,

322

AYRES:

57).

DASA 2019-2

You've just given one of my nasty scenarios (Reference

EISENBUD: Here is just one example, you see, that comes to
mind. Of course, the basic problem is that the more you think about
it the more complicated it gets and so you go back to your policy of
not thinking about it.
DE BOER: Whois going to provide the leadership? Two years
ago I was part of a Civil Defense exercise in Albuquerque. Here
you have a pepulation of 300, 000 sitting in the desert, so everything

has to be trucked in.

The ‘irst question [ asked was about food sup-_

plies. Noonehad an answer, They, the Civil Defense officials, had
made two basic assumptions, i.e., there would be adequate reserves
and a functioning distributioa system, and food would be continuously
brought in. Well, I don't believe that anybody would be crazy enough
to make a 200- to 300-mile trip across the desert under these circumstances, even if the trucker had sufficient gasoline. In case of disaster there, our best estimate was that we might last six days to a week.
With possible hoarding, this would be considerably lesa. Most peo-

ple don't have anything to fall back on and those who do, more often

than not, depend. upon their freezers. Electricity under these circumstances may be out. Food and oil supplics would be gone first
and these were the very things most of them had not given enough
thought to. The assumption had been that supplies at the worst would
be temporarily discontinued. Iam also sure that people would not
come out of the valley for weeks, This valley is nearby and there are
a few things which are grown in the Rio Grande Valley near Albuquerque, such as apples, potatoes, and tomatoes, but these people would
not come to the city to. sell, They would sit on what they had, preserve it and use it themselves under the circumstances, They surely

would not be interested in commerce,
AYRES:

That may or may not be true.

[ would probably disagree

with you about the amount of food in Albuquerque.

[don't know if you

made a direct survey or if this is based-on casual inquiry.

ment of Agriculture has done surveys,

,

The Depart-

DE BOER: This is the point, They were never confronted with
that thought. So whea I asked the question, there was noone who could
give me the answers,
AYRES: You see, most of the food in the city is not in private
houses; it's in stores and in the warehouses.

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