Preppers in 2012, to build a bunker or "Bug Out", that is the question.

And I live in a small suburb fairly quiet on the whole. People coming down the front of my house could not get past without my knowledge (A good 100m stands between my home and thiefs) but the side entries and back leave open so i my home wouldn't be an option. There are no options for guns as far as i know in my community so i would have to travel far. though considering much of the family are muscly as hell. Confrontation would be left to a no contest.

A lot of us aren't going to make it when SHTF. I have accepted that I won't. I have guns and a few hundred rounds of assorted ammo that I have had since my high testosterone years, but at sixty I no longer have the desire or finances to stock up on food and/or flee the area. I will stay at home and defend our lives and probably slowly starve to death if we can't organize our area to help each other. I will not kill another person for their food or resources..

I believe death is just another beginning. Maybe I'll come back as a tribal warrior in the next pre-civilization cycle.

reply to post by Springer


A age old question...

The answer to the question is actually quite simple in theory.

The Situation dictates.

When to make that decision though is where things get complicated.

Originally posted by HolgerTheDane2
I'm prepping by scanning the internet - including ATS - for descriptions and pictures of secure locations made by other preppers.
I'm paying special attention to pictures with a view of the surrounding area. I have a friend in Anonymous who tracks their IP's and from that we build a map of prepper places.

edit on 10-11-2012 by HolgerTheDane2 because: (no reason given)

And that is the reason I always preach OPSEC...and always pay cash.

You may find my location through a IP search, but chances are, you will not find me.

Also I'm sure that there are some of us who know that there are those out there like what you describe and are planting plenty of disinfo, so that you use up what little resources you have running in circles.

Bug out, or build a bunker? Both. I have built a small secret bunker in the middle of the provincial forest

A few people will prepare. Most won't! A shtf event will unleash chaos, desperation, anarchy and human savagery.

Hunkering down, no matter how well prepared will be a death trap because eventually you will be overwhelmed.

The only option is to get as far away from people as possible and even then it's going to be crowded on the road.

McCormic's "The Road" will look like a Sunday school picnic with what will actually happen; and if you wait till the shtf to bug out, you waited to long. When the grid goes down and waiting for the power to comeback on will get you killed.

Dirt bike, guns, water purification system, space blanket, beans and more guns is my plan. Wait a couple of months till most people are dead from thirst, starvation, disease then look for something permanent on the coast.

The wisest way to prepare is to make peace with your maker and resign yourself to the fact that reason and human decency will evaporate when people get hungry. It's much to late for "back to the land" hippie idealism.

God I'm glad I don't have kids!

reply to post by olaru12


Curious, why a dirtbike? They are versatile and all, but how much experience do you have repairing one? Might be better off going with a mountain bike, don't have to worry about gas, or engine repair, or engine noise. Just a thought

Originally posted by TKDRL
reply to post by olaru12

 

Curious, why a dirtbike? They are versatile and all, but how much experience do you have repairing one? Might be better off going with a mountain bike, don't have to worry about gas, or engine repair, or engine noise. Just a thought

When the time comes, speed and mobility will be of the essence. Getting isolated is of prime importance. I am very familiar with maintenance and repair of my 500cc Honda and it can easily carry 50+lbs of gear and food, very fuel efficient and fairly quiet. Getting off the Roads and back in the boonies as far as possible will be your only hope and even then it's going to be very dangerous.

Actually though I think the sailboat people will have the best chance of survival. Shelter, mobility and sitting on top of a food supply makes a lot of sense.

Keep Your Options Open
including the option that life will just go on as is


PS
ask yourself:
what would the young Hanibal Lectur do?

reply to post by olaru12


Ok, that makes sense. I sometimes forget not everyone is lucky enough to be all the way in the boonies already

Neither option is sufficient. Or, rather, both options are only part of the actual solution. Prepping (and I don't like the term either) can not be a process it has to be a life style to have any chance of succeeding.

Bunkering will most likely sustain the occupants for as long as supplies last. Assuming the bunker is strong enough to resist the inevitable attempts to break in and kill you made by desperate people. The duration totally depends on the amount of supplies in the stockpile.

Bugging out will most likely sustain a person for as long as they are able to avoid contact with other survivors. The only way to survive on the move is to be either invisible or part of a large enough group that everyone leaves you alone. As soon as you run out of whatever you have on your back you will have to approach others for re-supply and you will no longer be invisible. Shortly thereafter you will probably be dead.

An offsite bunker is really only an extension of the first option. You will live until you run out of supplies, however long that takes. You will not be getting additional supplies from others, or taking them from weaker people, as the supplies will all be gone already. They will either be used up or ruined by other attempts to steal them. The only difference is where you die. Might as well stay home and have your friends and pets around you when you go.

In order to REALLY be able to survive long term after the end of civilization (and, really what is the likely hood of something THAT devastating happening? And are you really sure you want to survive it if it does happen?) is to be able to both protect yourself in the short term and have sufficient supplies to last a reasonable length of hunker-down time, AND be able to make NEW supplies after the immediate danger.

Folks, trust me here. You don't just make a hole and drop a seed into it, then come back a few months later to eat what comes up. Farming takes WORK. It is difficult and complicated and takes a large part of a lifetime to perfect. If you don't already know how to grow your own food, it will be too late. You will starve before you can possibly learn. If you don't know how to operate the equipment to quickly put in new fields, you will starve before you can even get seeds in the ground.

If your are serious about survival, get your butt to the country, get the use of some land (there are other options that simply buying it), and start LEARNING. Tele-commuting is a wonderful tool, if you can make it happen. If you won't or can't do this. my suggestion is to decide on the amount of time you want to live after the disaster and save up that much food and supplies. Then have a gun with your name on it to get things over with quickly and painlessly.

Sorry, but reality sucks.

reply to post by Montana


Anything worthwhile turns out to be a lifestyle I think. Being in good shape is a lifestyle, that is what so many "dieters" fail to grasp. Being prepared is definitely a lifestyle, and I would say also a mentality. Being able to think on your feet always plays a huge roll in who survives and who doesn't. having lots of stuff hoarded away doesn't really cut it.

For me, it doesn't even have to be a doomsday thing, it could be a local disaster. Trying to prepare for as many scenarios as possible is how I think of it.

Originally posted by TKDRL
reply to post by Montana

 

Anything worthwhile turns out to be a lifestyle I think. Being in good shape is a lifestyle, that is what so many "dieters" fail to grasp. Being prepared is definitely a lifestyle, and I would say also a mentality. Being able to think on your feet always plays a huge roll in who survives and who doesn't. having lots of stuff hoarded away doesn't really cut it.

For me, it doesn't even have to be a doomsday thing, it could be a local disaster. Trying to prepare for as many scenarios as possible is how I think of it.

Much of what you say is true... for the short term. If a disaster only lasts a week or two, a month at most, thinking on your feet will get you a long way down the road and can indeed make the difference between death and what will pass for life. (If civ dies, most people will actually call it hell.)

But anything longer than that can only be survived by knowledge and ability and those two things cannot be acquired after the fact. They must be sought BEFORE they are needed.

reply to post by Montana


I think we are talking about the same thing, just calling it by different names. Being prepared and having a lighter is great, what happens when the fluid runs out, and the flint is used up? Knowing how to start a fire without any modern conveniences. Seeing a disabled car on the side of the road, knowing that there is miles of wire in the car, and that you can take some of that wire to make snares. That kinda thing is what I call thinking on your feet. I want to be as close to macgyver as I can get prettymuch

Originally posted by TKDRL
That kinda thing is what I call thinking on your feet. I want to be as close to macgyver as I can get prettymuch

If you could do all the things McGuver did, and they actually worked (most were not realistic at all of course), the world would be forever safe for little pink bunnies!!! And us too, of course!

this is why my neighborhood has twice monthly meetings on securing our area and livestock/crops come economic collapse and even have a few contacts on various Indian reservations as they will be a force to be reckoned with out in my area,and from what i have read and why my group was founded is we have a good sized "cult" that lives in bunkers or something like that on the island on the big lake in the general area of my house who want to convert non "believers" in any kind of emergency.

better to have a plan and not need it so to speak so we plan on hunkering in and making it through winter as our groups plan(and hoping winter protects us from the "zombie" herds that go out into the country out of the city's)

we got water live stock and farm land and people who know how to raise them and farm so i think our area is pretty good off and decently isolated but who knows Yellowstone could go and wed all be doomed regardless of plans and preps

reply to post by RalagaNarHallas


Some things like that, no amount of planning etc will help. I try not to think about those kinds of things
Just adds unneeded stress, not like anything can be done about it right?

I got a similar group, we also do a lot of wargames stuff. If nothing happens, oh well it is fun as hell anyways.

reply to post by Springer


Good topic - and a welcome break from all the political threads.

I think it depends. Where you are, what you have now, what resources you have, what your physical condition is, what you know and what is going on - all play a big part.

Heck - I'll go with condition first. Someone that is 70 is probably not going to do as well on the road as someone that is 20. So for the older crowd hunker in a bunker may be best strategy if possible.

Honestly, I do not think there is any one answer to that question. It all depends on the circumstances of the individual. There is no one answer or approach that will always be safe. You have to be able to adapt the alternative is likely not making it.

reply to post by Springer


I see it like this. One survivalist was explaining it on a radio show. See it's a physiological problem not so much a perceived threat from the outside. I'll try and explain it briefly....

something bad happens to someone. They experience trauma. So they go into survival mode. Your bodies natural reaction to threats. So they start behaving in a way that isn't rational. They start doing things that normal people who are not feeling threatened wouldn't do, such as prepping.

This could be because they got physically attacked and never figured out how to cope. Or they go robbed, or the g==v was too hard on them, or they listened to some Armageddon type guru a little too fervently, such as AJ.

In any case they haven't addressed the issue properly and what's happening is they're in survival mode full time. Now that the threat they had is over they haven't ratcheted that down again back to safe, normal, calm, happy, enjoyable living. So it's a psychological issue, not a outside threat issue.

Like there's nothing wrong with having a few extra cans of soup. Who cares, that's not a big deal. But when it starts to become a psychosis you need to do a checkup from the neckup. Like people who basically have an ammo dumb, a practiced bug out plan, bugout bags, vehicles, rooms full of food, etc etc. That's a sure since of psychosis. They're essentially living in fear, not in safety on a physiological level.

Like what they're failing to realize is that you look at the army. They don't give you a ton of supplies and say "okay now you'll be prepared for war". They don't do that. They give them some basic supplies (which everyone already has in there house right now) and they give them tons of training. So if one would want to actually be prepped its the training that's gonna help the most, not the food. All it would take is one well trained person even with no gun to walk onto someone's well prepped acreage and take over the whole thing. And if the SHTF it's the gangs with guns and the desire to use them that will be the most dangerous and dominant, not some dude with a few extra cans of soup. Those cans of soup will be more of a target on your back, my guess is.

But again I just think that life's too short to be prepping like that. I think what's better than prepping is to come to terms with yourself, your life, your situation, and learn to not live in fear, not be afraid. Just know that they'll be okay one way or another and that they need not constantly worry about it. The bible actually instructs not to prep in a lot of verses, cuz that's not how man was mean to live. Like if you don't care what tomorrow brings, you're just living a good happy care free life, that's the most peaceable way to live. That's how children live, they're happy they're carefree, they're living for today and for the moment and not living in the future in fear.

Anyway, so again all I'm saying is that you go to be careful not to let your survival mode take over your day to day living. When the threat is over, then you can go back to normal life. Like the old african proverb that goes "if the enemy within is beaten, the enemy outside can do me no harm".

They should call them preppies, not preppers ha ha...

This guy....now that's a real preppy, he could teach preppies how to be real preps... now that's a fashion statement! LOL

reply to post by r2d246


Of course, being more prepared than the sheep is bad! Until something bad happens. My bug out bag, well it's my hike/camp backpack. Yep, I like to be prepared when venturing out of civilization, in case some crazy stuff happens. Who knows, fall down, step in a hole and snap an ankle. Better a nutbar than dead is my motto. Then again I am a country boy, and I was a boy scout and royal ranger. If I overprepare, no harm done. If I underprepare, well then I am dead.