Posted: 3/23/2014 6:27:44 AM EDT
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Everyone posts about their plans.What they would do in XYZ situations.
With the exception of perhaps FerFal and the fellow who blogged about his NOLA experience, I haven't seen an effort to retain real world AARs from actual personal survival experiences. Actually, I see few threads on the topic at all, and they are allowed to drop off the page and fade into obscurity in the archives. I think that having a real world AAR tacked thread, aka " this is what happened to me, this is how my preps helped or hurt or what I forgot" etc etc would be a good candidate for a tacked thread and would have more value than most of the "this is what I am planning for in the zombie apocalypse" type threads...... Am I the only one who has noticed this or feels this way on the issue? |
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Well I haven't been in any gunfights or WROL situations.
However, I ALWAYS make sure to report back after I go through a SHTF of any kind. I do this because, as was stated, there is typically something I could have done better in regard to preparing and supply-wise. And there there are times I am completely unprepared for something. I talk about that to. Sure I look like a fool but I'd rather share and help others avoid the issue than keep quiet and benefit no one. Whether it's fires, car trouble, in the wilderness, during Sandy, inability to eat for close to two months, etc. I've started threads on all of them. I think too often we are NOT adequately prepared for the daily SHTF situations we experience and sometimes pride gets in the way of reporting. That really shouldn't be the case and we should work to get away from that premise. -Emt1581 |
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Quoted:
I agree. There was a hurricane sandy one that was great a while back. It would be great if we could have a tacked folder of them? And don't forget the Mr. Bonnin Katrina thread...that was up for a long, long time until it was turned into a separate web page and book. |
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Quoted:
And don't forget the Mr. Bonnin Katrina thread...that was up for a long, long time until it was turned into a separate web page and book. Quoted:
Quoted:
I agree. There was a hurricane sandy one that was great a while back. It would be great if we could have a tacked folder of them? And don't forget the Mr. Bonnin Katrina thread...that was up for a long, long time until it was turned into a separate web page and book. Ah, Katrina..... I will never forget "Lootie" 
Now there was an AAR worth reading.......... |
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A tacked thread that people could hotlink threads into would nice.
A hotlink would still be good when the thread of interest goes to archive, wouldn't it? I ask, because I am not certain. Most SHTF events are local, or of a personal nature, and people need to be reminded of that. |
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The closest thing I could offer was our experience with the Colorado floods last year. We were part of the mandatory evacuation and, while I always planned on bugging in, my wife went into full GTFO mode. We already had a family evac plan with pet-friendly hotels lined up so we could bring the dogs. Loading up the vehicles went smooth as silk because we keep a Rubbermaid box with about 2 weeks of calories ready to go, plus local maps, a bag of dog food that would last the two mutts about a month, et cetera. We were out in less than 5 minutes, at an unhurried pace. I found out later that the stuff we ran into below was already happening before we even got the order.
We got on the road and went to our primary planned evac route, away from the rest of town. Good idea because those roads were clogged with, um, the rest of town. Bad idea because the road was closed and washed out. Plan B was to use those clogged roads so we turned course, headed back, joined the herd and slowly exited town. Made it past the other side and thought we were smart because others had turned off onto southbound highways - and then found the secondary road (still a major highway) washed out and under several feet of water. We had a Plan C but, given that the routes were entirely unknown, everything so far had already compromised and night was coming, I convinced my wife that we'd do better to stay at the house with our preps and just mind the water levels. Not being right next to a lake or reservoir, we might lose the basement and some of the ground floor but the bedrooms are on the second level. We weren't looking at a NOLA situation. Turned out to be the best idea as our neighborhood - almost just our block - was in the little pocket of protection. The creek got to about 50-60 yards of the back fence and we had some seepage into the yard but everyone around us got flooded/damaged. When the power went out for a day or two, we were about the only area that stayed on - didn't lose it for more than 20 minutes. We passed the time by doing assessments of what we were lacking and really came up empty. We did everything "right" - just dumb damned luck kept us from getting out. Biggest lesson learned, though, was that we had always planned for linear events - a railway spill from the line to our south, a moving line of fire from the mountains to our west. Rain is non-linear and it randomly flooded spillways and streets. A dam burst way in the mountains that made about every stream and river surge on top of what was coming down. This made reservoirs and lake - scattered throughout the town - spill over. A lot of it was dumb luck, debris blocking drainage and stuff like that. Pretty close to being unpredictable and in random directions. Also learned was that sandbags are a handy thing, even if you live in an area that hasn't flooded in over 500 years. Worst lesson was that my wife does not handle stress as well as she - and I - thought. She's always been good for traumatic stuff like injuries, tornado warnings, et cetera. Events with structures and timelines. Stuff that drags on, unpredictably... not so much. Things would let up, the sun would come out, she'd think it was over - then it clouded up, started pouring again, the creek reversed its retreat and she'd start to freak out. Its "the grind" that gets her. Only other thing that kept crossing my mind was putting in a backflow valve in case the water treatment plant got washed out. Boring but that's a lot of what "real world" is, I guess. 
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I agree - a page with tacked AAR's would be nice.
or rather, maybe the better ones? I mean, lots of us do short blurbs, but there are some that stand out. Like Hurricane Sandy's AAR. Maybe if the AAR gets enough "recommendations" from the crowd, the mods would add it to the tacked list. This would also motivate people to do more complete AARs. |
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Quoted:
We regularly see reports from folks after ice/snow storms, floods, hurricanes, job losses, accidents, and such. THANKFULLY they don't happen on a daily basis to keep the threads at the top of the chain constantly. Doc This, but it would be helpful if there was a tacked thread w/ links to all the AARs. |