As I said, I think this is an unrealistic hypothetical to begin with, but I am curious for all of you saying you could do it without a problem....how much water do you have stored up in your home??  

For each person you are going to need a minimum of a 55gal drum per month and that's just for drinking water.  Flushing/bathing/cleaning dishes/etc. multiply that a few times.  So doing the math, for your average 3-4 person family, you are looking at around 700+ gallons of water....just water!...for a month.  

So where are yall storing that much water inside your house?  

I know for me that would mean dedicating an entire room in my basement to nothing but barrels of water.  Assuming I wasn't going to have a lifting system, I'd also would have to have a way of connecting them all together or putting a tap/spigot at the bottom of each one.  And again we're talking only enough for a month.  

My next question is why would you do such a thing when, in most places, you can get water in any number of places, purify it, and use that instead??

No offense to the hive, but this sort of indoor storage of water is not something I see many people doing.  Fish tank, water heater, etc...eh ok...but not more than that.  

-Emt1581

So well water?  I figured that violated the rules of this situation since nothing can come in from outside.  By that logic rain-water can also be used as can any water stored outside in a tank or something similar.

OP, can we get a ruling on this?  

-Emt1581

in the ground is not outside.



 

According  to the OP

"Grid starts going down immediately due to no one to man/maintain the grid. So no power, water, gas, etc.

Even with the well water, if you're stuck in the house how are you pumping the water into the house with the power down, no genny running etc unless its a spring

The OP was writing the situation as if you are in town. No public utilities. I have a well and 2 generators capable of powering the pump. Hand pump goes in later this year.

 

I'm dead as a doornail inside of 14 days. I never imagined I'd be confined strictly to my house. Most of what I have might as well be on the moon in this hypothetical.

I've got over a year of food stored, but can't eat most of it without hot water.

I've got a well, a 1k gallon rainwater cistern, and a river 300 yards away, but none are gravity fed into the house so I can't get them without a hand pump or power. So I'm limited to 50 gallons and whatever I have in the water heaters.

Most of our heat comes from wood stoves already and we could use these to heat water, but we only keep about a days worth of wood stored inside. The rest is over by one of the outbuildings.

I've got a generator we could run for power, but I can't run it inside because of ventilation issues and all the fuel is likewise outside.

Granted it's just me, but I have 135 gal of treated water (two 55 gal drums, five 5 gallon containers in the garage (attached) and with a little notice to fill the Water bob another 100 gallons. So thirty days is good.

Side note, IMO, your numbers are a little high for drinking water.

water would be an issue. I have a bunch stored but I don't know if it would be 30 days worth. food would be getting thin at 30 days too, and some of what I have stored would need water to cook.
most of my food is stuff I eat on a regular basis so it isn't specifically for an emergency but I keep enough of it on hand (often buy bulk or stock up during sales) that I could easily go a few weeks

Sadly, no.  Way, way light on water, food is better, about a month there.  Tons of ammo for the guns, which is sad/good considering most of my firearms stuff is still in storage 30 miles away. Other supplies we're good for a few months.

I need to get on the water thing.  I don't feel terribly comfortable only having a few days worth.

Oh, and the generator is also in storage.  Need to go get it asap with winter coming.  We're in a new town, no idea what their power up-time is like...need to be ready for that very real possibility of a few days at a time of no power.

I questioned that myself
He insists that we shouldn't be able to go out and he makes no distinction between urban and rural

Yes. For the two of us.

Food and the ability to prepare and cook it not an issue.
Hygiene and all that will be ok.

Water storage is what I wish I had more of. These darn southern homes have not basement so I ran out of storage pretty quickly.

It would be a little rough if I couldn't go outside at all. I could probably do it if there was a pressing reason, but I'm hard pressed to figure out why I can't go on the porch or in my (block fenced in) back yard. (For that matter, I'd really love to have access to the Hot Tub for toilet flushing water...)

And actually, since my inside stove is electric, and my propane appliances are mostly in the trailer, and the propane is outside... yeah, I'd really have to go out there at least a little.

My only weakness would be water. Given half an hour lead time, I could rig my garden irrigation tanks to the house for about 1100 gallons. But barring that there's probably only 50 gallons in the house itself. Everything else is set for 3 to 5 months.

Might lose a little weight and be bored, but 30-days, sure.  Heating and cooling are not issues where i live. I dont have AC and havent turned on the heater in a few years. Not even sure it works.

No daily meds.

Just need water and food.

We have +4 barrels filled at all times. 4000 gallon cistern is piped to basement gravity fed.

My wife just needs two liters of diet pepsi a day.

a gallon a day per person for drinking water. supplemented with canned fruits, canned veggies, fruit juices, coconut water, milk, almond milk, fresh fruit, frozen fruit, popsicles, ect.

And this is why I prefer canned food to dried food.

wife and I


3 years, never needing to leave the ranch

all the kids show up?..probably  6 mo

Bishops pantry
THRIVE
Provident Pantry
Auguson Farms..
red feather
10 gal olive oil/ghee/sunflower oil
30 lbs Jiff and Skippy
50lbs of coffee and
15 gallons of hootch..

 

you have problems.

I would.  Family probably dont have the stones for it tho.

Oh, please elaborate..

Anything dangerous enough to make simply going outside dangerous, will get in via cracks around windows and leaky buildings anyway.

Yes.

The only scenario I can imagine that would require me to stay indoors would be a nuclear event. I have a storm shelter in my home but I seriously doubt it would provide me with full protection from radiation, it would keep the fallout off but that's about it. Well is electric powered that can be run from my generator that would require trips outside to re-fuel. I think I would be screwed. Almost any other scenario I believe I would be fine as long as I could go outside occasionally. Plenty of water around and lots of game to supplement my food stores.

Easily, and I couldn't say the same thing about a year ago. I'm not as prepared as I would like to be (yet), but my family of 5 could do 30 days without leaving the house easily (food/supplies wise, we might want to kill each other before it's over, however).

It was not known how it was being spread at first but a new Ebola like virus was consuming an entire region. Millions dead. The scientists weren't sure how it was spreading but said that everyone should stay indoors and self quarantine for 30 days.  That should give it time to die out or at least isolate and stop spreading.  It turns out later that the local bat population had become infected with the virus  The bats dropped guano everywhere and then you would step in the guano or other small critters or even insects would spread the virus everywhere outside.  Simply walking outside world cause you to become infected. Millions of rotting corpse caused a bloom of insects that fed on them which then led to a spike in the bat population. It happened to take almost exactly 30 days for the sick bats to die out and stop spreading the virus.
Those that went outside brought the virus back inside.  Those who couldn't or wouldn't stay inside became infected.
Having the discipline to stay inside was just as important as having the supplies to last the 30 days.

If you could bring it in with out going outside, but... if it was exposed to the virus outside then you needed to sterilize it first with out contamination.  This was not understood at first.  Those who were set up to keep their water clean or sufficiently filtered lived.  Those who consumed infected water died.

This for me. I could do a couple of weeks at the most. Fortunately I live near a river and stocked up on water filters.

Other than water and toilet paper I could do two weeks without a single scrap of food....it would suck balls, but I could do it.

Yes my wife, 2 kids, and I could survive for 30 days without leaving our house.

I guess we would die or get infected by the ebola vampire zombie bats. we don't store any water in the house to speak of. I have a great well, 100 feet deep, water at 9 feet, 8 inch casing with a simple pump installed 50 feet from the back door.So I guess we die.

Tom

30 days of feces from one man is too much to keep in a smaller home like mine. I have the 5 gal bucket with seat and plenty of plastic bags but it would be necessary to dig up the concrete basement floor in order to burry it. Plus I don't have enough lime. Bleach goes bad and I think mine has.

Food - good
fresh water - tight
batteries and entertainment -plenty

The latrine would concern me most. Then the water supply.

I am one man though. I would really have trouble not breaking the hypothetical  seal on my front door and taking what I have to my loved ones. But then again, if I knew I would die I would suck it up and push on in isolation. I have a Bible and I have faith.


If you are doing research on a book that you would want to write at our expense, I hope to be portrait like the character andy dufrain in the war of the worlds. (but without the crazy). I've read almost every end of the world book I could get my hands on. You might consider me as a co-writer.


How long do the quarantine deniers have to live once they leave their home? I'm a 10 second run from my 4 neighbors. And so are they. I live in a neighborhood that is 400 deep and all are within 10 seconds of each other.


Will anyone riot? If they do will they come to my house and how long will I have to hold them off? Your bat shit and deadly insects plot has some holes in it. Would you like some help working it out friend?

Yes....

Posted Via AR15.Com Mobile

Easily manageable excluding firewood. Only about 4-5 days is stored inside at a time. But we have a full 500lb LP tank out back so I imagine we would be fine.

In this scenario I can't imagine NOT being ableft to go outside though.  Nearest  of three houses is over 100 m away. And they are never home.

I would still have all winter to go outside and do what I want with no bugs/bats. Frozen North FTW

 

Responses like yours (Maypo59) give survival forums a bad rap.  The hypothetical posed by OP is highly relevant given the current scare, and is an exercise for us to simply view our preps TODAY (not what we plan to do over the next year) and take an assessment.  It might get some of us to step up preps a bit, or consider areas where our preps may be lacking.  As water seems to be the shortfall for most here, let's pretend that the hypothetical is that all running water, and therefore the waterways it drains into, are contaminated.  How are you doing?  

All we do is run through hypotheticals.  We all worry a bit too much.  Y2K didn't happen.  All the 2012 crap didn't happen.  Seriously, we're fine.  But we enjoy preparing for the unknown, and so hypotheticals are an important exercise.  If you don't want to participate in this one, then don't.  Regardless, your post was not helpful.

For my house, we MAY make it a month, but it wouldn't be comfortable, and we'd have a human and pet waste problem.  I suspect a bunch of us would would be very thirsty, hungry, and smelly behind our awesome ammo forts.

Horse Poop. My answer is/was true, FOR OUR HOME, exactly what the OP asked. Thread TITLE "Would you survive a "Shelter in place" for 30 days starting now?"

Not my fault someone doesn't like it or hasn't done everything in their power to make it so at THEIR home. 30 days just isn't that hard. Takes a plan, yes. And if that is the standard a prepper has chosen, and he/she/they have not moved to property with say, a septic tank, then it's their fault, not mine. Have not started eating what they store, storing what they eat.. etc etc. not my fault.

I prefer a few less "hypotheticals" that no one can honestly prep for, and more work on and about what is more probable to happen. Unlike many in this S&P forum, I HAVE discussed how we do it, I HAVE shown how to do it, I HAVE shown what we do and how. I am saddened by the number of responses that have been about water, when it's just not that hard to put together a couple rain barrels, and have a way to filter that water, or again, in the idea of "you die if you go outside" put two water barrels in the garage/basement/storeroom, per person. We have 6 in the basement. We have the before mentioned rain barrel system, we have a cistern that pipes into the basement. All on purpose. When we retired from the Army we planned where, what, and why we were building this house, on this property.

I spent 20+ years in the Army, PCS'd 11 times, was on 4 different continents, and at NO TIME was my family not covered for a 30 day event.

And I love your comment about being behind piles of ammo, because, yes, we have that TOO. It came last. But it's a pretty fair pile now.

And in your reply, you clearly state what your needs are, fantastic. What did you do TODAY about them????

We don't have cable, or satellite, no new mega phones, 70 inch TV's etc. We have a 20 year old car in perfect running order and a 10 year old SUV in the same condition. We rarely eat out. Garden and hunt. Guess what we do with that $2000 or more a month we aren't spending on all the "gotta have" crap most everybody else has...

We've had one instance here in the neighborhood where a water main broke up the street and we had no water for several hours. During one of the hurricanes here, the storm surge / flooding caused one of the municipal water providers in the area to issue a 'boil your water' alert. As I recall, during a particularly high electricity demand period in February a few years ago, didn't the entire city of El Paso run out of water because of the rolling brownouts and the contracts they had to only run the pumps to refill the towers at "off peak" times (which was never because of the frigid cold)?

So, there are circumstances where (a) you might not have advanced notice of water cut-off and (b) you might not know how long water is going to be out. This concerns me as I do not have an alternate source other than the bottled I've stored or what I could ask the neighbor to extract and filter out of his pool.

The other utility that around here is crucial is sewer. If the city sewage system loses power, the sewage pumps stop working. Since everything is flat and close to sea level, there really isn't a lot of margin between working fine and all stop. During both of the last two hurricanes, the city had generators pre-positioned at the sewage pumping stations. Ditto the water towers. So, we had hot showers (gas was still on) and flushing toilets.

It doesn't have to be a pandemic that locks you into your house. Maybe, it's <you> that gets the communicable disease of some sort and, unlike the idiot doctor in NYC, you decide not to share the joy with a few thousand of your neighbors. Or maybe you just have an injury that you've decided to convalesce at home for a month.

It's a good thought exercise, regardless of the triggering event. Like many have indicated, my holes are water and sanitation primarily because I'm in an urban area.

As long as I have power I can run my well. One of my top priorities is getting a battery to run my well pump with a genny to run it. Maybe a small solar/wind setup to charge the battery in place of the genny.  I have about 6 cords of wood set back. This would last me one winter using only wood.  One of my secondary plans is to add a couple of kerosene heaters and a large tank of kero.

water and waste removal, especially sanitary waste, are the real stumbling blocks for a LOT of people.   A day, or even a few hours advance notice would be key.

On the other hand, it's highly unlikely that any event that would force a 'no going outside for anything for 30 days'  regimen would ever happen.  If things were that bad, then getting out of Dodge is more practical than bunkering down.

Well then please oh master prepper, tell us how to prep for magic, inexplicable outdoor air death!





Seriously, you do know there are protective suits and decon to deal with moving into and out of a contaminated environment, right?

Also I'm guessing your house does not have filtered, positive pressure air to prevent any of the magical outdoor air death from getting in, so you're screwed no matter what!





Otherwise I can only guess you want to know how to prep for the next Steam sale, in which case stockpile Doritos, Mountain Dew and Depends.