Before I begin I just want to state that I am not one of these CRAZY people that believes the world will end next year in 2012 because of the Mayan calendar.  I do however think that something big will happen within my lifetime (I am 25) that would require some survival skills.  I base this off current world events that seem to be getting worse and worse every year.

So what im curious to know is, what have you done or are you doing to prepare.

Im keeping this in the Carolina thread because I dont want a million people giving their input. Im really only concerned about NC because thats where ill be should the worst happen.  

So what kinds of things are you doing? ie. stock piling ammo, guns, food, bottled water ect.

Again this is purely hypothetical, but it doesnt hurt to be prepared and share ideas.

Toilet paper.

Feminine hygiene products

Stock up on lots of ammo and reliable guns. Its also smart to have a reloading setup.  

You are missing alot of valuable infor by not posting this in the SF also....but it is your thread.

I don't think you'll need too much ammo.

I can't see firing off 10,000 rounds in any given survival situation.  If it goes down that hard, your house isn't going to be enough protection...even if it's brick.  You'll get picked off at some point by someone who wants to take your stuff...

Food and water will be more valuable than ammo long term.  

However, in a Zombie scenario, I can easily see needing to have lots and lots of ammo.  Maybe even a house on top of a hill with hordes of zombies approaching.  Zombies don't shoot back, so you'll be OK standing at your window picking them off one at a time...over and over for months on end.

Again, food and water will be very important here...

Get out of debt, quit smoking, and get into shape.

I think a zombie world would be fun until they got me.

Getting out of debt is the best thing you can do long term in any scenario.  Get rid of the credit card debt, school loans, any unsecured debt with high interest rates first.  Take the money you were spending on that and make exta home mortgage payments against the prinicple of your loan.  Make sure its against the principle of the loan.  You can do this on most any loan to help get it paid off and save money in the long run  by not paying more interest.

Food and fuel prices are going to climb higher so I would stock up on food and drinking water - you will always eat it or drink it.  Initially just buy extra what you normally eat.  Unless you have money to use for it, space to store it and the ability to utilize large containers of food before they spoil I would avoid big cans and bags of long term survival food.  One way to get around the space considerations is split it with a trusted neighbor.

Fuel - can't store enouigh forever but you can keep a few 5 gal cans with some Stabil in it for storage.  Fill up your tank, use the can to top off the car and refill the can.   That way if there is interruption of gas supply for any reason you have at least some on hand to work with.   If you live in an apartment and can't store it, the best place to keep it is in your car's tank by keeping it full.

Start gardening.  Even if its just patio containers or the "lasagna" style of layering of paper and organic mulch to make raised beds.  People back during WWII had victory gardens to supplement their groceries.  

These are things you can do now and from now on that are not radical but can help you sustain your standard of living.  

Take care of yourself - your diet, exercise, teeth cleaned and checked.  All that other stuff won't do you any good if you stroke out, or are miserable because your teeth are rotten, etc.    

And TP and those feminine hygiene products may be worth a lot if it really hits the fan.  And deodorant.  And don't forget chocolate.

Take a look at what's going on in the Arab world.  It will happen the same way here.  You will have .Gov and it's supporters (well armed and supported) then the other side.... well armed but with very limited support; then you will have all the "others" that have no side.
Once the lights go out and the water and fuel stop flowing it will be down hill fast. Parts of the US can't survive a storm/ flood, ect... without the .gov.  

It will be a nasty ride and I hope that me and mine are long gone when it hits.... but if not then food/water, fuel/gold, guns/ammo should be a priority.  Stock up, get training and have good friends and family close by.

Good luck.

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First I don't need to stock up as long as I know you are stocking up.

Keep your business your business.

Second start looking at propane powered generators and really anything you can get propane powered.
You can store 500 Gal of propane in your yard with no trouble at all.It will stay stable forever.
Gas even with stabilizers starts breaking down and losing potency immediately. Also 500 gal of gas is not so easy to store.

I have seen governments collapse.
What you do is anything in your power to keep it from happening.
The long night that follows is infinitely worse than you can imagine.

This is not 1776. You might recall that the reason we won was
#1 Foreign intervention by the French.
#2 We captured the supreme commander of the British forces. The fact that messages back to England were months back and forth and emergency reinforcements from any British troops on the continent were weeks away meant that the General captured was the end of the war.

Today the US goes into revolt, collapse, anarchy, call it as you will it will not happen in the vacuum of time they had in the Revolution.

First sign of the US being fractured the vultures will pour in so fast you will think you are on another earth.

Florida will have the army of the people backed by Cuban and South American troops to help them. The east cost from SC to NY will be a Beirut type free fire zone. The large concentration of population with no knowledge or ability to feed itself will make “THE ROAD” look like a Disney film.  

The US army or what is left of it will be spread thin. Concentrated around what ever areas the President and the Army think important. Nuke sites, DC, some of the ports.
A power plant or TV station here and there.

Hawaii, and all points west toward Asia will be taken into “protection” by Japan or China. Whoever can get there and hold it first.

Russia will help over throw any troops left in Alaska to free the oil fields for the native peoples long oppressed by the western capitalist.

Oregon, Washington, California are now patrolled by the  Western States Freedom Army with the benevolent help of 2 million Chinese troops.
Southern California is worse than the East Coast. The water from CO got turned off early on. It reverted back to its natural state, Desert, in about twenty minutes. China is providing water for information on traitors to the people, and those who swear allegiance. Or you can drink sea water.

The South West states fall in here and there some will be pulled into the California collective, others will be raiding areas for generations of  South American countries with an eye for payback.

Canada supports the US openly but privately realizes that the US Army is spread thin and that the nukes along the border in Montana, Wyoming, Idaho, North and south Dakota can not fall in to the hands of others and mobilizes its troops the seize and hold the silos and missals until the US Government is in a position to reclaim them.

1000 little guerilla groups and “True Constitution” militias spring up.
As no two agree on what the true constitution is they spend most of their men, ammo, resources, and good will of the people fighting each other.

The US once broken will never reform. Its time as a superpower, in fact a world power will be over.


I was just hitting the basic points people miss when they talk about a country or society falls.

Roads are gone. No repair or maintaince. I have seen paved roads that had been neglected for 5- 6 years. They looked like they have been shelled. You have local guys who will fix the local roads? Good  can they produce asphalt or concrete in house ? because you are not getting supplies in from outside of your area.
( I always wondered who kept those roads paved so well  in the mad max films when all the houses and towns were gone.)
No interstate trucking, means no interstate trade, means limited food coming in from out side your area.

Everyone you know who takes insulin is dead. Everyone with a medical condition that requires medication is dead. Aids, dead Heart attack, dead  Pacemaker, dead when the batteries go or the body starts rejection with out the needed drugs.
Antibiotics can become toxic after a couple of years. New ones are not coming in and you can’t grow penicillin. People will die of infection in cut fingers.

Power grid gone. If you have a power plant in your town you better hope it is next to an oil well or coal field, or it will be dead in days.

Point is NOW is when you stop this. Everyday you do what ever is needed to keep it from happening. As long as the election system works go with it. No matter who wins.

I read a lot of survival experts on the net (not here) who have the answers. As long as what they are prepared for happens. If it doesn’t go according to the script they have in their head then they are screwed.
I wish I had the money to fly some of those people to Somalia, or Afghanistan, or Chechnya, so they could see what the end of civilization looks like.

Here is a link for those of ya'll that might want to look at subject.
http://propane-generators.com/

Lot's of folks around here have the big tanks to power up their fake fire places.

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nooneimportant,
This is very well put. I did A-stan back in '03 and caught the tail end of DS years ago.  It will not end well for us.  All the "Have Not's" as their are called ––- hood rats–– what ever will hit the street for any reason and it may not take much to start them off.

If yall can picture yourself setting in a 1/2 burned out house with armed Mexican troops/thugs patroling your street.... you will be un-armed and only given some bottled water and boxed refugee food (if they even do that for you).  When we invade a country we take care of the people and try to rebuild the.gov.  It won't be that way here. Females amd males will be raped in the streets, heads will be chopped off, ect... most of the world (mostly muslim/some not) hate us and will do what is need to take us off the maps.

Maybe I'm just talking out my a and I hope this never happens but....

.


.

While I would agree that getting out of debt is a good thing, having debt during the collapse is not a big deal at all.  In fact, I'd rather be cash heavy and debt heavy than cash light and debt light.

Who's going to collect on your credit card debts when the phones aren't working and the post office is closed?

IMHO, having cash in hand is much better (assuming we will still buy things with cash) than being debt free.

The problem is that a complete collapse isn't as likely as a severe bout of hyperinflation or other economic crisis.  Continuing to make your house, car and flat screen TV payments when your food and fuel costs are doubling every few months is going to be an issue.

For me, anyway, the point of preparation isn't hoping for doomsday.  It's about making likely crises easier to deal with.  If you're prepared for total societal collapse, then the quality of your life during a partial crisis like hyperinflation or a bout of unemployment is improved.

And the basis of that is getting out of debt, quitting smoking (or other stuff you're addicted to that you won't be able to get), and getting in shape.  People like to focus on bullets 'n beans because whipping out a charge card is easier than hitting the gym, but the first three things will serve you better.

Toothpaste, too. Brush, if possible. Can't eat the meat you will have to go out and kill if you got no choppers. Also, bad breath might give you away to animals you are hunting as well as to the enemy.

Move away from a city and learn how to hunt and garden.  I'm not saying I can survive on my hunting skills alone, I doubt I could.

However, the last place I want to be in a melt down situation is inside a large city.  I currently live out in the county away from a lot of people.  There are two ponds

and one natural spring back behind my house.  I have a water filter and iodine caplets so I can always get water from these places.  I greatly

enjoy deer hunting.  There are a lot of deer, turkey, and rabbits in the area I live in.  During a shtf scenario you won't be able to go to the store a get a ribeye or any other

type of meat.  I take comfort in the fact that I can kill and butcher deer, turkey, squirrel, and rabbit.  It could give me and my family a source of protein.

I also agree with what everyone else is saying about stocking up on some gas, shelf foods, ammo, batteries, and other things.  I also make it a point to

buy at least 5 military chem lights at every gun show I go to.  I now have a drawer full of them.  I could light my house with them for a month if I needed to.

I am not a "doom and gloomer", but I do think you need to have your Shi# together especially if you have children. Every one should keep a few weeks of food and water on hand, some extra cash, important documents, and a bag (for each family member) with some extra clothes and personal stuff ready to go.

Once you have this part down, and are in good physical shape, I would make a list of what your SHTF might look like and then prepare for those.

My list:
1. Power Outages.
2. Car Wreck
3. Medical Emergency.
4. Home Fire.
5. Loss of Job.
6. Home invasion.
7. Zombie Apocalypse.

Some interesting info has been posted, but if things turn for the worse, I probably wont be sitting it out at my house. Strength in numbers is what I'm sticking with.

Yeah I was thinking more of a slide into second world, old world status with hyperinflation, devalued currency and a lower standard of living due to limited commodities and high costs.

In a collapse, food/water/shelter/protection first.  Meds/fuel/transportation next.  Your money may not be worth anything and PM's may or may not be taken as exchange.  So what you have stored and can produce from seed will be important.

Having a network and a community to work in will mean the difference between just survival and survival/recovery/rebuilding.  

I would say balance your need in the near term to eliminate debt with the longer need to prep with some extra food, water, fuel and meds.  Anything you do will be better than nothing.

That's the same thing my wife says whenever I get the hankering to buy gold.

Claims we could own the world in a Mad Max scenario.

Sounds like you married a smart woman! Fess up, she have her Aunty Entity wardrobe in the closet ready to go?

She tells me all the time how smart she is, but I have to wonder.

I mean, she married me, so...

As long as I am being an a$$ Lets rain some more.

Don’t know how many people I hear about buying land some where to retreat to. Most of the others are “headed for the mountains”

Got news there are already people in the mountains and they don’t want you.
You knew what mountain people call a fifth generation resident? “That new family”

Not that it matters because no one ids going to get much of anywhere before they hit a new “Tax” check point manned by about 50 guys with guns. They may not of had all the tactical schools you have but they will make up for that in volume. And if you see it in time and find away around there will be dozens more. Use on the roads and all of your preparations and vehicles will belong to these thugs who not only were not prepared but will eat up your supplies tonight not thinking about tomorrow. You will now be an unarmed pedestrian. If you are lucky

Lots of deer and game? Sure for a few months. As the food in the cities dry up the people with no care to farm even if they knew how will start out down the roads, the 4 lanes first then out on the highways and as gas taken along the way allows the secondary roads.
Like poison blood from a rotten heart the path they take to find food and anything else they need will seem like a biblical plague or Shermans march.
As the caned and packaged food is gone “hunting” parties wit dozens of people volley firing into anything with fur or feathers will decimate the wild game in months, and the cows and the dogs.

North Carolina is 9 million people or so. They all want to eat every day or so.

Let’s take the Greensboro area. With a metropolitan population of around 715,000 people you can see how food and water will run out fast. Some of these people are honest hard working people. But they are now hungry and their kids are hungry.
Your garden will get you through the winter, but only if you can hold on to it. There will be people who are hungry NOW and your garden is food for them now.

You going to shoot some guy raiding your garden to feed his starving kids?

How about the next 50? or the next 50 thousand?
Look at those numbers again almost a million people in the Greensboro/Winston/ High point area. That many empty bellys thousands of scavengers in vehicles and on foot trying to eat today.

You can see why I am not so popular in the SHTF threads.

The only play is never let it get there.  NEVER let it get there.

NOI

You could write one heck of a script for a movie.

Unfortunately it is not original. I have seen a lot of it, or the aftermath.

NOI

NOI makes some great points, both on the micro and macro-level.

Preps are great and I absolutely encourage them for everyone I know.  But in a true long-duration SHTF situation things will get very ugly.  Beyond what most people can comprehend if they haven't travelled to far-flung third world areas (or at least researched / read about them...).

There is a phrase I learned a while back (maybe here??) that our society is "three meals away from anarchy" at any point in time.  I think many events have proven that fairly true.  

Our society has become used to, expects, even demands "just-in-time-delivery" of everything.

As for me- I am a member of a very active and fairly youthful church.  A suburban / rural congregation of several 100s.  We have quite a diverse group ranging from country-boy types to LE and ex mil-types.  Our pastor is a former Army officer and a very solid guy.  We are a pretty young congregation average age-wise.  A lot of the young men / boys are athletes and Boy scout-types (we even sponsor a BS Troop).  I would feel pretty comfortable sharing resources and with most of them.  I believe we could make things work, I hope anyway.

At least we might be able to counter somewhat the roaming bands of MS13 / 1%ers / gangbangers out there who would have the initial advantage of a command structure / hierarchy.

I pray to God we never see anything like what I can imagine.

4073

a couple of good stand alone water filters and a years worth of dried food.

and if possible live in the country

+1, country folks won't have it near as hard. At least those that can hunt/cook their food. I think getting good water would be a problem. My biggest fear would be getting picked off by a sniper. Gang bangers usually don't carry rifles so those of us that do won't have a problem taking care of a threat from far away.

Gas prices keep going up, a SHTF will come sooner....

My parents were brought up during the "great depression".  I envision a SHIF. scenario to be the equivalent to that past SHIF. , which was Government managed 100% percent. All you have to do is look at the collapse of 1920 and compare if to the crash of 1929 and see that It was much worse. The difference was that in 1920 the Government at the time ,let the market reset it self, instead of trying to manage things like FDR. did which brought on the Great Depression ( a depression within a depression).

Obummer is managing the decline of America quite nicely and It has been and ongoing thing with too much government regulation and taxation.  We need to reverse so many of there overreaching Government regulations which is chocking our economy.

Those are the man made SHIF. scenarios , an EMP strike all bets are off.

I think NOI has a VERY important point.  All the scenarios are really just mental jumping jacks at this point.  

The best scenario is to stay engaged locally and nationally in our government and work tirelessly to slow down this runaway train and stop it if we can.  

Prep to take care of your family and friends.  Stay in touch with your representatives and educate yourselves - vote accordingly.  And as this wild ride progresses, keep your head even if others around you are losing theirs, to paraphrase Kipling.

I am good friends with a radio talk show host who has one of the top 10 syndicated shows in the country. His name is also not important He has a purely topical political show with many DC guests on. Extremely conservative and had a small position in an administration when younger. Every now and then a call isn't screened properly and someone calls for a revolution. I'm going to send your words to him and suggest he ask those who state we have to stage a revolution what they are really asking for. I make it short by stating, "Anarchy Is No Form of Government!"

Scary stuff I have worried about. I watched "The Road" and thought it was an awful movie. But I couldn't resolve if I just thought t was a poorly made movie, or if it has been my greatest fear. I worked on my Masters in Economics and I have a friend who has his PhD and teaches it. A class he put together this summer was on financial booms and busts and he has urged me to learn how to farm as what we are doing, from an economic POV, ALWAYS ends badly! 800 years of economic history prove it. Yeah, if supplies are a little short, but flowing your garden is okay. More than that is your scenario and we consider what the Jews did at Massada!

Walsh

P.S. PBS just finished broadcasting Les Miserables. Jon Valjon only stole a loaf of bread in what could arguably be a better world than the one you portrayed!

Civilization it the white line in the middle of the road.

It is just paint but as long as every one agrees on what it means and abides by it we wiz by each other in 3000 pound missiles and no one thinks a thing about it.
But there is nothing really there to stop someone who decides to cross it and cause all all kinds of death and destruction.

NOI

i was waiting for that analogy if i could only say 1 thing it would be - at least you're consistent. I seem to remember having this exact conversation over some mexican food this past summer, and all this time I thought it was just the cherry pop tarts and gatoraid suger rush at 2am talking

i'm half tempted to jump in on this, but think it's wiser to just sit back and enjoy



on the other hand i just found this - youtube link         so.... lock and load the end is near, save yourselves before the zombie ants get ya

dig a well that you can get water from without relying on a pump that runs on either electricty/gas/natural gas or anything else except "manpower" :)

that's my two and a half cents.

My dad owns a 500 acre grain farm in eastern NC.  At any given time he has between 2,000-10,000 bushels of corn or soybeans in a grain bin.  He is in a good but precarious position as he is one of the few who will likely have literally tons of food (although soybeans will be a very bland food).  

If someting bad happens and the shelves at the local Food Lion go bare, everyone will show up at his place.  In theory we have lots of friends and community members that we can take care of in exchange for defense, special skills, and manual labor ( after all, Diesel for the tractors will go away quickly).  All we can do is hope that we can assemble a large enough defensive force to hold the inevitable roving bands of thugs at bay, yet small enough to survive on whatever resources are available.    

The theory of raising a garden in your back yard to survive is a delusional sense of false security, unless you already have a garden and a year's supply of mason jars filled with last year's production.  Gardens will only work if you are already a year ahead.  You will starve before your garden bears any fruit.  

Hunting to survive is also a farce.  The animals will quickly be hunted out or move to a less hostile area.  Just beacuse you can easily bag your limit during a season dosen't mean that you can harvest, what, 2-3 deer a week?  There is a reason the hunter-gathers went to agriculture.  Only a community working together can survive long term, and it would be just that, survival.    

Please understand, even when you are in a relatively good position like I am, a SHTF scenario would be an awful situation.  You will watch your spouses die from childbirth.  Your children will be walking skeletons, stunted in growth from the lack of proper nutrition.  Simple tooth infections will kill within weeks.  Even if you have enough to provide a meager existance for you, your family, and some people in your community, you would eventually have to use deadly force to defend your supplies from people who are trying to to merely feed their starving children.  

I question those who seem to thrive on the thought of being stuck in a SHTF world.  It willl not be a pretty place and every day will be a back-breaking struggle for survival FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE.  I remember reading somewhere that the United States, devoid of modern agriculture, can only support around 35 million people.  This means that almost 300 million will die in this country alone.  Many of those will be the ones who starve to death trying to raise a garden and are good hunters.

You'd be surprised at how few missiles or silos are in the Dakota's (possibly the other states too).  Most of the silos were imploded 10 years ago, GFAFB, once the SAC headquarters is manned by a skeleton screw and SAC is all but gone.

I for one will welcome our new overlords.