The Prepper Thread

Just depends on how bad the disaster is I suppose. 30 days pretty much has you covered though, Katrina and Sendai got most of their shit under control by then. It doesn't mean it was a bed of roses by then, but most people weren't still isolated.

I think I found a must-have to add to my bugout kit. Amazon.com sells, for $80, a briefcase-portable turntable system. Available in disco puke green. I could pack this with a set of Beegies and Sonny and Cher albums to entertain people with at shanty towns after a disaster!

Or, you know, get lynched for being so trollishly tacky.

Here is what I have concluded from my (admitedly somewhat shallow) research that one should stockpile:

Diesel (and a home generator) along with water, for next years solar storms.

Bleach (and medical protection gear) for a pandemic

Food, water (and iodine pills) for a nuclear war

Ammunition (and a gun) for a zombie apocalypse :)

To that, I would add a basic survival kit. I think there should be a minimum "disaster prep" set of items: compass, maps of your immediate area, water purification tablets, at least two decent knives, a Leatherman, walking boots, matches, etc.

Seems to me that a well-stocked First Aid kit would probably not be a bad investment, either. And I don't mean the cheapy $10 ones you find at Walmart or whatnot, but something a professional medical type (EMT, doctor, etc) wouldn't be embarrassed to be seen having.

Just make sure you learn how to use the stuff in there. Doesn't do you any good if you don't know how to apply an Israeli Bandage when someone is spraying blood at you.

Well, I figured "know how to use your tools" was kind of a given.

Though, given some "preppers" I've heard of, in the past...

Depending on the type of apocalypse, a gas mask might be useful. There are plenty of army surplus ones on ebay and even Amazon. Russian GP-5 models perform well, if fitted with properly made filters. American M40 masks not so much - apparently blister agents make them corrode. British models could work, though I defer to someone with actual experience. You'd need a plentiful supply of filters, though, so use it sparingly.

Also, learning how to trap would probably be useful, as it would allow you to hunt without using ammunition (which could of course be better used killing zombies or maurauders.

edited 22nd Feb '13 5:50:49 AM by Achaemenid

Re: the M-40. There is a protective overskin that goes on it to protect the mask from blister agents. I've got no idea if it works for that purpose, as I've never had the opportunity to test it.

Ah, I didn't know about that. That could be very useful indeed. Still, I reckon that if there was blister agents floating around, especially enough to corrode the mask, then we'd be pretty f*cked.

edited 22nd Feb '13 6:14:22 AM by Achaemenid

On a related note, issuing a protective mask that requires an add-on device to protect it from what the mask should have been designed to protect you against to begin with? Classic military procurement. I can only imagine the kind of useless shit the Russians must have paid too much for over the decades.

edited 22nd Feb '13 6:17:24 AM by AFP

All bets are off if I'm against nerve, blister, or blood agents. At that point I'm just going to give up if I get hit by that sort of thing, not much of a choice though.

I mean obviously, being Guard, my first action is to get to the base so I can suit up and respond. But barring that my options are hunker down for around a month in my house, and barring that, head off into the wilderness. I trap and hunt in the national forest nearby, so I've gotten pretty familiar with a pretty good chunk of it near where I live.

If I really had to disappear though, it's a pretty huge area. I've got maps, even if I've never gone into the deepest reaches of it before. Plenty of water, and plenty of game. I use pretty high quality wire for most of my trapping, so barring really big game stumbling into it, it can be re-used.

Even if I knew the end of the world was coming, I wouldn't have much will to live if practically everyone else died. Ergo, I personally don't see much point in being vastly more prepared for global catastrophe than the rest of the world.

But hey, apparently riding around a post-apocalyptic wasteland and eating snack cakes appeals to some folks.

Well, that's not the only scenario. There are smaller disasters to prep for. A pandemic for example won't kill very many people, but you still wouldn't want to go out in it.

Or a really large earthquake or tsunami, or a multitude of other survivable things that don't kill off a majority of the worlds population.

People never really think about preparing for localized disasters, they seem to only consider the zombie/nuclear/asteroid apocalypse. :P

Hey, if you're prepared to deal with the nuclear zombie astroid apocalypse, you're prepared for anything!

Actually, "Zombie Outbreak" has been a popular tabletop scenario lately for disaster prep and response. It's largely geography-neutral, just fake enough to be comfortable for folks to think about (similar to the "sexy vampire" thing, dangerous, but nothing a person has to worry about actually dealing with), and of course it's all the rage lately so folks find it fun to talk about.

As it turns out, it also shares much in common with various Real Life scenarios, such as a disease pandemic or regionalized society breakdown for whatever reason (big typhoons, big earthquakes, war, whatever teh cause is for the normal structure of things to collapse, if only temporarily and if only in a certain area), which makes it useful as a planning tool.

Kinda like how in the 30's the US drew up war plans for invading Canada or fighting the British Empire, because it was more politically expedient than planning for a war with Germany during the isolationist interwar years, and because it was still good practice for the planners to iron out some of the bigger wrinkles in any ideas while it was still on a tabletop instead of the battlefield.

Yeah, even the CDC used it.

But yeah, a lot of folks tend to get caught up in the details, or trying to bite off the whole cow instead of starting with the flank steak, and get overwhelmed before giving up. You don't need to be The Postman, trecking your way across the wilderness of Oregon, fending off bandits and scavenging for food.

Sometimes you just need to be the family in a car on the highway that had the foresight to bring a few gallons of extra water and a cooler full of food in case you get stuck in the traffic jam of evacuation. And sometimes you just need a realistic plan for sitting it out in your home. (Live on the high ground near the coast? Maybe staying where you are is a better bet than getting stuck on the road with everyone else trying to evacuate. Live on the beach or in a flood plane? Maybe you don't want to be there when Hurricane Poseiden arrives just in time for the town's annual Spring Wholesome Happiness Festival.

And if you do bunker down, you need to have a plan on how to deal with the lack of power (nonperishable food, some method of staying cool or warm when the AC ails), lack of plumbing (stockpile of fresh water, which is something you can keep handy really any time), lack of plumbing (just where do you plan to poop? If you have a back yard or a garden, a shovel might be a good investment if you don't want the smell in the house). Not to mention tools for dealing with whatever other incidentals (live in a bad neighborhood, or surrounded by folks who might end up more desperate or less scrupelous than you? Hate to say it, this is pretty much exactly the kind of scenario where personal firearms can be a good idea, or else bugging out could be a better plan).

A lot of the folks who got caught out in a bad way post-Katrina were folks who underestimated their requirements for survival, underestimated the severity of the situation they were about to deal with, or simply lacked the resources to either stockpile properly or bug out in time.

And for all of this, you still need to have the situational awareness to know if you need to make the fight or flight decision while you still have time to make it. You gotta pay at least enough attention to the news to know if storms are coming, or the government's expectations of being able to support anyone stuck in the area or not, etc. Sometimes a simple radio (battery or hand-cranked versions for when the power dies out) is an excellent tool to have so you know if the situation changes (The Cavalry is coming to your neighborhood or one near it, or another storm is expected, or the dam overlooking your neighborhood has been compromised by the damage, etc.) Many survival radios even come with a handcranke and a USB port so you can keep your phone charged in case the cell phone network comes back up (or stays up despite the disaster).

I hate it when people joke about zombie preparedness. Seriously. Don't joke about zombies; that shit's real.

No, but thinking about how to survive in a zombie apocalypse really piqued my interest in prepping and survivalism. A lot of folks tend to have some ridiculous idea like they would just go into the woods with their friends, call themselves the Wolverines and wait it out. But I started to seriously think about what it would take to survive in a zombie apocalypse and a lot of was unglamorous, basic stuff like stocking food, water and medicine... exactly like what you would need in a real disaster.

On a related note, my area of the midwest got hit with 14" of snow this week. Some areas got hit harder. Nothing disasterous yet, but it makes one think. Tomorrow's supposed to be a similar storm, but a lot wetter so that likely means ice. One year we had a bad ice storm that knocked out people's power and resulted in a few deaths. So, being prepared for a long haul survival situation isn't a bad idea at all.

^

Yeah, I agree that some people get rather unrealistic about that sort of thing. I get the feeling that if I got a good 30 miles into the forest, I'd be more or less alone. Most folks who talk about living in the wilderness have no clue how to do so.

On top of that, lots of folks plan to bring more ammo than water, which really is unrealistic.

Ah yes, I've seen the Facebook updates about the Snowpacolypse. Best of luck with that.

It's not so bad, yet. I live in a city so the major streets were clear by the morning. The real problem is that it's about to snow again, only wetter, so that's going to freeze up and make the roads impossible to drive on and will probably take out a few trees and power lines.

The secret is to live further south. Not where it's cold like all the damn deviants.

Somebody's got to grow your precious corn.

edited 24th Feb '13 12:43:17 PM by Shepherd

Um, isn't maize a warm climate crop?