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is anyone prepared?

Republic Now! said:
Grocery stores empty surprisingly fast if there is a panic.
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Grabbing supplies at the last minute is also dangerous and a waste of time. If there was ever an emergency I would use that time to get the hell out of where I was at.

I'm on my feet heading to the highest point in the region with my gun and my CB radio before I'm dumping rations into a shopping cart believing I can survive if I stay put. Anyone who stays put in an emergency situation (such as a military coup on the people by the government) will die if they don't leave populated areas.

Hell, If I needed to I could live off the land indefinitely with limited supplies.
 
I keep a few weeks of water and nonperishable food on hand. I have had to use it several times in my career. I also keep a "go bag" that contains our passports, some cash, clothes, toiletries, digital copies of our important documents and family photos, and some other items. When we had to flee our house in Libya with just minutes notice that go bag made things much easier. It may not be necessary once I am settled back in the States, but as long as I am overseas I will have one standing by.
 
Mr.Nick said:
Those people don't know what they're doing. Instead of building "forts" and stockpiling them with modern amenities, food and water they should be learning survival skills.

What exactly will those "doomsday prepers" do when their rations run out, or their fort has been stolen? because eventually either/or will happen.
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What makes you believe all those "doomsday preppers" aren't developing sustaining means and skills?
 
No, I'm not prepared. Woefully unprepared, and I think it's going to bite me in the butt one of these days. I live right on the coast, and hurricane season is here, and all I have are candles in a watertight box. I don't have matches, though. :lol:

We were talking about this last night around my firepit. A few of our friends are gun collectors and they were talking about being prepared, etc. One guy brought up a good point. He said that if he ever gets to a point where there's a storm/blackout/zombie apocalypse and he needs goods, the first place he's going is the pet store. He said, "It's gross to think about, but dog and cat food is full of protein, so it will keep you moderately healthy, and it's full of filler so it will fill you up." Never had thought about it, but if you're hungry, you'll eat just about anything. He said that nobody is going to think about running to the pet store to get supplies - they're all going to run to the grocery store.
 
i'd love to have a stocked storm shelter. maybe when i get my next property, i'll do that; i hate not having a basement when the weather gets severe. the older i get, the more i hate storms.
 
beerftw said:
i know you all have heard of preppers,they prepare for the worst.most of them are simply people who prepare for natural disasters or food and water shortages.

the ones we hear about the most are not even close to the majority,more like an extreme minority,but they always get ateention due to how crazy they are,preparing for zombie attacks,russian invasions,etc.back in the 60's it was common to prepare for a nuclear attack,because the odds back then were extremely high.

but with all the natural disasters goingon lately it begs the question,is anyone prepared???i have a friend who has a bunch of freeze dried food and water,as well as mre's and fuel stashed in his old cellar,just incase of natural disaster.he has enough food for his community and his comunity paid for alot of it,so him and his neighbors have the perfect plan incase of disaster.people like me though havent really planned it out,what if a tornado hits tomorrow,what if it misses my house but disrupts power water and gas,what do i do until they are restored.

my idea is to store alot of bottled water and freeze dried food,and to buy a cheap generator probably around 700-1000 watts,enough to power the bare basics and the fuel to run it.but what is everone elses plan now or maybe in the future?????
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If I had children living at home, I might feel differently; I don't prepare for doomsday. I've got better things to do with my time and resources. (No offense.)
 
Superfly said:
No, I'm not prepared. Woefully unprepared, and I think it's going to bite me in the butt one of these days. I live right on the coast, and hurricane season is here, and all I have are candles in a watertight box. I don't have matches, though. :lol:

We were talking about this last night around my firepit. A few of our friends are gun collectors and they were talking about being prepared, etc. One guy brought up a good point. He said that if he ever gets to a point where there's a storm/blackout/zombie apocalypse and he needs goods, the first place he's going is the pet store. He said, "It's gross to think about, but dog and cat food is full of protein, so it will keep you moderately healthy, and it's full of filler so it will fill you up." Never had thought about it, but if you're hungry, you'll eat just about anything. He said that nobody is going to think about running to the pet store to get supplies - they're all going to run to the grocery store.
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Your pet food eating friend sounds like he's a guy Auburn with a drinking problem. ;) Ain't nobody eating pet food until there is no other way and at that point they are going to be in bad shape.

Pick the food you hate more than anything and think about eating it every meal. You just aren't going to eat as often as you need to and you won't eat that much. I've never eaten pet food and if I can avoid it by planning ahead that's what I am going to do. That is what I have done and will do.

Hell, it was all I could do to eat C-Rations. I'm serious. Depending on what I had sometimes I'd go without. No sense eating cold canned eggs and ham wads if you know you are going to puke it back up. If it hadn't have been for Tabasco Sauce most GIs in 'Nam would have starved to death. We put Tabasco on everything. But even that wouldn't make some things palatable.

IMHO if someone is planning to subsist on pet food they'd be one hell of a lot wiser to plan ahead and have human food stored for hard times.

Learn how to make a rocket stove out of 6 bricks and actually do it and actually cook a few meals on it. Invest in a solar cooker and do the same thing with meals.

Have a garden and learn to can. Buy and store heritage seeds.

Plant fruit trees.

Store herbs and spices and know how to use them.

You can also buy and bulk store grains and a hand crank grain mill.

The point is there is a hell of a lot anyone can do now and avoid having to pet food.

You need stored dog food, but that's for your dogs.
 
MaggieD said:
If I had children living at home, I might feel differently; I don't prepare for doomsday. I've got better things to do with my time and resources. (No offense.)
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Having lived through the aftereffects of a few hurricanes and having been involved in emergency mitigation and response for almost 20 years, I sincerely believe that being prepared to make it fully on your own for 72 hours - as FEMA recommends - is being dangerously shortsighted. Most people are not prepared to make it that long.
 
Risky Thicket said:
Having lived through the aftereffects of a few hurricanes and having been involved in emergency mitigation and response for almost 20 years, I sincerely believe that being prepared to make it fully on your own for 72 hours - as FEMA recommends - is being dangerously shortsighted. Most people are not prepared to make it that long.
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I could make it through 72 hours and more, Risky. Freezer unopened will last frozen 3-4 days, then a week thawed...and then another week cooked. Between bottled water in the pantry and soda in the garage, water'd be no problem. Plenty of food canned and packaged in the pantry. Even in Chicago winters, 3 days w/o heat or electricity isn't the worst thing to live through. And we could last longer than that. I always have a half-tank of gas in my car...and then there's Tom's car and pick-up. We have a charcoal grill and usually have plenty of charcoal on hand -- then there's the gasoline in the lawn mower. We've always got one spare propane tank filled in addition to the one on the gas grill. If all else fails, depending on what day this tragedy occurred, we might have up to a week's remains of recycling to cook with assuming the gas was off. And that's without cannibalizing the house contents. I always have plenty of batteries on hand; at least a half-dozen flashlights; a battery-operated radio...more than a few candles... I've got a few hundred rounds of ammunition...

Nice to sort of think this through. Thanks! ;)
 
I don't have any fruit trees, but I do have a magnolia tree and a dogwood tree. :D I planted them myself and they haven't died yet!

Oh, wait - I do have a lime tree, but it's pretty freaking useless without tequila. Oh and a cocktail tree, but it won't bear fruit until next year.
 
No problem. I'm a rifle marksmanship instructor, wilderness first responder (medic) and leader of the recon squad for our CERN team. We are fully supplied for at least a month. The worst part of a natural disaster is the aftermath caused by the unprepared.
 
For the time being we live in the middle of Tornadoville. Power outages are a constant issue as well as Flash Flooding. In fact we just went through this 2 nights ago. At this point the ground is so saturated with rain trees are just falling over. Big tree's!. High winds just took out two blocks only 3 blocks from me.

We have been prepping for about 3 years now. All three of us have well prepared bug out bags stocked with everything we need for 72 hours. We also keep plenty of Canned food, 1 month's supply of MRE's per person, Several cases of bottled water, and lots of dehydrated foods. We plan to stay at the house for as long as possible as we have rain drums for water and a 24 ft swimming pool. Gas grill, with 2 tanks of gas, Enough fire wood for the fireplace for a long winter. Plus a 6500 watt generator that can run most everything in the house. I have drums of fuel for the race cars that can be used in case of emergency to power most everything I need. Plenty of deer around and a river less than a block away, with plenty of fish. We have a good stock of first aid including antibiotics which are rather easy to come by if you know where to look. Well stocked with Weapons and Ammo as well as being an avid Bowhunter.

If we need to vacate we have three places to go. We own a four wheel drive SUV ( Expedition) as well as a UTV ( Off Road Vehicle). We would end up in the woods at a piece of property that has the same ammenities we would be leaving behind. Only difference would be several like minded people would be meeting there as well.

I hope to never need any of these things in an emergency situation and just keep rotating the stuff out for camping trips.
 
Superfly said:
I don't have any fruit trees, but I do have a magnolia tree and a dogwood tree. :D I planted them myself and they haven't died yet!

Oh, wait - I do have a lime tree, but it's pretty freaking useless without tequila. Oh and a cocktail tree, but it won't bear fruit until next year.
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most unprepared person ever,everyone knows in time of emergency you need to stock tequila for use with your lime tree.
 
beerftw said:
most unprepared person ever,everyone knows in time of emergency you need to stock tequila for use with your lime tree.
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I think she's holding out on us.
 
I wish I was holding out on you. I can't keep tequila in my house. My neighbor loves it, and comes over and drinks it all -- all the time. I have a $100 bottle of Crown Royal XR on my liquor cabinet and she bypasses it for the tequila. Guess I'm going to have to start locking it up.
 
We are well prepared. We have both a bugout contingency and a bunker in place contingency. We also have sustainment capability. We are about as prepared as you can be without being silly about it.
 
Tape cell phone to body. pack food and water in back pack and wear. Flash light and whistle, peroxide and bandages for wounds and emergency radio that is chargeable by hand. Enough to survive being trapped for five days.
 
Probably not as prepared as we should be. We can get some pretty heavy snows in the winter, and bad storms in the summer. We do have some supplies though not really on purpose. We've usually got some miscellaneous canned and dry goods in the pantry, at least enough to get by for a few days.

And we tend to buy pop and water in bulk when it's cheap, so we have a lot of that out in the fridge in our garage. No generator or anything though, no first aid supplies, and not much in the way of flashlights or battery powered radios or anything.
 
Hurricanes are my issue, I think I am good up to a cat 3.
They have a saying "run from the water, shelter from the wind."
A good Hurricane kit, looks a lot like a good blizzard kit.
5 to 10 days food and water, backup generator, air conditioner (heater up north)
A backup way to cook.
I think I am ready, but live at 29 feet. (above mean high tide)
Before Hurricane Ike, they told the people who were staying on the coast, to write their
name and SSN on their arm and leg in permanent marker, to make body identification easier.
Part of that was to get people to actually leave, the other part was the truth.
 
Wow - I'd never heard that about the name and SSN, Longview. *scary*

My city is the lowest in the state of Georgia, at 10 feet above sea level. *shudder*
 
Risky Thicket said:
If most food peppers also have weapons your plans won't get you far.
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I'm not talking about bartering with preppers. Logically, preppers won't need anything from anyone else, and thus are less likely to barter. In a situation where there is a mass breakdown of civil order, self-defense will be at a premium. My assumption is that most people will not be considering long term self-defense scenarios, and thus will desire to better protect themselves. Even if you do have a few guns, you probably didn't plan for enough ammo.
 
Superfly said:
No, I'm not prepared. Woefully unprepared, and I think it's going to bite me in the butt one of these days. I live right on the coast, and hurricane season is here, and all I have are candles in a watertight box. I don't have matches, though. :lol:

We were talking about this last night around my firepit. A few of our friends are gun collectors and they were talking about being prepared, etc. One guy brought up a good point. He said that if he ever gets to a point where there's a storm/blackout/zombie apocalypse and he needs goods, the first place he's going is the pet store. He said, "It's gross to think about, but dog and cat food is full of protein, so it will keep you moderately healthy, and it's full of filler so it will fill you up." Never had thought about it, but if you're hungry, you'll eat just about anything. He said that nobody is going to think about running to the pet store to get supplies - they're all going to run to the grocery store.
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Yeah that's fun for a discussion around a fire pit but a) why not just be prepared with some human food? b) if not a. then why not run to the grocery store first, get what you can, THEN go to the pet store, if hardly anyone else is going to think of it? c) grocery stores usually sell pet food too, if hardly anyone else is going to take the pet food, get as much human food AND pet food at the same time?
 
I'm good with guns, security and natural farming. I'll work for some of the food I grow.
 
Rotating out stock of canned goods is OK I guess, but that means you're eating canned food a lot at home...in non-disaster life that's not very healthy. Also, using a lot of bottled water when it isn't necessary is quite wasteful and VERY expensive. Having a large potable water tank that you keep filled and clean with tap water makes more sense.
 
Mr.Nick said:
Grabbing supplies at the last minute is also dangerous and a waste of time. If there was ever an emergency I would use that time to get the hell out of where I was at.

I'm on my feet heading to the highest point in the region with my gun and my CB radio before I'm dumping rations into a shopping cart believing I can survive if I stay put. Anyone who stays put in an emergency situation (such as a military coup on the people by the government) will die if they don't leave populated areas.

Hell, If I needed to I could live off the land indefinitely with limited supplies.
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High ground? The Appalachians are a long way from Florida and we've plenty of food and water here. I can't see leaving Lake Oke, The Gulf and Atlantic coasts, The Everglades and lake and river spam across the state. For what, to get on the side of a mountain and pray for rain? Nah, there's a reason the Seminoles were never conquered and I'm goin' with their plan. But I don't plan on livin' knee-deep in wetlands until I absolutely must. While you mountain folk are bickerin' over a scrawny pig, we'll be under tikis, roasting fish, playing beach volleyball, drinking coconut wine/spirits and organizing death matches.
 
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