Thread: "Prepping": What's the idea?

Originally Posted by gssixgun

Not really, Food is food, Water is water, and Skills are skills (Knowledge) doesn't much matter if they are being used to survive after a snowstorm, a hurricane, or the Zombie Apocalypse...
If the Nuke or Asteroid lands on your head I guess all the prepping in the world is a moot point...

The point of this thread is that certain people put a lot of effort stockpiling resources to survive hurricane/earthquake and completely ignore that their lifestyle could making that impossible regardless of any resources they have. Not having diabetes, or failing kidneys/liver/gallbladder does increase one's chances quite a bit.

I'm pretty sure the tractor plow, heater and fuel that could help you after a snowstorm aren't going to as much if you are trying to survive a heat wave in the dessert. In that scenario a big tank of water would go far longer than a big tank of fuel. In flood your priorities are completely different too.

There is common sense and there is looney, and having a generator in a power-outage prone area may be quite sensible, but keeping one in your upper east side apartment (if your building doesn't already have it) is the second.

I've tried "prepping" but pretty much suck at it. I have a gas generator, it'll handle my well pump, fridge, and oil furnace. My riding mower holds 5 gals of gas, I keep spare gas cans full, and figure with 2 vehicles in the driveway another 35-40 possible gallons could be available. Ethanol would be the down side of storing gas. I worry about having water and heat. Food can be the squirrel running through my yard or rabbit. One of the other thing's I worry about is medical supplies and meds.

On a lighter note, one of my customers mothers prepped for the year 2000 by stocking up on canned food and bottled water. He "painfully" had to tell her that she didn't need to worry... She owned the local supermarket! Lol

IMO,,, prepping has to be first looked at from an individual/family standpoint,,, not what type of regional/national catastrophe might be coming. If you prepare on an individual level, you cover many of the hardships that accompany a widespread catastrophe.

In trying to stick with the theme of the OP,,,, many preppers follow the leader, so to speak, and miss the boat. Excess time & money are wasted on resources that are impractical & often are never used. If you want to be prepared for a catastrophe, take a look at your daily agenda. Build your preps around it. As stated in other posts, the catastrophe will hit when it's least expected, at a time when you are isolated from the majority of your preps.

Strengthening your survival chances through proper planning, based on your daily agenda, is a topic for another thread, I'd say.

Reminds me of elementry school ........... the old 'duck and cover' drills of the 1950s in case of nuclear attack ........ jump under the desk, put your head between your legs, that was the drill, then some wise guy added, 'kiss your ass goodbye.'

Originally Posted by mud13s

On a lighter note, one of my customers mothers prepped for the year 2000 by stocking up on canned food and bottled water. He "painfully" had to tell her that she didn't need to worry... She owned the local supermarket! Lol

The local super market would be the first thing to get pillaged . I have lived near a riot zone all my life and witnessed 2.
I am in the camp of "how to live off the land" If there is a disaster that affects everyone, the first thing I want to do is get away from everyone. Right now I am pushing 60 and have no health issues. I suppose if things were worse for me I would prep differently.

There is nothing wrong with being prepared for eventualities that have a reasonable chance of occuring.
Most of what one can see on that telly-show is far more than that though.
For those poor souls their prepping has taken control of their lives and they are living a life in fear.
So it seems to me that the very prepping is what has become their worst enemy..

All this talk about 'prepping' brought up a memory of one of the variations of prepping. I grew up behind the counter of a neighborhood grocery store in Chicago. We had, for a number of years, a man that you could call a 'food shopping prepper'. Obese would fit. Insatiable appetite closer. First thing ordered and bought was a half pound of lunch meat that he would nibble on while shopping. Last thing bought was another half pound to get him home, nibbling on the way. A good customer in terms of money spent.

I tend to think, other than emergency prep for natural disasters, the need to prepare for what ever they consider a threat to their exsistance is a psychological disorder and treatable. I can't speak to the Mormon storage of foodstuffs since they also run a huge charity for the poor and are following religious principles.

Originally Posted by gugi

The point of this thread is that certain people put a lot of effort stockpiling resources to survive hurricane/earthquake and completely ignore that their lifestyle could making that impossible regardless of any resources they have. Not having diabetes, or failing kidneys/liver/gallbladder does increase one's chances quite a bit.

I'm pretty sure the tractor plow, heater and fuel that could help you after a snowstorm aren't going to as much if you are trying to survive a heat wave in the dessert. In that scenario a big tank of water would go far longer than a big tank of fuel. In flood your priorities are completely different too.

There is common sense and there is looney, and having a generator in a power-outage prone area may be quite sensible, but keeping one in your upper east side apartment (if your building doesn't already have it) is the second.

Using the dumb TV terms which I hate

You seem to be combining "Doomsday Preppers" and "Practical Preppers" into one group and although there is some bleed over they tend to be different in their thinking..

Everything you are saying pertains to a Practical prepper which is where most people hang out, can I practically survive for 3-5-7- days without resources until somebody comes to help me.. They tend to focus on their immediate and most likely scenarios, ie: being prepared for a flood with sand bags living in a flood plane, having a shelter if they live in the midwest, having extra heat sources if they live in snow country...

The "Doomsday Preppers" that go for the extreme setups and resources are a completely different type of person and has a different goal in mind, they are also the one most likely to be on TV and Youtube.. Or as you put it "Loony"


The book I linked explains the die offs in a "Doomsday" scenario pretty well when it comes to medical issues, but basically after 90 days we will thank most of their corpses for stockpiling supplies for us to find.. That is just the harsh reality.. This has little bearing on the Practical Prepper side of the coin, since they are simply trying to get through the next week or thereabouts.

There is tons of info about the stats of this but most Survival Experts do think the same thing in the end for both groups..

The people most likely to survive either on a Practical basis or a Doomsday basis are the people that are living a lifestyle that allows a switch over to no outside resources the easiest..


What I said using these terms was that it doesn't much matter whether you are a Practical prepper or a Doomsday prepper you are still better equipped to handle any scenario then the average person... or it doesn't much matter what you are prepping for

Originally Posted by gssixgun

You seem to be combining "Doomsday Preppers" and "Practical Preppers" into one group and although there is some bleed over they tend to be different in their thinking..

...

What I said using these terms was that it doesn't much matter whether you are a Practical prepper or a Doomsday prepper you are still better equipped to handle any scenario then the average person... or it doesn't much matter what you are prepping for

I think you've been muddying the water by turning a thread about an apparent irrational behavior into "it doesn't matter what you're prepping for", or reinstating your old thread as this one.

As you noted having medical issues puts one at great disadvantage, so back to the original point - logically it makes absolutely no sense for somebody to prepare for disaster/doomsday by stockpiling resources while at the same time they do not address a far bigger obstacle to their survival.



I am pretty sure that one's chances of survival increase dramatically the closer they get to the top of the socioeconomic/financial/political pyramid. The government of the US will pretty much survive any disaster that leaves human life possible, even though the president may be unable to change a flat tire. Of course, there are very few people in this high survivability group.