being north of north, I'm well away from nuclear reactors.
I'm in a smaller town/village, so I feel *almost* confident that we can avoid pandemic should it arise.
financial collapse - that's something to prep for, getting my ducks in a row now is a good idea.
but mostly it's severe weather I'm prepping for; being stuck inside for days; what happens if the pipes freeze;
having warm clothes and things to stave off boredom and riot; food easily heated with emergency power.
that sort of thing.

Financial collapse, military action, famine, sickness. I'd like to be securely placed and hidden away with enough supplies to survive and get things growing. No way anybody can do that on their own though. Looking for community...

I agree with you there. Forming a community is the way to go. Costs go way down with more people. The hard part is finding like minded.

There are some good stories coming out of Georgia, one I found in a comments section of a blog... http://momwithaprep.com/dads-get-home-bag/

The comment is at January 29, 2014 4:14 pm

This is probably the most common reason you need to be prepared. The situations that catch you off guard, and put you out a bit but can turn ugly if you don't have the basic of preps and knowledge, and the training/practice to get past the normalcy bias that makes people freeze. I think living through these types of situations, either first hand or second will help any fence sitter, like the posters wife.

More prepared than I was last year.

My top 3 rrasons for prepping are
1. Total failure of the power grid, due to either solar flare, severe storms due to global warming causing more destructive storms every year, or perhaps terrorists some how shutting the power grids down.
2. Collapse of the economy, which could be a result of the USA and there 17 trillion dollar debt and growing, or perhaps some type of terrorist threat that causes a total crisis in the stock markets, or possible oil crisis that causes fuel prices to double or tripple which would cause a snowball effect amongst all business and the stock market crashes, leaving a large part of the Country unemployed.
3. A disease, virus, or chemical agent released by terrorists, causing widespread illness and death, which creates a snowball effect creating stock markets to crash, panic, chaos, and severe effect on all businesses due to no workers showing up from fear of infection, and possible marshal law.
My preperations are to ride out any minor or short term problems at home because I have a woodstove for heat and cooking if power grid fails, and I live in a small town with a large fenced in property. I have numerous security measures in place, and more guns and ammo than a small African Country. I have 3+ months of food & 1 month of water, with a rainwater collection system to purify & replace water, and I live 5 minute walk away from a clean river system. If food is a issue, I also am a avid hunter & fisherman.
My plan B, if things are really bad or plan on being bad for a long time is to go up north 3-4 hours to our off the grid hunt camp, that is very remote and far away from any town or city. Between the freshwater lake beside the cabin, rainwater collection system, woodstove & wood cooking stove/oven, and the abundant fish & wild game up there, I could live there for ever if needed.