After Armageddon: What would you do?

[WindVoyager]

Lets keep the scenario on the realistic side, no zombies or anything. The most likely cause of a massive grid down situation will be an infectious disease. We are well over due for a pandemic, they tend to strike every 20-30 years but its been at least 100 since we had a major one and its well over due. When it does hit, it will prove disastrous. Large cities will be the hardest hit due to the dense population.

In the early days no one will know what is happening and they will put the infected in specialized hospitals and it will spread like wild fire. With international travel it will spread to other locations. Medical care providers will do the best they can but they will be overwhelmed. They will eventually barricade the doors to the hospital and will not allow any in.

People will have tried to flee the area early on causing massive traffic jams and will have abandoned their cars so major high ways will be impassible. You'll have to use smaller side roads or risk going on foot. But you want to keep a low profile, people will see you but you want their eyes to roll over you and to pay as little attention to you as possible.

Gridlock would be a major secondary event. With that the desperation will go even higher. To make matters worse, people will masquerade  as police and even military and many people will make the mistake of stopping for them.

As the pandemic spreads, people will believe that it will pass but one a week passes.......things will start to break down. Its going to effect he people who work in power stations, the fire department, the police, the internet. When the net fails , things that most people don't realize that use the net will fail. Production lines, air lines,the production of fuel, trains and more need the net.

When the lights go out what will you do?

The average super market replenishes every one day or so. When the wheels on the delivery stop rolling the markets can't replenish. Panic will ensue. In New Orleans, after the hurricane, it took only four days for a major city to descend into violence, riots and chaos.

The average home has only three days worth of food. How much food do you have?

Large urban areas and cities will be uninhabitable very quickly once the grid goes down. In a matter hours to a few days there will be riots in the streets. Masses of people flipping cars, breaking into store (likely stealing now worthless things such as electronics) fires every where, violence. If you live in a city or large urban area, how do you plan to get out? You wont be able to stay since it will be only a matter of time before the muarders and looters come and began breaking into homes looking for supplies, weapons and drugs.

A major pandemic will run its course in about 90 days. But survivors will be perishing  form cholera, dysentery and starvation. During a grid down there's no sewage. Diseases will come from a lack of sanitation.

What would do in when the grid goes down and there's looting happening and the stores are cleared out?

[Spear80]

Hhmm, you want realism...

Provided i don't have symptoms, or die. I will gather what little food i have and bring it along to my sister.  I can stand to not eat for a little while. (starving is harder than you think) But she has a toddler and an infant, that i'd hope to keep alive along with the rest of my immediate family. We will hide out during the looting as well as we can. And eventually go looking for and receiving food aid from the military or our equivalent of FEMA. If they call to evacuate, we will do so.

I will probably volunteer to work for extra rations, dig graves, drive a forklift, do whatever they need me to do. Just as long as i can do it masked, or Biosuited. It's not video game survival awesome, but it is more real than those are. ;)

In all probability however, someone will have coughed on me,  got infected and i am one of the many, a luckier SOB, will be tossing into a mass grave.