This is text I post when I see a question that seems unclear about the length or kind of the disaster you’re preparing for. Knowing how long a disaster you’re prepping for changes what preps you consider.
These are my definitions and opinions - there’s no universal definition for SHTF or Collapse. But when someone says “In the coming collapse” and then goes on to ask about batteries for their walkie talkie, it becomes obvious that they aren’t thinking of a collapse. (In a collapse, your batteries wear out after some number of recharges and you can’t replace them; collapsed nations stay collapsed longer than batteries last.) And when someone says SHTF, no one knows if they mean a snowstorm that lasts thee days, or nuclear war; often the poster doesn’t seem to either.
So this is meant to ask you to restate your question with some indication of what you think will be happening around you and how long a time you expect to need a solution for. Your scenario probably fits one of these categories:
Tuesday: this is shorthand in this sub (and others) for day-to-day problems. They can be serious, but they don’t affect society; they are usually commonplace events or personal issues. A big blizzard, a job layoff, a three day power failure… something that affects you or a small area and you can reasonably expect to get through with relatively simple prep – or if you can’t, at least it’s only a few people who suffer.
Recovery is usually a few days (job loss and illness can be much longer, of course) and most of the solution is usually financial.
Disaster: something serious happens to a local area. An earthquake, major hurricane with flooding, or major chemical spill makes an area difficult or impossible to live in for a time. The government still functions and will be arriving shortly to organize and distribute aid. Lives will likely be lost – if not, it’s really more of an inconvenience we’re talking about – but people who are either prepared or can wait and rely on government resources, can get through ok. This is not SHTF. There are resources to help available and even the non-prepared can get through if they can hang on for a few days while supplies and help roll in. A serious economic crash like the Great Depression could also qualify as a disaster; it’s widespread and long, but people at least don’t often starve.
Recovery could be weeks to months, but everyone can see the light at the end of the tunnel and people remain, mostly, orderly.
SHTF: (Sh?t Hits The Fan) or Calamity - something catastrophic happens over a very wide area, like a country. The government still exists in some form, but might be unable to render assistance for months because it’s overwhelmed. About the only thing I can think of in this category is war, either an external invasion or a massive internal uprising. A more fantastic scenario is some sort of major economic collapse, far worse than a depression. Hyperinflation that literally makes it impossible to buy food could qualify. When SHTF, it’s possible, even likely, that things will recover… eventually. But major social changes will occur, lives will be lost in significant numbers, and the government might be replaced or radically redesigned. Note this isn’t Without Rule Of Law, or at least not long term. There’s still an attempt to keep order, fight off enemies, food can still be shipped, the grid might be intermittent but isn’t permanently crippled, etc. A solar flare/Coronal Mass Ejection event that was poorly handled might be in this category.
Recovery could be months to years, and the recovered society might look different, but for the most part, life will go on, more or less at the same technological level it was before, maybe after a huge repair effort. Society is chaotic, even violent, for a time, but people ultimately pull it back together.
Collapse: a large region’s infrastructure and government are destroyed. Things in this category would be extensive nuclear war, a world-beating pandemic, an asteroid strike, or climate change so severe that growing food becomes impossible. Law enforcement breaks down, societal norms get disrupted, and people begin starving in large numbers, because the systems needed to produce, process and distribute food before it spoils are broken, on a level of nations or larger. No one is coming to help, because communications are largely unavailable and authorities are either dead or powerless, and anyone who even knew what you needed has the same problems you do and has no resources to spare. Fights over food, fuel, water (and ammo in countries with high gun ownership) becomes endemic - and with no one to enforce law, it continues until the population is small enough to be supported by whatever primitive agriculture can be established – remember, no infrastructure means no power, no way to pump fuel, no harvesters or combines running, no way to ship or refrigerate food; everyone’s starving or living on farms with (at best) horses to plow. Warlords arise because they can at least offer protection, at least as long as the ammo supply holds up. Vast social ills, like epidemics, slavery, rape and murder return, at least until the population crashes hard enough to put an end to it.
Recovery isn’t a thing, or is generational at best. In the US, 50-90% of the population is likely dead. Such a nation might well get invaded by neighbors and rebuilt by them, but if that doesn’t happen, people would literally have to recreate the last 200 years of technological progress, starting from iron axes and steam engines, and it’s a long climb, because a lot of people capable of working with high tech don’t make it. The only realistic prep for a collapse is a preexisting homestead that can run on 18th century technology, far enough from cities that desperate, starving people, many of them armed, don’t find it and loot it.
Note that countries like Somalia or Haiti are not truly collapsed. They have high starvation rates and government is ineffective, but the aspect of sizable population crashes is absent. They could be considered very long term calamities.
Which of these is your question about?
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(I guess "calamity" but your post begs the question "if the police are unavailable, will the government roll in national guard or army? Why not?")