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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

#51

Post by bluGill »

blooalien wrote: post #43
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).

"The Walking Dead" is completely fun. It is fiction, and like most fiction not everybody enjoys it, nothing wrong with that (I haven't seen it myself but I suspect I wouldn't enjoy it). However your lack of enjoyment doesn't change that it is fun for other people and that is why they watch it.

Re: An overview of how our family is prepared

#52

Post by zikduruqe »

senordevnyc wrote: post #20
zikduruqe wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

We've been trained to do this activity twice a year. Why not add a couple of more checkboxes?

    - Check the air pressure of your spare tire in your vehicles
    - Take inventory of your home
    - Test your sump pump
    ..
    ..
I have a small checklist, but those are some examples.

Re: An overview of how our family is prepared

#53

Post by briffle »

dw_arthur wrote: post #42

Is there a plausible scenario where having 2 weeks of water does anything more than having a weeks worth? I feel like after a week you're either getting evacuated, the government is delivering supplies, or large parts of the country are not functioning.

Sat in CERT and emergency coordination meetings in the Pacific Northwest. If the > 9.0 earthquake happens that is predicted, it will take a week to get temporary shelters working. All supplies will get flown to the few large airports east of the cascades (Redmond OR, Tri-Cities WA, Yakima, WA, etc). Because all the small bridges on moutain passes will collapse (creeks, small rivers, etc) all supplies will be helicoptered over the mountains until they can get Army Corps of Engineers teams in to rebuild runways.

They suggested having at LEAST a weeks worth of supplies, and more if you don't want to be waiting in a very impatient line with a bunch of scared, hungry people that may be desperate.

The other data is harder to quantify, but kind of insane. Like how long DHS estimates it will take to rebuild I-5 (minus major bridges) as a passable road, along with some key railroads, and basic power.

Re: An overview of how our family is prepared

#54

Post by bluGill »

jongjong wrote: post #49

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,…

Hunter gatherers live in a small village (the village moves, but it is still a village) and depend on other people in the village for things. There are only a tiny number of people ever who have lived all along for long.

Re: An overview of how our family is prepared

#55

Post by cameldrv »

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.

There are different strategies. One is to have cheap dry food plus some canned food in 5 gallon buckets. If you buy dry food like beans, rice, and pasta, you can get them from Walmart/Costco for about $1 a pound. This type of food will last a number of years, more if you put them in Mylar bags with oxygen absorbers. You need roughly 1 pound of food per person per day, and you can fit about 30 lbs of food in a 5 gallon bucket. For a family of four, you’ll need about 5 buckets for 30 days if you want to put in some canned food and things like spices etc so it’s palatable. A lot of people have some out of the way corner they can put 5 buckets.

Of course you’ll need a way to cook the dry food. The most sustainable way I know of is a small portable solar system and an instant pot. The instant pot is very energy efficient so you don’t need a very big solar system depending on where you live. If you store flour, you can also get a bread maker, which is pretty efficient.

The reason I like this strategy is that it’s cheap, and you don’t have to think about it very often. You can just trash the food after some number of years. You also don’t have to eat food close to its expiration date normally.

The only hiccup is fat. Cooking oil goes rancid, so you probably want to replace that every year or so, but canola/soybean oil is very cheap.

Of course none of this is very healthy, so you’ll want to include some vitamins…

Re: An overview of how our family is prepared

#56

Post by jongjong »

bluGill wrote: post #54
jongjong wrote: post #49

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,…

Hunter gatherers live in a small village (the village moves, but it is still a village) and depend on other people in the village for things. There are only a tiny number of people ever who have lived all along for long.

Survival is not the problem if the land provides abundant resources. The limiting factor is procreation. Hermits don't tend to have children so they 'die out' as a species but they're fine as individuals. In reality there needs to be a balance; enough people to procreate but not so much as to take resources faster than surrounding nature can produce.

Of course, in densely populated parts of the world, society is completely dependent on modern farming because the 'surrounding nature' cannot provide anywhere near enough food for the population without advanced farming. A disruption in the social order or supply chains would mean that people would have to cannibalize to reach an equilibrium with the surrounding nature.

Survival is nowhere near as hard as most people believe, especially in a warm country without seasons. I used to do week-long camping trips to remote islands without any civilization there. There are people who have been living on remote islands by themselves without any issues for years. Australia is actually quite safe. The things which can kill you are pretty easy to avoid. Snakes are scared of you, crocodiles are only near rivers and lakes and only in some states, sharks and jellyfish are only in the sea, dangerous spiders are pretty rare and mostly mind their own business... No bears, no lions, no wolves (except dingoes but they're smaller and more like wild dogs), no nasty bug-borne diseases.

Re: An overview of how our family is prepared

#57

Post by bluGill »

jongjong wrote: post #56
bluGill wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hunter gatherers live in a small village (the village moves, but it is still a village) and depend on other people in the village for things. There are only a tiny number of people ever who have lived all along for long.

Survival is not the problem if the land provides abundant resources. The limiting factor is procreation. Hermits don't tend to have children so they 'die out' as a species but they're fine as individuals. In reality there needs to be a balance; enough people to procreate but not so much as to take resources faster than surrounding nature can produce. Of course, in densely populated parts of the world, society is comp…

I didn't say it couldn't be done. I said that it wasn't commonly done. Procreation is one reason, but even if you have enough kids you generally want to talk to other people regularly.

In many cases I know of somebody did live alone for a few decades, but when they got old they eventually gave it up.

Re: An overview of how our family is prepared

#58

Post by SoftTalker »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #46
throw93947309 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Depending on the circumstances you may need more than that. A shotgun and an assortment of shot/slugs might be good to include in your planning.

Re: An overview of how our family is prepared

#59

Post by nemomarx »

matltc wrote: post #25

So like a month of food and water? If the big electrical grid pop happens https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/18/magazine/national-blackou... >, we're looking at years, which no storage solution can accommodate. So while this is sensible for most outages, doesn't do much for this event, which becomes quite possible if (1) China moves on Taiwan and (2) USA intervenes on behalf of Taiwan. I would expect that China would ac…

Does the US still have enough material to intervene over Taiwan anyway?

But in any case a month makes it more likely you can try and find another source. Better to have some runway than none?

Re: An overview of how our family is prepared

#60

Post by balfirevic »

zikduruqe wrote: post #52
senordevnyc wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really like the daylight savings thing.

We've been trained to do this activity twice a year. Why not add a couple of more checkboxes? - Check the air pressure of your spare tire in your vehicles - Take inventory of your home - Test your sump pump .. .. I have a small checklist, but those are some examples.

LOL, I often don't even bother to adjust my clocks for daylight savings time.
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