In the event of some chatoic event do you have water and food stocked up? Could you live off the land, eating bugs abd roots? Do you know what plants are edible? Could you locate water?
Meh, I am 80 years old so what the hell. Let's get it over with.
You have the most valuable tool in the répertoire experience.
Or as my neighbor famously said during the last power outage "I hope they directly nuke the house - I'd rather go fast".
I'm 75 and I think it would be quite exciting, at least at first. When there have been catastrophes in the past, it has quite often brought out the best in people. Though the post-apocalypse scenarios of current books and films tend to prefer to think that it will bring out the worst!
I live in England. It doesn't matter if there's a nuclear war, meteorite strike, zombie apocalypse or anything at all - Tesco Express will still be open in the morning.
(Anything at all except more than half an inch of snow, that is - we really don't cope well with snow!)
Go through 2 cases of water a week anyways. Would be difficult for anyone to stay hydrated. Canned food makes me ill-would have to build a greenhouse-how to keep nuclear waste out?
Depending what happens-and-if- we're fucked.
Nuclear most would be dead in a few weeks. Would hope the government would set up euthanasia clinics for those that opted not to suffer. Nuke is the worst case.
Yeah preparing for nuclear sounds kinda pointless short of keeping some iodine tablets on hand, unless your filthy rich and have a fallout shelter or something.
I am immortal a survivors and it's a ducked up question
When I was first married, late 70s, we had a lot of worker strikes resulting in electricity and petrol rationing, I got used to being able to work around those.
10 years later I moved my family bush, lots of floods and bushfires, often more than a week cut off by road, and no phone or electricity, we planned for it as it was regular, about 3 times a year. I have lived in 4 places since that would get flood bound and the same applied when I first moved to where I am now, in fact there are still some ocassional fire or flood problems.
I go bush a lot, for work and leisure, I have all the camping gear one could want, about 50kg of bottled gas, water filters, portable solar power and such. One of our hobbies is mediaeval martial arts, we have lots of very sharp swords daggers as well as powerful bows. I work in and teach all sorts of subjects about native plants and animals including tracking and bush tucker and being in horticuture and managing community gardens, growing food is a non issue. Years ago I managed a training project teaching indigenous youth their culture and still work with some of these people on some projects.
I have access to all the emergency supplies in the district including some pretty decent communications equipment that I really should learn how to use and in a complete disaster situation, I am on the list of people in charge of the rescue and shelter operations. I also have copies of all of our national disaster recovery plans and the list of everyone involved, their roles and responsibilities, even for some who don't know they are on the list. I am not a paranoid gun toting nut case who would use the opportunity to take out anybody they think might want to take their supplies but I do know who many of those are and where they are, My chances are better than most.
I would definitely be OK for a short term crisis, like storm aftermath but Zombie apocalypse could be a different story altogether. Although loss of electric would be a pain, could use the grill for cooking and I know how to build a fire. Besides a small cache of groceries, I keep a couple "Lifestraws" in the pantry in the event clean water became an issue. I've eaten some wild plants for years and have 2-3 books on what is edible, how to prepare. Ever try daylily buds in your salad or some sauteed Lambsquarter?
However, like some others, in the case of a zombie apocalypse or GTNW, I may prefer to just go quickly.
I would put the zombie idea on the pile with Santa Claus and a ghost it is extremely unlikely that the zombie thing would ever happen.
I wouldn't call myself a survivalist but I stay prepared for most natural and man made disasters. I keep enough food, water (and additional water filtration system for 100,000 gallons), and medicine for 6 months. I keep enough fuel and power generation ability for 6 weeks. And I have a Bug out bag just in case. I also know how to survive with pretty much nothing in most environments.
I'm basically effed. LOL!
One very basic tip I have learned from one of the many jobs I have had. Corrugated cardboard is held together with starch (I know this because I have actually worked as a machine operator in a corrugated cardboard factory). In a hunger situation, the starch could help sustain you until you found something to eat.
@SherryMartin I'm sure it's great with a little cheese-whiz on it. LOL!
I'll be looting all the liquer stores, so I'll drink myself to full blown stupid.
I've got rainwater tanks, a bore and a creek, and the bore is shallow enough to get water from by hand if need be, so that's water covered. Well stocked pantry plus about 30 head of sheep wandering round my place at the moment, also know how to slaughter, butcher and preserve, know my herbcraft and better than average on wildcrafting. Plus I have a twenty two and ammo. So if I had the motivation think, I've got it covered.
I live near the OregonWashington border, so the Columbia River is close by and so I dont' see wter as being a problem. Also the area is full of little streams, creeks and rivers that feed into the Columbia.
I generally have confidence in FEMA, although with Trump in charge, I hve my doubts. I mean they abanconed Puerto Rico long befvore the crises was over. In fact they still are in crises.
Probability says that it may happen that sometime in my lifetime the Cascadia subduction fault will slip, which could create a 9.1 earthquake off the cost along with a tsunami. The coast is aobut 75 miles away, so we will get shaken, but the coast will get the worst of it. After such a quake though it is possible that Mt Hood and Mt St. Helens will become very active. The entire Pacific Northwest is volcanic.
Anyway, my father spent a lot of money o food storage and disaster never came, despite teh Mormon shurch assuring its members that they would need it.
I'll take my chances.
I work for the government as a contractor directly with FEMA and GEMA cleaning up after floods and purchasing flood prone property (only after the fact). I have watched first hand how they drop the ball on about everything through the past 3 administrations at least but from others I've talked to with experience they never have been competent about disaster preparedness regardless of the political climate. Especially when it comes to floods, hurricanes, and tornados. Hurricane Katrina was a big wakeup for the industry I'm in and it was a total embarrassment unfortunately her almost 13 years later our preparedness still suffers drastically compared to that of almost all developed nations. I wouldn't put to much faith in FEMA if I were you. The running gag working with FEMA is that it means
Failure to Effectively Manage Anything!
I would last a month or two if I had a few hours warning. Since I'm old, I wouldn't last long fighting for my shit since fight I would.
I have a pool for washing and such and since I do my own maintenance, I have 4 jugs of chlorine plus the tabs. I should probably read up on how many drops per gallon.
In all reality, I give myself a couple of days before someone offs me for my stuff
The world has been ending for a long time now but I don't think it will for quite a while yet. I'm enjoying today.
But on the other hand, Tump wants a nuclear war and Yellowstone is going to blow any second now so I guess I'll go buy some extra Ramen just in case.
Meh. I'm prepared for hurricanes, and most natural disasters for my area. Tornadoes are too mercurial to realistically anticipate. Depends on how close one hits. Anything else, and we'll just have to see how it goes. I'm fairly pragmatic about these things.
I can improvise as well. I must have watched too much McGiver in my youth. LOL