Year's Supply

The Brethren have always advised us to have a Year’s Supply on hand.  This means much more than just food, but also necessities such as soap, toilet paper, etc on hand.    A good way to try and figure out what you would need is to imagine that you couldn’t go to the store for a month.  What things would you run out of?  Could you prepare and eat what is in your food storage?  Many of us store wheat, but have no way of preparing it; or if we do, have we actually prepared it into something edible? 

Sharel’s parents had a great example of stuff to store.  They had soap, deodorant, toothpaste, shampoo, cleaning supplies, toilet paper, and all sorts of other things.  The main idea behind the Year’s Supply is to be as self-reliant for a year as possible. 

Most people may imagine the scenarios of needing a Year’s Supply as being out of work, or a local disaster where the Bishop asks for donations of food to care for the needy, or some other collapse such as an economic depression.  Another reason, one that threatens every year is a major Flu pandemic.  We have not had a bad outbreak of the flu since the 1960’s, and the worst one on record was in 1918.  Public Health officials fear a 1918 like flu outbreak more than anything.  Why? The 1918 flu killed more people between the ages of 30 and 60 than it did the old, or the young.  More than 675,000 died in the US alone within 18 months.  To this day, scientist and medical professionals are still at a loss as to what exactly in the virus killed so many relatively healthy adults.    When we see the panic over the swine flu, or other flu outbreaks, it is mostly concern that we will see another strain that is going to kill relatively healthy, young and middle aged adults.

With all of our great advances in medicine and a far deeper understanding of viruses than ever before, still the only effective mitigation (stopping the spread) strategy for viruses is quarantines and isolation.  Because of the speed at which we can travel, the virus could become pandemic before anyone even shows any symptoms.

A study done by the Dept. of the Navy shows that  a viral pandemic of great enough proportions could halt transportation of goods and services on a monumental scale.  Most large stores such as WalMart, or even local grocery stores get all their stock from just a few distribution hubs scattered throughout the United States.  For instance, HyVee gets all of its goods from a distribution center in Iowa.  Most stores only have about 4 days worth of goods actually in the store.  That 4 days worth in an emergency panic mode would probably take less than 48 hours to clear out the store.

It would probably take at least a week to open up necessary transportation lines, depending on the speed and effectiveness of any anti-virals that could be delivered to the workers in the transportation industry.  And this is only if the quarantine is government mandated.  What if the majority of drivers get sick, or self quarantine out of fear?  Estimates show that it could be at least a month to have transportation and delivery up to where it was previously.

Would you have a month worth of supplies in the event you couldn’t leave the house?  We are assuming with this scenario of course that you still have running water, gas and electricity.  Most communities will have a plan to keep essential services running, beginning with health care workers, emergency responders, and utilities.

I hope that has given a little perspective on the importance of a Year’s Supply, and the need to make sure we are constantly working to build it up. 

I am not saying to get into debt over it, or to be impatient with thinking you need a Year’s Supply now, but as President Hinckley advised us- every time we go shopping, just get something extra to add, it needn’t cost a lot, just an extra can of fruit, or perhaps an extra tube of toothpaste.  I have full faith that as we are working on it, in the event anything happens before we have completed it, that the Lord will make up the rest.