4The Adventures os Walt and Sparky - Hunkering Down is the story of a retired Army veteran who moved to the mountains, bought some forest land, and built a homestead. They say that trouble comes in threes but for Walt and Sparky, trouble came in fours, fives, and sixes.
With very little help Walt built a nice log cabin, a woodshed, woodshop, and a garage. Walt was an avid ham radio operator, webmaster, amateur prospector, and a die hard prepper whose motto was Be Prepared.
Living in the mountains, he was ready and to deal with the usual hardships like cold heavy snowfall, cold weather, downed trees, high winds, lightning storms, power outages, and forest fires, flooding, and dangerous animals. But one year Walt and Sparky had to face a hard winter with a nearby volcanic eruption, live months without sunshine, cope with three inches of volcanic ash on the ground, experience a large earthquake just south of town, extended power outages, road and bridge closures, down cell phone towers, food and gas shortages, and a federal government shutdown, and well armed home invaders.
As crime in the area increases, Walt designs out-of-the-box ways to enhance his home security and defense while preparing for trouble on his homestead. Living alone with Sparky he knows that he lives too far from town to count on any help from police in an emergency. He organizes a group of likeminded neighbors who talk with each other using citizens band radios and help each other and to combat local crime.
He meets a new neighbor who is both a ham radio operator and a deputy sheriff who joins the CB radio group and is both helpful and sympathetic to the plight of rural residents trying to survive the natural disasters a local crime wave, and food shortages, without the modern conveniences we all depend on.
Living without power is hard enough for a few days or a week but when the power is off for months, life's problems start to snowball. You can get by without refrigeration in the winter but no power means no hot water, and since rural residents depend on water wells, no water at all. Well houses and water lines can freeze without power, Ovens, stoves, and microwaves cannot work without power. Most phones, computers, internet modems, battery chargers, electric lights, cannot operate without power as well.
Road closures mean that you cannot get to town to buy food, gas, or propane. A federal government shut down means that many people must go without social security or retirement checks. Food and supply shortages mean the stores either aren't open, or do not have anything to sell.
When people get hungry, it is not surprising that they quickly get desperate. Law and order breaks down when people must struggle to just to survive. The rule of law becomes the rule of the lawless, and people must protect themselves. When this happens, all that people can do then is to hunker down, shelter in place, and hope that things get better soon. When things do get better, people understand that they need to do a better job of being prepared, because the unexpected is the rule and not the exception.