This last week I took my wife and two tiny children (@4 months and @22 months) to South Oregon on the beach at Bandon. Needless to say, the 8.9 Earthquake occured on the first night we were there, resulting in a tsunami warning in Bandon at around 3 am in the morning. My wife had been feeding the littlest one during that time and she was totally stunned by the alarms going off (kind of like an air raid siren, with loudspeakers interrupting it.

In a way it was her first real serious morale check. I listened to the loudspeaker which said the first wave might arrive as soon as 7 am in the morning in the 6 foot range. We were at sea level basically in our little hotel, so we obviously needed to evacuate. My wife was pretty shaken by this and would have likely had difficulty forming an independent plan without direction. I learned a few things here though that might be of use to some of my fellow doomers:

1) My morale is significantly more difficult to unhinge than that of my wife or our children. This is likely to be true of most doomers with respect to their spouses, unless your husband or wife is a doomer themselves or was raised as 'warrior caste'.
2) People with shaken but not totally broken morale respond well to a firm command voice (just tell her what to grab) and guide them gently by touch. 5-10 minutes later they'll rally and probably feel a little sheepish. Don't give them a hard time about it. In the meantime they'll follow your direction, but you HAVE to lead.
3) Little children can really surprise you. The older one, not yet 2 years old, recognized that something very bad was happening, and I could see in his eyes that he was pretty scared, but he didn't panic or anything. I picked him up, he held onto me and I got him out to the van with less fuss than even in totally normal circumstances. Not bad for a toddler roused at 3 am from a deep sleep by blaring sirens and scary loudspeaker voices talking of dire things. The 4 month old was totally serene.
4) In retrospect, I should have recognized that a tsunami was likely on the night of the 8.9---since I'd noted it and we were on the Pacific coast, and not been surprised by the 3 am alarm. My gut was aware of the possibility, which kept me extremely calm during the event, but telling my wife earlier that night before we went to bed that there was a high probability of being woken by a tsunami alarm would have probably kept her from shaking.
5) This was (for us) a very mild case of TSHTF. In a true TSHTF situation where you may need to implement a 'bug out' or 'bug in' or some other extreme response protocol, you, as the emergency head of your household need to be resolute. Your family and other allies need you to be a pillar of strength to get them through the event or transition intact. You will probably be afraid---most sane people are---and you might have to fake the appearance of unflappability. If you're dealing with 'the shaken', you need to do that---they need you to do that.

EWHM,

thank you for this. I hope many people here will read this and reread this

I don't like to give input into stuff like this, but I do have useful first hand experience, so I'd be wrong if I didn't.

When things go sideways, and this can be anything, a vehicle accident with injuries, power outages, someone collapsing
in a crowd, any out of the ordinary situation, a few things will happen.

one thing that will happen is that people will be stunned, and they will pause and wait for SOMEONE ELSE to take
action. it is crucially important for someone to take charge in such a situation. A lot has been said over and
over again to the point of nausea about 'sheeple' and all that pejorative crap. But the simple fact is that it
is the herd like actions of groups of people that go a huge distance towards the survival of the herd. Don't
knock it, accept it, and deal with it appropriately.

If you are one of the ones wondering 'why doesn't someone DO something' then you be that someone.

Key points,
Firm, but gentle.

Don't yell at people unless there is immediate, and I mean immediate threat to their life, even then, yelling
at folks who are freaked out will likely only make them freeze up. Don't do it.
Give them clear orders, not instructions, orders. Look them in the eye, point at them with your hand, fingers
extended and together and tell them exactly what to do, in very simple terms.

"You! Move over there"
"You! pick up and comfort that child"
"You! take out your phone and dial 911"

When it's apparent that folks are all staring at you with wild eyes, then, and only then
ask, "Who knows CPR?" or something of that type that implies that there are folks
with Some Training, who Can Do Things. Delegate to them, and let them
do what they are delegated to do. Do not attempt to micromanage.

Don't argue, don't freak out, don't panic, don't scream, And don't coddle,
If there are folks who you can tell need to be coddled, delegate someone
to coddle them.

If someone challenges your lead, (and this works, and I've had occasion to use it
to good effect) then engage them, don't challenge them in return, this isn't a political
election, quickly and firmly delegate authority to them.

"Hey, who put you in charge?"
quickly make eye contact with 2 or 3 others, and order them

"You, you, and you, go with him and check out down that hall, see
if blah blah blah"

It's likely in a real disaster, that some real authoritative leadership will
emerge, but if you are taking the lead, then lead until relieved.

I know first hand of a construction site building collapse a few decades back
where the disaster relief effort was handled and handled very well by a
guy, literally just a bum, who just happened to be there. Seriously.

i am feeling kind of overwhelmed at the moment. one thing i know i can count on is change. change is the way it is and that aint gonna change. so i just get on with it now.