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An overview of how our family is prepared

michaelharley.net

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Re: An overview of how our family is prepared

#41

Post by triceratops »

throw93947309 wrote: post #30
bluGill wrote: post #23

The most important preparation: be friendly enough with your neighbors that you look out for each other. You can hate each other in general: so long as you won't allow looters in the neighborhood, and you can force yourself to get along enough to share/divide labor (in whatever way it turns out you need). In the worst disasters preppers prepare for - odds are they die, so make sure your neighbors know what plans you…

So my neighbours hate me, but somehow major disaster changes that? > won't allow looters in the neighborhood My neighbours will be the first one to "equally share" everything I have with random junkies. > if you die ... your preparation can save someone else's life. Yeah, my neighbours make sure I die, and my stash will save their life.

> So my neighbours hate me, but somehow major disaster changes that?

Yes. Shared adversity tends to unite, not divide.

> My neighbours will be the first one to "equally share" everything I have with random junkies.

I guarantee you they won't, just out of self-preservation. They'd rather have you than "random junkies" or a trashed house next door.

Re: An overview of how our family is prepared

#43

Post by blooalien »

throw0101d wrote: post #13

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…

> Zombie apocalypses are a fun meme ...

A) Not really that much fun (as evidenced by how shitty life gets for pretty much everyone in "The Walking Dead"). ;)

B) In my mind "The Zombie Apocalypse" has always just been an amusing way to generically refer to whatever future real "apocalypse" might happen to occur (eg; broken water main, ice storm, etc).

Re: An overview of how our family is prepared

#44

Post by bluGill »

senordevnyc wrote: post #19
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.

Did you get toilet paper? As I recall that was the main thing everybody was short of. (I'm lucky, we made our regular costco run about that time and got our regular 3 months supply of toilet paper and so didn't need more until supplies returned).

The grocery stores all had plenty of fresh food (some things ran short, but there was always plenty) I'm reasonably sure you never needed the camp stove, or any of the other supplies. They might have been nice to have anyway, but never needed.

Re: An overview of how our family is prepared

#45

Post by sgt101 »

CodingJeebus wrote: post #18

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…

Absolutely reliably the best way to increase your chance of survival in a situation like this is to have good relations with your neighbours in a good community with high trust.

A large number of people working together will be much more likely to find solutions than a few isolated individuals. The isolated individuals may have disproportionately large survival resources, but probably not for long. If you are in the caring-is-sharing group you will have a much better chance than being in the me-me-bang-oh-shit group.

But there are a lot of people who fear community solidarity because it might lead to people asking questions about private jets and beach condos.

Re: An overview of how our family is prepared

#46

Post by bryanlarsen »

throw93947309 wrote: post #30
bluGill wrote: post #23

The most important preparation: be friendly enough with your neighbors that you look out for each other. You can hate each other in general: so long as you won't allow looters in the neighborhood, and you can force yourself to get along enough to share/divide labor (in whatever way it turns out you need). In the worst disasters preppers prepare for - odds are they die, so make sure your neighbors know what plans you…

So my neighbours hate me, but somehow major disaster changes that? > won't allow looters in the neighborhood My neighbours will be the first one to "equally share" everything I have with random junkies. > if you die ... your preparation can save someone else's life. Yeah, my neighbours make sure I die, and my stash will save their life.

For the most part, looters are thieves of opportunity. They'll take the stuff that's easy to take and won't risk a confrontation.

It's like the parable of outrunning the bear: you don't have to be completely looter proof, you just have to be a harder target than the next block over. Most of the time that just means having a couple people per block patrolling with a camera to scare them off.

Re: An overview of how our family is prepared

#47

Post by micromacrofoot »

quickthrowman wrote: post #32
micromacrofoot wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many houses have hot water heaters, which IMO is plenty for most people and the water naturally gets replaced through normal use.

Hot water heaters don’t heat water enough to kill bacteria and also they’re absolutely disgusting inside unless you’re one of the rare 0.1% of people who drain it annually and replace the sacrificial anode when it needs replacing. Don’t drink from the hot water tap.

Cold water from the tap also doesn't kill bacteria, so the same common sense follows... boil it if you're unfamiliar with the source.

Don't drink it hot if you think you may have lead pipes.

It's not really disgusting inside, mostly just filled with sediment... which is coming from your water source anyway. Same story, filter and boil as needed.

Either way, much easier than maintaining potable water for the rest of your life for an event that might not ever happen. We haven't had such an event in my area for 100 years. In a pinch with a little boiling you've probably got something in the area of 40-50 gallons available this way.

Re: An overview of how our family is prepared

#48

Post by tomatocracy »

pjc50 wrote: post #34
nemomarx wrote: post #21

> We have a strong preference for sheltering in place, so we do not have a go bag or anything like that. We'd shelter in place because that's where all our preps are! I don't totally understand this because quite a lot of disasters or threats will mean you can't shelter in place? Even if it's not your main thing to plan for how can a threat model just rule out wildfires, massive flooding, a hurricane or so on.

Prepping should be local. Here in Scotland the things I would prioritize are snowstorms (once had food delivery to supermarkets delayed for several days) and high winds (friend was without power for six days). Here we don't get true hurricanes or tornadoes, and the high winds events have been shelter in place events. Some places in the UK might have to start worrying more about wildfires. Flooding is definitely on th…

Worth being aware that one of the potential problems with flooding (at least in the UK) is that it often leads to waste pipes or sewers becoming blocked and/or sewage mixing with flood water. This can still make replacing the building the most economic recovery option even if it's structurally fine.

Re: An overview of how our family is prepared

#49

Post by jongjong »

Part of my motivation for moving back to Australia was because the low population density means I could potentially survive on a hunter-gatherer lifestyle.

In the event of an apocalypse, I would probably move back with my parents as they live near a beach in Queensland which is a really good fishing spot. My parents catch big fish from the beach every week. They never buy fish. The area has lots of mango trees. Also, there are kangaroos in the area so there is no shortage of options.

I remember I was surprised when I moved to The Netherlands for a while and one of my colleagues said something along the lines of "As humans, we can't survive without each other." I was thinking to myself WTF? Of course you can. But in retrospect I think maybe Europe isn't quite in the same situation. Low-density nations with good weather like Australia and New Zealand are actually quite unique in that way.

Re: An overview of how our family is prepared

#50

Post by bluGill »

throw93947309 wrote: post #30
bluGill wrote: post #23

The most important preparation: be friendly enough with your neighbors that you look out for each other. You can hate each other in general: so long as you won't allow looters in the neighborhood, and you can force yourself to get along enough to share/divide labor (in whatever way it turns out you need). In the worst disasters preppers prepare for - odds are they die, so make sure your neighbors know what plans you…

So my neighbours hate me, but somehow major disaster changes that? > won't allow looters in the neighborhood My neighbours will be the first one to "equally share" everything I have with random junkies. > if you die ... your preparation can save someone else's life. Yeah, my neighbours make sure I die, and my stash will save their life.

If your neighbors really hate you, then move.

The most common case of everybody hates me that nobody hates anybody, they just made an incorrect assumption "because of a frown", so get over it and try again. The second one I see is the person who everybody hates is at fault for being a bad person, so if this is the case fix yourself. Discrimination - where they hate you for your group - exists some places in the world, but for the most part it isn't discrimination it is one of the two above incorrectly identified.

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