Germany to tell people to stockpile food and water in case of attacks • Hacker News Board

Re: Germany to tell people to stockpile food and water in case of attacks

#41

Post by jomamaxx » Sun, Aug 21, 2016, 11:42 PM UTC

lispm wrote: post #31

jomamaxx wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those are indeed strong words. Governments in Europe have considerably more power than in the new world. They can do these things - they view statehood as literally the community. Sometimes that has advantages, sometimes not. Even scarier, is the fact that this is even being done. Since there are no external threats and 0 chance of environmental disaster (Germany doesn't get floods and hurricanes etc.) - it speaks to…

> there are no external threats and 0 chance of environmental disaster (Germany doesn't get floods and hurricanes etc.) - it speaks to a terrorist threat. You have no idea what you are talking about. Germany has floods, snow storms, etc. The government has to think about disaster protection and what it means in a modern society, which depends on concepts like 'always on'. Plans are twenty years old and need to be upd…

Yes, every country has such issues, but they are very minor in Germany in comparison to other places, which is what I meant to say. Furthermore - those 'threats' have existed for two thousand year, the motivation for the current mandate has nothing to do with environmental threats and 100% to do with terrorists threats.

There are terrorists attacks monthly in Europe (you don't get the headlines here in the US, and often, the 'attacks' are individuals with knives on trains, or who attack a single family so they don't get attention) - and European governments are really in a difficult situation - they don't know what to do. So this mandate kind of a 'knee jerk reaction' to some extent, possibly even 'political cover' so that they seem as though they are doing something, if you want a cynical take.

Re: Germany to tell people to stockpile food and water in case of attacks

#42

Post by iklos89 » Sun, Aug 21, 2016, 11:45 PM UTC

jomamaxx wrote: post #38

Tobias42 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

0 chance of floods, really? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2002_European_floods And do you have a source for your claim that only 1/4 of recent asylum seekers were refugees?

+ 20% of refugees arriving are Syrian (this is early on in the crises) http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3240010/Number-refug... + Germany has 100K Syrian asylum requests in Sept 2015. This would be 10% of the official number of migrants, and less than that including many who are off the books: http://www.cnn.com/2015/09/09/world/welcome-syrian-refugees-... + Germany can have flooding, but it's in very specific…

1) Stop spreading hate and general insecurity. 2) When talking about "W Europe" cite local sources to preserve correctness of information. 3) Question: Where are you from to have such a strong opinion?

Re: Germany to tell people to stockpile food and water in case of attacks

#43

Post by hga » Sun, Aug 21, 2016, 11:50 PM UTC

toomanybeersies wrote: post #40

hga wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The harder part is water, as just a few days worth of drinking water for one person can take up a huge amount of space. Eh??? A generally "comfortable" minimal budget for water is 1 gallon per day (3.8 liters, call it 4), although you might need more on hot summer days. A 5 gallon container is, with all the plastic and features for stack-ability, going to take up less than a cubic foot (19,000 cc). It's not compact l…

I disagree, you can get by on 2 litres of water per day. You're obviously not going to be having showers and brushing your teeth with it, but that's not the end of the world. Hell, I go through only about 6 litres of water a day while climbing mountains in the summer. Remember that food also contains water when looking at minimum intakes.

That's why I qualified 1 gallon/3.8 liters as a "comfortable" minimum, if you're planning water storage for your dwelling, given the size of containers and your not needing to carry it anywhere, you might as well initially splurge. If the disaster lasts long enough, and you can't get more, you can cut down to ~2 liters/half a gallon some time before you run out.

And I like to brush my teeth....

Re: Germany to tell people to stockpile food and water in case of attacks

#44

Post by toomanybeersies » Sun, Aug 21, 2016, 11:51 PM UTC

jomamaxx wrote: post #38

Tobias42 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

0 chance of floods, really? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2002_European_floods And do you have a source for your claim that only 1/4 of recent asylum seekers were refugees?

+ 20% of refugees arriving are Syrian (this is early on in the crises) http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3240010/Number-refug... + Germany has 100K Syrian asylum requests in Sept 2015. This would be 10% of the official number of migrants, and less than that including many who are off the books: http://www.cnn.com/2015/09/09/world/welcome-syrian-refugees-... + Germany can have flooding, but it's in very specific…

Mate, Dresden is not a remote area, and Hungary is not a tiny nation. I wouldn't classify Croatia and Serbia as tiny either, small maybe.

You do realise that populations are concentrated around rivers right? Therefore rivers tend not to be isolated areas.

Re: Germany to tell people to stockpile food and water in case of attacks

#45

Post by lispm » Sun, Aug 21, 2016, 11:51 PM UTC

jomamaxx wrote: post #41

lispm wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> there are no external threats and 0 chance of environmental disaster (Germany doesn't get floods and hurricanes etc.) - it speaks to a terrorist threat. You have no idea what you are talking about. Germany has floods, snow storms, etc. The government has to think about disaster protection and what it means in a modern society, which depends on concepts like 'always on'. Plans are twenty years old and need to be upd…

Yes, every country has such issues, but they are very minor in Germany in comparison to other places, which is what I meant to say. Furthermore - those 'threats' have existed for two thousand year, the motivation for the current mandate has nothing to do with environmental threats and 100% to do with terrorists threats. There are terrorists attacks monthly in Europe (you don't get the headlines here in the US, and of…

That's all complete bullshit.

The North Sea coast, where I live here in Germany 100km away, has always seen floods and violent storms. Additionally there are floods from heavy rains in the Elbe region. I live in such a region, where such a flood is possible.

Germany has disaster protection plans. It has organizations to provide help, like the THW. Etc. etc. The plan mentioned here has been in preparation for several years now.

The plans have nothing to do with knife attacks in trains. You are clearly clueless about this government paper.

Re: Germany to tell people to stockpile food and water in case of attacks

#46

Post by catdog » Sun, Aug 21, 2016, 11:53 PM UTC

detaro wrote: post #5

How to make a headline from boring stuff...: "oblige" and "required" are pretty strong words for what can't be more than a recommendation. ("Die Bevölkerung wird angehalten , einen individuellen Vorrat [...]" is the German quote, which I'd maybe translate as "the public is asked to ") Also, as far as I can tell from the news reports, the report and it's recommendations are about general disaster preparedness, not ter…

Indeed it's all about improving general preparedness again. Civil protection received very little attention in Germany since the Cold War ended and the big, evil enemy who could attack at any time was gone. The government now presented plans to improve it again. One bullet point among many others (general stockpiling, how to alarm people, emergency power, …) is to reiterate these rather old recommendations for individuals. So nothing special about this.

Re: Germany to tell people to stockpile food and water in case of attacks

#47

Post by maxerickson » Sun, Aug 21, 2016, 11:59 PM UTC

toomanybeersies wrote: post #35

eknkc wrote: post #11

I never thought about it before but now I wonder if I should have a small stock just in case. Nothing serious, maybe 2 weeks worth of stuff to live on. That I can have and forget, not maintain indefinately. Anyone have something like that? Any tips?

Everyone should have at least 3 days of food and water stockpiled. Especially if you live in an area where you might experience a natural or man-made disaster (doesn't Turkey get lots of earthquakes?). You want food that can be eaten unheated, all the better if it's not in cans so you don't need a can opener. Get some biscuits or crackers, some canned meat (corned beef or tuna), and canned or dehydrated vegetables (s…

For people that are healthy, 3 days of food is pretty much only a matter of comfort.

Peanut butter is about 2x as calorie dense as canned meat (and it tastes good and is going to be more nutritious than cheap canned meat).

Re: Germany to tell people to stockpile food and water in case of attacks

#48

Post by toomanybeersies » Mon, Aug 22, 2016, 12:16 AM UTC

maxerickson wrote: post #47

toomanybeersies wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everyone should have at least 3 days of food and water stockpiled. Especially if you live in an area where you might experience a natural or man-made disaster (doesn't Turkey get lots of earthquakes?). You want food that can be eaten unheated, all the better if it's not in cans so you don't need a can opener. Get some biscuits or crackers, some canned meat (corned beef or tuna), and canned or dehydrated vegetables (s…

For people that are healthy, 3 days of food is pretty much only a matter of comfort. Peanut butter is about 2x as calorie dense as canned meat (and it tastes good and is going to be more nutritious than cheap canned meat).

Forgot about peanut butter. It's one of my essentials when going hunting or hiking. Goes surprisingly well with corned beef and bread, like a half-arsed satay.

Canned meat (especially tuna) is a good source of protein, which peanut butter doesn't really provide. There's also a moral effect of eating meat. You could just stockpile a few boxes of muesli bars, which are calorie dense, but you'd get pretty upset with eating them after a day or two.

Even the Army realises this, and attempts to give variation in their MREs and in their First Strike ration packs. You could feed a soldier on a fat/sugar/vitamin/fibre mix, but you'd kill their morale pretty damn quick.

Re: Germany to tell people to stockpile food and water in case of attacks

#49

Post by back_beyond » Mon, Aug 22, 2016, 12:50 AM UTC

mschuster91 wrote: post #33

jomamaxx wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By 'populism' you mean 'people speaking their minds'? And that they should be ignored? By 'populism' do you mean the vast majority of Europeans and clear majority of Germans who are not supportive of the 'open doors' immigration policy? Especially those made by diktat - without popular consultation, without legal consideration, without a vote in parliament - which affects the entirety of Europe? Maybe Germans can hav…

> By 'populism' you mean 'people speaking their minds'? And that they should be ignored? AfD is openly cooperating with organized neo-nazis (e.g. PEGIDA). > By 'populism' do you mean the vast majority of Europeans and clear majority of Germans who are not supportive of the 'open doors' immigration policy? "clear majority of Germans"? Oh no. AfD and friends are a tiny, but vocal and hateful group. Just like Trump. > A…

How are you able to consider Trump hateful?

Re: Germany to tell people to stockpile food and water in case of attacks

#50

Post by maxerickson » Mon, Aug 22, 2016, 12:57 AM UTC

toomanybeersies wrote: post #48

maxerickson wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For people that are healthy, 3 days of food is pretty much only a matter of comfort. Peanut butter is about 2x as calorie dense as canned meat (and it tastes good and is going to be more nutritious than cheap canned meat).

Forgot about peanut butter. It's one of my essentials when going hunting or hiking. Goes surprisingly well with corned beef and bread, like a half-arsed satay. Canned meat (especially tuna) is a good source of protein, which peanut butter doesn't really provide. There's also a moral effect of eating meat. You could just stockpile a few boxes of muesli bars, which are calorie dense, but you'd get pretty upset with eat…

I'd find spam a lot more demoralizing than peanut butter.

I looked in the cupboard. Tuna, which is almost just protein and water, has 17 grams of protein in a 74 gram serving. Chunky peanut butter has 7 grams of protein in a 32 gram serving (http://www.jif.com/products/extra-crunchy-peanut-butter).

The tuna is 70 calories. The peanut butter is 190 calories (it has quite a lot of fat in it).

Searching online, canned ham appears to be ~100 calories for 50-some grams, with 10 grams of protein. Spam compares to the peanut butter, with 180 calories per serving and 7 grams of protein (http://www.spam.com/varieties/spam-classic).

So by mass, the peanut butter does a pretty great job of supplying protein, and it comes with a bunch of calories too. Oil packed tuna would do better with the calories, but I find it off-putting.

edit: Here's a link for tuna:

http://starkist.com/products/chunk-light-tuna-in-water-can

It's a different product than I looked at, but close enough.