Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

An overview of how our family is prepared

michaelharley.net

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 76 posts

Re: An overview of how our family is prepared

#11

Post by comrade1234 »

I'm in Switzerland and hadn't ever experienced a power outage in the 13 years I had been here but when Russia invaded Ukraine there was talk of intermittent rolling blackouts. They never happened but just in case I bought an ups for my home Ubuntu server and to my great surprise we had a blackout! There was a problem with a high-voltage power line coming from the mountains to my part of Zurich.

I happened to be in the cellar where I keep my server when it happened. The lights went out and I was in complete darkness other than the lights on the server and drives. I got my phone flashlight working and looked at the screen on the ups. It was working perfectly - the server was running and the amount of minutes remaining was dropping until there was five minutes left and my server initiated shutdown. Later that day when the power came back on the server booted back up.

So I'm a prepper too.

Re: An overview of how our family is prepared

#13

Post by throw0101d »

September is (US) National Preparedness Month:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Preparedness_Month

General guidelines to have a decent pantry, someway to cook things, some spare water, a way to heat your home if you're in a place that has winter, a source of emergency lighting:

* https://www.ready.gov

* https://getprepared.ca

Zombie apocalypses are a fun meme, but a broken city water main or an ice storm can be quite disruptive.

Re: An overview of how our family is prepared

#14

Post by bluGill »

throwitaway222 wrote: post #8

I used to be a prepper, but have decided that moving remote is the only thing I'm willing to do anymore. If the world's population really does drop 99% from something, the person that kills me will be me. Totally hoping something like that doesn't happen.

If the world's population drops 99% odds are you are in the 99% not here anymore.

Re: An overview of how our family is prepared

#16

Post by [deleted] »

infecto wrote: post #10

This is a sensible type of prepping. Prep for the things you will most likely face and some outliers within your geography. I myself could never understand the years worth of food types of folks. If things breakdown that much I don’t know much that food is going to matter.

[deleted]

Re: An overview of how our family is prepared

#17

Post by throw0101d »

qrush wrote: post #3

I barely am able to plan groceries for a few days to a week ahead, especially with two middle schoolers eating everything in sight. While I would agree with the sentiment (definitely something will disrupt heat/water/food access), I struggle with actually executing on doing anything other than having some real basics around. 30 days of spare food feels like such an enormous amount of space and material.

> 30 days of spare food feels like such an enormous amount of space and material.

Freeze dried stuff can be sit on a cool, dark shelf for a decade or two; a popular company:

* https://mountainhouse.com/

Also need to have a source of water and a way to boil it.

Re: An overview of how our family is prepared

#18

Post by CodingJeebus »

A major hurricane hit my community in the US not too long ago, hundreds dead, a tremendous amount of the community destroyed. We had no water, power, or telecommunications for several days, no way to reach the outside world until the nearby cell towers came back online unless you had Starlink.

In those early days post storm, I had neighbors regularly knocking on my door to make sure I was OK and I had enough food and water to get through the day. Since we had no internet, everyone was outside talking to each other, walking around and checking in. And we had huge cookouts at the houses with gas stoves so we could cook the perishable stuff before it went bad. Curfew was strict and law enforcement was everywhere, armed National Guard protected the grocery stores from looting.

It was a traumatic experience in some ways. I knew people that lost everything, had friends pulling bodies out of the river, sharing stories I never thought I'd hear in my life. But the community came together, and never once did I think "man I really wish I got into prepper culture".

I personally think it's insane to believe that someone could survive a major event like that completely independent of the community. Humanity got to where it is today because of community, not in spite of it. And prepper culture ignores all of that through it's "can't depend on anyone" ethos. I personally find it really sad.

Re: An overview of how our family is prepared

#19

Post by senordevnyc »

qrush wrote: post #3

I barely am able to plan groceries for a few days to a week ahead, especially with two middle schoolers eating everything in sight. While I would agree with the sentiment (definitely something will disrupt heat/water/food access), I struggle with actually executing on doing anything other than having some real basics around. 30 days of spare food feels like such an enormous amount of space and material.

I feel similarly, but I did get some stuff in Feb 2020 when I could tell that COVID was going to be a huge deal. Camp stove, water storage containers, bulk bags of dry beans and rice, and several buckets of freeze dried food that have a shelf life of decades and could keep my family alive for at least a couple months. It's not really enough tbh, but it's something.

Re: An overview of how our family is prepared

#20

Post by senordevnyc »

zikduruqe wrote: post #4
scrumper wrote: post #2

How do you keep the drinking water actually drinkable over any time period? Anything stored gets nasty.

Every daylight savings time, I rotate my stored water. I empty out my containers, refilling them with, then add 7 drops of bleach per gallon. * Edit * I've been asked before what the best survival book is. Honestly, it is One Second After by William R. Forstchen. It's probably the best description scenario that could occur. It is not those regurgitated line drawings that everyone copies from Euell Gibbons, or rehashe…

I really like the daylight savings thing.
Post reply on HN