With WW3 looking inevitable, steps to take to prepare.

Man, are we really talking about this?
I mean, I have been on ATS a long time and seen my fair share of DOOMPORN; but this thread has a different weight behind it.
It's kind of surreal to me. I know people here are trying to share usable and valid knowledge, but the whole situation is just bizarre to me. It's like, Doom porn got pushed aside and now people are saying "okay listen up, sh*t just got real."

Things like pandemics, super volcanos and asteroids always seemed too exotic a way to do us all in. Never the less you always felt (or atleast I did) that I could survive those somehow. Thermonuclear war on the other hand is not one of those things I feel are really survivable regardless of how much you prepare. I mean don't get me wrong, I'm not downplaying the info on this thread at all, its good to know. But I have always felt if there are any survivors after a war using "All the nukes" they will have been people who essentially won the lotto. Right place right time, nothing more.

I live very close to a large city here in the Central US. I'm not going anywhere, I don't feel there is any point. Ill either win the lotto or not, we will see how it all plays out.

But I can vaguely imagine the pucker factor of seeing numerous rocket trails shooting off into the sky and knowing this is it: "F*** us man, we finally did it, we killed our species over some tract of land and pride."
Species FacePalm.... one for the road

originally posted by: the owlbear
If a nuclear exchange occurs, no amount of food or water in a hidey hole will be enough.
Besides the blasts and fallout, dont forget about all of the pretty little reactors dotting the countrysides by bodies of water. Now imagine they all blow bigger than Chernobyl. All of them.
If they would be dumb enough to push the buttons, it's goodnight for nearly all life on earth.

I think you notice most ppl still live and work in Tokyo not too far from Fukushima.

There is a scientist living in the exclusion zone of Chernobyl who eats food
out of the ground there, as long as its a type that doesn't uptake Cesium isotopes.

Nuclear Winter will be horrible, and billions will die, the fallout will be no picnic either.

For those who hide for 10 - 14 days in a fallout rated shelter then emerge with a
geiger counter, they have a chance and there will be alot of stuff around to use
and accessible during the summer months.

I'd not recommend trying anything in Spring, Winter, or Fall as it will be more like
a very bad winter beyond our imaging.

We lived thru Toba, we could live thru this, but billions would likely die.

a reply to: snowen20
Well said, if you live near a military base you are likely ash when it happens.

For the rural folks, far away from the military bases its possible, but it will be ugly.

The nuclear winter could last a decade.

It will be much worse than "the year without a summer" also known as
"1800 and froze to death".

Those nations near the equator will fair the best temp wise, but global fallout will
get a lot of ppl after the fact who did not even see a distant impact.

Have to hide from the fallout for 10 - 14 days, with 36 inches or dirt or equivalent
mass and make sure and keep the tiny dust out of your shelter.

Like one person said if you breath it in you are done.

originally posted by: Ex_MislTech

originally posted by: the owlbear
If a nuclear exchange occurs, no amount of food or water in a hidey hole will be enough.
Besides the blasts and fallout, dont forget about all of the pretty little reactors dotting the countrysides by bodies of water. Now imagine they all blow bigger than Chernobyl. All of them.
If they would be dumb enough to push the buttons, it's goodnight for nearly all life on earth.

I think you notice most ppl still live and work in Tokyo not too far from Fukushima.

There is a scientist living in the exclusion zone of Chernobyl who eats food
out of the ground there, as long as its a type that doesn't uptake Cesium isotopes.

Nuclear Winter will be horrible, and billions will die, the fallout will be no picnic either.

For those who hide for 10 - 14 days in a fallout rated shelter then emerge with a
geiger counter, they have a chance and there will be alot of stuff around to use
and accessible during the summer months.

I'd not recommend trying anything in Spring, Winter, or Fall as it will be more like
a very bad winter beyond our imaging.

We lived thru Toba, we could live thru this, but billions would likely die.

At Chernobyl, people were able to operate outside of bunkers, same with Japan. Reactors going into full meltdown, exploding their containment structures and exposing themselves to the air would make those two events look like a picnic.
Hopefully countries would be smart enough to take all of their reactors offline before being showered in thermonuclear warheads...

originally posted by: the owlbear
If a nuclear exchange occurs, no amount of food or water in a hidey hole will be enough.
Besides the blasts and fallout, dont forget about all of the pretty little reactors dotting the countrysides by bodies of water. Now imagine they all blow bigger than Chernobyl. All of them.
If they would be dumb enough to push the buttons, it's goodnight for nearly all life on earth.

If for some reason WW3 happens and all main systems are not being run, and no more supplies are coming in. You have about 30 days to get away from one if it isn't damaged be for it goes boom or leaks really bad. By foot that's a lot of walking, and you still might not be out of an effected area depending on your location. Also place that have stopped using nuclear with in the past 5 years are not safe as well. The spent fuel rod containment still needs fuel for the cooling pumps.

originally posted by: the owlbear

originally posted by: Ex_MislTech

originally posted by: the owlbear
If a nuclear exchange occurs, no amount of food or water in a hidey hole will be enough.
Besides the blasts and fallout, dont forget about all of the pretty little reactors dotting the countrysides by bodies of water. Now imagine they all blow bigger than Chernobyl. All of them.
If they would be dumb enough to push the buttons, it's goodnight for nearly all life on earth.

I think you notice most ppl still live and work in Tokyo not too far from Fukushima.

There is a scientist living in the exclusion zone of Chernobyl who eats food
out of the ground there, as long as its a type that doesn't uptake Cesium isotopes.

Nuclear Winter will be horrible, and billions will die, the fallout will be no picnic either.

For those who hide for 10 - 14 days in a fallout rated shelter then emerge with a
geiger counter, they have a chance and there will be alot of stuff around to use
and accessible during the summer months.

I'd not recommend trying anything in Spring, Winter, or Fall as it will be more like
a very bad winter beyond our imaging.

We lived thru Toba, we could live thru this, but billions would likely die.

At Chernobyl, people were able to operate outside of bunkers, same with Japan. Reactors going into full meltdown, exploding their containment structures and exposing themselves to the air would make those two events look like a picnic.
Hopefully countries would be smart enough to take all of their reactors offline before being showered in thermonuclear warheads...

Well at Fukushima they did SCRAM the reactor and it was shutdown,
and the cooling ran on backup for awhile, but they stuck the diesel
generators in the basement and that was a huge mistake.

If the diesels had been on the roof, no Fukushima disaster.

Fukushima residual heat issue explained

I wish the whole world would switch to LFTR design.

LFTR safer reactor design


That is a 15 minutes fast run thru, for a more up2date run thru
I recommend "The Thorium Dream"

The Thorium Dream

The best way to prep for chaos? Do nothing. You have no idea what situation you will be put in once it hits. For all you know, you could spend months prepping then when the shtf you are stuck in another state from all your stuff with no means to get over or some other nonsense. I'd rather spend my money on living now than worrying about trying to survive an event that may or may not occur in my lifetime.

I also don't see nuclear war as a likelihood these days as it's more about control of the economy and resources now.
After all, you can't collect taxes, have any kind of revenue or impose fines from dead people.

What I want to know is, aside from all the important prepping and survival methods that are fairly prevalent and accessible knowledge, why isn't there more of a consensus on where to go?

Sure, if you have a bomb shelter nearby, that's swell. But, geographically - shouldn't we be pinpointing the areas where survivors should migrate to in case of such an event? We can get a fairly accurate estimate of where the thousands of warhead would be hitting, right? So, we need actual cities/locations to aim for as destinations for survivors.

I haven't really seen that info, although I'm sure people have put a lot of thought into it. As far as I can glean, northern locations are right out, cuz winter. So, I'm guessing some places in the South, like Louisiana, Arkansas, maybe Florida? (U.S. location bias - sorry) Islands would be the ultimate goal in my estimate.

WW3 or no, it's always a good idea to do some prepping. Never know when storm, quake or other natural (or man-made) disaster will hit.
food
water
radio/batteries

www.ready.gov...

www.survivalistboards.com...

a reply to: liteonit6969

Prepping for WW3 and full out war is pie in the sky. Truth be told.......LUCK is what will save you. This is the cold hard truth if you are in the right place at the right time you make it......If not.



Imagine the cost involved for a underground bunker stocked for 10 years worth of food and the level of air/water purifiers needed to sustain this......250,000. So why even worry about it when in the end it will all come down to luck and timing. Think I have no idea what I am talking about.....Do the math.

originally posted by: Krazysh0t
The best way to prep for chaos? Do nothing. You have no idea what situation you will be put in once it hits. For all you know, you could spend months prepping then when the shtf you are stuck in another state from all your stuff with no means to get over or some other nonsense. I'd rather spend my money on living now than worrying about trying to survive an event that may or may not occur in my lifetime.

I don't agree with this.

You can do some general prep as follows.

The core 5 needs:

1) Knowledge
2) Self Defense
3) Shelter
4) Water
5) Food

Food is last because you can go quite awhile without it.

Store some beans, rice, and other long shelf lie goods
in food grade buckets or metal containers, and you can
displace the O2 in the container with some dry ice before
sealing, but leave a air gap for it to breath til it fully melts
or it tends to pop the lid off.

Knowledge is required to do all 5 steps correctly.

If you cannot defend yourself bad ppl will just come
take what you have, so self defense is needed.

Shelter is needed for fallout, adverse weather, and
to hide from humans that are psychopaths.

Its best if your shelter doesn't look like a conventional
building and even better if it is basically invisible.

The Bielski partisans used the underground zemlyankas.

Bielski partisans

I prefer the Mike Oehler design, but they have a lot in common.

Having it underground if built right gives you a fallout
rated shelter, which will likely be needed at some point.

Humans have this tendency to listen to their governments
and kill each other by the millions.

Water can be done via slow sand filter, distillation,
simple boiling, or atmospheric collection if you can
created chilled coils via something similar to the
Einstein Fridge design.

Ammonia can be used as the refrigerant thou it
can be dangerous, etc etc...

Even r-12/r-22 can make phosgene gas if burned.

Ammonia can be home made in various ways.

A pond is a good idea even if it will end up contaminated.

Rain water collection is a good idea, even if it will
collect fallout particles, they can be filtered out
or removed via distillation.

Those have "minimal" preparation tend to fair far
better then those who do not even file away
the related knowledge.

With knowledge alone one man was dropped on an
island with just a knife and lived solo for 18 months
with zero modern items other then the knife.

I recommend a bug out bag for everyone for reasons
such as nuclear war, super volcanic eruption,
rogue comet/asteroid strike, civil war, pandemic,
race riots, etc etc...

originally posted by: SubTruth
a reply to: liteonit6969

Prepping for WW3 and full out war is pie in the sky. Truth be told.......LUCK is what will save you. This is the cold hard truth if you are in the right place at the right time you make it......If not.



Imagine the cost involved for a underground bunker stocked for 10 years worth of food and the level of air/water purifiers needed to sustain this......250,000. So why even worry about it when in the end it will all come down to luck and timing. Think I have no idea what I am talking about.....Do the math.

Buckets of rice and beans cost alot less then what you have posted here,
though I am sure I would get sick of it pretty quick.

For those who don't bother to prepare they will leave behind some stuff we
can use, and we can thank them for not preparing, most will not prepare.

As for it being all luck, not so much, the people who don't live near
military bases will have much better odds.

The next biggest threat will likely be other humans.

A makeshift fallout shelter can be dug with a backhoe that I can rent
for $250/day and then use junk and used materials for the rest.

Some of it is shown here:

Nuclear War Survival Skills

Some other good info on the subject here:

You will survive doomsday

The ramp up to WW3 is already underway, when it look likely for a all out
exchange get away from the cities even if there is no military base.

Those who didn't prepare will be coming after those who did much as
depicted in the twilight zone episode named "The Shelter".

The shelter

originally posted by: gottaknow
I also don't see nuclear war as a likelihood these days as it's more about control of the economy and resources now.
After all, you can't collect taxes, have any kind of revenue or impose fines from dead people.

What I want to know is, aside from all the important prepping and survival methods that are fairly prevalent and accessible knowledge, why isn't there more of a consensus on where to go?

Sure, if you have a bomb shelter nearby, that's swell. But, geographically - shouldn't we be pinpointing the areas where survivors should migrate to in case of such an event? We can get a fairly accurate estimate of where the thousands of warhead would be hitting, right? So, we need actual cities/locations to aim for as destinations for survivors.

I haven't really seen that info, although I'm sure people have put a lot of thought into it. As far as I can glean, northern locations are right out, cuz winter. So, I'm guessing some places in the South, like Louisiana, Arkansas, maybe Florida? (U.S. location bias - sorry) Islands would be the ultimate goal in my estimate.

There are different factions among the ruling elite, one is just as you say.

Another group has this desire to wipe out 90% of humans on earth, and
they are not shy about talking about it either.

Eric Pianka, John Holdren, The Georgia Guidestones, Limits to Growth,
and others. I like to call them The Neo-Malthusian death cult.

So the sane would say exactly what you say, but the insane ??? well who
knows what they might have in mind ??? But lucky for us they are not
shy about telling us what they have in mind for us.

a reply to: Ex_MislTech

Meh. Maybe if long excursions into the wilderness were a hobby of mine. I just don't see the need to know all that stuff when it is likely I won't need to know it.

I'll embrace the flash. I'm not living in some post nuclear holocaust. That is if it ever comes to that. I came to terms with my mortality and know for a fact that we're all going to die at sometime. I'll live while I'm here and not hide in fear about what might happen.