Disaster planning for regular folks (2015)

Post by Nextgrid » Fri, Feb 25, 2022, 5:27 PM UTC

germinalphrase wrote: post #87

peckrob wrote: post #21

The thing is, you don't have to be a Doomsday Prepper to just be prepared. It's about mitigating the risk of the disasters you are likely to face in your locality. I lived through the 2011 Super Outbreak [0]. Following the tornadoes, we had no actual damage (and most places didn't, tornadoes are pretty localized disasters, even in big outbreaks), but we had no power for about eight days because the tornadoes tore up…

re: communications - in the events that cellphone and internet infrastructure fails, what are the viable alternatives? Are landlines intrinsically more robust (or they share the internet fiber)? Shortwave seems obvious, but there’s an obvious education/investment/network barrier (no one I would want to communicate with is a HAM).

Post by skybrian » Fri, Feb 25, 2022, 5:40 PM UTC

horsawlarway wrote: post #82

d23 wrote: post #56

> Putting somewhere around 30-40% of your emergency stash into the stock market may be a good call. > The fundamental rule is to not be greedy: within the scope of this guide, your goal should be to preserve capital, not to take wild risks. It's best to pick about 10-20 boring companies that seem to be valued fairly, that are free of crippling debt, and that have robust prospects for the coming years. > It is worth n…

I also disagree with his take here, but I think there is some merit to the advice of "understand what you've invested in". It's fairly hard to personally evaluate companies in a fund - it is somewhat easier to evaluate a single company (or even 10 single companies). If I assume he means "~40% of non-retirement emergency funds" I can let this skate by. --- I also think there's some risk to index funds precisely becaus…

Post by throwaway4aday » Fri, Feb 25, 2022, 6:13 PM UTC

ramesh31 wrote: post #53

snowwrestler wrote: post #5

The book Eternity by Greg Bear had an interesting take on this. In that book (spoiler) there is an exchange of nuclear weapons between the U.S. and Russia, which devastates the surface of the Earth. But many people survive, and a society quickly develops post-war. But it is dominated not by those who were most individually prepared, but by those who contributed the most to their neighbors and communities. There is so…

>But many people survive, and a society quickly develops post-war. But it is dominated not by those who were most individually prepared, but by those who contributed the most to their neighbors and communities. This is exactly what all the "prepper" survival types don't seem to understand. In a nuclear apocalypse, your supply stores will be nothing but a resource cache for roaming bands of killers. And your supply of…

Post by hef19898 » Fri, Feb 25, 2022, 7:13 PM UTC

faeyanpiraat wrote: post #90

ghaff wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you have forced hot water heating, it's more difficult.

Isn't there a way to have some antifreeze additives in pipes where a pipe freeze is actually a realistic scenario?

Post by TrispusAttucks » Fri, Feb 25, 2022, 7:21 PM UTC

snowwrestler wrote: post #5

The book Eternity by Greg Bear had an interesting take on this. In that book (spoiler) there is an exchange of nuclear weapons between the U.S. and Russia, which devastates the surface of the Earth. But many people survive, and a society quickly develops post-war. But it is dominated not by those who were most individually prepared, but by those who contributed the most to their neighbors and communities. There is so…