Posted on 06/23/2012 7:47:45 AM PDT by Kartographer
I live near Seattle. If the SHTF I have an entire city as a garbage dump ;-)
“My wife has pain killers beta-blockers, and tranquilizers that she uses in less than prescribed doses. Takes up very little space, light weight, and I’ll bet it’s literally more valuable than gold in SHTF.”
I’m very okay in that department and I think you are right. I was an EMT so have medical supplies. These will come in handy after a crisis if there are sick or wounded friends or others.
“CELOX” stops bleeding from large wounds. Steri-strips will close a wound that, under normal circumstances, would need stitches.
Also, some drug stores, like Walgreens, has automatic refill so your prescriptions are refilled as soon as they can be. This helps to have extras all the time.
Shoot, shovel, and shutup.
Go at least 6 feet down and a couple hundred feet from your water source. Don’t use em for fertilizer.
You could feed the crabs, wild hogs or gators if you’re in Florida. That would save ya the shovel part.
The value of water depends on where you are. Here in Florida its value will be minimal. Clean water will be worth a little more.
Bug repellent and bug screens will be priceless.
Might I also suggest that it needs to be properly situated away from your water supply.
This is a point brought out in "Cottage Water Systems" by Max Burns. This guy is a little off-the-wall in some regards, but his advice about properly situating the components of the system made me realize that I needed to rethink my system out at the farm.
Or a Fried Green Tomatoes' Sipsey who swears the secret's in the sauce.
I’m in FLA too, ‘Diver. Water will ALWAYS be a critical item. Like the old adage says, “3 weeks without food, 3 days without water”.
Altho’ I won’t ever dispute you on the value of DEET...
Keeping you outhouse far from your well is something which should not even have to be said, but I recall reading that American soldiers in the revolution became healthier when a German general showed them you need to put the latrine on the opposite side of camp from the kitchen.
They are all good but For just reading for pleasure, Castigo Cay is the best one imo.
I bought some of this years ago for this very reason. I stuck it up in a metal cabinet and left it there. Years later, I open the cabinet, and the corner where the Calcium Hypochlorite has been sitting is now rusted. Almost to the point of rusting through, even though the opposite end of the shelf is just fine. I'm reasonably sure it is a reaction between the shelf in the cabinet and the Calcium Hypochlorite.
Other than "stick it on a plastic shelf", does anyone have a suggestion for storing this stuff? If I put it inside a Zip-lock bag (or maybe several layers of Zip-locks), will that keep this from happening again?
Or, could it be that I'm blaming the wrong thing for forming the rust on the shelf?
All the typical things I read about in “preppers” recommendations seem to leave out one of the most important things in an apocolypse situation:
- You will not be able to stand alone as a survivor.
All the food, water, gasoline, weapons in the world won’t make a difference if you and your family are by yourselves - especially in the city. The city will be a war zone. Gangs looking for food, water, guns/ammo will go door to door and take it. A typical house is indefensible from a large group. You will not be able to stop them because of their overwhelming numbers even if you are well-armed. They are going to get it if you can’t get out of town asap. I don’t see sub-urban areas or even rural areas surviving long either if you are alone.
What scares me the most is how to get OUT of the city and then WHERE do you go?
I was thinking that a possible short term “safe” staging areas for families and trusted groups to meet/organize and coordinate plans, might be school buildings (newer enclosed ones). Where I live many school buildings are enclosed buidings - that is, they have fewer entrance points and fewer windows that could be more easily defended (at least for on a short term) with a well-armed group/groups. If you have someone in your family or you have a trusted friend who is a school teacher, they should have a key to enter the building (at least during the school year). Of course breaking into the building is an option as well.
Finding this short-term, relatively safe staging area to meet and then plan the group’s or groups next move will be critical, I think, to getting safely out of a city. But, then where to go after that I don’t know. Probably also depends on the time of year (winter, summer). And, remember that whatever location you come up with - the bad people and gangs will probably also arrive at the same conclusion. So, whatever plans are made will have to be made quickly and executed quickly to get there first.
The only hope I see for good people to safely get to the staging area quickly is to have portable survival food/water/weapons/ammo/sanitation,etc. that you can take on a moments notice - a moment is all the time you will have to get to the staging area, then out of a city. A well-armed group that has combined resources is the only way I can see for safely surviving/defending and traveling to an ultimate “safe-zone” during a major-catastrophe.
I think churches should plan for what to do and where to go in the event of such a thing. Veterans groups and other patriotic groups should have a plan as well. Remaking a livable society that can defend itself is going to be an absolute necessity if we want some kind of future for our kids and grandkids.
Who to trust and cooperation with other trustworthy groups of people will be ncessary for survival.
Just my two cents.
I’ve noticed that a lot of people think they’ll be able to go out in the woods and shoot what they need to eat. Not so. In a global shtf, game will be gone in less than a year. Only the extreme best hunters will be able to find anything, and that will be little critters.
As far back as 1600, game was scarce anywhere in the Northeast within a hundred miles of the coast. Indians killed everything with a pelt to trade it to European “fishing” vessels. One of the reasons there were not many indians back then was the scarcity of game from over hunting.
There is just not much game, even in a healthy environment.
Flies. They are a killer.
I read an account of a British woman who had been a prisoner of war in the Philippines during WWII.
One of the riskiest times she saw was the final week waiting to be rescued by the invading Allied troops. She and a group of others had been taken to an abandoned building in Manila and left there on their own.
While Manila was under attack by the Allies, it wasn't safe to leave the building. They used an open pit toilet inside the building and within the week were beset by illnesses due to flies visiting the toilet first and their food second. If you can't do something about the flies, there will be suffering.
Some of the latrines I used in the military consisted of half of a 55 gallon drum with diesel fuel in it. The barrels were removed daily and burned. You can't have an effective army without controlling the spread of disease.
If you have to have an outhouse, you want it as far away from living quarters and food preparation as possible.
I’m in my 30’s. :)
Yeah, it shouldn't, but I was thinking "get it away from the house" without regard to where the ... uh ... leftovers would travel over time. It was accidentally situated in such a way that any runoff or overflow or seepage would travel away from the well, but it was something I had never thought about.
In my situation, when the well was drilled (about 50 years ago), they should have placed it somewhere else on the property. As it is, it is down slope from all of the buildings.
“Go at least 6 feet down and a couple hundred feet from your water source.”
If you overcome 3-5 attackers who weigh 150-220 pounds, and you don’t leave any survivors to lead others back to you, your way means an awful lot of work when you’re already resource constrained and have other things to do.
I suppose you could make preparations with a backhoe before the SHTF, but there would be problems there to.
DANMED ONE PERCENTER! ;-)
One problem with that scenario.....if the SHTF, beyond the early days, most of the trucking industry will stop, which means much needed supplies like fuel don't get delivered. Unless, this military faction has deep supply lines and the ability to defend them.
The problem with this is that the US is a rather large area and it would be difficult to conduct operations very far away from things like refineries. Eventually, your tanks, APCs, and IFVs would become little more than stationary cannons.
Sure, you could do things like wars past, and walk/pack mule everywhere you go and hump your mortar systems, machine guns, and rocket launchers. Unfortunately for them, any formidable force would probably be spotted in small rural communities. I would also imagine that large numbers of the military/NG would desert in order to be with their families (after looting the armories and ASPs of course).
You currently have a large force of service members/veterans that have experience conducting COIN. This means that you have large numbers of people that understand the basic concepts behind things like IEDs, as well as, more advanced concepts like improvised rocket launchers, pressure plate initiators, and explosively formed penetrators. A whole lot of havoc could be wreaked by a relatively few individuals.
Sure, I would agree that large military supply depots and things like the strategic oil reserve could keep a large military force going for awhile. But if you start talking about a large breakdown in overall law and order, it won't be long until some of those same militants loot the larger force's supplies for personal gain, or just sabotage it; these guys do have families that don't live near the base. It doesn't take a lot of imagination to figure out this force can be used to violently destroy the area you grew up.
If law and order wasn't established within the first few months to a year, I could foresee insurgent forces long before large military factions.....at least until someone manages to co-op several smaller forces and provide some semblance of law and order. Especially since there are so many competing interests. I'm picturing something along the lines of Somali warlords, and tribal/insurgent forces similar to Iraq and Afghanistan.
One of the reasons America is as large as it is, is because of the ties that bound us. There is a reason, the US doesn't encompass all of Canada and South America. After the shooting starts, how much similarity is there between say Dallas, TX and Manhattan, NY? How difficult will it be, during civil war, to raise a force that aligns California with Kentucky? Againg, you are looking at various warlords, vice large standing armies squaring off like in WWII.
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