Doomsday plan

[Kaspian]

How is "gold and toilet paper" a severe mental breakdown?

It's a mental defect.   "Fiat currency is going to collapse soon, your stock indexes will crash, better buy gold."  Yeah?  How's that working out for you 4 years later when my portfolio's up 95% and gold has hit rock bottom?    ...Also, better buy some K-rations.  Now that's done, what about a shelter?  Bleh...  It's nuts.  Gold and toilet paper helped nobody when the levees burst in New Orleans.  Gold and toilet paper help nobody when fires destroy neighbourhoods in California.    The only decent preparedness ever is batteries in your flashlight and maybe a private helicopter.

[I'm a red panda]

I know some people who were pretty happy to have toilet paper when they were stuck in their house for a week when the floods closed off the roads.

Gold wouldn't have done anything though.

[Syonyk]

The only decent preparedness ever is batteries in your flashlight and maybe a private helicopter.

Uh huh.  Ok.  Yup.  You're one of those who thinks "preppers are nuts so I don't want to be anything like them," right?

[Kaspian]

The only decent preparedness ever is batteries in your flashlight and maybe a private helicopter.

Uh huh.  Ok.  Yup.  You're one of those who thinks "preppers are nuts so I don't want to be anything like them," right?

Nope.  I'm one of the ones that have been told about 2 dozen times in the past 40 years that we'd better get ready, buy bullets, stockpile water, and all the other stupid crap that goes along with it.  Oil embargo 70s, 80s energy crisis, Cold War with Russia reaching DEFCONS, Y2K, 9/11, war in Iraq, war in Afghanistan, the financial crash, US fiscal cliff, bird flu, swine flu, SARS, the Mayan calendar end date, the Rapture, a handful of Earth-threatening comets, blah, blah, blah, blah, BLAH....

I am a pseudo-conspiracy theorist but I'll venture to say the "preppers" have lied even more than the government in the past 100 years.

[regulator]

The only decent preparedness ever is batteries in your flashlight and maybe a private helicopter.

Uh huh.  Ok.  Yup.  You're one of those who thinks "preppers are nuts so I don't want to be anything like them," right?

Nope.  I'm one of the ones that have been told about 2 dozen times in the past 40 years that we'd better get ready, buy bullets, stockpile water, and all the other stupid crap that goes along with it.  Oil embargo 70s, 80s energy crisis, Cold War with Russia reaching DEFCONS, Y2K, 9/11, war in Iraq, war in Afghanistan, the financial crash, US fiscal cliff, bird flu, swine flu, SARS, the Mayan calendar end date, the Rapture, a handful of Earth-threatening comets, blah, blah, blah, blah, BLAH....

I am a pseudo-conspiracy theorist but I'll venture to say the "preppers" have lied even more than the government in the past 100 years.

Meh, maybe you just live a charmed life.  Lucky you.

Personally, I am a lot less worried keeping a few weeks worth of food, water and firewood on hand.  YMMV.

[The_path_less_taken]

Case, quit picking on iowajoes: he's about to live in front of a freeway onramp. He can hitchhike to safety.
;-0

Exactly :) Except I'm a woman. (jes, not joes)  and not really right on the off-ramp, but I'm stupidly annoyed that most of the traffic from it will be behind my house.  We live a decent distance from the highway.

For many disasters that hit our area, the best thing I can do is evacuate; and I've done that before when it was necessary to leave the area so that the limited resources available could be used by those left in shelters or unaffected homes.  I, thankfully, have family all over the country, so it isn't hard for me to be able to go somewhere else. The hardest thing we learned is determining when to evacuate. When our city had catastrophic flooding it was interesting to see the number of people who resisted leaving until it was too late and roads were all blocked.  Then they had to stay.  (Thankfully our home was unaffected- but like I said; roads blocked.)  Same thing with a tornado- if it truly destroys the area; extra people leaving is the best thing that can be done while those who are best able to work on recovery. Luckily the tornadoes that have hit this area, even large ones, have only effected limited areas of the city, and the city and residents helped those affected and the rest went on with life as normal, but a bit more somber.  So far a blizzard hasn't had us stuck for more than a few days, but I'm more likely to keep more supplies on hand in the winter than the summer; I also won't drive without food, water, and blankets in the car.

We keep emergency supplies; we don't keep doomsday supplies.

More proof that I should never get online without sufficient amounts of caffeine in my bloodstream: I apologize. I read it as 'joes' one morning at 4am my time and you've been male in my head ever since. Correcting now. And so sorry about the freeway thing happening to you.

Living in/next to mountains means my vehicles are like yours: 3 day arks.

I'm constantly amused in the winter when  people drive up from LA to ski Tahoe and then are amazed that they're caught in a snowstorm: "but, we thought the road would be open?" So they have no blankets, nothing to eat or drink, they are low on gas...there's a kid at a local gas station who wears a Donner Party shirt all winter. When they ask what we all do when the roads are closed he points to the shirt and gives them an evil grin....

Serves them right for being clueless.

[I'm a red panda]

More proof that I should never get online without sufficient amounts of caffeine in my bloodstream: I apologize. I read it as 'joes' one morning at 4am my time and you've been male in my head ever since.

At least that makes sense and wasn't just based on "finance forum, must be male" (since while Jes leans female, it COULD be male) :)

[partgypsy]

I am a natural worrier, and so there are times, where I wish I was more prepared, in the sense of having supplies at home, a generator, a way to generate hit during an ice storm. And in the general sense, of wishing wasn't dependent on stock market, regular job for income, was more self-sufficient.

 The truth of it, if it is a true doomsday scenario (like the black plague in the middle ages, swine flu in the early 1900's, being caught in a war, ditto huge natural disaster or what we are doing, the degradation and unbalancing of climate, nature) there is actually rather limited things you can individually do. Sure a certain percentage of the human population will survive (those in rural areas, preppers, those who are simply lucky in where they are in time and place) but I don't think there is any way to guarantee that you personally will survive, as well as big impacts to certain populations and our society, civilization. 

i think it is common sense to prepare for what are pretty common events such as power outages, flooding, etc with supplies, escape plan, etc. But for events that are expected to last weeks, months, years, that really means planning your life around that these potential events occur, and not going to do that.
 

[supomglol]

I feel like if your prepping has exceeded the contents of 1 back-pack per person; you've gone too far.  We could eat for weeks off the random food laying around in our kitchen, water (methods to prufiy included in back-pack) is pentiful in any environment. 
My family is prepared to survive a modest amount of time when traditional infastructure is unavilalble (power, water, housing, etc).  We arn't prepared to ride out any large apocoliptic events or wars, but if a large natural disaster or some civil unrest occured; we could ride out or relocate if needed. 
I view this as a relatively inexpensive insurance plan.  It's a bit unorthodox but it was a lot of fun to put these packs together.  Most of these items are equally useful for camping or traveling; they are just stored in an easily transportable bag.
You won't see this guy running to the store to fight over a loaf of bread before the next ice-storm. 

[Kaspian]

i think it is common sense to prepare for what are pretty common events such as power outages, flooding, etc with supplies, escape plan, etc. But for events that are expected to last weeks, months, years, that really means planning your life around that these potential events occur, and not going to do that.

Exactly!  Avoid the slippery slope from that thought to the tinfoil hat brigade and you'll be fine.  Unless somebody lives on San Andreas Fault or right smack in the middle of Hurricane Alley, they have a better chance of personal disaster by tripping over a dog or getting hit by a city bus. 

[JLee]

I have no specific plans, but I am intelligent and have ~5 years experience in law enforcement, so I'll just run with that.  I am slowly building another expedition truck, which would be a nice SHTF backup (self-contained transportation and living/camping gear), but that's a ways off from being done.

[bluecollarmusician]

I feel like if your prepping has exceeded the contents of 1 back-pack per person; you've gone too far.  We could eat for weeks off the random food laying around in our kitchen, water (methods to prufiy included in back-pack) is pentiful in any environment. 
My family is prepared to survive a modest amount of time when traditional infastructure is unavilalble (power, water, housing, etc).  We arn't prepared to ride out any large apocoliptic events or wars, but if a large natural disaster or some civil unrest occured; we could ride out or relocate if needed. 
I view this as a relatively inexpensive insurance plan.  It's a bit unorthodox but it was a lot of fun to put these packs together.  Most of these items are equally useful for camping or traveling; they are just stored in an easily transportable bag.
You won't see this guy running to the store to fight over a loaf of bread before the next ice-storm.

I think this is pretty much on the money.  We also could easily go a couple of weeks on just what is in the house.  I think that there is much made of "prepping" vs. what my family has always considered just good basic common sense.  Batteries and a working flashlight.  Knowing how to purify water.  Having some food in the house. Keep gas in your car (and for the big EMP blast I have my bike!)  We live in an area where hurricanes are expected periodically.  We are prepared for any reasonably probable situation.

In any true black swan, I just don't think that prepping will help you much.  Maybe it will... but as others pointed out, statistically it will have much more to do with the event itself than how you prepared for the unknown...

[Potterquilter]

I hope everyone realizes that if you are living a mustacian lifestyle you are already better prepared than most. If your life consists of going everywhere in a car, eating out or picking up pizza, and throwing things away as soon as they break good luck. If you have the skills to amuse yourself without powere (reading, cards etc), have some alternate means of transportation, and have basic repair skills you are ahead of the game. Especially if you can cook

I have a solar sun oven, we live near a body of fresh water that could be purified if necessary, and always keep several weeks of food, toilet paper, bottled water and so on.  I grow some non hybrid vegetables and save the seeds, bake a killer loaf of bread and have studied foraging in my area. I see alligators everyday near my house so we could round up a hunting party if need be. Tastes like chicken. Sprouts are easy to grow and are a great source of fresh food as well.

When we lived up north during a big ice storm once we figured out how to listen to a radio(we had to sit in a car) there were reports of a few fast food places that were operating on generators that had lines miles long. After that we got our act together.

I grew up in the fifties when people actually put bomb shelters in. Some people had mountains of rice and beans by December 31, 1999.  I know people who have a closet full of ammunition for their multiple guns. I prefer to be prepared for power outages, hurricanes, water main breaks etc.  and I am not waiting for FEMA.