Most people move through daily life with an unspoken assumption: things will keep working. The lights will turn on. Water will flow from the tap. Roads will remain open. Phone signals will connect. For the most part, that assumption holds true. Modern infrastructure is reliable, and emergencies feel distant — something that happens on the news, somewhere else.
But systems fail. Storms knock out power grids. Earthquakes fracture roads and pipelines. Floods isolate entire neighborhoods. A single wrong turn on a hiking trail can separate someone from familiar terrain within minutes. In those moments, comfort disappears quickly, and what remains is the most basic human requirement: the ability to stay alive.
