Hordes!!

As the briefest survey of survival websites will show, guns are a big deal in preparedness circles. You will find endless discussions on the best make and best caliber of MBR (Main Battle Rifle); the number of MBRs required, how much ammunition to store and so on. And that’s not even considering the ongoing handgun debates.

What is the reason for all of this intense discussion? It is the so-called ‘Golden Horde’ or ‘Mutant Zombie Bikers’, the concept that in a post-apocalyptic scenario, tens of thousands of the unprepared will spill out of the cities to ravage the countryside like locusts. Survival writers from Saxon to Rawles and everyone in between have warned of the likelihood of a “killer caravan” coming to your house SOON! But just how likely are bands of starving looters after a major collapse? The honest answer is that no one knows.

We know that banditry, looting, and other lawlessness will rise sharply after a major crisis. We have only to look at the human misery surrounding hurricane Katrina, or the ongoing chaos in Haiti to see how bad it can get even with major outside aid available. In a situation where there were no outside agencies mitigating the situation, the deterioration of the social order would be orders of magnitude greater. So why wouldn’t the ‘Golden horde’ scenarios come to pass? They might still happen, but I can see a few reasons why they might not in Manitoba, at least not even close to the scale envisioned:

The first of these reasons is the time of year. A major factor in how a society might break down is the weather, especially in northern latitudes. While things like hurricanes and earthquakes are devastating, they last a relatively brief time. Seasons like winter have a little more staying power here on the prairies. Consider an event on the scale of the recent earthquake in Haiti, then add in below zero temperatures and snow for three months during and following the earthquake. What would the death toll be then? How easy is it for the populace of a city to “scatter like… cockroaches”, to quote the late Mr. Saxon, when there is no gas, no one to operate the snowplows, and several feet of snow covering the highways?

Additionally, the vast majority of heating in Manitoba is either electric or natural gas. If the supplies of those commodities vanish in mid-winter, the potential for a horde to occur is pretty small. People will freeze at home or freeze on the road, but they will freeze in significant numbers. Think about the consequences of no power and the four storms in two weeks that have hit the northeastern US and Canadian Maritimes recently. It won’t take much to immobilize a lot of people.

The second reason a horde might not occur is disease. In a major collapse that compromises infrastructure you will probably run out of clean water. If it occurs in winter, you might be limited to what diseases can occur when large numbers of people huddle together to stay warm. Come spring, all of the bodies, the untreated sewage and who knows what else will all unfreeze and one way or another make their way into the environment.

Consider cholera running through a moderate horde of 1,000 people, and for the sake of argument let us say everyone gets it. With treatment by oral or intravenous re-hydration and antibiotics, the death toll will be approximately 10 people. A loss easily sustained by the average horde, but what if there is no treatment available? Then the fatality rate approaches 60%! That’s 600 dead, and a much reduced horde. Now scale that up to the size of a city. Breathtaking, isn’t it? And remember that many of those that catch the disease and survive will be in a weakened state for some time, requiring someone to care for them. In a collapse that may drive the death toll even higher.

And that’s just one disease that is quite likely to make a re-appearance. Typhoid fever has up to a 30% fatality rate when left untreated and is likely to show up as well when sanitation fails. Other diseases like influenzas are nearly certain to appear as clean water and medical services disappear, ravaging a weakened population. Our horde might not feel well enough to be locust-like.

Starvation is often stated as the reason the ‘Golden Horde’ comes pouring out of the cities to ravage the rural retreater’s humble abode. The strange thing is, no one seems to think that one through. In the first place, although it is possible, it is unlikely that food will be available and abundant one day and not available at all after that. Unless there is a complete and instant breakdown of infrastructure, some food will likely be available, although supplies will likely diminish fairly quickly over a period of days, weeks or months. Thus we have a population that is already weakened by chronic hunger before everything is gone.

In that already weakened state, death can occur from further starvation in as little as two weeks. Before that occurs, there is increasing fatigue and apathy, even a reduced ability to feel thirst. A hungry horde might be a horde too dehydrated, oo weak and too apathetic to despoil the countryside. And did I mention the increased susceptibility to disease that goes along with starvation?

Another factor is three things about human nature, two bad and one good. First, there is the very human fear of the unknown and of change, plus our modern reliance on government action to fix things. In a crisis, many people will not leave their homes, their neighbourhoods, or their towns. For them it will be a case of better the devil you know than the devil you don’t. They will be too afraid of the unknown to leave, and many will die waiting for help that never comes. That’s the bad.

The good is the flip side of the fear of change, which is that humans like stability and order, and we readily follow someone that will attempt to maintain that stability. It takes very little common sense to see what needs to be done in a major collapse, from rationing to defense and everything else. The likelihood of people with that small amount of common sense stepping up and getting people organized for long term survival is very high, at least here and there. While that won’t happen every time and place, it will likely happen often enough to both reduce the number of people on the road, and provide an attraction for those on the road, keeping them out of your area.

But let’s say we do have a diaspora of the desperate. This too is self limiting, as the leading wave will clean out the easily available supplies. Every gas station between here and there will be quickly emptied of everything usable, and those following will find nothing to sustain their travels.

This isn’t to say that you won’t someday find yourself confronted by a half a dozen grim strangers looking to take what is yours, but the likelihood of facing human waves of emaciated looters is pretty slim. In a major collapse, you will very quickly see the population crash and adjust in a very short period. Certainly that is a dangerous time, but in my opinion it will be a short time.

The best protection in those times is being difficult if not impossible to find, self sufficient as possible to avoid having to leave your area and expose yourself, and most importantly, constantly vigilant. The fanciest weapon in the world does you no good if a starving looter sneaks up and bashes your head in with a rock.

But hordes? I doubt it, but you might disagree…feel free to say why.

Originally posted January 27, 2011 @ MPN