#Government collapse timeline.
Day 1:
Run on the shops
Day 2:
Small rioting as quarrels escalate
Day 3:
Major looting.
Emergency services operational but extremely unreliable.
Some forward looking local Governments try to seize a degree of control.
End of Week 1:
Severe rioting with multiple casualties. Ambulances and Police stop responding.
Army cordons near some critical infrastructure. Shoot to kill orders.
Petrol at gas stations runs out.
Week 2:
Infrastructure keeps failing.
Sporadic power.
No water. No sanitation.
No Internet.
Few if any transportation options.
Some trains.
Few if any airplanes.
Mass casualty events unattended.
Armed bandit gangs roaming suburbs and kill, pillage and rape with unrestrained brutality.
Week 3.
Road travel is unsafe.
Remain in place in metro areas is unsafe.
Hunger begins.
Hundreds of thousands of refugees flow out of the cities.
Countryside immediately around cities is overrun by human locusts who strip everything bare.
Week 4.
Cannibalism begins.
Communities further out of town enact strict blockades.
Shoot any refugees on sight.
Week 5.
Army tries to establish small enclaves to maintain some degree of civilisation.
Based around Energy/Food sources.
Week 6.
At this point, people with no food reserves are dying of hunger in large numbers. 50% of population dead.
Diseases due to lack of hygiene and large movementsnof people break out. If any hospitals are still operating, they have no supplies and little to no power. Protected by local authorities under arms.
Month 6
Most of the population is dead.
Small enclaves in out of the way, easily protected places survive. (islands, plateaus, valleys, mountains).
Armed bandits roam countryside.
Small fortified communities begin to form.
Life is very hard.
You and me are NOT the main characters with plot armour in this cluster fuck.