anyone have good book recommendations? specifically looking for wilderness survival, first aid, and edible plants (pacific northwest)
I carry the SAS pocket guide: https://goo.gl/hnDJm7
Doomsday planning for less crazy folk
151–160 of 340 posts
Re: Doomsday planning for less crazy folk
#152Earlier quoted context omitted.
> People's aversion to moving, especially after a major disaster, boggles my mind. Social connections, networks that enable employment, and a lack of serious financial reserves (which will always be true for ~50% of people) are the main reasons. And no area is immune to disaster and lacks challenges. The "low natural disaster" areas have a total lack of warning before disaster strikes, heavy snowfall that can cripple…
Central/eastern Europe is pretty good as far as disasters go. The most likely thing to happen is flooding from the local river and majority of them have designated flood areas. After that it's just heat waves and occasional freezing days. (Mostly affects elderly) No wildlife to worry about. Snow is common enough that a lot of people know to switch to winter tyres and roads are salted and cleared.
Some storms too that break trees and take down shingles. I think the most common death by nature might be getting hit by a tree during or after a storm.
Re: Doomsday planning for less crazy folk
#153I've been in a number of major natural disasters at this point. Fukushima, Ike, Colorado's 2013 floods. I've also been in two shooting incidents (where fortunately only the shooter was hurt). My point is, I've been lucky so far because none of these posed a major problem for me. I made it out with manageable inconvenience. However, I can only get lucky like that so many times. So now I keep the following at home: * 5…
And I have a Glock 17 and a years' worth of ammo, so I don't need to stockpile the other stuff, you are doing it for me. (edit: hopefully it is obvious this is a play on words, speaking in the voice of a hypothetical desperate citizen. obviously I do not own a gun for the purposes of threatening others, only for self-protection) Sounds trollish but my point is that Californians in particular eventually need to square…
>>Glock 17 and a years' worth of ammo, so I don't need to stockpile the other stuff, you are doing it for me
Great, you have a sidearm that presumably fires 9mm ammunition that you are qualified to shoot downrange. I stock pile not only food, water, and medical supplies, but carry a 9mm of my own and have far more useful home defense weaponry in the form of a Mossberg 500 Flex (as well as various rifles that I don't expect to be all that handy if things really do go down). I also own ballistic vests.
If you wanted to be edgy about looting people, you could have picked something besides a sidearm.
Re: Doomsday planning for less crazy folk
#154The major thing overlooked here is mindset. After 14 years in the military and experience with several armed conflicts and humanitarian disasters, I have seen that pretty much all your plans and preparation will go out the window, so you need to learn to move adapt and improvise. If you're going to survive any contingency scenario you need to be resilient, excruciatingly innovative and mentally tough. Think more like…
For more on the mindset of survival, I highly, highly recommend the book "Deep Survival: Who Lives, Who Dies, and Why" [1]
The author explores a bunch of real-life disaster/survival stories and gets into the mindset qualities displayed by the individuals who survive vs. those that don't.
Towards the end he lists the 10 major mental attitudes that will greatly contribute to a successful outcome.
It is one of my all-time favorite books, I have read it 10+ times.
Re: Doomsday planning for less crazy folk
#155Earlier quoted context omitted.
> People's aversion to moving, especially after a major disaster, boggles my mind. Social connections, networks that enable employment, and a lack of serious financial reserves (which will always be true for ~50% of people) are the main reasons. And no area is immune to disaster and lacks challenges. The "low natural disaster" areas have a total lack of warning before disaster strikes, heavy snowfall that can cripple…
Central/eastern Europe is pretty good as far as disasters go. The most likely thing to happen is flooding from the local river and majority of them have designated flood areas. After that it's just heat waves and occasional freezing days. (Mostly affects elderly) No wildlife to worry about. Snow is common enough that a lot of people know to switch to winter tyres and roads are salted and cleared.
To be honest, the legal environment in Central/Eastern Europe in regards to speech would be a greater threat to me than the environment.
Re: Doomsday planning for less crazy folk
#156Earlier quoted context omitted.
The great part about preparedness planning is there is a kind of vaccination herd immunity effect at play. The more people who take minimal measures like you list, the less intensive efforts preparedness-minded have to invest into. To your example, if 90%+ drivers keep a flat of bottled water, then it makes sense to only keep a water filter at one's home instead of one in the car for long trips and one at home. Howev…
That's one of the ideas of Community Emergency Response Teams (CERT / NERT). During the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, citizens banded together and helped each other other because emergency services were overwhelmed. Afterwards, they reached out to the fire department to ask for formal training and thus NERT (Neighborhood Emergency Response Team) was born. When the next big earthquake hits California, we still won't be…
(CERT is also short for Chaos Emergency Response Team which covers CCC congresses.)
Re: Doomsday planning for less crazy folk
#157Earlier quoted context omitted.
In many European countries, you won't get a driver's licence unless you pass a first aid test. And I think in some places it may also be required to have certain emergency equipment in your car.
A standardized first aid kit is definitely required in Germany (and many other European countries).
The laws protecting the helper definitely help as well. As long as I'm not tremendously reckless or meanspirited I cannot be blamed (sued) for any damage I do in the course of providing first response aid. In fact I can be sued for not trying (calling for help is sufficient).
Re: Doomsday planning for less crazy folk
#158Earlier quoted context omitted.
It might be crossing into the prepper territory too much but I'm really happy to have a 2 meter radio in my car/handheld tranceiver in my bag. The cell network went down south of us during the eclipse but repeaters were still running just fine. Even if you don't have a license you're allowed to transmit in emergency situations.
It might be crossing into the prepper territory too much Bah, a 2m radio is useful for more than EOW scenarios. I used mine just this past week during the eclipse thingy. No cell connection where we were at, but I could hear the local repeater and could make simplex contacts. Found out that Madras, OR was just as much of a goat rodeo as predicted, and just general chat. Had we had an emergency, I would have used the…
Solid advice. As a recently licensed ham, I could tell you without a doubt that if I pulled my radio out of the box and tried to figure out what the hell to do with it in the midst of an emergency, the only thing I would accomplish is wasting LOTS of valuable time.
It took me weeks to get my radio set up exactly how I like it, but now I can tune into emergency services, GMRS/FRS, Marine VHF, and hundreds of ham repeaters throughout the NYC metro area.
My two key takeaways so far are A: you will not be able to look up what frequencies are used by which services if you don't plan ahead of time. RadioReference and RepeaterBook are useless if you can't get online. Your radio will be useless if you don't take the time to program it for your needs ahead of time. B: If you expect to lean on your radio for communication, there is simply no way to assess it's capabilities unless you put it to use, and for this you really ought to get a license. The technician class license only requires a passing score on a 35 question test. It should be well within reach for many of the technically minded folks who read this forum.
As far as general emergency preparedness goes for myself, what I like to do is take on hobbies with an emergency/survival aspect to them. I go hiking and camping and have the bare necessities to survive in the wilderness for a while. I do ham radio so I can figure out what the hell is going on if the cell network or internet becomes inaccessible, and I play Airsoft with my buddies every once in a while, which affords me some gear and a skill I'll hopefully never need to use off the field. I do all these things because they are interesting to me. The survival/preparedness aspect is just an additional benefit / excuse.
Re: Doomsday planning for less crazy folk
#159Earlier quoted context omitted.
There certainly is a middle ground - however why stay in the same place and expect a different future? New Orleans isn't that much more prepared for another flood. Houston re-did the entire bayou system about 5 years ago and yet here we are. People's aversion to moving, especially after a major disaster, boggles my mind.
> People's aversion to moving, especially after a major disaster, boggles my mind. There was a period where the banking regulator for New Zealand was going to force all the major banks to move their IT shops from Wellington to Christchurch because Wellington was at too high a risk of a natural disaster. A couple of years later, an earthquake on a hitherto-unknown fault flattened Christchurch.
That's why I walk on the middle of the road - people have been killed on the sidewalks!
Re: Doomsday planning for less crazy folk
#160Been looking into getting a pocket knife/ multitool, any good options?
A good European option for a foldable knife is Opinel. They are really sharp and come at a price where they are almost disposable. I carry one most of the time. (Another plus is that they do not fall under weapon regulation. Make sure you know your regional rules concerning knives.)