As I wrote earlier, in the 1950s and 60s in America many families created fallout shelters in their basements. Ours was a set of fruit and vegetable cellars, next to the coal cellar, with the dividing wall taken down. My father had been a carpenter at some point and used his skills to build the shelter according to government guidelines. There were six of us in the house but bunkbeds along the wall for only four of us, so I guess my younger sister and I were to have slept on the floor. The platforms were made from old doors and the torn-down dividing wall; bedding was whatever we already had.
On the opposite wall were the shelves for supplies. We had no plastic containers in those days that I can recall. Everything was glass or metal - bottles, jugs, jars, and tin cans. We kept the gallon jugs filled with water, which we changed every so often (according to government guidelines, I presume). There was no food in jars or tins which needed cooking. And, yes, we had at least two can openers. There was a good stock of toilet paper, and, in addition to a drain in the floor, there was also a large old hospital bucket with a tightly fitting lid. We had candles and matches, as well as kerosene lanterns.
How long would we have held out? We had no battery radio then, not until at least in the 1960s. I suppose we were to listen for sirens of All Clear. We had no way of knowing whether there would be an electricity supply or not, but we kept a radio plugged in, just in case. And we had reading material in abundance - every issue of National Geographic going back a good 50 years. I recall seeing one dated 1905, I'm sure. These would have been from my great-grandmother's time. They kept the shelter nice and dry too - by absorbing all the moisture. And so they succumbed to the ravages of time.
Luckily we never needed the shelter except for a few practice runs. It reverted to being a storage room again. But I did learn about preparing for a long haul. Camping trips and Boy Scouts also contributed to my skills. The next time I needed to prep was many years later.
Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait on 1 August 1990. I transferred to Damascus from the North of England in October of that year, joining with other foreign nationals to set about getting ready for the inevitable war. Syria was an obvious target for Iraq, as the Syrian government had supported Iran in the Iran-Iraq war. Were Israel to get involved, Syria was directly under the bomber flight path. We could be bombed or spared, but we always knew we would get refugees escaping the fighting and needing our humanitarian aid and protection.
How many to expect - not only from our own nationalities but from the local population as well? Probably hundreds, conceivably many, many more. I shared a large flat with another foreign national. We could house 20 to 25 people if need be. We installed a safe room for ourselves in the servant's quarters, where we could keep an eye on our food and medical supplies.
We made forays into the Beka'a Valley in the Lebanon to buy these supplies, always paying with US dollars, the only currency anyone would accept. First we needed storage containers - jars, air-tight plastic boxes, ziplock bags, and so on. We bought special lockable trunks for the medicine, cash, and other valuables the refugees might bring with them. Then rice and flour, pasta, sugar, milk powder, salt, water filters, gas canisters for cooking, tins of fruit and vegetables. And paper plates, plastic cutlery and cups, napkins, towels, blankets. And, yes, toilet paper, sanitary towels, soap and disinfectant. Ans air freshener, as an afterthought. The flat had five toilets, so we hoped that would be enough, even were they not to function exactly as they should.
We needed a generator and fuel, but these were scarce - so scarce that we even considered commandeering one from private ownership. These weren't just "our" people we were stockpiling for - there were also the local families and friends of "our" people. And the journalists who were bound to arrive as soon as they could.
We bought rolls of clear plastic sheeting to seal off the windows in the event of a gas attack. We had a limited supply of gas masks, kept at our various embassies until needed. We had walkie-talkies and used to conduct practice sessions perhaps a bit too often (it was fun, as you might imagine). To my utter disappointment, I have since forgotten my wartime code name.
Many of our locals runs between shelter houses, embassies, international agency offices, co-ordinators, and so on were done on either bicycles or officially sanctioned motorbikes. The general population were not allowed motorbikes for security reasons. We were on two wheels much faster than on the four wheels of private cars or taxis. Whilst we weren't the Hash House Harriers, there was the camaraderie of the peloton of early morning cyclists out for a spin on quiet days. Soon cyclists from other "like-minded" agencies were joining in.
Now, before I go any further, let me say that, just as in the Soviet threat of earlier days, all our preparations were for nought. The war came - Desert Storm. Rockets passed overhead. The only news I had was from the radio and from talking with the others. I saw absolutely no television coverage of Desert Storm until years later. We also had no refugees. I gave away the last of the supplies I had kept with me - paper plates and plastic cutlery - just lasst year.
So, when the Corona virus started spreading, I had already been prepped for prepping. I've always got kilos of flour, sugar, salt, pasta, rice, powdered milk, etc. in the pantry. The only shortage I can report now is that of dried yeast. I can get fresh yeast delivered, but not dried. And I need the dried yeast for my favourite bread recipe.
