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Sooner or later-if we are to believe the movies, made-for-TV movies, National Geographic Channel programs with titles such as "Seconds from Disaster" and "Naked Science: Killer Asteroid", and books like Richard A. Posner's Catastrophe: Risk and Response-the possibility and likelihood for our inability to cope with a natural or man-made disaster is eminent.

Note that I say eminent and not imminent, because really. Can we really predict if tomorrow a tornado will hit metro Milwaukee? It hasn't happened yet in recorded history-but there's nothing that says it can't happen. One hit St. Francis and Cudahy in 2000, and tore the crap out of a lot of ranch houses, strip malls, and upended cars. Twisters in past decades smacked parts of Oklahoma City, Alabama, and Wichita.

A 4.2 magnitude earthquake in the early hours two years ago was centered around northern Illinois and could be felt here. In 1947, a 4.7 rocked Milwaukee and was centered here. The New Madrid Fault Line situated along the Mississippi River on Missouri's border could pop at any time.

This column could go on to give a whole laundry list of things that could go wrong in our area, and not just by nature. An illness that vaccines and antibiotics can't handle could wipe out half the population (thanks Hot Zone). A nuclear suitcase bomb could go off without the warning of sirens. Condo developers could have so much of City Hall brainwashed and in its pocket that they cut off access to the river and lakefront, thereby gentrifying the city by economic class. Oh. Wait.

What genuinely makes me curious is how a modernized yet mid-sized city like Milwaukee would make it through a disaster in the aftermath. Let's say, just for pity sake that a scenario like the movie Red Dawn happens. Mexico and Russia gang up on America and invade her. Better yet, let's take the 'what if?' device from the ending of Escape from L.A. In that film, Snake Plissken hits the worldwide code for a massive EMP that turns the world off from electricity.

What would our city-which looks to computers and technology to save it from obsolescence-do? The kind of chaos that I am imagining comes from everyone's ability to say 'deal's off' when it comes to cooperating. A core-sample of the mass that still make up this city can be found on any given Friday night packing the Potawatomi Casino. Take a look at their empty eyes and broken spirits.

Their job at the steel smelting factory has gone away, but their cashiers' position at the new corner Walgreen's is keeping them alive. As long as government and medical systems stay in place, the gas stations keep pumping out fuel to their vehicles they drive to work, the fast food restaurants keep slapping out patties, and air-conditioner purchased for cheap with a credit card keeps flowing-life seems okay.

But I wonder, with no real knowledge of what resources are still available, if we could survive a tragedy in which we needed to repair and rebuild without the help and supplies of outsiders. The connection and transportation routes that have been refined and sped up in the past three decades would be of no use to us if a giant dome were placed over southeastern Wisconsin.

Milwaukee has always been a great port of call to bring in supplies and ship out what we have. It still exists today, but not to the extent it once did.

At one time, the main poster for here proclaimed that "Milwaukee feeds and supplies the world". After the Great Chicago Fire of 1871 caused a drought of beer, we sent a draught of beer and became the beer capital of the world. At yet another point, Milwaukee created the sawzall. We became renown for Tool and Die work, and became headquarters for that.

Today, Milwaukee Tools supplies the world-as their website asks you what country you are from before showing off the wares. While the R and D stayed here, the manufacturing moved to Mexico and elsewhere. In 2004, they were acquired by a Japanese firm from a Swedish firm.

The only major brewer left in Milwaukee is Miller Brewing Company. They are now owned by a South African firm. While many microbreweries have returned the spirit to Wisconsin taverns and backyard parties, they cannot rival the output once seen by Milwaukee's dozen breweries. All the farm fields for getting hops and barley are now sprawled with suburbs and sod fields.

The Grain Exchange building, once comparable to the New York Stock Exchange, was converted from office spaces to condo spaces in 2004.

If suddenly the population of America or the world was decimated, or just stopped talking to each other, could we survive? Sure. It just wouldn't be at the level we once remembered. So sign up for Habitat for Humanity now, so you can learn to hold a hammer.

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