracy, etc.
I’ve looked into it a bit so far…seems like many places don’t care if you leave your guns on your boat at the slip. Others will take them if they find them and maybe put you in the tank for a bit. When the time comes, those places friendly to firearms, even if they restrict them somewhat, will be the only ones enjoying my retirement spending. The gun grabbers can go to hell.
U can hide all the stuff u want on little islands but to survive when it really comes– ur gonna need to make sum friends wherever there is
i dont own an island so…i am sure the gun rules are by whoever owns them. i hope they are not NRA members or all guns will be locked in a safe until squirrel season starts?
Just got through with Irma here where I live – West Coast of Florida south of Tampa. Got off lucky. Watchin’ the news and one of the woman’s relatives I think in this article’s pic, a local news reporter snooping around some home that had pretty bad storm damage. Up close and personal poking into the part of the home that suffered a large tree smashing the backside to kindling. Got to thinking that in my neighborhood, had he been caught trepassing…… he’d’ve maybe been confronted as a dindu looter. So? Hmmm, I guess we’ve got to be careful and post signs like in Texas – “you loot, we shoot” – “stay off the grass or I’ll shoot your ass”. Whatcha ya’ll think? Or should we just fire off a warning shot of rock-salt?
Except for blacks for example, as they loot, rob and steal every single chance they get it seems – such no good, filthy, immoral rodents they are my Lord. Doing this looting in Texas and now in St. martin and God knows where else. Arm yourselves people and NEVER, EVER allow the clown shoe Gov’t to take your guns from you, NEVER!!
Yup, especially if you sell TV’s and their favorite flavor of booze, tennis, or bassetball shoes.
open up a lemonade stand?
Bassetball…!
I bet the hounds run when they
see you coming in their direction!
the NRA is better at getting gun laws past than Brady was
“…as groups of people (some of whom were armed), swooped in and violently took anything of value…
As they say, when guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns.
Be careful who you surround yourself with and where you choose to live. Some communities ALWAYS turn to looting and raping at the drop of a hat. While you may like their music or find their food ‘tasty’ consider how they will behave in an emergency. The two most important things to consider with population are:
1) Culture and race: what is the behavior history of the group in a crisis? If it is bad then don’t live there.
2) Don’t live around people who are are either a) too poor, or b) too stupid to prepare for a well-advertised disaster such as a hurricane. What we are seeing is a blindness in some white people to the communities they have chosen to live in. There are other countries with beaches, hot weather, spicy food and where the populations do not have a history of going ‘ape’. Vacation there.
For God sake never turn over your GUNS!!!
Always have at least 3 months worth of food.
This just goes to show that if you don’t PREP you DIE!!!
Sgt.
Sgt Dale & Frank: and never tell people around you to incl church or co workers wheat you are doing in prepping and what you buy. Many home robberies are by those who know what is in there.
Laura Ann, agreed. This is only one reason why we prepare. Those who fail to prep are inept.
Amen to that Sgt! I have managed to store up a years worth of decent food, not just carbohydrates. And this article just shows how important it is for all of us to prep prep prep! And just like a woman can’t be too pretty, we can’t ever have too much food, ammo, and supplies!
All the food is gone… on an island… surrounded by fish…
Seriously… “Teach a man to fish” suddenly has real world applications like never before.
if you build a fire for a man he is warm for one hour, but if you set the man on fire he is warm for the rest of his life
ha ha
That’s what I was going to say. Fish everywhere!
Not to make excuses, but their fishing boats are probably all needing repairs ASAP.
until 30 years ago EVERYBODY was a prepper.
Hey, send them this link. You all got internet down there. I sure this will help you un-prepped idiots.
https://www.shtfplan.com/
HCKS.
I have spent 2 1/2 + years running my business and sleeping in my car on the streets of Houston. I live, eat breath and shit SHTF.
Why does it cost 200,000USD to become a formal citizen, where the people are descendants of literal cannibals.
Are they not surrounded by an ocean full of fish???
In places subject to natural disasters such as hurricanes, storms, etc., governments would be wise to create programs in advance. Instead of making preparedness look extreme and silly, teach people the basics the way this website does.
You see the woman grabbed a large jug of water. If people need to be told to store five or six jugs of five gallon water bottles, then tell them. Hire people to go door to door telling people that they need to have stored water just in case the city has to turn off running water. Simple.
These people are not too bright. They need to be taken by the hand and led to the water trough. In America there are just as many. Part of me says let them die and spare the gene pool, but the other part of me says not only is it right to prevent deaths but eventually there will be a bumerang effect. They steal and get violent under stress. And who pays the bill?
_
These Islands primarily fished for their food. Their small vegetable gardens are all torn up. Many boats have been damaged or lost. The severe surf also adversely affected fishing grounds.
I visited St Martin years ago, a month after a mild 3 hurricane had passed through. Snorkeling in the bay was a waste. The hurricane had cleaned out the bay, coral had been sandblasted and all the fish were gone. Quite a change over my previous visit a decade before.
There will be lousy fishing for a few months. If there’s no long term stored foods in your preps, you may not eat for months while nature heals after such a disaster.
I want to add, the Caribbean has a migrant problem as well. An island like St. Martin has a pretty good education system. The migrants flowing in from South America and especially Haiti are poorly educated and often come to wealthier islands to continue their crime wave, not join society. The Dutch and French governments have been sending Arab and African Muslim migrants who are also up to no good. These people in a crisis immediately turn to crime to survive.
I fear there will some terrible stories on some of these islands.
PTPO, the ones from Haiti are a problem with a CAPITAL ‘P’. I used to have trouble with them in Miami. Throw Arabs and Africans into the mix and you have a recipe for catastrophe.
There is a secret plan to dump Muslims and Africans in these places. That’s why they are there. Talk about a crazy idea! There is no shortage of cheap labor in these places. I don’t expect much raping from them because the Muslims do not dig black booty.
My daughter is applying to medical schools and considered the Caribbean schools, one of which is on St. Martin. As I understand it, their parents are freaking out over having their kids still there.
Glad my daughter ruled it out, but then again, why didn’t they leave? I will never understand people. They KNEW it was coming and was going to hit. Who cares whether a professor, employer, etc., says you will be docked, fired, expelled, whatever? It is up to you to determine the value of your life and those who depend upon you. If you can’t make the easy decisions like “these”, how can you make the truly hard ones that are soon to come?
Sue the companies, employers, schools later. Get out and save yourself when you can. Sheesh!
You can live for how many days without water?
Did you see the Chinese restaurant in the picture has steel bars on the windows and doors.
Even the ChiComs on the island were prepared for the looting.
Strange strange reports coming out of St John – cops running things like it’s martial law – major communication line was cut – all kinds of looting – people getting desperate …
Been to the Virgin Islands too. They have great emergency power at the larger hotels and restraints. There was an all night power failure, island wide, when I was there. Likely caused by a car accident. I was not in a hotel, but rather a condo that was well equipped with candles? I had brought a bag of flashlights and batteries. We used them.
The lifestyle is to buy fresh or frozen food as you need it. Islanders work, get paid for the day, shop for food and eat. There’s no slack in the system.
There are a lot of chickens on the island raised for eggs and eating. Most beef and vegetables is shipped in daily. Anyone with chickens will be fighting to keep them from looters, though likely their chicken feed is ruined by rain. The big hotels buy fresh eggs from locals who raise them in their back yards.
PTPO,
I find
“Islanders work, get paid for the day”
intriguing.
I’ve had jobs that either paid weekly, every two weeks,
and now I’m paid by annuities once a month.
I have to regulate my spending, save for
problems that always pop up, hoard things,
and prepare for the event that I don’t
get the monthly checks ever again.
Perhaps that daily pay warps the
perceptions? Paying a worker daily, is
as old as man. Modern Middle class didn’t
develop till they only paid us every two weeks.
Everybody I know that gets paid daily is dirt poor.
Just a thought.
Jobs at the big resort hotels pay weekly these are the most sought after jobs in the islands. Most Islanders are employed as day laborers. A storm comes in and the hotel needs the kelp cleared from the beach, they use day workers.
I rented a private Virgin Island all day fishing tour for my nephew and his wild about fishing 11 year old son. It was incredible, a trip of a lifetime adventure. We caught a boatload of fish.
I talked to the captain about the types of fish we caught, one common variety that even the Sharks didn’t want because they are such lousy eating, are put on ice and traded by the captain for ice the next morning. Locals run ice makers in their kitchens and barter the ice for these fish you and I would never eat. This is the life of the poor in the islands.
A hurricane like this hits and they are instantly starving. There are no preps.
On another occasion, I also went to Australia, and of course stopped at the barrier reef. I am an avid scuba and snorkel diver. Yes I’m well traveled. Sucks to be me, because it seems I keep running into the aftermath of hurricanes, in the Pacific they are typhoons. Yup the Great Barrier Reef was sand blasted and the fish were no where to be seen. Luckily their were ample gorgeous Japanese girls who looked like anime dreams, but that’s another story.
The life lesson, severe storms kill or displace sea life. After a major event there may be no sea life to eat.
When I was in St. Martin, I traveled over the mountain between the Dutch and French quarter. My lousy rented Kawasaki 250 could barely climb the mountain with the wife and I on board in first gear! The mountain was useless real estate. I actually mused they should tunnel through the mountain. And build hurricane shelters off either side of the tunnel and make use of the real estate. They won’t.
I spoke of snorkeling.
I’ve gone to world class locations.
The best so far was Crystal River Florida (fresh water)
Next Puerto Rico, to the cliffs of the continental shelf.
Next Belize. The weather was awesome.
Yup the Great Barrier Reef lost. Sucks to be them after a storm.
Point is, never go some place that was whacked in the last three months by a hurricane or typhoon. It’ll suck if you are into diving or snorkeling.
If you live there, don’t depend on sea life alone for food.
Looters stealing flat screen TV,s.to sell or barter the following day for a bottle of water,well there will always be a few idiots that will do it knowing theres no electricity to watch it for a few weeks,which by then they Will probably be dead,but hey he had a good TV.
BLM = Black Looters Matter
Need I say any more!
The rest of the world needs to stay out of it. Do not enable those folks with free help. Leave them alone and let the culling happen.
Just as “Charlie don’t surf!” so black people do not prep. But why? Because if you do not have a savings habit or an ability to think ahead and plan then you do not have the mentality to prep.
They look to the government to help them ALL THE TIME. But when the government can’t get there, then the steal and fight amongst themselves. It is time for Bill Clinton to fly in with a GlobeMaster and fill it up with kiddies: no point putting a crisis to waste!
Hopefully they will wipe each other from our lands ,remember shopping at wallmart isn’t like living off the land ,sooner or later the shelves become empty and they don’t sell spears at Walmart,so they end up eating each other,don’t much care for shit myself.
Sounds like a bunch of tourists on St. Martin’s got culturally enriched.
Young Otis, good one. Anyone going to school and sending you daughter to and island of people like that is a recipe for disaster. Frank I gotta hand it to you, you are always 100% fucking right. People don’t understand human behavior. There are certain places you simply do not live, go to school, etc, its common sense. People have shit for fucking brains, Jesazzz Koverist. What the Phuck is wrong with fucking people.
Stop calling me Hicks,
No,
its HCKS.
The shit hit the fan in Houston, in Cypress, in Katy, and the end result was SHTF. That’s how I got my handle. I saw it coming.
HCKS,
When I read your handle my head inserts the missing letter. Yes I know HCKS is correct, but that’s the way the human mind works. It’s why we miss misspellings and autocorrect gone crazy. We see what we want to see.
There’s another factor. I watched the movie “Aliens” and yeah you come across a bit like Corporals Hicks sometimes. He’s a tough marine who’s best line is “yeah let’s take off and nuke em from space, it’s the only way to be sure”!
I’ve called you Hicks in the past as well, and I mean it as a compliment. Peace! I may call you Hicks in the future when I forget, apologies in advance.
On another note I found the ANTIFA manual.
Here’s the link you can decide for your self:
https://funnyjunk.com/channel/news-channel/The+antifa+manual/muesLzh/
The “news” is covering survivor stories from the islands. They interviewed some moron who stayed at Kenny Chesney’s house through the storm. They were in a basement throughout the storm, which ripped up their house despite its “200mph wind-proof” shutters and windows. I don’t know why this counts as news. These are rich assholes who decided to gamble their and their children’s lives when they could afford to just fly out to safety.
And once you survive the storm with all your preps, what happens when the natives realize you got food, water, gennies, etc? I knew a guy who was deployed to St. Thomas in 1989 after a hurricane where all the blacks looted and attacked the whites. Then, even the national guard, police, and city leaders were out looting. Whites in the islands are not in the best position when the rule of law stretches thin.
Really good points! These rich people should have been smart enough to get out when they were warned. They have insurance so who cares about watching the property?
In all disasters things go racial pretty fast. You, the well-fed white person with the larder of food and water; they, the majority population who are angry and hungry and looking for somebody to take it out on. Never be the minority group unless you have the upper hand (ie: armed soldiers/police on duty to have your back).
The only smart way to stick around is to be the ‘Great White God’ and have some food and water to distribute in return for ‘favors’. Use the crisis to get what you want. But don’t be just hiding in your basement and hoping people will leave you alone.