Resilient Citizens

Dr. Chris Ellis, a US Army Strategic Planning and Policy Program Fellow working with Cornell University published a paper in which he described a Resilient Citizen as someone who can handle at least a 31-day emergency or self-reliance scenario (Highly Resilient Citizens (HRCs) can survive for 90+ days).

You might understandably think that the majority of RCs hit that 31-day threshold and quit there. After all, that month of self-reliance is enough to cover the vast majority of emergencies. Yet the majority of people who are prepared at all are actually prepared for more than 90 days! Out of the estimated 13 million RCs in the United States, 8.3 million are HRCs.

Dr. Ellis also split up RCs into five sub-groups: Homesteader, Faithful, Sentinel, Interdependent, and Noah. The five groups are defined by methodology and motivation. eg. Sentinels are largely defined by their use of firearms, but their primary motivation is adapting to a world without rule of law, while many Mormon groups are primarily motivated by their faith, although they might also stockpile guns and ammo. Ellis acknowledges that many people could be a mix of these different types. For example, a faith community of preppers would have overlap in both the Faithful and Interdependent categories.

The Prepared published two articles that provide a detailed overview of Dr. Ellis' study:

New statistics on modern prepper demographics from FEMA and Cornell (August 4, 2021)

Five types of Resilient Citizens outlined by Cornell University and where to find them (August 9, 2021)

While this research shows that those who are prepared for disasters tend to be well prepared, it should also be noted that the study estimated that there are only 13 million RCs in the United States, or about 4% of the total population. We can perhaps also assume that there are a number of families that, while not being RCs, are "two weeks ready" as recommended by emergency management agencies in states like Oregon and Washington.

The vast majority (over 90%) of people in your community are not prepared to survive on their own in the aftermath of a disaster for more than a few days - utilizing whatever supplies they may have in their homes. The good news however is that following a major disaster communities come together and make great efforts to help each other. The 'prepper fiction' of a "Mad Max" world after a major disaster is just that Fiction!

“Researchers have found—at least in the immediate aftermath of disasters—that community resilience and unity, strengthening of social ties, self-help, heightened initiative, altruism, and prosocial behavior more often prevail. In short, when things are at their worst, disaster-stricken communities tend to rise to the occasion.” (Auf der Heide, 2004)

“According to a report from Disaster Research Center at the University of Delaware, looting is rare — an exception to the rule of communities’ pro-social responses to disaster. Despite fears to the contrary, disaster triggers altruism and cooperation while suppressing criminal behavior. Disasters do not drive otherwise functional communities to descend into a dystopian “hellscape”... Crime in a community following disaster predictably tracks slightly below crime before the disaster.” (Welter, 2012)

“In the wake of an earthquake, a bombing or a major storm, most people are altruistic, urgently engaged in caring for themselves and those around them, strangers and neighbours as well as friends and loved ones. The image of the selfish, panicky or regressively savage human being in times of disaster has little truth to it. Decades of meticulous sociological research on behaviour in disasters, from the bombings of World War II to floods, tornadoes, earthquakes and storms across the North American continent and around the world have demonstrated this.” (Facing History And Ourselves, 2017)  

“Panic behavior is classically described as very disoriented behavior,” says Drexel University historian Scott Gabriel Knowles, who studies disasters... Studying the trope of the panicked populace goes back to the fearful days of the Cold War. The federal government paid for researchers to look at how people behave before, during, and after a disaster. “Their general notion was that people would fly to pieces, that people would panic, they would fight, they would loot,” says Knowles. “And that society was basically one missile warning away from total chaos. The sociologists found again and again and again and again that that was just completely wrong, that people are mostly pro-social in a disaster and they don't panic. They help each other, they seek out information.” (Simon, 2020)

 

Just by being prepared for a disaster, being resilient, should something happen that overwhelms your community's infrastructure you are an asset by not having to draw on limited resources that may be available during the initial response and recovery efforts. Furthermore, you may be able to provide support to your neighbors and extended family since your immediate survival needs are taken care of by your own personal and family preparedness efforts.