SHTF WTF?

[Decoligny]

I have to laugh when I read posts about SHTF situations. Seriously? Do some of these guys really think it's going to come down to battle with their neighbors in some crazy post apocalyptic scenario where you're going to need your pimped out AR and 20,000 rounds of ammo stashed to defend yourself. And 2 extra replacement parts of everything...

Could we ever get into that kind of situation? I guess so but chances are probably less than 1% that it would ever come down the "SHTF" that these keyboard commando's talk about. Come back to reality and leave the fantasy world behind.

Am I alone in this thinking?

It's a really simple concept. Hope for the best, prepare for the worst.

I have been through WAY more than my fair share of actual disasters. I don't know of a single one where anyone said, "I wish we didn't have as much bottled water stored away", or "I wish we didn't have as much medical supplies on hand as we did."

If you prepare for the end of civilization as we know it, when an earthquake hits, you will be prepared. When wildfires sweep down the mountainsides, you will be prepared. When a tsunami hits the coast, you will be prepared.

If none of these SHTF scenarios happen, they you have food on hand that you can eat, and other supplies on hand that you can use in your day to day life (if you are prepping correctly you use what you prep and you prep what you use).

When I want to go shooting, I grab a bunch of ammo and go shooting. I don't have to worry about "if" Walmart has any ammo in stock.

If I have 20 unannounced relatives stop by for dinner and they decide to stay for a week, I don't have to worry, I have plenty of food on hand.


Disasters that I have lived through:

MOROCCO: Agidir Earthquake – 29 Feb 1960, 6.7 Magnitude, 12,000 dead. I was born in January in a Navy Hospital. The entire Maternity Ward was destroyed in the earthquake a month after I was born.

MASSACHUSETTS: Blizzard of 78, Feb 1978, 55 inches of snow in 33 hours, 56 dead.

CLARK AIR BASE, REPUBLIC OF THE PHILIPPINES
Typhoon Ruby – Oct 1988, 145 mph winds, 689 dead.
Typhoon Skip – Nov 1988, 145 mph winds, 104 dead.
Super Typhoon Gordon – July 1989, 160 mph winds, 97 dead.
Super Typhoon Angela – Sept 1989, 150 mph winds, 62 dead.
Super Typhoon Flo – Sep 1990, 165 mph winds, 32 dead.
Super Typhoon Mike – Nov 1990, 185 mph winds, 876 dead.
Super Typhoon Page – Nov 1990, 160 mph winds, dead counted with Mike.
Baguio Earthquake – Jul 1990, 7.8 Magnitude, 1,600 dead.
Typhoon Yunya – Jun 1991, 105 mph winds, hit during the eruption of Mt Pinatubo.
Eruption of Mt Pinatubo – Jun 1991, 800 dead, mudslides caused by Typhoon Yunya drastically increased the death toll.

HOMESTEAD, FL
Hurricane Andrew – Aug 1992, 175 mph winds, 26 dead

OKLAHOMA CITY, OK
Alfred Murrah Federal Building Bombing, 168 dead. I was 7 miles away when the explosion occurred. I had been recently certified as an Emergency Medical Technician. I responded to the scene, and assisted a friend who was a registered nurse who was setting up the triage area.

TOTAL BODY COUNT FROM ALL OF THESE: 16,510

[lurchnp81]

Not sure if anyone touched on this. But remember last year when Ohio had the problem with toxic algae getting into the water supply.

People were lining up outside Walmart waiting for 18 wheelers full of water. Think about what that would look like in a city the size of Los Angeles if something like that ever happened. Not saying it ever will.

But being prepared for that type of situation doesn't make somebody crazy...that is unless you have your water storage booby trapped with explosives and barbed wire. But I wouldn't put that past some calgunners.

[bsg]

It's a really simple concept. Hope for the best, prepare for the worst.

works for me.

[Norcalkid]

I guess I just don’t get why people wouldn’t prep. I’m not like super prepper or anything but a 30 day bucket of food at 90 bucks and rinsing out some plastic containers for 30 days worth of water seems like a cheap insurance policy. As for guns and ammo and stuff. I feel that a well concealed handgun would be best in a Katrina type situation (or earthquake in our case). That doesn’t really involve any “prepping” for most of us on here. As for ammo, I buy in bulk when cheap and I have the cash. Again not really prepping per say but I never ran out of ammo in the last ammo scare. If I see a great deal on ammo I buy it, I’ll use it eventually. May as well buy it when it’s cheap.

[WyattandDoc]

I give the OP 5, maybe 7 days in a SHTF situation before he's done.

That long? You must be an optimist!! LOL

[gorn5150]

My solar panels emits no sound. Unfortunately its not as cheap as a generator.

Yes, but the sunshine will still be there when the gas is all gone. Solar is the long term answer to electricity. Generators are short term.

[EspoMan]

That long? You must be an optimist!! LOL

I was trying to be somewhat nice.

[titan2]

Man, you sure lived a 'Charmed' life!!!

Remind me not to move in to you neighborhood!!!

[j15w]

Seems like a lot of folks think they will do just fine with those 50,000 rounds of .22LR they've been hoarding.

[desertjosh]

When the power went out for like 16 hours all over the state a couple years ago I was driving into town to see if any other gas stations had power so I could fill my gas cans. There were dozens of people pulled over freaking out because they were out of gas. I then realized how poorly people were actually prepped. Even back then I kept some cash in the safe and gas in our toyhauler, so I wasn't in a panic. Now I'm even more prepared. It's foolish not to be, especially with a family.

[Bansh88]

When the power went out for like 16 hours all over the state a couple years ago I was driving into town to see if any other gas stations had power so I could fill my gas cans. There were dozens of people pulled over freaking out because they were out of gas. I then realized how poorly people were actually prepped. Even back then I kept some cash in the safe and gas in our toyhauler, so I wasn't in a panic. Now I'm even more prepared. It's foolish not to be, especially with a family.

I lived in BFE when that happened. We actually had a 12 hour outage in our area 2 weeks prior.
It was fun for us. Fired up the Colemans and enjoyed ourselves. Next week, an Electrician buddy wired up my panel to run the house off my Generator.

[Mr. Beretta]

If there was a major metropolitan area with no power it wouldn't take two weeks for people to flip out, I wonder if it'd make it a week before all hell started to break loose in places like San francisco, LA, New York City etc...

3 days tops!

[The Last American Hero]

It's a really simple concept. Hope for the best, prepare for the worst.

I have been through WAY more than my fair share of actual disasters. I don't know of a single one where anyone said, "I wish we didn't have as much bottled water stored away", or "I wish we didn't have as much medical supplies on hand as we did."

I believe in Inverse Murphy's Law. If you "waste time and money" planning against a bad but unlikely event, it wont happen and you will have indeed wasted that time and money. But if you hadn't wasted that time and money it would have happened.

Just ask my buddy who was making big money (no risk, just renting his brain) trading in the SF stock exchange. Then he gets in a minor traffic accident on his motorcycle (totally other driver's fault, no injury worth mention to him or bike) but he'd let his insurance lapse, so he gets one year automatic DL SUSPENSION that even his million dollars in the bank can't get him out of, and it makes him look like an idiot when his company wants to promote him to NYC major league. And the other driver's insurance somehow dings his otherwise perfect credit rating.


Medical seems to go unused because you either gotta stock the entire pharmacy or you wont have the particular things you need.

But you can never have enough fresh water. It will be the main factor in determining your Quality of Life in SHTF.

[SonofWWIIDI]

I'm not a big prepper. That said:

Idea rather have it and not need it, than need it and not have it.

I doubt that any major nationwide SHTF situation is going to happen in my lifetime. Other than the overlords continuing to usurp our Constitution in the name of power, control and money.

Regional stuff, i.e. Weather, drought, outages, riots due to legal decisions/sports championships etc. will happen. Mini shtf if you will. Why not be ready if it happens in a city/town/state near you.

You may laugh at those who prep now, but if a situation occurs, guess who'll be laughing at you.

[bruss01]

I'm a "hope for the best, prepare for the worst" kind of guy like many here.

I get up every day thinking it's a great day to be alive and live life to the fullest. And remind myself it could be TEOTWAWKI next month, so keep up the prep chores. When I go around rotating my stored food and fuel, it is not with a furrowed brow worried I will never have enough. It is with a satisfied inner smile, that I am doing what I can reasonably do, to ensure that we will never be without.

I like my firearms and frankly I'll admit I have more than I need, but never as many as I would want because I fancy myself a bit of a collector and something different or unique or iconic is always catching my eye. And I do train with the more practical of them because I want to be able to use them effectively if it ever comes down to that. I really don't want to think about shooting anyone, but there are circumstances where it could come to that, so it's better to be ready for that even if I find it a bit distasteful - like taking out the garbage or cleaning up cat barf. Yech. But it's another thing that's got to get done. And I feel that same inner satisfaction after it's done, knowing that I've done what I can reasonably do to be ready.

I think the gun and ammo panics that have come and gone over the past 10-15 years have proven that if you want something, or think you are GOING to want something, you're better off getting it while you can, rather than just assuming it'll be there when you finally get around to it. The same can be said about food and medical supplies. It's easy and inexpensive to get it now... why not do that? Instead of wait until there's a run on the store? Or everything is closed. Or the power is out across the state for whatever reason.

As far as calamities go, Mother Nature has her tantrums from time to time - Katrina, Sandy, Loma Prieta - you name it. She's not going to plan those around your personal readiness or lack thereof. And every great and propsperous nation in the history of the world has eventually gone through a collapse of some sort. Rome was great - until it wasn't. Our civilization is no different, and our day is undoubtedly coming - if I knew when I would take that psychic ability and play the lotto - nobody knows. Fifty years? A hundred? Next month? Did anybody see the 1929 stock market crash coming? Did anybody think the Titanic would sink on it's maiden voyage? Stuff like this happens when nobody thinks it will, that's what makes it a calamity. So just because I think we'll make it through this week, this month, this year, with no problems... doesn't make it so. And if things get chaotic, the odds of taking care of myself and my family are greater if we are fed, armed and secure BEFORE those things become hard to get. Just like you wouldn't wait until you have a kitchen fire to go out and buy an extinguisher.

I mean, that just makes good common sense, right? I guess it's not as common as it used to be, is all.