Prepping and General Emergency Preparedness - Preparing for the worst, hoping for the best.

[NoReturn]

For rentfags with no space to grow produce: learn how to forage. Find out what's edible to forage in your region and in what season. Learn to spot potentially poisonous plants. Most poisonous plants will just give you diarrhea, but that's potential for dehydration and infection if there's no running water. Dandelions are a good beginner plant: easy to spot, grows everywhere, and every part of the plant can be eaten except the flower when it's gone to seed (the fuzzy bit). The best way to get the taproot out is with a filet knife. Even in developed areas I've seen wild mint, violets, spring onions, and cattails. These may be regional, but the point is that nature finds a way.

Learn how to clean small game like squirrels and rabbits. Depending on where you are, learning how to clean and butcher a deer might also be practical. This is a skill more for longterm crises, but better to learn now than wait.

 

[FatalTater]

Have alternative methods for doing things.

Always cook on a gas stove? Maybe have an electric hotplate in case the gas service gets interrupted.

Use electric to cook with? Have a grill or camp stove in case power goes out. If in an apartment, keep some foods that don't require cooking, like protein bars and premade canned food.

Electric lighting and don't want to use candles in an emergency because fear of accidental fire? Rechargeable LED lanterns, bonus if they have a solar panel.

 

[Blobby's Murder Knife]

Best prep is what is already in your mind. Learn, learn, learn and do. Keep physical media like books and magazines. Do not put or leave all your library on your computer or just assume you can google it. Have it in your possession having already read it at least once. Books on:

• First Aid/Field Medicine/Herbal Medicine
• Foraging/Hunting/Fishing/Processing
• Fermentation/Salting/Smoking/Dehydrating
• Cooking and baking in the old ways
• Gunsmithing/Archery-Bowyer skills/Marksmanship in either discipline
• Gardening/Gardening pests and diseases and cures/Hydroponics
• Sewing/Weaving/Leathercraft
• Knowing how to sink wells and otherwise find and make potable water
• Carpentry
• Smithery/Knifemaking
• Animal husbandry
• Alternative energy sources like biogas
• Basic Chemistry/Biology/Math to trigonometry knowledge bare minimum
• Physics/Math calculus and beyond/Engineering knowledge are very useful
• Soapmaking, because, yeah
• Ceramics
• Basic mechanical repair skills

No one is going to be a master of all of these things, nor should they be, but point is, if you need to do one of these things, you have some ground level knowledge of what to do.

In additon to this, you'll want your general classic works of whatever culture you are in, plus some from outside. There should just be some dumb entertainment books and magazines for fun. You should have maybe a musical instrument and know how to play because gods know we are going to be depressed and need escapism the same way our ancestors sought it - through music and storytelling. Be prepared to pass down what you know to the children, even if unrelated.

 

[robobobo]

Post-apocalypse survival is flatly out of reach for most people in the US. You need land and resources that Billy Suburbia simply doesn't have. Running out and planting some carrots in your quarter-acre yard isn't going to sustain you past a week, and most recent houses have no pantries/cellars for storing a hundred mason jars and a bunch of buckets worth of food to make it through a winter. At best most people can set up to weather a few week hiccup, crouching in a pile of MRE wrappers with a gun; believing you're going to be living the Fallout life among the super mutants is just going to make you sad as you're dying among the pricey junk you bought.

Gasoline goes bad after a few months, tops. Diesel after a year or so, both numbers being much lower if they aren't stored properly. Most people rely on municipal water and aren't going to make it very long setting out a bucket for water when it rains. Hygiene and medical support are essential for not getting sick and dying of random poop diseases that used to kill people on the regular, to say nothing of all the people with chronic medical issues who need a steady supply of meds. You got chickens? Great! Hens only lay on the regular for I think about a year before petering off, so hope you got a rooster around to make more chickens, and hope no fox decides the rooster's lunch. Growing a garden? Better have a plan for when some random fungus starts growing on half the plants and bugs start eating the other half.

People tend to look down on the homesteader survival types as being weird bumpkins, and they may not be wrong, but actually living long-term without all of the support of our technology and infrastructure is hard and dangerous and it doesn't take a lot going wrong to get pretty dead. I have a great deal of respect for those who could pull it off.

All that being said, being prepared to not kick the bucket if there's an interruption in food and power for a few weeks is still a perfectly good thing to be doing. Just don't think that you're gonna go be Daniel Boone and live off the land for years unless you've specifically set up for doing that at great time and expense.

 

[Blobby's Murder Knife]

Who knows what the future holds. Personally, I have been without electricity, running water for upwards of a week in my own house, so preparedness is not an abstraction. I think 25lbs of beans, some spices, salt pork, a source of fuel to cook, and you would likely be good for a bit, even if monotonous. You would need to have water on hand or know where to get it, which is actually the most difficult part.

I think the biggest threat is some Soviet style confiscation of your resources, followed by some random band of semi-armed retards. The former causes me less sleep than the latter.

 

[Jimmy Olsen]

We're always prepped to some extent since one kind of has to living out in the boonies (7+ days without power in the dead of winter happens here), but we upped it a few years ago. My family had enough disposable income to do so at the time, and if nothing bad happens, it's food. We're going to eat it either way.

 

[StrawberryDouche]

Post-apocalypse survival is flatly out of reach for most people in the US. You need land and resources that Billy Suburbia simply doesn't have. Running out and planting some carrots in your quarter-acre yard isn't going to sustain you past a week, and most recent houses have no pantries/cellars for storing a hundred mason jars and a bunch of buckets worth of food to make it through a winter. At best most people can set up to weather a few week hiccup, crouching in a pile of MRE wrappers with a gun; believing you're going to be living the Fallout life among the super mutants is just going to make you sad as you're dying among the pricey junk you bought.

Gasoline goes bad after a few months, tops. Diesel after a year or so, both numbers being much lower if they aren't stored properly. Most people rely on municipal water and aren't going to make it very long setting out a bucket for water when it rains. Hygiene and medical support are essential for not getting sick and dying of random poop diseases that used to kill people on the regular, to say nothing of all the people with chronic medical issues who need a steady supply of meds. You got chickens? Great! Hens only lay on the regular for I think about a year before petering off, so hope you got a rooster around to make more chickens, and hope no fox decides the rooster's lunch. Growing a garden? Better have a plan for when some random fungus starts growing on half the plants and bugs start eating the other half.

People tend to look down on the homesteader survival types as being weird bumpkins, and they may not be wrong, but actually living long-term without all of the support of our technology and infrastructure is hard and dangerous and it doesn't take a lot going wrong to get pretty dead. I have a great deal of respect for those who could pull it off.

All that being said, being prepared to not kick the bucket if there's an interruption in food and power for a few weeks is still a perfectly good thing to be doing. Just don't think that you're gonna go be Daniel Boone and live off the land for years unless you've specifically set up for doing that at great time and expense.

I don't really disagree with anything you said with the exception of the chickens. I know 6 year old chickens still laying an egg a day. But have you seen the price of chicken feed lately? Holy shit.

Shit is starting to disappear off the shelves, and I feel like eventually, very soon, there is going to be a run on the grocery stores.

Personally speaking, prepping and stockpiling greatly allayed my anxiety about our collective situation and the current state of our nation and the world. Maybe I'm fooling myself, and maybe I'm not, but I do know that right now, I have a 6 month buffer if/when SHTF. A lot can happen in 6 months, and I want to make sure we can eat while it does.

In other news: I did a fast bean experiment over the weekend. You cook any bean, then dehydrate them. Two cups of dried pinto beans dehydrated into four cups of dried pinto beans lol.

They took seven minutes to cook/rehydrate. I imagine they would be outstanding made with bullion and some dried onions and spices. They're not technically an MRE, but they're close, and would be good to have in a fuel conservation situation (Or camping!). They'd be a great thing for people to add to their stores, and I plan on making more.

Also- JFC. Three months ago I bought two, 2 pound cans of powdered eggs for $30 a piece. Last week they tripled to $90 a can.

 

[young chestnut]

Something I feel doesn't get mentioned enough in prepper threads (maybe because it's obvious to everyone else, I don't know): if you live in a place where it gets cold in the winter and you're not really an outdoorsy person who already has it covered, make sure you have good coats, boots, gloves AND mittens, thermals, etc for your entire family. Spend money on stuff that's warm, fashion be damned. Even if life is good and nothing ever happens, at least you'll be roasty toasty next winter. Those Columbia omni-heat dots are really something else and their stuff isn't all that pricey or ugly. Bonus: their logo looks like a modern swastika.

 

[Conan O'Barbarian]

All good advice, but for the love of God if you have a tourniquet in your trauma kit, learn when and how to use it. A lot of people grossly overestimate how often a tourniquet is or needs to be used. More often than not, direct pressure to a wound is enough and using a tourniquet can cause permanent arterial, nerve, and muscle damage even if it was necessary. Tissue death is common. Do not use a tourniquet until you've determined that direct pressure isn't working.

 

[Anti-Intellectual]

https://jasemedical.com/

You can purchase a supply of antibiotics here.

 

[NoReturn]

Shit is starting to disappear off the shelves, and I feel like eventually, very soon, there is going to be a run on the grocery stores.

Also- JFC. Three months ago I bought two, 2 pound cans of powdered eggs for $30 a piece. Last week they tripled to $90 a can.

You aren't alone. I'm been noticing more holes and increasing costs as well. Something fucky is going on beyond the obvious.

Something I feel doesn't get mentioned enough in prepper threads (maybe because it's obvious to everyone else, I don't know): if you live in a place where it gets cold in the winter and you're not really an outdoorsy person who already has it covered, make sure you have good coats, boots, gloves AND mittens, thermals, etc for your entire family. Spend money on stuff that's warm, fashion be damned. Even if life is good and nothing ever happens, at least you'll be roasty toasty next winter. Those Columbia omni-heat dots are really something else and their stuff isn't all that pricey or ugly. Bonus: their logo looks like a modern swastika.

AND IN THE CAR! I put my car kit in one of those vacuum bags and sucked all the air out so it doesn't take up much space, but it lives in the car and it's staying there.

 

[Blobby's Murder Knife]

I don't really disagree with anything you said with the exception of the chickens. I know 6 year old chickens still laying an egg a day. But have you seen the price of chicken feed lately? Holy shit.

Shit is starting to disappear off the shelves, and I feel like eventually, very soon, there is going to be a run on the grocery stores.

Personally speaking, prepping and stockpiling greatly allayed my anxiety about our collective situation and the current state of our nation and the world. Maybe I'm fooling myself, and maybe I'm not, but I do know that right now, I have a 6 month buffer if/when SHTF. A lot can happen in 6 months, and I want to make sure we can eat while it does.

In other news: I did a fast bean experiment over the weekend. You cook any bean, then dehydrate them. Two cups of dried pinto beans dehydrated into four cups of dried pinto beans lol.

They took seven minutes to cook/rehydrate. I imagine they would be outstanding made with bullion and some dried onions and spices. They're not technically an MRE, but they're close, and would be good to have in a fuel conservation situation (Or camping!). They'd be a great thing for people to add to their stores, and I plan on making more.

Also- JFC. Three months ago I bought two, 2 pound cans of powdered eggs for $30 a piece. Last week they tripled to $90 a can.

Chicken feed should be the main source of nutrition, however, chickens are very much like pigs in that they will eat whatever scraps you throw at them. Important thing is, if you have layers, they have good sources of Vitamin D and Calcium. Meat chickens are different. I think what is important with them is that given a fertilizer crisis, you have a good way to harvest and compost their insane amount of manure. They will eat and shit their brains out their whole 8-10 weeks to slaughter. Chicken shit, when composted, is very high quality fertilizer. People will pay you even before the gay war to take it away gladly.

Beans have gone up 10-25% since I last looked. Oat groats very similar. There were no bags of wheatberries at my local big box...which was a little concerning.

I just got done putting in cabbage, beets, sunflower, zucchini, and cucumber starts (latter two are in bags). The summer here is predicted to be much cooler than normal and it is never hot here anyway, so I can't grow tomatoes, peppers, and corn. It is just too cold and blossom drop is cancer for the former two. I do have two cherry tomatoes indoors, but that is all I have space for.

Fig trees do great indoors if you have a south/southwest window. Until I bought one, I didn't really understand Adam and Eve covering their shame with a fig leaf. MFW fig leaves approach a Big Leaf Maple in size. And they grow insanely fast and can even produce the first year under the right conditions. However, they do require a bit of space.

 

[Blobby's Murder Knife]

I added some ladybugs and beneficial nematodes to my garden. Hopefully, they find success. I harvested some elderberry flowers and dried them for later, leaving some left to fruit and looks pretty good right now. My hops love life at the moment. Very healthy and gorgeous. Kohlrabi doing great because it is still so unseasonably cold here. Potatoes on the move and I hope for a July harvest. Raspberries and blueberries have been very timid on blooming, probably due to the cold and wet weather, but they are starting. Lavender is starting to bloom and it is nice to see the bees around it. Cherries finished blooming and apples almost done.

A thought is, if you believe inflation is a real thing, Amazon has a credit program where you can pay off over 6 months at 0% for whatever bullshit you want to buy. If inflation goes up X % a month, you are already winning.

 

[Shroom King]

A lot of shit in a first aid kit has an expiration date. The medical kit you bought after 9/11 when you thought the end times were coming is probably full of expired stuff. Toss it and buy a new one.

When cleaning wounds, rubbing alcohol burns, hydrogen peroxide does not.

On the topic of guns, use whatever gun you are comfortable firing, stopping power be damned. People have used .410 shotguns to drop deer at hunting distances, you can definitely use one to drop a human at home defense distances.

Learn to load your own ammo. NEVER use ammo for barter.

Get a good knife. A Leatherman multi-tool is fine, but you need an actual knife. Like a KA-BAR or similar, and learn how to sharpen it.

Flashlights and candles are nice too, as well as a striking tool to make sparks to start a fire (using your real knife from the previous sentence).

Footwear: it has been my experience that the lighter the footwear the better. If you want to go innawoods with heavy as fuck steel-toe Red Wings, go ahead. You can get steel toe shoes from Wal-Mart for pretty cheap and if you kick someone with them they will feel it, and they are lighter and more comfortable than actual boots IMO.

 

[Blasted Heath]

Has anyone here ever watched American Blackout? Watch American Blackout. It's a pseudo-documentary on what would happen if power went out in the US for a week, and it's humbling. It's also just cool to watch. But anyway. Some thoughts on prepping for major disasters, to add on to everyone else:

-It's never too soon to start learning survival skills.

-If a truly long-term disaster happens, you need to decide early on whether you're going to hunker down or flee for a safer area. Don't be wishy washy about it. If you spend a day trying to decide if you should pack up and run, it's probably too late.

-Store food that you'll actually enjoy eating. Bad food is demoralizing, and a demoralized group (or individual) is prone to arguments and mistakes.

-Know how to cooperate with people, how to de-escalate tensions, and how to avoid conflict in general.

-Be realistic about your skills. For example, I'd love to think that I could fix a nice meal out in the woods, but realistically I'd be hard-pressed to gather anything close to enough calories -- and that's not even considering nutrients and protein.

As for short-term emergencies, it's often the simple measures that make or break them.

-You can be as much of a prepper as you like, you're an idiot if you don't have a fire/general evac plan for every member of your residence. Make sure every member knows it. Know your workplace's evac routes too.

-Know multiple routes out of your town/city in case you need to evac. Likewise, know multiple refuge places to go to in that event.

-Store more water than you think you'll need.

-Keep an eye on weather & emergency alerts. You can download government emergency orgs' apps and keep a radio for when/if you need it.

 

[Tacitus Kilgore]

No, I don't prep and find preppers to be Boomer tier clowns most of the time. I have some flashlights, batteries and the usual over the counter medical stuff people have. I also have some extra food. But I don't do any of that long term prepping for a whatever doomsday event Boomers doom-splain about all the time.

This prepper shit goes all the way back to the days of Y2K and the hysteria that hoax caused. I often joked that some whacked out Boomer somewhere still has old cans of baked beans, MRE's and jugs of stale water down in their basement from Y2K.

Then in the early 2010's you had all the retards prepping for a zombie apocalypse. So far, I have yet to see a single prepper tard that isn't some obese boomer. Like the people who go on about prepping and are 300 pounds and can't even walk to their fridge without getting winded. The first week of depending on their prepper stash they would eat it all. It's absolutely ridiculous.

I am not talking about people prepping for an actual disaster like a hurricane, earthquake or wildfire. Yes, get some stuff for that. Prepare and if the local authorities say leave you should. Especially if you are in an area of the country gets hit hard by those kinds of disasters. I don't live in a state that does. In the mid 2000's we had a hurricane come up the East Coast. I ate a couple cans of cold Beefaroni and took a cold as shower. I didn't have power for 3.5 days. It was hot as shit. But I made it through.

 

[The Mass Shooter Ron Soye]

Forget the apocalypse, you need to store some food as a hedge against inflation.

 

[Flavius Anthemius]

If anyone wants a list of food and supplies that can last indefinitely (or many years) I'll just copy and paste a list I made for things you might need in case you need to stock up, hope this helps anyone.

Foodstuffs that almost never go bad.

Hard Liquor (Mainly tequila, brandy, gin, rum, whiskey and vodka)
- Red Wine
- Vanilla Extract
- Honey (Fun fact the oldest deposit of honey I believe was found in some 5000 year old tomb in the caucasus mountains, somewhere in Georgia)
- Pure Maple Syrup
- Sugar
- Sea Salt
- Pepper
- Instant Coffee
- Corn Starch/Cornflour
- Raw Wheat
- Pasta (Air Tight and Sealed)
- Uncooked White Rice (Can be stored for up to 30 years)
- Millet Grains
- Dried Beans & Legumes
- Distilled White Vinegar/Balsamic Vinegar (indefinite if air tight)
- Soy Sauce
- Anything canned will last a long time (As long as they stay intact, particularly if they are heavily salted, such as spam, canned ham, vienna sausages, canned chicken, tuna in vegetable oil, anchovies, mackerel)
- Dried Oats
- Cocoa Powder
- Coconut Oil (Can last for several years)
- Coconut Milk (Can last for several years)
- Powdered Milk
- Dry Spices
- Freeze Dried Meals

Foods that can last a couple of years but not for much longer
- Peanut Butter
- Jam
- Pancake Mix
- Quinoa
- Nuts
- Flour (You can make bread, pizza, pies, cakes, cookies, muffins, pasta cake etc.)
- Packaged Meals (Like macaroni and cheese/2-minute noodles/soups)
- Pickled Foods (Generally hard vegetables so they don't deteriorate and lose some of their crunch, such as cauliflower, beets, onions, cucumbers, celery, carrots and zucchini)

You put food in mylar bags with oxygen absorbers.

And as for emergency supplies...

- Gas Masks
- Respirator
- All purpose protective overalls (Keep it outside the house not inside)
- Hand Sanitizer
- Rubbing Alcohol
- Lysol
- Bleach
- Plastic Sheeting
- Good quality duck tape
- Life straw water filter
- Water Distiller
- Baby Wipes
- Toilet Paper

If things get really bad...
- Generator system
- Having some cash lying around
- Portable FM Radio
- Portable TV
- Rechargeable Batteries

Medical Supplies
- Analog Thermometer
- Sambucol

 

[Alligator Alcatraz]

Our lovely Sun in the sky engages in a phenomenon known as "solar cycles". These cycles occur every 11-14 years in which the sun experiences a period of increased magnetic activity due to the shifting gases it has.

Times of increasing solar sctivity are called " solar maximums" and decreased solar activity are "solar minimums". We are currently in the 25th solar cycle (a measure of cycles since 1755) with our solar minimum occuring in 2019 and our solar maximum believed to occur 2022-2025.

In the event of a particularly rowdy solar storm, the sun may eject a mass of particles known as a "coronal mass ejection" (CME). These CMEs are thrown long distances enough to come into contact with Earth.

CMEs are powerful enough to completely knock out every (powered) electronic in their trajectory in space and on Earth. This means no GPS satellites, no power lines, no Internet, no electricity, no cars (they use computers), no gas stations (unless you draw directly), no credit cards, no cryptocurrency, no phones, no medical devices, no smart refrigerators and Alexa, etc. Anything which has electricity running through it will experience a massive surge of power and components will blow. This could mean billions to trillions of dollars in damage in the United States alone.

How to prep for a solar CME?

- Faraday boxes and other shielding
Cables like shielded extension cords and coaxial cables are popular shielded cables in the home. They contain an aluminium cover over the wire to prevent interference, and likewise you will need to provide shielding for all of your electronics.

- Powering down electronics when not in use
Not just a good way to save electricity, powering down your electronics will reduce any potential damage by surges. Disconnecting them from the wall removed them from the primary source of surge during a CME event.

- Choose portable electronic devices with removable batteries
Devices like phones snd laptops have non-removable batteries and this creates issues where you have no choice but to have your device powered. This leaves modern phones like the Fairphone and older phones as one of the few options for still having access to a cellphone in the event of a CME burst coming in contact with Earth due to being able to actually drain charge. Also be wary of flashlights with nonremovable batteries!

- Be aware of non-electronic alternatives
Gas stoves and grills for cooking. Non-electric bikes and a comfortable pair of shoes for transportation. Keep a supply of books and board games for entertainment. Imagine a day without electricity!

Finally, it should be mentioned that it IS possible to recover from a solar CME event coming in contact with Earth. It has been speculated that restoration could take around 10 or so years to repair infrastructure. Warehouses and factories will need new equipment to make the cables. Many people will be out of the job. No doubt governments will fix their own defenses first before citizen necessities. It's up to us to prepare!

Feel free to mention anything I may have missed.

 

[StrawberryDouche]

No, I don't prep and find preppers to be Boomer tier clowns most of the time. I have some flashlights, batteries and the usual over the counter medical stuff people have. I also have some extra food. But I don't do any of that long term prepping for a whatever doomsday event Boomers doom-splain about all the time.

If you had a baby, a grandbaby, or knew someone who did, you'd be really fucking glad you stocked baby formula right now.

When they locked us down for two weeks and the shelves went absolutely bare, guess who had flour and yeast and everything when no one else did.

If you don't see the shelves going bare again, you're not paying attention. If you have the kind of money where hyperinflation doesn't affect you, then God bless.