Very Few Are Prepared

reply to post by VixWix


I have also just put a wood burning stove in my home to start preparing. I now have warmth and a place to cook. I have also started a stockpile of food and gotten some oil lamps. I believe I am well on my way of preparing for an uncertain future. My loved ones, on the other hand, are unwilling to listen to my theories and plans to prepare for the unknown. They may listen to what I have to say and then forget about it the next day. They are not "hearing" me nor are they taking me seriously. We'll see how fast they are at my door when....

Well considering you can drink your own urine a few times, to avoid dehydration.
I would think pool water aint all that bad.
Unless it had some dead animals in it, then you might have some worm hosts buried in your brain stem.

reply to post by AgentOrangeJuice


I think I'd rather drink my own than the tap water here.
I'm sure it has more concentrations of chlorine than the purification tablets produce.
Bleughhh!!
Filters galore before it touches the lips.

Frustration city when you try and convince most people that they are better off at least considering preparing/stocking up.

Save your breath for people with open minds.

It's true. I am particularly worried about my sister-in-law. She is ridiculously finnicky about everything. She can't eat this, she can't bear the smell of that, she has to have everything just so. She screams in agony (I kid you not) if even one hair on her head gets caught in a zipper. She pretends to be frail so that she doesn't have to do anything too difficult in life - there is nothing physically wrong with her hands, but she says they hurt all the time so she won't even turn a screwdriver. She would sooner die than drink pool water. And so she probably will.

The other thing that worries me is that I will probably have to live with her at some point in the coming crisis and listen to her incessant woe-is-me-I-have-a-hangnail complaints. Blech.

Yikes, the thought is just unbearable. I hope she starts to be serious about life instead of playing her helpless victim role.

She is family and I will do what I must because it will be the right thing to do.

The unbelievers, and unprepared will be the first ones at our doors. They won't get any help from me. I've tried to convince too many of my friends. Some listened, and started preparing. Most just looked at me like i needed to be put in the nut hut. That is one reason i am glad i grew up in the family i did. Family members who are not of the same survival mindset that i am are still prepared without knowing it. 90% of the males in my family hunt, and know how to survive in the woods.

Mansky.....you bring up a interesting point.

do you help people who did not want to here you ?
who ignored you and shut you out when you tryed to help them?

I think about this offen......

Survival is about your survival....
It's hard to answer..........

if you give your food and water away....you are not hepling yourself.

reply to post by OuttaHere


Take two 60 something year old women I know.

One is overweight,eats too much,drinks too much,smokes too much.
Always has headaches,backaches,migraines,allergies,flu's,
Won't even cook for herself,take any exercise,has to have things handed to her.

The other is recovering from a genuine illness and a hip replacement op,She,with a real reason for immobility,chose instead to take herself to the local gym,EVERY DAY,walking on the treadmill and putting much younger people to shame.

Which one is the survivor?
And which one is the leech on her family's resources and efforts?

Both are unlikely to survive in a dire sit-x,but I certainly know which one I'd be most willing to go the extra mile to help.

It's people like that who we need to get this God-forsaken country out of the self inflicted,self indulgent quagmire we are in.

Originally posted by AGENT_T
Anyone else in the UK amazed at how people are yet again caught out by the cold snap?

Looking outside in the NE right now.It's fantastic,like a different world.

I hear you loud and clear! Prime example...this morning over 50% of my class mates were atleast half an hour late for college, those who turned up whined all lesson about how cold they were (which annoyed me since I rode through it in a m'bike) and by 12:30 we were told college was shutting so the students could get home on time!!!!


I missed 6 hours of very important college lessons so a bunch of whiney students could go home and have snowball fights!

citizensmith, I've never thought about adding a bit of thermite to the BOB do you know what the laws are in the UK for carrying it? I think it could be useful for opening sealed containers or padlocks, anymore ideas on what it could be used for?

reply to post by fred3110


Welding tools and fire starting is a good enough reason to include some...If it was allowed..If anyone was worried about that sort of thing in a post sit-x anyway

Referring to the title of your thread...That is precisely why I am overly prepared. Not just for the basics of survival such as food, water, shelter and medical supplies but the much more neglected personal safety.

When the SHTF there are going to be armed wackos looking to help themselves to your srvival cache. I can assure you that they will pay a heavy price attempting to access mine!

I have tried over and over, for years in fact, to alert freinds and family of coming events and they have regarded me as a whacky conspiracy theorists - until recently. I stated over 2 years ago that the global economy was headed for collapse, the US military would be in violation of Posse Comitatus, civil order would completely breakdown and we would be on our won. recent events have started to make believers of them. I just hope it's not too late for them - I don't have the wherewithall to take of them too. I have my own family to look out for.

reply to post by AGENT_T


Damn I'm gonna have to have a full workshop at this rate

I was already planning to add my digital multimeter and HH oscilloscope as well as a few other electrical maintenance toys in case I need to repair any power supplies!

reply to post by fred3110


You don't need more than a knife and heat for your workshop.

After a few months 'in the wild' you can get all the mod cons you want,from all the desolate houses and corpses left behind.

Bleak or what.

Originally posted by kozmo
When the SHTF there are going to be armed wackos looking to help themselves to your srvival cache. I can assure you that they will pay a heavy price attempting to access mine!

Well that's big aspect of our mentality - not everyone thinks SHTF will happen. It hasn't really happened to the extent that I think it is defined as - well since times like the inquisitions.

I could care less about being prepared if I'm too ignorant to even see it as a possibility, and that's everyone's problem, arrogantly seeing the future so clearly to that nothing is gonna happen, they don't know that there is no harm in being prepared.

reply to post by AGENT_T


Ahh you've just give me some food for thought there, instead of carrying tools for repairing stuff in my BOB maybe its worth setting up a cache for when everything has died down.

It probably will be bleak but meh, its not called TSHTF for nothing

Originally posted by fred3110
I've never thought about adding a bit of thermite to the BOB do you know what the laws are in the UK for carrying it?

I'd hazard a guess that it would be within the law...its not an explosive, more an incendiary, and one that takes a shed load of heat energy to start the reaction, best not to keep the magnesium-ribbon 'wicks' stored with them just in-case of jobsworth authority types...though I'm sure not many would recognise the powder mix for what it was if they took a close look anyway

Originally posted by fred3110
I think it could be useful for opening sealed containers or padlocks, anymore ideas on what it could be used for?

I have a couple of ideas but this isn't the place to go into detail

[edit on 4-12-2008 by citizen smith]

reply to post by citizen smith


Cheers for the info

I'll have a scout around the net and see what the laws are, they shouldn't be to strict since its not an explosive...I'm assuming not anyway

Better safe than sorry though!

This might be a good place to remind people to be careful with heating systems of all kinds wood burning stoves can put you at risk. Here's a link to what recently happened to a family in Aspen. www.aspendailynews.com... A contributing factor mentioned in this article is "modern airtight homes" have heightened this danger.

When we first moved to the country and began heating with wood the locals told us not to make our house too airtight. There have been horror stories of local families dying in their sleep. Some say it is due to the wood stove sucking the oxygen out of an airtight home.

Just thought I would pass on a word of caution passed on to me by some old timers who probably know what their talking about.

reply to post by Morningglory


The biggest danger that Carbon Monoxide poses is that the red blood cells in the body will far more readily take up any CO present than oxygen from the environment...by the time you start to feel the symptoms of CO poisoning you will need to act fast and get outside

Originally posted by VixWix
Only 2 out of 8 people would dare to drink it. I was told that i was going to get sick. Someone said that they would rather die that drink pool water.

This part of the thread really drives home a point. " I would rather die than to do xyz". This is the mentality of the people who really scare me. If you would rather die than drink pool water, you would obviously kill for fresh water. Fresh food, a beer, toilet paper, whatever.

People have become so dependant on everything being taken care of for them, that when they do it themselves, the hesitate wondering if they are going to be okay. Even I had reservations before drinking my first home brew. Its a mentality bred into us by society at large, if society didnt create it, it must be bad for you.

Only good thing I can see coming in Sit-X regarding the folks who would rather die than drink it, is that they should finally stop whining within a week or so.

I know for a fact that if the event things go tits up, a lot of folks will perish very quickly. Many of you are correct. There are those who would be either physically unable to ensure their own survival, or mentally limited in their options, or just not strong enough morally.

I've been in a situation where we were completely out of water for three days and nights, and could barely stand up. I found a pond with green scum a few inches thick, splashed it aside, and drank deeply.

Would kick over small logs to get the white grubs underneath. Squeeze the guts out and eat the rest.

Some folks will surprised you. Both ways. Ones you thought would survive are all talk. Others you would anticipate being weak, will suddenly come on strong.

Partly, survival will be luck, Providence, preparation, determination, and your ability to avoid confrontation with two-legged animals who only know force.

Be armed, skilled, prepared, and determined. The rest is fate.