@Anonymalous wrote:
Hurricanes, major floods, earthquakes, winter storms, wild fires, and potentially terrorist attacks. This excludes things like tornadoes, because they typically don't affect a wide enough area to take down the local infrastructure. It's not about trivial blips like power outages, or post-apocalyptic nonsense.
If these disasters affect a large area, they often take down the infrastructure. This includes electricity, internet, clean water, cell phone service, roads, bridges, and more. Some are just overwhelmed, for instance that usually happens with phone service as towers are flooded with calls as people try to make sure their loved ones are okay. Others may have suffered cosmetic or severe damage, like losing main lines or trunks. Water often gets contaminated, and there may be boil orders or you may have to rely on bottled water. It takes a several days to bring in crews with chainsaws or pull in electrical utility workers from around the country, and have them clear roads, set up new towers, run new wire, and so on. In that period, you some services may be available, for instance internet using cellular data plans, while others are not.
Swiping a card takes power, and an internet connection. Even if every shop you go to has both, there are numerous verification steps, and a failure at any point means the payment is rejected. And that's assuming they weren't just turned off due to widespread theft or fraud. I guess a store could could write down the numbers for bulk manual input later, but that sounds like a terrible idea and I suspect most card processors will frown on that.
But cash always works. Despite your concerns about fraud and having too much on hand, people have dealt with those issues for decades. Cash doesn't need power, internet, or a cash register. But many stores will be closed. Typically the ones that will be left are convenience or general stores, gas stations, grocery stores, and home improvement stores. The big box stores will be the most reliable after the shelves get stripped, because they all have emergency plans and even EOCs and will be sending in trucks from outside the affected area to replenish local supplies, while local shops will have a tough time getting anything in. And with the widespread nature of the event, combined with curfews, damage to roads/bridges, and/or the prohibition of anything except emergency vehicles will make it very hard to just drive and get stuff yourself.
You'll either want to get out of the area, or stay at home. In the first case, you'll want cash for fuel, food, water, and lodging until you're out of the affected area. In the latter case, you'll want to hunker down for a few days, and rebuild/repair/clean (though that's stupid, if the disaster is ongoing). You'll want much of the same stuff, except it's less about fuel and lodging, and more about fixing and cleaning. If you get stuck without, you'll have to beg, borrow, steal, or find a shelter or a mass care distribution point.
The past is not the future, and emergency funds are about the future, after all.
Yes, cash has been a mainstay for centuries, but times are changing and changing fast. Cashless society is coming soon, with some thanks going to the pandemic. When the system supporting it fails, you won't be seeing a fallback to the old system of paper cash because the ability to manage it on the backend will have been gutted out.
Bringing the network online in disaster areas is already prioritized at the same tier as food and water. It's already an essential service.
As for cashless gas and grocery stations:
Many stations have periods where they are unattended already; during those, they are cashless. It's not long before many are only attended by security and maintenance. Looking further down the road (a bit beyond what we should for a short-term emergency fund anyway), gas stations will be charging stations. If that power grid is down, people aren't buying anything anyway.
Amazon's already broken the barrier on cashless grocery, and the plans are ambitious. A few of the grocery stores I go to today have gone from 20 checkout lines to 12 with 10 self-kiosks to <6 lines with dozens of kiosks. Some of those kiosks have no ability to take cash. If the store has replaced all of its cashiers with kiosks, who exactly do you expect to be standing around taking paper money in a power outage? The answer is nobody; the store will be closed until the grid's back up (another reason it's prioritized to be restored).
Sweden's going full cashless next year: https://interestingengineering.com/sweden-how-to-live-in-the-worlds-first-cashless-society#:~:text=I.... It won't be long before other nations, even the obstinate US, follow suit.
We're getting a bit OT, so I'll end it there, but in 5-10 years don't be surprised when you find your $20 bill is harder to use than an AmEx travel credit.
