The Realities of Home Defense in the Suburbs

If it's not off topic, I compiled a list of things that would be most handy in a stockpile, if you have one:

Foods
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Oatmeal (arguably one of the most complete foods)

Honey (among other things, when it gets old and crystallizes, simply reheat and wallah, honey again. It is also useful for various maladies, if local honey, such as seasonal allergies related to the area of residence. Applied topically may Help with diabetic related wounds and sores that are antibiotic resistant. A natural sweetner. Tastes yummy.)

Granola Bars (handy, healthy, long shelf life)

Dehydrated Coconut Flakes (organic. the list of things that coconut is good for is very long)

Dehydrated Blueberries (really useful in areas where thyroid function could be comprised by toxins like fallout dust)

Reconstituted Lemon Juice (it's multipurpose)

Garlic (raw, not capsulized, which means having to turn it over in your stockpile)

Apple Cider Vinegar (read up on it. pretty cool stuff)

Green Tea (lots of antioxidants)

Olive Oil (good stuff)

Trail Mix





Medical
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Whiskey (pain relief, tranquilizer, even as a disinfectant, mouth wash and so on)

Echinacea (for those who are not allergic to coneflowers or don't have an auto-immune disease, this is an excellent immune system stimulant for fighting off colds and viruses)

Benadryl (among other things, this counteracts allergic responses of various kinds and also acts on the nervous system like a sedative)

Milk Thistle Capsules (helps the liver remove toxins from body, really important in a survival scenario)

Acidophilus capsules (restores natural flora of the digestive tract and intestines frequently lost from flus, poor diet, antibiotics, diahrrea, and massive yeast infections)

SEA SALT (organic, please - no salt tabs or iodized salt. the raw crystal form is best. this is a must must must have. and the larger the crystals of salt, the better. not block salt, but crystals about a quarter of the size of a hershey's kiss, smaller is okay but not too small. the best varieties are celtic sea salt and himalayan crystal salt. not only does this marvellous stuff preserve food, it also is an anti-parasitic, fights dehydration, has a good helping of magnesium, softens water, can be added to bath for relaxation, can relieve constipation, also relieves swelling in mucus membrane (think the lining of throat and digestive tract) and has been known to solve dental problems, colds and many obscure diseases. pop a crystal in your mouth once a day. good stuff. tastes weird at first, but really good for you in the long run (just omit other table type salt from diet). a brine can be created with water and drank over the course of the day for serious maladies and is also useful as a mouth rinse mixed in warm water for sore gums, abscesses and so on)

Vitamin C (ester, preferably)

Vitamin B6 and B12

Calcium (oyster shell or coral, preferably)

Garlic (capsules, the kind that doesn't have the smelly stuff removed. you need the smelly stuff. that's what makes it good for you in the first place)

Enema Bag (gross yes, still important)

Procedural Face Masks (can be purchased at drug store, are really useful in many situations including for those with severe allergies, to protect against polluted air, to stave off passing viruses and diseases around, and etc).

Aspirin (as a blood thinner only)

Tylenol (for pain relief and fever reduction)

Ibuprofen (for pain relief and anti-inflammatory)



Odds and Ends
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Loud whistle

Art kit with pens, pencils, crayons, magic markers, paints, modelling clay and paper, lots of paper (copier paper is the cheapest) (list of useful uses for an art kit can not be overemphasized)

Light sources that don't need batteries or sunlight, such as glo sticks.

Magnifying Glass (for starting fires, reading, investigating)

Cheap Chemistry kit with a microscope that doesn't need electricity to function

"Strike Anywhere" matches

that list of items you point out makes a good point. As you can see, most of those items are easily obtainable in the average Western nation. Many of them reflect certain preferences. Survival doesn't have to be boring. the actual tactics of what you do once the crisis happens can also be a matter of choice.

Staying put is always an option, no matter what the crisis. It may not turn out to be the best choice, but... Knowing what you intend to do can help keep you from becoming a nervous wreck. Keeping your cool in a bad situation means all the difference. Many of the dead will have been trying to survive.

Justin --- as usual --- makes some good points. Being 'procedurally' prepared is important. Everyone needs to assess their personal situation and create a written survival plan that reflects it. Why bother with a written plan? Well, if external situations develop that are serious enough that you are preparing to cut-and-run thereby abandoning everything you own for what you can carry, you don't want to be trusting your memory or 'gut' entirely. Without question, such a situation would be extrememly stressful. Decisions you make will have consequences of the utmost seriousness. Having a well thought out, carefully developed plan will allow you to run down a check list when making the necessary decisions and plans.

I'm a pilot. Every time I fly I run through printed checklists when preparing the plane and during certain phases of the flight. I know the aircraft very well as do all pilots but still, we ALL use printed checklists. Having a similar process for something as serious as a Sit-X event only makes sense.

In our case, we are in a situation that makes sheltering-in-place the most viable option --- at least for as longs as we possibly can. Our plan includes a number of sections. The first section includes a comprehensive checklist to help determine whether we stay or go. Since most Sit-X events will develop over some period of time (from months to minutes or less) the next section includes a series of checklists for each stage of that escalation (based upon certain benchmark events and observations). Also included is an emergency SHTF checklist. Our plan includes 2 shopping lists: one of supplies/equipment that we hope to stockpile over time; the other is the emergency shopping list that is used when Sit-X is developing (and hopefully well before everyone else decides it's also time to hit the stores). Finally, an Appendix contains local and SW radio frequencies, important reference items, etc.

Having this level of organization will hopefully keep us from overlooking important things during an otherwise extremely stressful situation and allow us to remain as calm and methodical as possible during a situation that is anything but.

I couldn't have said that any better myself. Everyone who reads these boads has a different situation to contend with. What works for you in a crunch is the only thing that matters when it comes to this kind of planning. As long as you do it.

For desert and hot humid climate dwellers, you cannot stress a potable water source enough. Dehydration and heat prostration will kill as fast if not faster than the cold. If you don't own a 5-day cooler, you should make or get one. We used them in the Middle East and they worked very well keeping our water bottles cold. I don't know how many Katrina victims died after the flood but I can assure you that 30-40 per day from the heat would seem a normal number. The 04 heatwave in Europe killed 20k. Those folks didn't lose power but still died in droves. Air conditioning is a rare thing over there. They faced temps similar to what the southeast US faces every summer. A small investment in a solar cell to recharge batteries would may give you just edge to survive a long hot a/c less summer.

Water would be critical under any survival conditions. Water storage in your own home during a crisis would certainly be a problem. there are many different options when it comes to how to get and keep your water. Anyone lucky enough to have their own hand-pump well would have a real asset, indeed.

Here's a food source nobody mentioned: people. I'm not saying to go out looking for fat kids, but if you have to...

Soylent Green is people!

Sorry, I just couldn't resist!

i will eat bugs, worms, almost anything that grows on the ground, take water from the rivers and boil it and have a container to store it in , drink it, i will have a gun and shoot any animal for needed food, i will be the real grizzly adams. i will take anything i need for my survival even if i thought i had to steal it. i will try to avoid all contact with the public for they may harm me for what i have. i will bury, conceal food and supplies in several areas i will have several places to take shelter. 1st line of defense, offense is my gun for it is for to protect me and to feed me. 2nd is water. 3rd is shelter and protect the fire(lighters , matches, rubbing sticks or whatever else that makes fire. anything else really is just a luxury, to make your life easier.

In the next few weeks, the CBS television series "Jericho" will return to the air with new episodes. I hope that many of you will take some time out of your busy schedules to watch it as time permits. It's food for thought, and it will make you realize what they're doing wrong and why. It should also help you to focus on what survival measures would be right for you under similar circumstances.

As you know, the Fox television series "24" has begun it's sixth season. In this show ,we've recently seen a terrorist attack in Los Angeles that involved the detonation of a small nuclear device.

One of the more disturbing aspects of this program could be the apparent ease of such an attack. As diligent as State and Federal law enforcement is--even with all the government's recently acquired surviellance authority--the fact remains that we can't stop a truely determined adversary who chooses to use such sneaky means to hurt us.

With this kind of scenario in mind, it's not hard to imagine a situation in which you would quite literally have to move, or die.

The sad truth is that anyone who could physically see a nuclear mushroom cloud might very well be dead within 48 hours from radiation poisoning, or other direct blast effects. It's true hat you might survive inside a fallout footprint for some time. Eventually, you'd accumulate your full dose and the sickness associated with a lingering death would begin.

Under these conditons, you'd be just a few out of many who'd have no choice but to pack up your survival supplies and move. In the case of a nuclear attack in the Los Angelese basin, you might be one of more than five million people under forced march at the same time. No business or farm could withstand that kind of assault. Especially not when taken by surprise.

Even if you assume that you are NOT one of the many tens of thousands who attack pharmacies or pillage grocery stores, you've still got a lot to think about. Roadways of all types would become gridlocked very fast. At some point, you should expect that some unwise official may attempt to start running checkpoints to look for terrorists. Mobs could be attacking just to gain access to working automobiles.

The extent of chaos in an urbanized environment like L.A. could mean the quick death of millions as riots run up the body counts. The sudden influx of refugees in to the Ventura and Sonoma counties, which are surburban and rural respectively, would still not relieve the pressure on you. Imagine the vineyards being trampled and scavanged as the angry masses moved on through the San Juacine valley. Food is food and many of the newly homeless won't care where it comes from.

Even if they are deployed ahead of time, it's not likely that State and Federal law enforcement...with the help of the California National Guard...could hold back that tide of ravaging refugees. Because so many would be mobile, thie task of securing off-road corridors would be impossible. This says something about the state of arms that would be expected from such a desperate migrating population.

Even if you didn't live near the terrorist attack, you might still have to move. consider what happens when this hypothetical refugee wave hits Sacromento. Police and other emergency services would be overwhelmed almost without any hesitation. this assumes that some of the police and military units decided to fire on the refugee columns in an attempt to turn them back. Because the city would be infiltrated from any and all compass directins, their ultilities would likely fail after a week of this siege.

The resulting "Fall of Sacromento" would be repeated in many other towns. By the time the human wave of retreating refugees hits the State border, events could be well and truely out of control for several months yet to come. Just one more good reason to...move. If you're capable.

For the most part I agree with Justin's assessment. However, I don't see the waves of ravaging hordes he predicts. Immediately post-event there will most certainly be vast numbers of people moving out of the affected area. The initial movement will be triggered by fear and panic. Unlike Katrina where the threat was visible (i.e., water) in this scenario the threat is invisible and its effects horrific within the human psyche. The fleeing masses will, I believe, respond to any representation of safety. By that, I mean any remotely credible source of information that holds the promise of escape from the radiation will have a great deal of power. For that reason, if there is any form of official herding of evacuees people will tend to willingly follow it out of fear.

That will continue for the immediate period after the event. The next huge issue will become water. People cannot continue to move without water and there simply will not be enough of it available. The fear of radiation will quickly get supplanted by thirst and hunger. A large part of the evacuees will simply stop moving out of exhaustion, dehydration and PTSD-related breakdown.

Those that are able to continue moving will become increasingly limited physically. People will tend to move only until they reach a point where they feel they have relative safety and access to food and water. Those that are moving will seek out concentrated sources of food, water and shelter. My guess is that shopping centers, large grocery stores, malls and the like will become refugee cities. For sure, there will be pockets of people moving into residential areas for their needs but I believe the nmbers will be limited. At least lets hope so.

I'll agree that there will be a tendancy to move toward known centers of food and other resources, but the average shopping mall will be depleted in less than 12 hours of looting. Civilized purchasing in the aftermath of the event will be attempted by many, and certainly prefered by store owners, but that won't last.

On-sight security capabilities for even the largest of California malls is marginal in peace time, which means it would be overwhelmed early on in this hypothetical catastrophe we're talking about. Even if the decision were made by management to lock out the mobs, we should expect barricaded stores to be rushed within the first 24 hours of the crisis.

I disagree with the notion that people will be eager to comply with State or Federal law enforcement when those entities try to herd the populace. Any checkpoints which are attempting to screen for terrorists will be overrun, if not destroyed. Any evacuation route which is slow will be bypassed. It's worth remembering that a million motor vehicles will be trying to leave the affected areas at the same time. Rush hour times ten.

It's true that lack of supply and exhaustion will claim the lives of many hundreds of thousands. In this pretend scenario, a million people will die in the first month due to lack of meds. This'll be due to pre-existing conditions. Factor in another million lives lost due to a combination of poor sanitation and radiation-related illness. Like the man says, water will be a factor.

Anyone who fails to get out by vehicle may be trapped in Federal quarantine zones. We should expect an emergency directive from FEMA designed to slow the spread of desease to other States. Federal forces may be required to open supply corridors in to the affected areas. This will require the use of force. One can only imagine how much "fun" news groups like CNN will have with all this.

What do you think some of the news stories might look like?

Interesting post but you've got a few things wrong. A 1 Kiloton nuclear weapon is only good for about a half mile radius destruction zone. Unless it's detonated in a downtown area during business hours or a high density residential area at night, death toll is likely to be less than 100k with a hard fallout zone downwind of less than 100 square miles depending on the wind. There's likely to be a million or so cases of cancer later on again depending on where/when its detonated.
While setting off a nuke in the LA Basin seems dramatic, if the terrorists were serious about racking up a death/damage count and create maximum havoc with a small nuke, the place to hit in the south west would be the Hoover Dam. The ensuing flood would wipe out a huge swath of the growing Colorado River Basin and deny the water supply for basically 25 million folks who depend on the Colorado for water. Every major urban in the Southern California, Southern Nevada and Arizona depends on Lake Meade and the Colorado for its water supply. Every dam near a major urban area is basically a force multiplier for tactical nukes. The exodus from the 3 states would start an economic chain collapse that would likely send the global economy into a depression. Without Colorado River water to support them Phoenix, Tuscon, LA, San Diego and Las Vegas economies would collapse within a year. These cities' water supplies are already stretched thin as it right now.
This is the real nightmare scenario of the use of suitcase nukes.

I think the m,ass panic factor is hard to calculate, but even if the L.A. situation were just a hypoethetical one kiloton bomb, there would still be tendancy for more people to leave in a hurry. Today's population is actually more afraid of nuclear attack than it was back during the days of the first Cold War. The Colorado scenario you describe is just as scary, if not more so. It is my sincere hope that none of these things ever happen.

What I just realized, is that unless your extremely rich, and can afford to go "all out" when preparing for a sit x then your gonna run into problems, I cant afford to build a full proof bunker, all I can do is buy stuff here and there, continue to stock what I have and hope that ill never have to use it. If and when TSHTF im just gonna keep my head above water as long as I can