Being Prepared

[Chris Fleming]

In light of the current economic situation, and the (in all likelihood) soon to be worsening economic situation, I just wanted to add something here in regards to being prepared. What are people on here doing to prepare for the worst, or emergency situations?

Just as we respect GPP (general physical preparedness), I believe this extends to emergency situations beyond our control. With that in mind, I feel it is simply being responsible to have some kind of emergency food and water in the house, enough to sustain yourself in an emergency which will allow you to live without going to the grocery store for an extended period of time. Now, what "an extended period of time" means will be different for each person but the principle remains the same.

Most financial planners even recommend a small portion of one's net wealth be in precious metals, something like 10% if I remember rightly. Hey, have to give them credit for trying there (it ought to me much more than that IMO). But how many people even follow this small advice?

What about home defense (guns)?


I take a lesson from Hurricane Katrina. The main point I take from it is: the government isn't going to necessarily be there for you when an emergency happens. The people there were left for, what, weeks with out aid? And having read some books on what happened there, even the national guard, when they finally did get there, weren't too helpful. A real debacle for all levels of government, local, state and federal.

One can argue along the same vein regarding 9/11. The national government's main job is to protect it's citizens. It had fair warning and intel that an attack was being planned but did nothing. I don't need to go into "alternative" theories about this. The fact remains, the government wasn't there for its people.

So with these two lessons in mind, how are you preparing yourself and family for any and all emergencies?

[shawnsegler]

horde like 6 months to a year of canned and frozen pantry goods. Get bulk shit from costco.

It's easy to do, and if things ever went down, I'd assume you'd love yourself a lot for it.

Even if nothing happens you'll still eventually finish it off. You're going for things with long shelf life anyway.

S

[chud]

I try to stay stocked up on essentials. Especially non-perishable stuff like toilet paper, canned goods, etc.
I own a couple of guns and some ammo, but not much...hopefully things won't get bad enough where I'll need a lot.
I am unsure at this point if things are going to get worse or better. I tend to think things will get worse, faith in the system is at an all time low, but I pray that things will hopefully get at least a little bit better. I know personally for me, things are extremely tense at my job right now. The only good thing is I've lost weight, but stress is not really a good way to lose weight.

[roger hao]

I have been fasting to prepare for not enough food.
A sudden fast is bad for you as toxins get released into the system
and you will get sick. What do you think about that angle?
Also I was into the survival thing years ago - I have now survived
so long that it has lost some of it's importance. At that time I determined
that you can survive on alfalfa sprouts, bee pollen , and water.
This might be a good time to think about converting yourself to
a vegan diet. Also it might be the way to go to start figuring out
which bugs are OK to eat.

[everything]

When the world is out of gasoline, live within biking distance of your local farmer's market... maybe grow some of your own food inside your own abode... learn how to booby trap your home entrances with low-tech... or just build a moat around your castle...

Seriously, haven't really prepped for doomsday, but the canned food is always a good tip in any emergency like hurricanes, etc. If you're worried about violence, know your local laws about what you can and can't do to people breaking and entering. Know a lot of basic first aid. And a lot of basic home repair. Build out your real human network in your immediate neighborhood. Know who has what skills and improve your negotiation skills so you can barter with Joe for this and Jane for that. If there were no money, people would still have an "economy" and value different things differently and work things out. Start a neighborhood watch with "captains" and a phone/email chain --- and maybe an in-person chain if phone/power is out. Work on your PEOPLE SKILLS.

Really, absent a worse case scenario, you should be doing a lot of the above (almost everything in the second paragraph) anyway.

edit: also having rainwater collection bins and one of those water filters you can get at REI that can filter really, really crappy water is another good idea --- for doomsday, smaller emergencies, or regular life.

[chud]

Also, you can live on beans and rice for pennies a day, it's perfect protein.

[Michael]

There's a lot of good material available on emergency preparedness and survival. Some of it is the same as preparing for a camping trip where you have to hike into somewhere and carry all you need on your back. A lot of emergency preparedness assumes you have a shelter, but what if you don't? The 7 day hiking trip scenario is a good place to start.

• shelter: What if your house gets knocked out by a storm or is seized by the government for pandemic quarantine? At least you need portable shelter, but also a backup location outside the city is nice.
• fire: At the very least to cook your food, in cold weather it's for survival.
• water: Lots of good filters available for any situation, from super-lightweight micro-ceramics to the Big Berkey's that use gravity and treat gallons a day. Many camping filters will not prevent heavy metals, so read the fine print.
• food: Canned food is better than nothing, but not good if you're moving around and the shelf life of store bought cans outside of climate control is less than a year. In hot weather, they will fail in a few months. Dehydrated, storable food is best. I bought a 7 day pack from http://www.efoodsdirect.com to try them out and it was the best dehydrated food I've ever had. They say it's totally clean, made to order (not sitting in a warehouse for years before you get it), no MSG, no artificial sweeteners, no GMO, and lasts 10 years in a non-climate controlled location like a garage.
• First aid skills and materials
• Precious metal coins for trading.
• Guns and ammo for self-defense. Can't have too much ammo. California is considering a law for finger printing all ammo sales, so there's no time like the present.
• Seeds to make a garden and grow your own food.

Some people use this mnemonic: beans, bullets, band-aids, and bullion.

[Chris McKinley]

Interesting thread, and some good advice. Something everything mentioned and that doesn't often get thought about in this context is the value of building cooperative teams and partnerships with others during such situations. It's not always a purely go-it-alone situation, and anytime you can get cooperation from those you can trust, your odds of survival are multiplied versus acting alone.

I think it's also important that people are starting to realize that this topic is not so completely digital all-or-nothing as it was once considered, nor is it strictly the domain of the extremist camo banjo crowd. Both the consideration of possibilities after 9/11 and the actual experiences of Katrina have opened people's eyes to the topic in a more realistic way.

[Chanchu]

Just about everyones job is full of stress now people are hanging on as best as they can.

I think what you do depends on where you live small town with a house (best IMO) you can set up store with stocked food, medicine any RX's needed self defense items, water, fuel, stove, generater and so on..

Apartment dwellers may be more restricted by space on how well prepared they can be..

There is a long list of episodes in recent times in the US where there was a disaster natural or man made and the citizens were left on there own to sink or swim.. No help at all from the government....

Times are very interesting right now..

[Michael]

At that time I determined
that you can survive on alfalfa sprouts, bee pollen , and water.

Would such a diet interfere with any normal, libidinous ambitions?

[yusuf]

i would also say that keping extra essentials (toothpaste etc) for trade is not a bad idea... although i liek the idea of one of this boards embres, who advocates gettign big sharp blades.. if the shit hits the fan he will just go out with those and get what his family needs ))


it's not me btw ...

[Darth Rock&Roll]

while a world war may be imminent, it will be confined pretty much to the arab regions of the planet and once again, north america will avod having large scale conflict on it's soil.

stock up on:

water and water purification products (remember to not let your water supply stagnate, change it every 1 year to ensure freshness and know that your stock is only good for one year)
irradiated foods (dried)
canned goods +preserves
first aid kit complete
tools
weapons
clothing
a full kit of camping gear.

Most people that are into survival would have most of these items even in good times anyway.

[Chris Fleming]

"remember to not let your water supply stagnate, change it every 1 year to ensure freshness and know that your stock is only good for one year"

Say you buy some jugs of water or large packs of water and the date on the bottles say something like exp 2011, does the 1 year rule still apply?

[Steve James]

Well, fwiw, "survival" means whatever you can carry and live off for X days. "Crisis Preparedness" is totally different. One is what you need if your apartment goes up in flames or flood, and no one is around to give you a hand; the other is about creating a larder of necessities to last through a prolonged emergency. Freezing foods, for ex., is useless unless you have a ready, steady supply of electricity. A root cellar is more practical, but you need a house or know someone with land. If you think it's socialist now, just wait until capitalism falls, nuclear war, or the zombie apocalypse on its head. People really do need people to survive.

Growing food and preserving it are skills, as are baking, brewing, carpentry, plumbing, framing. A family can buy a year's worth of MRE's, and starve to death in year 2.

As for gold, still a joke, in the Yukon and places where gold was money, prices were ridiculous. If you have gold, and you need an egg, you'll need lots of gold if you like lots of omelets. Any basic skill will be far more valuable than any commodity.

As for water, don't worry about how old it is. When you're thirsty, if it's clean, you'll drink it. Worry about it leaking, getting contaminated, or evaporating. But, It makes good sense to use what you have on hand and replace it on a regular basis. Think very hard about where you're going to put your shit, literally and figuratively. Toilet paper is not an issue; washing your hands is the issue. It's kind of funny to imagine carrying enough toilet paper. Then again, I'm neither a family nor a one sheet kind of guy.

[roger hao]

Bee pollen is beneficial to libidinous ambitions
Plus....when you are all healthy and energetic you
might be chosen over the white -pasty looking dudes
in the shelter by survival vixens.

A big problem I have encountered is the authorities.
How the hell do you protect yourself from them?
Katrina is a good example for that.