Great responses all.

One that was brought up is something that weighs on my mind.... family.

Its just me and my daughter. All my immediate family is in BC 17 hrs away by vehicle. Days if you consider what a bug out situation could possibly be like. Assuming for a moment that bug out is what is happening (because bugging in is always your first choice) I am faced with the hurdle of bringing into my home my daughters family on her moms side who are here. That means 4 adults and 3 kids. BUT... they would want their spouses families to be safe too right? So that means another 10 people, 7 adults and 3 kids. 17 people I can count on trying to provide for. Good luck. If I turned them away to fend for themselves, my daughter would never forgive me. Sure... she might live but I would never be forgiven. I imagine this is a scenario we all fear. True.. I fear the Nukes and the plagues and what have you but I fear more than anything my daughters death or her hatred towards me. I might as well be dead if that was my fate because I wouldnt have too much to live for otherwise. I'm a solo act out here and she is all I have. I have always been that lone wolf since I was a child and never really ever part of a family unit but that need for family changed with her birth. Anybody relate?

I am having a tough enough time prepping for two let alone all of them and I know none of them are. They think Im a bit "off" for prepping even a little bit. I hide it mostly under the guise of being ex millitary and an ex bodygaurd/security specialist that its just in my nature to be fascinated with wilderness survival and personal protection rather than outright concern for our planets future. All said though... when (not if... I'm pretty confident) things start getting dicey... I will be looked towards for assistance.

I fear that day because I wont be able to turn them away morally and as such its going to be a very tough time.

I just cross my fingers and hope I'm way off just like all those in the 70's and 80's hoped with the cold war going on and hope it doesnt come to pass and hope we should be just as lucky as they were. Fear and hope. Interesting mix in my heart. 🙂

.... I fear more than anything my daughters death or her hatred towards me....

Ouch! Talk about caught between a rock and a hard place! How old is she? Can you sit her down and explain the situation to her, tell her about the hard choices that might need to be made? Is she old enough or mature enough to understand and accept the facts?

Putting myself in your shoes, that would rip me up.

Nah, at 10 yrs i am just teaching her survival stuff bit by bit via camping and subtle methods. As she ages it will be more of a topic i can trust she would understand and would keep under her hat to avoid hurting family if she was to blurb like she most likely would now. That kind of precaution.

I’m keeping an eye on the news both mainstream and alternative, but local disaster is the more likely threat for us in Alberta right now.
Today in the middle of April and I wake up to 4 inches of snow overnight. If the temperature was a few degrees warmer at higher elevations and below zero at the surface like it is, we could be dealing with the ice storm that is hitting Ontario right now.
Power outages and broken waterlines could be the reality here. Now neighbours would be knocking on doors of homes with wood stoves and generators going. Community centres and school gyms would be filling up with people looking for government assistance. Grocery stores would be cash only except the ones with the electronic sliding doors that now don’t open without power. Accidents on the roads, vehicles stranded, emergency services stretched to the limit and many other situations coming up by the hour.
This would be a bug in situation for many, but if you are one of those homes with the wood stove, the generator and all the preps what do you do?
Turn away your neighbours?
Let them in and sell them your preps?
Let them in and feed them and hope they pay you back later?
Bug out and avoid it?
Just buckle down and be a good Samaritan?
If you are a civic employee and would be working to fix the problem, where do you draw the line between prepper and citizen?

Quiet, I think it would depend on the nature of the emergency. If it were something short term such as sever weather, I would think most of us would share what we had with our neighbours to get them through a tough but short stretch. If it were truly shtf (grid down collapse of society) I'm not sure any of us truly know what we would do but most of us probably hope that we would do what we could to help others as long as we didn't put our own survival at risk. (I mean ourselves and our loved ones at risk by that).

It is a tough spot to have a young one who can't yet grasp the nature of what you're doing Scotty... hell, I'm having trouble getting across the need to be independent (self-sufficient) to grown adults!

I do not advertise that I am a Prepper and I try to keep the supply train out of sight, but don’t hide the groceries, big blue water bottles and bags from the hardware store as I’m sure is the case for most people.
Last summer there was a water main break and a five block area was out of water. Neighbours were going around to see who had extra water. One lady was upset because she had seen me come home the day before with a couple big blue water bottles and asked if she could have one. I offered a two litre bottle, but she insisted on a full bottle because she needed enough to flush the toilet with. We hadn't been without water pressure for three hours yet....
So I offered to lend her an empty blue bottle so she could go to her daughter across town and get tap water for flushing and she didn’t like that idea. She must have really had to go… I explained that I had gone to the community centre for toilets and showers and received a somewhat blank, yet angry stare.
That was a minor thing and an unprepared person demanded half of someone else’s supplies. I want to be able to help people, but this opened my eyes to be ready to G.O.O.D. even for small things if possible.
I don't keep many preps here anymore and I can load the BOV quickly enough, but I do have a large supply of first aid gear in the house. If it was areal emergency with real victims I'm there to help for a couple minutes... 😉
Now I keep three big jugs with tap water on hand because I might have a neighbour who needs to do a load of laundry next time.
🙄

I do not advertise that I am a Prepper and I try to keep the supply train out of sight, but don’t hide the groceries, big blue water bottles and bags from the hardware store as I’m sure is the case for most people.
.....
Now I keep three big jugs with tap water on hand because I might have a neighbour who needs to do a load of laundry next time.
🙄

I spat my coffee out reading that last line 😆

"It's funny cuz it's true!"
-Homer J. Simpson

I do not advertise that I am a Prepper and I try to keep the supply train out of sight, but don’t hide the groceries, big blue water bottles and bags from the hardware store as I’m sure is the case for most people.
Last summer there was a water main break and a five block area was out of water. Neighbours were going around to see who had extra water. One lady was upset because she had seen me come home the day before with a couple big blue water bottles and asked if she could have one. I offered a two litre bottle, but she insisted on a full bottle because she needed enough to flush the toilet with. We hadn't been without water pressure for three hours yet....
So I offered to lend her an empty blue bottle so she could go to her daughter across town and get tap water for flushing and she didn’t like that idea. She must have really had to go… I explained that I had gone to the community centre for toilets and showers and received a somewhat blank, yet angry stare.
That was a minor thing and an unprepared person demanded half of someone else’s supplies. I want to be able to help people, but this opened my eyes to be ready to G.O.O.D. even for small things if possible.
I don't keep many preps here anymore and I can load the BOV quickly enough, but I do have a large supply of first aid gear in the house. If it was areal emergency with real victims I'm there to help for a couple minutes... 😉
Now I keep three big jugs with tap water on hand because I might have a neighbour who needs to do a load of laundry next time.
🙄

In a real SHTF think about that times 10, I try to get home from a grocery trip after dark so no one knows any better. I also try to make my trips between the truck and the house as few as possible with as many bags as possible per trip. It looks like less goods that way.

That story is certainly an eye opener.

In my area (not far from Niagara Falls area) I guess I'm most concerned about electrical power. I strongly feel that in some event that caused extensive power outages or a security threat to the production of electrical power, this area would recieve a kind of 'priority' attention from authorities, in order to get the hydro plants back online. And in doing so, I strongly believe that there would be an 'excessive use of law' effect. It's that, coupled with shortages or cessation of delivery of things that aren't produced locally (which these days is little to nothing, except wine I guess).

I also believe in prepping against weather problems. I'm old enough to slightly recall the winter of '77 (family spent a week in a motel with an indoor pool). I can easily recall the summer not that long ago that kept us for 3 days without power - that don't sound like much, but recall I don't live far from the hydro plant that makes the power. As a youth living in Niagara Falls quite near one of the transformer stations, I can recall how common and easily mist from the falls freezes up on the equipment and lines, and how much of it.

I prep against shortages that could result from shipping stoppages, either from fuel costs/availability or work action.

I prep against food that really isn't food anymore. I prep against the bets being placed that increasingly specialized crops and animals are the 'progressive way'. I prep against the trend that multinational corporations have that they will eventually own food.

I prep against things that we have zero control over. Economic trends and disruptions, including rampant unemployment. War/terrorism events, including EMP attacks. An increasing world population and the fact that world governments are losing control of those populations, resulting in them using more heavily handed tactics. Governments that are supposed to have been elected to represent the people, but once in place do whatever they damn well please with impunity.

These are the things I prep for, in roughly the order I prep for them. Some or all may never come to pass in my lifetime. Yet I feel it an obligation to not only try and 'fight' for life and lifestyle now, but to also raise my kids with those same values and hope they live them and pass them to theirs as well. I try hard to live a lifestyle of 'I'll take care of mine and myself, you take care of the rest'.

I do not advertise that I am a Prepper and I try to keep the supply train out of sight, but don’t hide the groceries, big blue water bottles and bags from the hardware store as I’m sure is the case for most people.
Last summer there was a water main break and a five block area was out of water. Neighbours were going around to see who had extra water. One lady was upset because she had seen me come home the day before with a couple big blue water bottles and asked if she could have one. I offered a two litre bottle, but she insisted on a full bottle because she needed enough to flush the toilet with. We hadn't been without water pressure for three hours yet....
So I offered to lend her an empty blue bottle so she could go to her daughter across town and get tap water for flushing and she didn’t like that idea. She must have really had to go… I explained that I had gone to the community centre for toilets and showers and received a somewhat blank, yet angry stare.
That was a minor thing and an unprepared person demanded half of someone else’s supplies. I want to be able to help people, but this opened my eyes to be ready to G.O.O.D. even for small things if possible.
I don't keep many preps here anymore and I can load the BOV quickly enough, but I do have a large supply of first aid gear in the house. If it was areal emergency with real victims I'm there to help for a couple minutes... 😉
Now I keep three big jugs with tap water on hand because I might have a neighbour who needs to do a load of laundry next time.
🙄

In a real SHTF think about that times 10, I try to get home from a grocery trip after dark so no one knows any better. I also try to make my trips between the truck and the house as few as possible with as many bags as possible per trip. It looks like less goods that way.

That story is certainly an eye opener.

Can you picture being in a SHTF situation and your long time neighbor puts a cap in your ass for a jug of water? Its a scenario that would be quite real.

In a real SHTF think about that times 10, I try to get home from a grocery trip after dark so no one knows any better. I also try to make my trips between the truck and the house as few as possible with as many bags as possible per trip. It looks like less goods that way.

That story is certainly an eye opener.

😆

Our family can relate. One of our food purchases came in one large order so we had to go pick it up with 2 large vechiles and unload under the cover of darkness. I swear I lost 10lbs of weight that night alone.

As my current fear is that the we are on the brink of the biggest economic declines that humanity has ever seen - Too much global debt to GDP ratio including both derivative & bond markets. As Canadians I think we can learn from Iceland's as example. Iceland figured out Debt = Control. If we fix our system then we won't have to bang our pots and pans like iceland. 😉

As Canadians I think we can learn from Iceland's as example. Iceland figured out Debt = Control.

I'd say it's more like Iceland figured out that 'some bankers' are3 white collar criminals. Plenty of them moved from Iceland to England and are still holed up in England.

Can you picture being in a SHTF situation and your long time neighbor puts a cap in your ass for a jug of water? Its a scenario that would be quite real.

That would depend on your neighbor but as I have said before, when your belly is hitting your backbone morality gets set aside pretty quickly. Trying to judge who will snap and who will remain sane is nearly impossible in many cases. Psychiatrists often get it wrong and they are the supposed experts on evaluating the human mind.

That would depend on your neighbor but as I have said before, when your belly is hitting your backbone morality gets set aside pretty quickly. Trying to judge who will snap and who will remain sane is nearly impossible in many cases. Psychiatrists often get it wrong and they are the supposed experts on evaluating the human mind.

I have seen this come to pass many times in my life as I have often been involved in high stress events and jobs. Most notably was going through basic training in Cornwallis back in the day when they couldnt hit you any more (1989) and werent allowed to swear any more but they swore just the same as always in my opinion (wouldnt have it any other way) and because they couldnt belt us around they made us work harder to make up for it. lol. Anyways, the wash out was crazy from week to week and watching these guys who came in with all this swagger in the beginning crumble like kids as the days progressed was laughable. Its the way man kind works though. For every 200 in a room you can expect 50 to completely lose their marbles, another 50 to say it isnt worth it and run another 50 who count on the last 50 to get them through to the end because they want to but just need that help and as mentioned... there is 50 who have no problems. Now, you have to realize that of each of those 50 about 10 lean towards one end or the other. For example, 10 are losing their minds under the stress but hold on longer than say the other 40. Or maybe 10 lose their minds within hours and become very dangerous due to the stress. Same can be said for your top 50. 10 will be very weak but doing okay, 10 will be true leaders and 30 in the middle are spread across the board in a pretty safe state of mind. They work hard, dont fret, deal with others well, do as asked, come up with solutions and so on.

If you keep this approximate formula in mind with all those around you its easier to keep in mind what can happen in any given scenario. I see it at work. I see it with the police I used to deal with daily in my old proffession and so forth. For every 10 cops I would deal with, 3 would be by the book, 2 would be good cops and lean towards the book but werent overly obsessed with it, 2 would be decent enough but totally like one of the boys if out drinking, 2 would be hard to peg but you knew they might be dirty and the last 1 would be a bad ass digging on the power trip they were on. Its this last cop that gives all cops bad reputations.

Basically... assume a third of your group will be a pain in the ass to have around and at least 10% could possibly get you killed. The trick is to really know your group and weed out the bad eggs fast.

I am aware of the situation with NK, but there is another one to be aware of and that is the potential for another pandemic. We have two viruses out there right now: the new SARS-like coronavirus and the new strain of bird flu in China. As for the SARS, so far it seems that transmission between people is not fast or easy and that is good because it is highly deadly from the sounds of it. As for the new bird flu, it is spreading fast, China can't control it, international help has been called in, and it seems to be fairly deadly, too. I am at least going to be prepared to not leave my house for a few weeks should it become an issue.

That is a good point on prepping, how many folks keep the masks in their gear and how many do you store, I was able to pick up hundreds of them onsale after the HIN1 Flu outbreak locally here in ontario, I bought 600 of them at 40 percent the regular price for the packs of 50 each but this was a good reminder to check and see how many I currently have right now, I would think we have used or given away at least one or two packs since then, and i have never bought more..

And in case anyone asks, yes I did get a odd look at the local walmart, when I bought them all, but I just smiled and said, my mom has a lung issue and just look at all the money I just saved and chattered away..