What Are You Prepping For?

In a recent post on the blog site, I seem to have drawn some discord.
My sentiments are that the world is going nuts and we need to be ready.
It seems as though we preppers don't all agree with this.
Use this forum topic to tell everyone what you think may or may not be on the horizon, and what you are doing(or not doing) to prepare.

Not only am I living in an active earthquake and potential tsunami zone, but I too agree with Denob that the world is going nuts. And there is nothing that will bring out the nuts in full force like a disaster, natural or otherwise!
There is far more street/mob violence ( how about the current London riots!) not to mention the domino effect of ongoing rebellions and resistances in many countries abroad~ but I believe we are also slowly doing things to our planet that may be irreversible, and it only seems prudent to plan ahead... Mother nature can be a real b*tch! 😉

Solar flares, natural disasters, or how about a sour gas explosion, or the grid collapses during a heat wave, a flu pandemic, a nuclear accident... there are more reasons to prepare then not. Does it make me paranoid... well no... I will deal with the obstacle(s) as they come... do I want to be as prepared as I can be for potential emergencies... "Hell yes!"

I am not living under a rock, I like to walk the waterfront, tip a bottle of wine on occasion, consume a little too much coffee etc... but I want to know that if something happens, I can give myself and my loved ones at least a fighting chance. I truly believe it is not a question of if, but a question of when as demonstrated daily in the news. Does the media play into this? Yes... but these disasters really are happening, and there does seem to be an acceleration to these events.

Truthfully, I am more worried about people then natural events. I have had a few occasions in my life to see just how little it takes to throw people off kilter. I love people, I am considered a people person, and for the most part I believe most folks would rather do good then not ... but I am also smart enough to know that if something happens, disaster or otherwise that leads to a breakdown in society, those rose colored glasses are coming off ~ quickly!

This post has gotten long but I will share a story with you in the next post of something I witnessed, the most mundane of natural events gone awry ...

This is the story I mentioned above, strange but true story :

I awoke on December 28th 1996, (or at least I think it was the 28th) to several feet of snow and it was still coming down. This was not an ordinary snowfall either, not the light fluffy flake variety, being a coastal city, this snow was wet and heavy, big fat flakes and still coming down hard.

We had just moved back from Manitoba that past summer, so I was grateful that we still had our industrial sized snow shovel tucked in the shed, but it wasn't rocket science to look outside at the deep drifts on the road in front of the house and know that no one was going anywhere for the next day or two... That wasn't a big deal to me and mine, we had seen a number of blizzards and ice storms that could shut you in for a couple of days in central Canada, so we basically sat back and prepared to enjoy some serious post-holiday leisure time.

Except I turned on the radio to listen to the forecast... and Victoria being a city with a number of elderly, the station was being flooded with calls from people trapped for a variety of reasons without food or medicine, every scenario that you can imagine. The radio announcer asked if there were any people out there that might be able to help a few in need, and not thinking much of it, I called in and said I would assist the elderly in my immediate area and left my phone number.

Within minutes I was receiving calls and I bundled up and trudged out, thinking I would go off and help a few people in a moment of need, come home and enjoy the rest of my day... the snow was deeper then my thighs and I kept sinking right in... hmmm, this was going to be a little tougher then I thought, but I was young ( and had more energy then brains) I could do this! So I climbed and pushed and grunted on, grateful for breaks between drifts where I could actually make some goose steps and keep on with my journey.

I saw an occasional passer-by also trudging through, there was plenty of good cheer and camaraderie as we waved and yelled cheerily and went off to aid someone disabled or elderly. It took a full 4 hours to make it a few blocks and home again, exhausted. Victoria is a warm climate locale so thankfully there was no deep-freeze temperatures to endure, but this thick deep, heavy snow was like nothing I had ever seen, anywhere...

Eventually I made it back home house, my earlier deep tracks completely gone, and was greeted by my (then)husband and my shouting kids and the phone ringing incessantly. My husband was wide-eyed, waving sheets of paper loaded in his writing at me as the phone continued to ring off the hook... these people were calling for help or wanted to volunteer! I wasn't too sure what exactly was going on but took the next phone call, and sure enough, it was an elderly woman sobbing into her phone because her elderly husband with a severe and unstable heart condition was about to head out and try to shovel a 5 foot wet drift with nothing more then a small garden spade... when I put the receiver down, it rang again immediately, this time a roofer named Mario offering to help with anyone who was in danger of a collapsing roof ...(of which there would eventually be many!)

And my short career as an emergency coordinator was born ... a single line phone with no call waiting, a list of volunteers that ranged from 30 to 50 people at any time, mostly young men with small shovels and big hearts and construction workers and roofers, and endless, ENDLESS calls from people in need... every kind of emergency imaginable happened in those next 72 hours.

I was covering quite a large territory in that first 12 hours that encompassed far beyond my immediate region before other people came on board and started to cover off some of the neighborhoods in their region... it was a long day...

And all the while it continued to snow heavily, the snow and drifting up to the second pane of glass at my back screen door, at least 4 ft high- not including the 4 stairs leading up to the door from my yard- and my phone rang non-stop, the only exception when I would ignore the ringing to quickly try to call back volunteers with a slew of addresses in need. Already a meter of snow had fallen in a region known more for it's flower count in late winter and the bragging rights they enjoyed due to their reputation for having to endure what was usually a teacup of snow annually...

Doctors and nurses and other essential services were trapped at their jobs working extended hours without anything more then a catnap or helplessly at home because no one could get in or out, the roads were completely impassable till a handful of us phone people and around 15 good Samaritans patched together and dispatched 4x4's and snow machines with sleds and toboggans that started to tow and transport relief staff to these hospitals.

One young man trudged several arduous kilometers into town to the one pharmacist who stoically decided to try and open, collected morphine for a gravely ill patient and made the journey all the way back with an extra kilometer tacked on to reach the terminally ill man who was shut in alone in a trailer...

I realized with growing awe and then distress at just how many people are surviving only day to day, how many gravely ill or severely disabled or elderly people are shut into their homes and how something like a 7 foot snowdrift blocking an intersection can bring even the best of the essential services to their knees...

I received a few unbelievably stupid calls too, like the one asking for a beef roast and a bottle of wine, but let's not waste space on idiots...they will reap their own karma 😉

Terminally ill people, severely disabled, people with no food due to a variety of circumstances, the very aged, essential services as trapped as the rest of us ...it was a big wake up call for Victoria and her citizens and 1997 brought in a new year where words like P.E.P and emergency preparedness became trendy ...

And let me say this again ... And it was just snow!!

I shudder to think if it had been something bigger, a real emergency like the an earthquake or a tsunami.... I really hope in the year 2011, we are far better prepared.

I remember the 96 snow for sure. And 2006 which filled my looooong driveway with tree branches 3 times, sigh.

Getting better prepared ever since.

Now I'm working on the earthquake ...

Hey, paintergirl

You know I always love to hear about your Blizzard of '96 adventures. But, I also feel quite sheepish as I was completely unaware of all the drama and hardships going on. (that was just a few months before we met) As it was just after Christmas there was still lots of food in the house and there was nowhere else we needed to be, so my family and I were happy as clams. I assumed everyone else was too. It never occurred to me to even turn on the radio. Duh. Different perspectives, eh? Hearing about all the different people and their problems was a real eyeopener for me.

I remember one of the people you helped out was a young mother with no food in the house for her child. That's sad and scary. How about the woman that demanded that she get a fuel delivery for her furnace? How could you resist not smacking her upside the head after finding out that she had a wood-burning fireplace, and wood. Human nature never ceases to amaze and aggravate.

More stories, please.

This word "preping" is also called "putting by" As in I,m putting by my food for the season. Some were along the family tree in all our life's we have strayed from are Earthy given right to look after our self, and the farther I personally go from that sustainable life, the more I feel vulnerable to to it. Now if your a parent on top of that, that same uneasiness is increasing when looking after people. It would seem to me the way you were brought up has a direct in-pack on your mine set for prepping. for example if any one has come through a war, maybe a grandparent or new comer to Canada, from a war torn place, they know the importance of prepping. Or like myself who went through the ice storm of 1989, very big eye opener. and as far as nuts gos, I go nuts ever day at the stupidity of man kind there bull shit and there treatment of this Earth for profit and gain, and as long as there is humans out there exploiting distorting lying aka global warming and controlling us, all be prepping.

We moved house in Vancouver during that winter storm of '96, with a new baby.

We had to dig a parking spot out in front of our apartment building for the U-Haul, load up (shoveling the walk as we went) then drive to our new basement suite, dig out the driveway, unload, dig the U-Haul out of the driveway and head back to start all over again. Even with 3 big guys helping my hubs and I (and I mostly stayed indoors with baby) it took a day and a half to move a small two-bedroom apartment (we have a lot of books).

We don't believe we can "prep" for any and every eventuality, but that we should do as much as possible to keep our footprints light upon the earth and be good stewards of our earthly belongings and blessings. We have health and strength and the ability to provide much for our family, so that is what we do.

Both hubs and I were both brought up by "old fashioned" and "frugal" families. We grew up stocked up and ready for anything. Our grandparents farmed and "put up" summer's bounty to get through the rest of the year and our parents learned those lessons. I grew up in a remote BC town where the power went out regularly, and this meant no well water so we had to be prepared. Hubs was a Scout, I was a Brownie and Guide, so "be prepared" came naturally as we learned camping and other outdoors skills.

We believe it is prudent to take personal responsibility for ourselves, and also to give back as we feel called. Hubs has been out of work in the past, and our "preps" got us through--then we re-doubled our efforts to re-supply once he had work again. Family has always been there for us, and we did take a loan from my parents when it got bad, but we paid that back asap. We have been blessed that we have never truly felt "want" or "need", but feel that we have some responsibility to ensure that we are always in this position. Faith is huge in our life, and we trust in God.

There is a story that tells of a man who finds himself on his roof during a flood. Guy comes by in a canoe, man says "God will save me"--same story as a rowboat and helicopter offer help. Man drowns and goes to heaven, man asks God why He didn't save him, God answers that he sent the canoe, rowboat, and helicopter and that His help was refused. It is up to us to see God's guidance in our lives and sometimes to help ourselves.

Denob hang in there. It is human nature to shoot the whistle blower, oh damn, he was right.

So how are the prep's coming? Is anyone any closer or any more comfortable with thier preps then they were when this thread first went up?

Nine months ago the primary focus of my preps was simply Food and Water with a little bit of work on Light and Heat.

To acheive this I set myself an annual Budget dedicated strickly to Preparation. Well, after spending triple my set budget I'm pretty much at a comfortable level. I have one more order to place in the new year then I will be shifting my preperation focus away from the basics of Food and Water to simply beefing up security and home defense (related issues such as Emergency Communications, Light and Heat are always on going as well).

Then its really going to suck if I'm forced to Bug Out as 90% of my preps are based on the entire idea of Sheltering in Place, but basic B.O.B.'s are on stand by.

I know we can never be fully prepared for anything, but with each passing week I get a little bit closer and a little more comfortable.

How are the rest of you doing?

I'm lazy and I prep for when I can't or do not want to leave the house. I can stay bugged in for months and longer if needed. I have a plan in place to leave too, and a back up plan failing that.

I'm lazy and I prep for when I can't or do not want to leave the house. I can stay bugged in for months and longer if needed. I have a plan in place to leave too, and a back up plan failing that.

Ah yes, a kindred spirit.
But my "back up plan failing that" is to die quietly in my bed.

It's a joke, people. Nobody's noticed, but my specialty is dark humour.

😆

But my "back up plan failing that" is to die quietly in my bed.

😆

You can't die in bed and just let those Special bottles of booze go to waste. 😕

I prep for short term urban survival, the bug out, and long term remote property survival. My prep is tailored to any loss of fuel and/or utilities, natural disasters, EMP attack, terrorist attack, lawlessness, martial law, conventional army invasion and infectious disease scenarios.

My prepping is not tailored, for obvious reasons, to all out nuclear war or major meteor strikes or anything else that would involve massive fall out, nuclear winters or the destruction of most biological life.

1 month food, water and supplies at the house in the city with one years worth of propane for the BBQ and a years worth of firewood. We also have an indoor/outdoor food garden and catch rainwater from the downspouts.

The bug out vehicle is a large 4x4 SUV with a roof-rack and I keep an extra tire on a rim and a full tanks worth of extra fuel in jerry cans in the garage. We have our own bug out bags ready to go and would simply take the back seats out of the truck and load it with as many supplies from the house as possible in the event we needed to leave town.

The cabin is on a fish rich, spring fed sparsely populated lake far from any major roads that is water access only and I am working on amassing a 5 year minimum store of non-perishable food and supplies to be supplemented by hunting, trapping and fishing. I figure if we play our cards right we can sustain there for a long time. The property has an endless supply of hardwood trees for firewood that will heat the winterized cabin by way of an airtight stove and standard fireplace that can be fitted with a grill or spit. I have a years worth of propane there for the BBQ with side-burners and have a wood burning meat smoker. We have a food garden at the cabin too and collect and store as many seeds as I can get my hands on or grow. I also dug an underground food store for root vegetables and cured meat or anything that requires dark, cool storage.

Will be installing a 1000 watt solar panel this year and an array of deep cycle marine batteries and I have plenty of extra fuel for the chainsaws and 20 hp aluminum boat that can be used with paddles if needed. We also have a canoe.

A number of the folks on the lake are like minded which will allow us the benefit of community, security and helping hands in the event of a long term survival situation.

That's pretty much it in a nutshell. That said, I hope the need will never arise but if it does we will be as ready as we can be.

I’m planning to make a gasifier, to run a generator, heat water and run a heat powered fridge. All at the same time, depending on the amount of residue heat. FEMA has designs on the gasifier free to down load. What you do with it depends on your skill and imagination. Make it portable, and take itto your bugout local or cottage. It will burn chipped wood, corn shucks or what ever you have.

I'm lazy and I prep for when I can't or do not want to leave the house. I can stay bugged in for months and longer if needed. I have a plan in place to leave too, and a back up plan failing that.

Ah yes, a kindred spirit.
But my "back up plan failing that" is to die quietly in my bed.

It's a joke, people. Nobody's noticed, but my specialty is dark humour.

😆

LOL Vanislemom and the phone guy ...

Forget the " die quietly in bed" thing and uncork that bottle and party like it is 1999! **Tipping my empty glass in your direction...**

You have to admit that there is more then a few benefits to prepping. Last week I went "shopping" in my preps - love the convenience when I don't feel like going out!

I prep for the small scale event such as a power outage, etc. But the focus of my prepping is more about improving my day to day living by doing things that will make my life better and help in a disaster. When I first started doing things like growing my own sprouts (which would be good in a disaster, save me money and are good for me) got me started. Being frugal and learning skills are important to me.