'Prepping' on a personal level was, until recently, considered something that crazy conspiracy theorists did, but it's now being quietly promoted by governments & world bodies.

It's something everyone should be doing all the time anyway. People on Guam are very prepping oriented because the infrastructure here is so poor. Water and electricity go out often all on their own, no storm required! Most houses have generators. Our neighbors have an enormous water tank.

Water is the big one. People get thirsty very quickly when there's no water! Not to mention sanitation. There's a good selection of very cool pump water filters that will fit in your pocket.

First thing on my list is a portable power bank that can be recharged from a portable solar panel.

Yeah, those are getting so cool! I have a bunch of the dinky powerbanks but I'd like to have one that you can plug extension cords into like a generator.

The mind boggles as to how a population of Taipei's density is going to be fed if the shit hits the fan - can barely comprehend it in normal times. Can see things getting very ugly, very quickly.

Yeah, and that's the thing. I think Taiwan is pretty good at emergency response, world class actually, but if the entire city goes down it's hard to imagine how that would play out. Such a scenario has inspired plenty of movies though! I don't think it would be dog eat dog. I think people would cooperate and work together, but then I thought Obama getting elected showed that the US was evolving. The first three days though -- water. Even living close to a polluted river is better than nothing. The gov won't have anough water trucks to cover the whole city.