Survival.
Here is a “what if?” to ponder. Let’s say a virulent disease cropped up, and the wisest response was to quarantine the region/nation. Everyone was to remain in their homes. It’s the only way to stop the spread
Gov’t types in NBC suits would patrol outside, and you’d be perfectly safe from them. Unless you stepped outside.
Your stocks of ammo won’t even be touched. All your guns are nice to have, but not needed. The quarantine starts now, and lasts until Groundhog Day. Yes, 90 days.
Electricity, water, and gas supplies will be sporadic. For instance: the water may go off on day 2 and never come back, or it may stay on a week, and go off a week, that sort of thing. Sewage is not a problem. It may go to the river untreated, but we can worry about that later.
What’s the first thing you are going to run out of?
For me, it’ll be toilet paper. Unless I can sneak to Archie’s house. He has a closet FULL of boxes of Kleenex.
Water would be addressed with a full bathtub on the first day, topping it off whenever the water supply returned. If it returned. My hot water heater is also a supply of water. And if I have warning to fill the tub then I have the ability to fill everything in the house that holds water. So water might not be a problem. For drinking. I'd need about 90 gallons to survive. If I want to flush the terlet, I'll need 300. I don't have 6 55 gallon drums of water sitting around. Or just one to catch rainwater, even.
Fuel will be a problem. I have plenty of scrap wood for cooking fires, but it will be in the winter. And my house has no fireplace. If I didn’t have to step onto the back porch I’d survive the low temps easily. But dried peas, beans, and rice needs cooking. I'll get hungry if I can't cook. I'll get thirsty if I have to boil my water.
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There are some pretty nifty smaller (and larger) water tanks available, a 250 gal fits in the basement utility room quite nicely.
A backpack stove such as the MSR Whisperlite burns lots of different fuels, boils water quickly and doesn't burn a bunch of fuel doing it. The good folks at REI will even teahc you to use it.
As for TP, well there's always phone books...me, I prefer to stock up.
As one of my DI's put it long ago in desribing essential consumeables; "Ammo, water and sh*t paper hogs - everything else is negotiable"
"Ammo, water and sh*t paper hogs - everything else is negotiable"
I like that.
"Let’s say a virulent disease cropped up, and the wisest response was to quarantine the region/nation. Everyone was to remain in their homes. It’s the only way to stop the spread"
Hmm, you failed to plan for the zombies.
One of the minor advantages to using stored fuels is just that.. they're stored. We cook with propane, and our 100-gallon tank should last us about 16 months. It gets topped off every 6-8 months.
I buy TP by the case whenever it goes on sale and tuck it into wherever I can find space.
We have a creek just below us that would be potable by filtering/boiling. Plenty of food on hand. (Yes, ninety days. We might get skinny and bored with what we've got, but we wouldn't starve.)
Our biggest problem? Heat. We'd have to consolidate to one room in the house and insulate the hell out of it. We use a coal stoker stove for our primary winter heat, and that needs 200W of steady 120VAC to run. The genset can run it easily, but we only keep 40-50gal of gas on hand, which is about a week of 24/7 running.
Careful charging cycles on car batteries and using an inverter *might* stretch that to 3-4 weeks worth of fuel, but it'd be dicey.
Interesting food for thought.
T-Bolt my friend, there is a multimillion dollar industry dedicated to the Preparedness/Survivalist community. But like the Gunnie World, they run the gamut from the Bare Minimalist of a trailer on Junk Land in the Desert (Jim Dakin's Bison site) to the Mini Fortress in the Mountains (Jim Rawles Survival Blog). If you are serious, I'd go to Survival Blog, peruse his archives, then go to his links page and check out Mike Creekmore's Survivalist Blog, Jim Dakin's Bison site, and the SHTF Blog (Ranger Man's place). Ranger Man had a post on Water Storage just a few days ago, and I wrote up how I'm storing water at my place. Also, you have in your neighborhood a gentleman who writes as the Suburban Survivalist, you might want to check him out.
Be prepared, though, to do a lot of serious filtering through your brain. There are some sites out there where one could say "Is this an Apocalyptic Cult?"to those that are just disguised Nazi Skinheads meeting places to those that have nice ladies talking about how their little farm is doing on a day to day basis.
But the way this world is going, I'm a strong believer that the more everyone is Prepared, the better it'll be for those of us who have to live through it.
Matter of fact, our Hosts for the Northcoast Blogshoot Heath and Amanda are very well Prepared. I had a nice talk with Heath on his plans, and I must admit, am a little jealous. You might want to talk to them for more info.
Hope this helps.
I have a couple years of TP, food, 20,000 hours of candles and a couple thousand gallons of water. A ton of preps.
I could duct tape the doors closed and my propane stove for cooking would last a year.
We would not have to heat the house with anything other than propane. And then just one room and not much.
I would run out of bacon, tooth paste and coffee. Not good.
Currently toilet paper and canned tuna .. actually i am completely out of canned tuna, but that will be rectified tonight.
My approach to water would be the same as yours - I do however have a temporary water storage unit which I can unpack and fill if i have notice of the no-water (limited water) situation.
Heating the house isn't a problem (one upside to living down under) and neither is cooking fuel - got enough to last 90 days if not more.
I just moved into an apartment. I'm effectively screwed. If my roomie and I went on a starvation diet would could probably last four weeks (and that is not worrying about water). I guess the easiest way to start off would be to divide all the food into 90 piles as equal as possible.
But roomie and I earned our Ranger tabs, so we know what it is like to starve. Don't ever want to starve again though.
However if I was with my wife at our house, we would be fine. Plenty of food, and plenty of water, plenty of firewood to cook with. Not bad for living on a quarter acre in the 'burbs.
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