What is iCHAoZ?

For years I've been a huge fan of zombie movies - and really anything apocalyptic/post-apocalyptic. When the whole Y2K thing came around everyone started talking about how to survive a real world catastrophic situation. I started thinking - this is the first time you jerks are thinking about this? Of course, planning for the worst is nothing new - ever since the Cold War people have been building bomb shelters and crouching under their desks in "duck n cover" drills. What was different about Y2K is that the mainstream populace finally realized that there are a lot more situations out there besides a nuclear war for which they'll need to plan and prepare.

My brother and I were sharing an apartment at the time and we began formalizing our plans. Admittedly I was a bit more involved with the general idea than he was, but I shouldn't minimize his contributions. We structured the plan based on what situations we would respond to. This was insufficient so we switched over to the concept of a stepped system. A through G if I recall correctly. The "A" level was relatively inane - stay in your house for a day or so type of thing. The "G" level was basically balls to the wall, might as well kiss your ass goodbye.

It's now years later - I'm married with a child and hopefully more to follow. My contingency plan requires a bit of a face lift. First and foremost it must be made much more practical - it literally has to save the lives of my son, my wife, myself, and our four cats. Secondly it needs to be reasonable and rational, I can't start putting bars up on the windows and digging a moat right now. Finally, it needs to be completely comprehensive - there is a wide-range of situations that need a direct and immediate response in order to be properly countered.

My wife and I came up with the concept of iCHAoZ - in Case of Hectic Anarchy or Zombies. Basically, the idea is to have plans in place to deal with just about any major catastrophe by level of response. The levels of response basically range from stay out of the major cities for a while to hunker down in the house with the aforementioned bars and moat. While "Zombies" are in the acronym, the plan really does focus on society and the rule of law either breaking down or disappearing all together. Of course we do have some plans for the more outlandish possibilities, you have to keep it fun after all.

Blogs to come will involve either one-off thoughts about some various aspects of survival or more likely various parts of the actual plan. Thanks for reading!