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I hang out on http://www.survivalistboards.com

And while yeah, there are doomsday peppers who think Obama is coming to declare marshal law and take over the world, just as many want to be prepared for any sort of SHTF situation. My favorite one is this guy: http://www.survivalistboards.com/showthread.php?t=230112

To cut to the chase, dude lost his job, and got a part time job to pay the major bills, and his family lived off their stocked food for 10 months in order to not sell their house. It isn't always going to be the commies, or the sky falling. Sometimes it's life, and people who prep tend to have more options.

My current house is too small to stock food or supplies, but I get water out of a spring box, and it has run dry for days in the past. So I built a water collection and purifying system to hold an additional 250 gallons of drinkable water.

At the very least I think EVERYONE should have enough supplies to be able to stay inside their home for one week without needing to go outside. In addition you need to have a bug-out bag with some cash, clothes, etc. You never know when a flood, tornado, fire, or power outage might ruin your life.

If you are adding prepping to your normal activities, it's really not that weird. Ideal prepping should simply be adding a little bit to something you'd be using anyway.

I've toyed with this idea a bit. I live in rural Iowa not too far from Omaha, Nebraska. While I own a rather large home in a decent sized (for the area) town, I have been tempted to build a rustic cabin somewhere between Omaha and Sioux City.

I've found a couple places for sale over the years, including a disused quarry. Imagine a place that is within 50 miles of two major cities, a stones throw from a major Interstate highway, and still far enough away from any of the major travel areas that you MIGHT see a car pass once per day.

This area has some completely undeveloped land, but still sits on literally the richest farming soil in the world (Loess Hills dirt, only found here and in a remote part of China). It's still far away from any kind of flood plain.

I'd have a smallish cabin built over a reinforced bunker, with about 18 months of food and water, water filtration, a water-filled quarry stocked with fish, decent hunting/trapping area, a giant propane tank with a year's supply of propane, solar panels, and a generator. Yet this place is still close enough to some kind of civilization that I could be on the grid for as long as I could, still get some broadcast TV, have municipal water/sewer, and still be 45 minutes away from some place to get supplies.

I'm viewing this as a weekend retreat man cave. I can use it for family bonding, wife-free friend time, or as an emergency relocation area in case of a natural disaster (or Red Dawn style Russian takeover).

The only thing I prep is minis. For everything else there is always Waitrose!

 Iron_Captain wrote:
I don't prep, and I don't think anyone around here does. Prepping (especially stockpiling food) makes a lot of sense if you are in a remote area, but in densely populated areas it is not much use as aid is likely to arrive quickly if not immediately.
Here in the part of the Netherlands where I live, the only disaster that could realistically ever happen is that the dikes break and a huge part of the country gets flooded by the sea. Luckily, the town I live in just so happens to be on the edge of the "high ground" and therefore unlikely to be flooded in all but the worst-case scenarios. Even then, I have a boat so I am safe anyway
The only things I do have are a flashlight (might be useful if electricity falls out or a fire breaks out) and a longsword for when the zombie apocalypse hits

Thats cool. I think everyone should be prepared for their local weather or political conditions.

 Frazzled wrote:

 Iron_Captain wrote:
I don't prep, and I don't think anyone around here does. Prepping (especially stockpiling food) makes a lot of sense if you are in a remote area, but in densely populated areas it is not much use as aid is likely to arrive quickly if not immediately.
Here in the part of the Netherlands where I live, the only disaster that could realistically ever happen is that the dikes break and a huge part of the country gets flooded by the sea. Luckily, the town I live in just so happens to be on the edge of the "high ground" and therefore unlikely to be flooded in all but the worst-case scenarios. Even then, I have a boat so I am safe anyway
The only things I do have are a flashlight (might be useful if electricity falls out or a fire breaks out) and a longsword for when the zombie apocalypse hits

Thats cool. I think everyone should be prepared for their local weather or political conditions.

Id like to point out Florida and how long people were stranded during the floods.

 Frazzled wrote:

 Iron_Captain wrote:
I don't prep, and I don't think anyone around here does. Prepping (especially stockpiling food) makes a lot of sense if you are in a remote area, but in densely populated areas it is not much use as aid is likely to arrive quickly if not immediately.
Here in the part of the Netherlands where I live, the only disaster that could realistically ever happen is that the dikes break and a huge part of the country gets flooded by the sea. Luckily, the town I live in just so happens to be on the edge of the "high ground" and therefore unlikely to be flooded in all but the worst-case scenarios. Even then, I have a boat so I am safe anyway
The only things I do have are a flashlight (might be useful if electricity falls out or a fire breaks out) and a longsword for when the zombie apocalypse hits

Thats cool. I think everyone should be prepared for their local weather or political conditions.

So is the wiener dog uprising considered weather or political?

I have a bbq on the roof and a couple of months worth of dog biscuits at any one time.
The designated order of things to cook on it is currently, girlfriend, dog, cat.

 cuda1179 wrote:

This area has some completely undeveloped land, but still sits on literally the richest farming soil in the world (Loess Hills dirt, only found here and in a remote part of China). It's still far away from any kind of flood plain.

Löss soil is not that rare. It is also common in Hungary, Germany and Belgium has got a huge lot of it. The southern Netherlands also has some. Löss is indeed very fertile, but despite that it does not always make good farming ground because it is extremely susceptible to erosion and the layers underneath the thin top layer (aka the A-horizont) tend to be infertile. The best farming soil in the world is probably the black earth or chernozem found in a belt stretching from Ukraine into central Asia, along the Danube and in a small part of the northern US.

Does anyone find it strange that kids here have to learn this kind of specialist knowledge in basic geography class? I mean, what is the use for this knowledge for the average person? I just hate school, I wish it would teach something useful (like survival and first-aid skills, to keep this on topic).

 Alex Kolodotschko wrote:
I have a bbq on the roof and a couple of months worth of dog biscuits at any one time.
The designated order of things to cook on it is currently, girlfriend, dog, cat.

You may want to reconsider that order if you think you may ever be pining for some companionship.....

Remember..cats are donkey-caves by their very nature.

 TheMeanDM wrote:

 Alex Kolodotschko wrote:
I have a bbq on the roof and a couple of months worth of dog biscuits at any one time.
The designated order of things to cook on it is currently, girlfriend, dog, cat.

You may want to reconsider that order if you think you may ever be pining for some companionship.....

Remember..cats are donkey-caves by their very nature.

Yeah Cats first.

 curran12 wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:

 Iron_Captain wrote:
I don't prep, and I don't think anyone around here does. Prepping (especially stockpiling food) makes a lot of sense if you are in a remote area, but in densely populated areas it is not much use as aid is likely to arrive quickly if not immediately.
Here in the part of the Netherlands where I live, the only disaster that could realistically ever happen is that the dikes break and a huge part of the country gets flooded by the sea. Luckily, the town I live in just so happens to be on the edge of the "high ground" and therefore unlikely to be flooded in all but the worst-case scenarios. Even then, I have a boat so I am safe anyway
The only things I do have are a flashlight (might be useful if electricity falls out or a fire breaks out) and a longsword for when the zombie apocalypse hits

Thats cool. I think everyone should be prepared for their local weather or political conditions.

So is the wiener dog uprising considered weather or political?

I am playing through The Last of Us (fething amazing game, get the remastered version for PS4/XBone if you can).

It's really making me worry about my lack of preparedness if we do reach a total SHTF scenario.

 Desubot wrote:

 TheMeanDM wrote:

 Alex Kolodotschko wrote:
I have a bbq on the roof and a couple of months worth of dog biscuits at any one time.
The designated order of things to cook on it is currently, girlfriend, dog, cat.

You may want to reconsider that order if you think you may ever be pining for some companionship.....

Remember..cats are donkey-caves by their very nature.

Yeah Cats first.

Now, now. There's far more meat on a dog, they eat more, and cats are tidier in general. I know which one I'd rather be stuck on a roof with.

I live in a place that occasionally gets hurricaned (if it's not a word, it should be), so I should *probably* have more supplies on hand than I do. This thread's inspired me to think about that, at the very least!

 Spinner wrote:

 Desubot wrote:

 TheMeanDM wrote:

 Alex Kolodotschko wrote:
I have a bbq on the roof and a couple of months worth of dog biscuits at any one time.
The designated order of things to cook on it is currently, girlfriend, dog, cat.

You may want to reconsider that order if you think you may ever be pining for some companionship.....

Remember..cats are donkey-caves by their very nature.

Yeah Cats first.

Now, now. There's far more meat on a dog, they eat more, and cats are tidier in general. I know which one I'd rather be stuck on a roof with.

I live in a place that occasionally gets hurricaned (if it's not a word, it should be), so I should *probably* have more supplies on hand than I do. This thread's inspired me to think about that, at the very least!

But would a dog kick you off the roof into the water while you sleep?

i think not.

 curran12 wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:

 Iron_Captain wrote:
I don't prep, and I don't think anyone around here does. Prepping (especially stockpiling food) makes a lot of sense if you are in a remote area, but in densely populated areas it is not much use as aid is likely to arrive quickly if not immediately.
Here in the part of the Netherlands where I live, the only disaster that could realistically ever happen is that the dikes break and a huge part of the country gets flooded by the sea. Luckily, the town I live in just so happens to be on the edge of the "high ground" and therefore unlikely to be flooded in all but the worst-case scenarios. Even then, I have a boat so I am safe anyway
The only things I do have are a flashlight (might be useful if electricity falls out or a fire breaks out) and a longsword for when the zombie apocalypse hits

Thats cool. I think everyone should be prepared for their local weather or political conditions.

So is the wiener dog uprising considered weather or political?

Strictly force of nature.

 Desubot wrote:

 Spinner wrote:

 Desubot wrote:

 TheMeanDM wrote:

 Alex Kolodotschko wrote:
I have a bbq on the roof and a couple of months worth of dog biscuits at any one time.
The designated order of things to cook on it is currently, girlfriend, dog, cat.

You may want to reconsider that order if you think you may ever be pining for some companionship.....

Remember..cats are donkey-caves by their very nature.

Yeah Cats first.

Now, now. There's far more meat on a dog, they eat more, and cats are tidier in general. I know which one I'd rather be stuck on a roof with.

I live in a place that occasionally gets hurricaned (if it's not a word, it should be), so I should *probably* have more supplies on hand than I do. This thread's inspired me to think about that, at the very least!

But would a dog kick you off the roof into the water while you sleep?

i think not.

Anyone sharing a house with a cat for any length of time already knows to sleep lightly, or you're going to wake up with your head at an awkward angle, no pillow, and something purring smugly in your ear!

 cuda1179 wrote:
At the very least I think EVERYONE should have enough supplies to be able to stay inside their home for one week without needing to go outside.

That's not really saying anything... I haven't done any prep, but I had a quick look around my house, and I currently have about 9 litres of drinkable fluids (which doesn't include raiding the toilet cistern). I could easily hold out for a week on half that.

I've also got a jar of mayonnaise, which isn't a very exciting dinner prospect... but even if I had nothing else, it would probably be sufficient to keep me well fed for the week.

EDIT: (Found more water: there is half a glass by my bed, a fair amount in the kettle, some in the spray bottle for the iron, a few beers in liqueur cabinet... There is also my paint water, and some water in my plant bowls, which isn't very tempting, but I'd probably consider it before drinking my own urine...)

 Smacks wrote:

 cuda1179 wrote:
At the very least I think EVERYONE should have enough supplies to be able to stay inside their home for one week without needing to go outside.

That's not really saying anything... I haven't done any prep, but I had a quick look around my house, and I currently have about 9 litres of drinkable fluids (which doesn't include raiding the toilet cistern). I could easily hold out for a week on half that.

I've also got a jar of mayonnaise, which isn't a very exciting dinner prospect... but even if I had nothing else, it would probably be sufficient to keep me well fed for the week.

The assumption is that you may need to ditch the house. due to some unforeseen event.

be it the neighborhood burnt down or flood or earthquake. however it goes. you may not have enough food or water to go around between the survivors and you may not be able to leave the immediate area or get help quick.

chances are you really wont but thats the point of prepping. (not to the crazy extreme but at least having extra food, water, clothing, shelter, fire, defense and other things for your local meta)

 Smacks wrote:

 cuda1179 wrote:
At the very least I think EVERYONE should have enough supplies to be able to stay inside their home for one week without needing to go outside.

That's not really saying anything... I haven't done any prep, but I had a quick look around my house, and I currently have about 9 litres of drinkable fluids (which doesn't include raiding the toilet cistern). I could easily hold out for a week on half that.

I've also got a jar of mayonnaise, which isn't a very exciting dinner prospect... but even if I had nothing else, it would probably be sufficient to keep me well fed for the week.

EDIT: (Found more water: there is half a glass by my bed, a fair amount in the kettle, some in the spray bottle for the iron, a few beers in liqueur cabinet... There is also my paint water, and some water in my plant bowls, which isn't very tempting, but I'd probably consider it before drinking my own urine...)

If you live in the UK you almost certainly are within an hour's walk of some source of fresh water like a river or lake.

If all else fails, stick some buckets outside and start a game of cricket.

 Kilkrazy wrote:

 Smacks wrote:

 cuda1179 wrote:
At the very least I think EVERYONE should have enough supplies to be able to stay inside their home for one week without needing to go outside.

That's not really saying anything... I haven't done any prep, but I had a quick look around my house, and I currently have about 9 litres of drinkable fluids (which doesn't include raiding the toilet cistern). I could easily hold out for a week on half that.

I've also got a jar of mayonnaise, which isn't a very exciting dinner prospect... but even if I had nothing else, it would probably be sufficient to keep me well fed for the week.

EDIT: (Found more water: there is half a glass by my bed, a fair amount in the kettle, some in the spray bottle for the iron, a few beers in liqueur cabinet... There is also my paint water, and some water in my plant bowls, which isn't very tempting, but I'd probably consider it before drinking my own urine...)

If you live in the UK you almost certainly are within an hour's walk of some source of fresh water like a river or lake.

If all else fails, stick some buckets outside and start a game of cricket.

That or look at the sky with a bright smile and loudly announce 'What a beautiful day! We should all go to the seaside!'

 Iron_Captain wrote:

 cuda1179 wrote:

This area has some completely undeveloped land, but still sits on literally the richest farming soil in the world (Loess Hills dirt, only found here and in a remote part of China). It's still far away from any kind of flood plain.

Löss soil is not that rare. It is also common in Hungary, Germany and Belgium has got a huge lot of it. The southern Netherlands also has some. Löss is indeed very fertile, but despite that it does not always make good farming ground because it is extremely susceptible to erosion and the layers underneath the thin top layer (aka the A-horizont) tend to be infertile. The best farming soil in the world is probably the black earth or chernozem found in a belt stretching from Ukraine into central Asia, along the Danube and in a small part of the northern US.

Does anyone find it strange that kids here have to learn this kind of specialist knowledge in basic geography class? I mean, what is the use for this knowledge for the average person? I just hate school, I wish it would teach something useful (like survival and first-aid skills, to keep this on topic).

I was a little inaccurate in my description. The area I described doesn't just have Loess soil, it has mountains of it, almost literally. We have mounds of Loess soil 200 feet deep forming tall hills, or bluffs, running 150 miles long. It is this Loess hills (not quite mountains) that is the rare geological oddity. It's a bit weird really. To the east and to the west you have nearly perfectly flat land that stretches into the horizon, but this strip of tall hills seems to run perfectly north-south right in the middle of it.

I do to some degree.
I have a few bug-out bags here and there, I have one in my car in case of breakdowns in the desert (I work in Saudi Arabia) and I have boxes of bottled water and food in a store room.
I also have copies of all my important documents copied in a waterproof folder, with scanned copies in a hardened flash drive.
If a flood or fire destroys your house, you're going to need thos insurance documents and deeds.....

We don't really have space for any meaningful prepping. Once the garage is reorganised I might keep some more tinned stuff out there (veg, soda) just so I can take advantage of cash & carry deals.

I prep for natural disasters but not the nuclear war/zombie land ect stuff. But I've lived in very remote places, through fires and storms and floods, including being landlocked in the middle of Australia for 9 months, after 3 months they flew some food in by helicopter though.
Currently i keep about 1month food, water, heating/cooking gas and first aid boxes/cleaning products/toilet paper/spare batteries ect, am renovating kitchen and laundry/storage room at moment so that will increase after new cupboards are done.
I would love to build a basement for better fire protection but there really not done round here and getting approval is really hard.

 TheMeanDM wrote:

 Alex Kolodotschko wrote:
I have a bbq on the roof and a couple of months worth of dog biscuits at any one time.
The designated order of things to cook on it is currently, girlfriend, dog, cat.

You may want to reconsider that order if you think you may ever be pining for some companionship.....

Remember..cats are donkey-caves by their very nature.

But on the other hand, he is keeping the pussy around for as long as possible.


Sorry, I'll see myself out...

 Inquisitor Lord Bane wrote:
I hang out on http://www.survivalistboards.com

And while yeah, there are doomsday peppers who think Obama is coming to declare marshal law and take over the world, just as many want to be prepared for any sort of SHTF situation. My favorite one is this guy: http://www.survivalistboards.com/showthread.php?t=230112

To cut to the chase, dude lost his job, and got a part time job to pay the major bills, and his family lived off their stocked food for 10 months in order to not sell their house. It isn't always going to be the commies, or the sky falling. Sometimes it's life, and people who prep tend to have more options.

My current house is too small to stock food or supplies, but I get water out of a spring box, and it has run dry for days in the past. So I built a water collection and purifying system to hold an additional 250 gallons of drinkable water.

How much space, realistically do you need to have a reasonable supply? It looks from a quick skim that there's at well over 1000lbs of food there. That's at least 500 litres / ~100 gallons of storage volume, before any water.

Do many of you have a spare waterproof storage room / garage / bunker that can take all of that stuff? In the UK, we'd really struggle to justify it - the weather here is never usually that bad, and it's possible to walk to several population centres*.

It also seems to be a very US thing - I'm assuming space is a factor, but is there some political bias as well? I get the impression that the US government doesn't treat the poor/sick/unemployed very well at all. Or is it just this sense of self-sufficiency you all seem to have, or just because wherever you are is prone to bad snow / flooding / quakes? Or just something mundane like distance to shops?


*We got snowed in about 6 years ago, so I got a hiking bag out and walked to the supermarket, stocked up for a couple of days and then sat it out. There was snow on the ground for a couple of weeks, and no trains to get to work, but the roads were usable after a few days and then everything got restocked. In terms of any apocalypse we'd be totally stuffed anyway.

Herzlos wrote:

 Inquisitor Lord Bane wrote:
I hang out on http://www.survivalistboards.com

And while yeah, there are doomsday peppers who think Obama is coming to declare marshal law and take over the world, just as many want to be prepared for any sort of SHTF situation. My favorite one is this guy: http://www.survivalistboards.com/showthread.php?t=230112

To cut to the chase, dude lost his job, and got a part time job to pay the major bills, and his family lived off their stocked food for 10 months in order to not sell their house. It isn't always going to be the commies, or the sky falling. Sometimes it's life, and people who prep tend to have more options.

My current house is too small to stock food or supplies, but I get water out of a spring box, and it has run dry for days in the past. So I built a water collection and purifying system to hold an additional 250 gallons of drinkable water.

How much space, realistically do you need to have a reasonable supply? It looks from a quick skim that there's at well over 1000lbs of food there. That's at least 500 litres / ~100 gallons of storage volume, before any water.

Do many of you have a spare waterproof storage room / garage / bunker that can take all of that stuff? In the UK, we'd really struggle to justify it - the weather here is never usually that bad, and it's possible to walk to several population centres*.

It also seems to be a very US thing - I'm assuming space is a factor, but is there some political bias as well? I get the impression that the US government doesn't treat the poor/sick/unemployed very well at all. Or is it just this sense of self-sufficiency you all seem to have, or just because wherever you are is prone to bad snow / flooding / quakes? Or just something mundane like distance to shops?


*We got snowed in about 6 years ago, so I got a hiking bag out and walked to the supermarket, stocked up for a couple of days and then sat it out. There was snow on the ground for a couple of weeks, and no trains to get to work, but the roads were usable after a few days and then everything got restocked. In terms of any apocalypse we'd be totally stuffed anyway.

Well to be fair i think the UK trusts there government wayyyyyy more to take care of them compared to the US.
There is also a lot of more isolated areas that wont get any sort of help besides their neighbors in the US.

Also our emergency response isnt always the best :/

so a lot of people get stranded no matter how much money is getting funneled into emergency systems.

How far was your hike to the supermarket?

It is about 10 miles from my house to the nearest one.

What would have done if they were closed, or out of what you needed (if they have no power or deliveries can't get to them it may effect your ability to buy stuff...)

Folks hit by Katrina may have been without power for weeks, and stores run out of stuff pretty damned quickly if they don't get their 2-3 times a week deliveries. Many sell out of critical items when there is warning of a bad storm.

There's a cluster of them about 1-1.5 miles away in one direction, about 5 in the other. To be fair, witih population density, I imagine most people in the UK are within a mile or 2 from a supermarket.

I get the impression that a lot of the US is a whole lot more isolated (I was in a large rural town in PA, where it was quite a hike to the local Walmart/K-Mart - maybe 4 miles, but with no pedestrian considerations at all).

I have some boxes of ammo and water, but that's it. I'd like to get more, but I don't want something that will go bad. I thought about MREs, but want something we'll also use before they go bad. We'll probably eventually stock up on canned beans and large containers of nuts. The Monkey is vegetarian, so other options are out. I've got the space in the basement. Just need to put some shelving up.

Herzlos wrote:
There's a cluster of them about 1-1.5 miles away in one direction, about 5 in the other. To be fair, witih population density, I imagine most people in the UK are within a mile or 2 from a supermarket.

I get the impression that a lot of the US is a whole lot more isolated (I was in a large rural town in PA, where it was quite a hike to the local Walmart/K-Mart - maybe 4 miles, but with no pedestrian considerations at all).

Yeah, I live in a small rural town in PA, and its 8 miles to Walmart (which being the only store in town, is out of stock on essentials a lot) and 12 miles to the nearest gas station. I can't drink my tap water, and as I've said before, running out is a legitimate concern. And last winter we were snowed in for 3 days. So it's good to have some stuff on hand, but I don't have space to go overboard.