When we were in Grand Cayman, we were talking with a gentleman who lost everything (house, clothes etc) in Hurricane Ivan. He had a 2 week old baby. He told me he risked arrest but had to go looting. He needed water, formula and clothes for the 3 of them. I told him I would have done the same thing. You don't need a flat screen tv but the basics are what I'd get. I'd get canned food (& hopefully remember a can opener), water, diapers, clothes, blankets and medical supplies, anything that would help my family survive. He looked so relieved to hear that. He said so many tourists came in and remarked on the looting.

I told him I watched the coverage of Katrina and saw people taking tvs and such. That, IMHO, is the real looting. Not someone looking to care for the family.

What are your thoughts on it?

I don't know much about looting, but I'm sure you could sell a TV on the streets and get enough money to buy some basic necessities. Not sure why you would want to keep a TV when your house was destroyed.

When it comes right down to it we're all survivalists at heart, and in situations like that you do what you have to to survive.

Now if it was for profit during say, a riot, then no, I wouldn't do it

In a heartbeat. No question. If it was necessary for survival, I'd get anything that my family (if I had one, or just myself) NEEDED... including food, med supplies, clothing, blankets, etc. Now, when it comes to the wants, like TVs, I definitely wouldn't do that. I imagine that most people wouldn't be in the market to buy a TV on the black market for a premium after a disaster and that you'd have much more luck probably trying to sell something like bottled water... O.o

yes, I would loot to save my family I have 2 small children and they come first!

I've always wondered about the looting phenomenon (hoarding non-essentials, not scavenging for survival supplies). Perhaps many would steal anyway, but at least some of these people seem to be those that would never consider theivery at any other time, so what can make mostly law-abiding citizens think this is a good idea? Is it a panic mindset that goes haywire? For some reason it reminds me of Steve Martin in "The Jerk," when he says something like...

Well I'm gonna to go then. And I don't need any of this. I don't need this stuff, and I don't need you. I don't need anything except this. [picks up an ashtray] Just this ashtray. And this paddle game, the ashtray and the paddle game and that's all I need. And this remote control. The ashtray, the paddle game, and the remote control, and that's all I need. And these matches. The ashtray, and these matches, and the remote control and the paddle ball. And this lamp. The ashtray, this paddle game and the remote control and the lamp and that's all I need. And that's all I need too. I don't need one other thing, not one - I need this. The paddle game, and the chair, and the remote control, and the matches, for sure. And this. And that's all I need. The ashtray, the remote control, the paddle game, this magazine and the chair....


Yes, for essentials I would loot. I would like to think that I would not for non-essentials, but I would bet that once any human being crosses the line into taking someone else's belongings the line between necessity and luxury could easily grow very thin, very quickly.

kaplods, you said it well. I get angry when I see people going into stores to "steal" after a disaster. However, whenever store merchants are there to say, "help yourself to the groceries, diapers, essentials, etc", I can respect the merchant and the people for getting the permission. Whenever store merchants who have some of the essentials that will be trashed because of damage and "insurance" claims not help the community, I get upset as well.

I still think that I would take things that would be used (blankets, clothes, food, etc) for survival for my family or neighbors. I just can't see taking flat screen tvs. How are you going to use it with no power? Who knows when power will be restored? It was probably damaged in the storm anyway! If you can carry that, then you can carry diapers, etc. Maybe flashlights and portable radios (remember to check the batteries) would be essential as well.

This guy in Grand Cayman got enough food for his wife and formula for his baby to last 3 days. He didn't include himself. They stretched it for 5. He picked up whatever clothes he could find in the streets. They rinsed them in rain water to get the mud out. He found blankets and took scraps of wood and metal and made a makeshift house for them. How awful that must have been for those people. Every storm that went through the Carribean in 04 hit Grand Cayman.

Oh, Ivan, the storm that did that to them turned and went right into Pensacola. It took me days to find my family. Fortunately, they were all OK. 1 neice lost just about everything. (Don't get me started on FEMA).

Thanks everyone for responding.

If I remember right from Philosophy 101, this is very similar to Kant's Categorical Imperative. This is "a dictum that you should never steal/lie/kill/parallel park, because doing so is universally wrong in and of itself, and ... the particulars of a given situation are irrelevant to the rightness or wrongness of an act" (http://affableatheist.blogspot.com/ 02/04/08).

I disagree with Kant. Especially in a hurricane, where everything would be destroyed anyway, I would take what I need to survive.

I'd loot to survive but I'd also go back when things had calmed down and pay for what I had taken. If you don't go back then I think you lose the moral high ground of trying to survive and just become another thief.

I should have included that. ITA.

Wasn't it "Where the Heart is" that the main character was living in the Walmart after her boyfriend left her stranded in the parking lot 9 months pregnant? I loved the little notebook she kept of all of the items she used, and their price so she could pay the store later, that choked me up.

Don't know. Sounds like something I'd have to have the tissues nearby in order to watch.

I am sure I probably would, especially in a situation like post-Katrina, etc. What else where the people supposed to do? Things like water and food are completely understandable, but not consumer stuff, etc.
It is true that one could always go back later and pay for the stuff taken .... IF there was where to go and if the people had not lost everything except their bare lives in the first place (again, I am talking Katrina but there are less severe examples).

I would agree that post-catastrophe pay-back might be virtually impossible. Tracking down former owners, calculating value, getting back in a financial position to offer restitution....

Although I think "pay back" in a more generic sense means that I would hope that if I experienced something like this, that I would come out of it with a greater sense of generosity, not a fearful increased need to be selfish.

One of my aunts was a small child during the depression, when my grandparents had a very tough time of it. She came out of the experience a bit of a hoarder. She always thought everyone had it better than she did, always looked on the negative side of things, and was extremely miserly, always afraid of "losing everything." I can understand it, but I feel very sad for her. Her inability to be generous hurt her more than it did anyone else.

There's not a lot I wouldn't do to survive. Loot for essentials? Absolutely. Eat the people who died first in a starvation situation? Yep, and I'd want em to eat me if I did. Kill? If my life was threatened, sure. I wouldn't like it but I'd do it. And when people say to me: 'Oh no, I'd *never* do it' I usually think they're self-deluded, perhaps uncharitably, but I do think survival is pretty much a programmed response.

To take care of my family - deffinately. But it would just be food items, medical and emergency supplies. If it means I would have to serve time afterwards, it would be worth it to know that at least I helped keep them safe after such a disaster.