[jlokier]

Perhaps surprisingly, not so much.

Often during an acute natural disaster people help each other out and are more mutually supportive than normal. People usually find ways to get the basics up and running, such as shelter and food, pretty fast.

[bigbubba]

Relying on your neighbors to be prepared and able to help you out does seem to be a very popular way to 'prepare', but I don't think it's an approach to encourage...

[jlokier]

Relying on them, no.

But in practice natural disasters are rarely a "collapse of society" sort of thing. It's more that you should have supplies and shelter, and a way to communicate. In the middle of difficulties where people work together, I'd say that's "society" in action.

"Collapse of society" tends to be more descriptive of human-driven disasters such as war and civil war, where people start turning against each other and there's high levels of mutual distrust and violence.

[Broken_Hippo]

We all live in a society. If folks need help in an exceptional time and you do not help them, folks will remember that you spent the time locked in your bunker instead of helping the neighbor whose supplies were flooded. Someone is always going to be forced to rely on others: A wheelchair cannot easily go over downed limbs, for example, and the user won't necessarily be able to flee a fire without help.

Additionally, if you want folks to be prepared, they need both the means to prepare and the space to do it - which basically means having a robust safety net and/or minimum pay laws.

[hannasanarion]

Being prepared has nothing to do with it. Nobody was prepared for the Anchorage earthquake of 1964, but within minutes people had self-organized into firefighting and excavation teams, set up emergency response relays with a hodgepodge of walkie-talkies, police radio, and AM broadcasters, and within hours there was a centralized volunteer dispatch and food bank.

Relying on your neighbors in a disaster doesn't mean hiding out in their anti-zombie bunker. It means knowing that the entire community will respond together to overcome the emergency.

[bigbubba]

Being prepared doesn't have to mean being a loon hiding in a bunker. Elsewhere in this thread I have recommended having some canned food, water, and a flashlight. These are very easy ways to prepare for a wide variety of unlikely scenarios.