Do any of you guys have contingency plans in case of some natural disaster?

They say we are 9 meals away from anarchy and I believe it (eg Katrina)>..

I have a supply of food water ammo and most of all toilet paper. I am working on a heirloom garden that has renewable plants and plan to have chickens and a few long horns and maybe a bison or 3 to start populating renewable livestock. I am by no means a survivalist or a gun nut but I want to be able to have steak and eggs when anarchy hits, and be able to defend my land when looters come. All I need now is a off the grid power source and my plan is complete.

Jesus - paranoid much, guys!?

Since when is having the wherewithal to plan ahead paranoia?

Silent, I like to hear you have thought about it :)
Are you going to use bleach to clean your water or do you have a filter?

I just got finished looking into solar panels for my house but it would take about 100k of equipment to cut my bill in half.

I'm looking into a photovoltaic panel system to keep my 12 volt deep cycle batteries charged (trickle charge) and charge stuff from that :)

Halo, our power grid in the USA is so fragile that it could go down and stay down for months then all hell would break loose.....

If you google chickens it is the new "thing" to do in America suburbs.... people are getting worried here......

Nope. The way I see it I'd rather die than live in a Mad Max society anyway. There's a better place waiting for me so why live hell on Earth?

I can see your point, but die for a 3 month problem while watching your kids starve to death seems a little extreme.... :)

A little planning and you would be ahead of 90% of the rest of the USA :)

No kids here, so no one is relying on me other than Leah who is a full grown and capable adult :)

I just stock up on ammo and take the food from people :devil

haha, thunderdome!

I keep some canned goods and a bit of water on general principle, but in the event of the post-3-meal anarchy I don't think any of us can really predict what will go down. I don't live in town anymore so I suspect there wouldn't be mass rioting and looting where I was in any case, and the long-term food supply issues dwarf anything you can stock up against.

What I'm more realistically worried about is a massive increases in food prices the first time we have a staple crop collapse, with attendant mass starvation in aid dependent areas like Africa.

Hurricanes, tornadoes, and snow/ice storms come to mind as events we've seen recently where people find their access to food temporarily cut off or severely restricted. That's where I'd see stored food being smart, not so much as a hedge against apocalypse or long-term supply chain issues.

There's someone following you...

The freeze dried stuff at Mountain house is pretty good and you just add water and you have Beef Stroganoff etc..... you can store MONTHS of food on a few shelves... LDS has cheap food buy you have to actually cook it. Its like 5 gallons of mashed potatoes, and 5 gallons of beans, and 5 gallons of peaches etc....but it's cheaper.

I read an article a few months ago that said the USA has sold 2/3rds of it's grain resources to China (which is why I think they keep buying our debt).

The crop this year was terrible , so we could be closer to a staple scarcity that we think.

This wasn't in the article but the Billion Chinese can not make enough food to feed them selves. It's my opinion that if we can't supply China with our food resources, they would have no real need for us. THis could mean they call us on the debt we owe them. That alone would collapse our monetary system. We would need to print more money (which we are setting records at right now as I type this). This would lead to a REAL inflationary cycle.

A can of beans would cost $100 of our useless paper money. It wouldn't pay to go to work for 2 weeks to get a pay check that can't even buy you food for family for a week.

It is my understanding that the food on the shelf of your grocery store is no older that 2 weeks....ie, there are no big ware houses of food in the 'back' anymore. The trucks come in and the product is put on the shelf.

Around here, not only are the grocery stores emptied at the hint of a hurricane but all the Home Depots and Lowes are gutted of items.

Imagine if crazy North Korea gets a dirty bomb into LA or NY? People would panic beyond belief and there would be NOTHING left to buy very very quickly... and that is even if more food was still rolling down the pipe line.

Lets say that dirty bomb takes out a major power grid... then entire sections of the country could be on there own for a month.

All I'm saying that it could be very likely in the world (actually a lot of the world has these problems frequently, the USA doesn't) we live in today that we may experience brief interuptions in things that we all take for granted like power, food, and safety. Be it a natural occurance or man made, what could it hurt to have a little extra food? You can always eat it! :)

^

Those crazy Mormons ;)

In general they teach us to have a 6 month food storage in the event of emergencies, and the Church operates many canneries and other food production type shops around the world. I didn't know that they sell it to the public but yeah it's usually way cheaper than what you can even get at wal-mart etc, but they're in the ginormous 5 gallon bucket type containers.

Myself, I'm still working up to the whole 6 month thing, I've probably got enough for a month. But the idea is to be able to Rotate your stock as go too. But then I enjoy making my own bread, etc etc. A lot of people make the mistake of going out and buying a ton of shit, putting it on the shelf and forgetting about it.

Other things to consider, is how will you heat/cook your food.

How will you clean your water?

Do you have a method for recycling your gray water?

etc etc, there are a lot of things to think about. And a lot of it isn't in the realm of whack job survivalist. I don't think I'll be installing a bunch of solar cells on my house, but I've looked into some of the portable solutions so, say we're without power for a week, I can still plug in a fan so I have something if the AC goes out for my kids. Or my cell, or my (whatever small electronic device)

Right, the point is that it you don't have to be some conspiracy whacko to want to be perpared for a blip in the road.

Beijing has a high seismic risk. If my apartment building doesn't collapse or I am not lucky enought to be in the embassy when an event happened I have about a month of non-perishables and bottled water at home. I bought a 2 year supply of US toilet paper when I got to Beijing and keep about a year's supply of toiletries as well as basic over the counter drugs and a fully stocked first aid kit. Anything past a month and its time to think about getting out of town, especially if its winter.

Where do you live, Lummus? I'm guessing you live close to the Haidian neighborhood in the 3rd Ring?

I would eat my neighbors.

Where do you live, Lummus? I'm guessing you live close to the Haidian neighborhood in the 3rd Ring?

I live in Chao Yang district near San Li Tun. The biggest nearby landmarks would probably be Agricultural Centre and the Lufthansa Mall. I guess the US embassy counts as a landmark as well but it might not have been there the last time you were in Beijing.

If you are stockpiling 3 months of food, that's great, but you'll die long before you need a fraction of it. To survive you need at least 2 liters of water per person per day. And that is in a comfortable temperature area like Boston in September. In Louisiana expect to consume a gallon or two to survive.
Have 3 people in your family in addition to you? 4 gallons a day, for 90 days, is 360 gallons. More if you want to bathe or wash some clothes or something - which is probably nice once every other week.

Sure, it might rain some. I wouldn't bet your life on it, though. A local fresh-water stream or lake is a safer bet, though unpurified water will probably have enough pollutants, viruses, or bacteria in it to guarantee getting sick and dehydrating yourself further.

In a real armageddon scenerio you need long term water purification (and we aren't talking about a
brita). Heating to a boil is a safe way but extremely inefficient, iodine tastes awful but works great, and a purifier pump is immensely time consuming but also effective.

You mentioned Katrina, let me remind you no one died of starvation during the hurricane. Plenty died of dehydration and exposure.

I have a Berkey Water filter and a swimming pool

Let me add that the Big Black filters are awesome.... If you put food coloring in the top resepticle it will come out as clear clean water.... which sucks if you like Kool Aid but at least the water is good to drink.

I will say that it won't filter the salt out of my Salt Water system....I would have to drain it and collect rain water, which is easy enough to do with my set up :)

You mentioned Katrina, let me remind you no one died of starvation during the hurricane. Plenty died of dehydration and exposure.

Watching those people left with no choice but to be rounded up in the Superdome seems like a great advertisement for being prepared.

Watching those people left with no choice but to be rounded up in the Superdome seems like a great advertisement for being prepared.

What the hell happened to your reading comprehension lately?

I read your derail about water, found it obvious and uninteresting, and then replied to the part of your post actually relevant to this thread. That's what.

You both make good points.

I was speaking to a fellow who lived under an overpass for 3 days with 60 other people until they could be herded out like cattle.

He blamed everyone but himself for it also...I just nodded and kept my mouth shut.

The more people who are just a little prepared mean it will be easier to get help to all the dirty unwashed who didn't prepare for what ever reason they have.

I have given this some thought mostly for roleplaying purposes but, i thankfully live in a large agricultural county in florida, we have TONS of fruit and vegatable year round, and i can't throw a baseball without hitting a lake, and there is 6 spring feed lakes near me. While you would need to drink more in Florida, it guarantee rains everyday in the summer.

Spring fed lakes have the same microbes and bacteria that, 200 years ago probably wouldn't bother us, but we don't have the immunities anymore. Its like drinking water in Mexico, it'll make ya sick. A filter is a pretty cheap tool, mine was $50 I think. When camping we use it for food we are gonna cook with (cold food of course, can boil and get the same effect) and I throw iodine tablets into 2 gallon jugs with some tang (masks the taste) for drinking water.

Another thing is all of the water your canned foods are packed in as an option, but generally that's not enough for survival purposes. Fresh tomatoes, oranges, etc are also sources you probably have access to, to suppliment.

On a deserted island a la Lost? Dig a hole on the beach, down to the water. Make a raised area in the middle and put a container there. Cover with tarp or towel, put rock in middle above container ... and the sun will evaporate the water, it'll collect over the container and drip down, and evaporation purifies fine.

Anyone can survive for weeks on what you have in your pantry, but you'll die of exposure or dehydration in days, yet water is often overloooked in survival plans.

I'm good for about 8-9 months of food and have several water "candle" style filters stored away with my camping gear. I even have some antibiotics for use against cholera in the back of the fridge (which reminds me it needs to be replaced, being out of date by now). That's the good news. The bad news is I live in Denver and most of it would be stolen or confiscated in short order if a real long term emergency broke out.

I need to arrange some sort of storage or transportation outside the city if it is really going to mean anything in terms of personal security.

And yes, I had a bit of a paranoid phase going on a year or two ago. So sue me.

So this thread has reminded me of a show that I totally was into (despite it being all fake, that is) called The Colony. Anyone watch that yet?

I think I saw an episode or two. I remember thinking those people were mostly annoying and doomed to die given their issues with each other and with questionable priorities.

As it turned out, the show was mainly about scavenging survival supplies from a defunct city and dealing with the social breakdown.

I think the episode I saw was one where they constructed a balloon to hoist a camera so they could observe the surrounding area for marauders. Way to advertise your location to everyone else in the city guys!

I watched a little, and was mildly intrigued. The situations were very contrived, and I can't stand it when I'm supposed to believe that the actors are actually scared of a simulated bike gang, when surrounded by camera men in a make believe city...

Some of the stuff they built was cool though.