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Any preppers on here or other survival minded people?

Posted: Thu Oct 28, 2010 2:25 pm
by gregthehand
I've been on the site for a while now and have only seen a post of two about the issue of survival or as I like to call it prepping. I first started down my road after reading "Light's Out" which I have a copy of that I can email should anyone like to read it. My stance was originally to bug out a lone and just "live off the land" as it was. Now however I have decided that the best course of action would be to team up with some like minded folks in order to form a group that will stick out stuff together.

I've got a few friends interested and ready to do something but not as many as I would like. I have looked at some of the survival forums out there and to be honest a lot of those people are way out there. Like tin foil hat crazy.

With the threat of terrorism and the uncertainty of the economy I've stepped up my efforts to prepare for any uncertainty in the future. Me and my wife were involved with Katrina and then later on Gustav in South Louisiana and a few days later Ike. What we saw was that the Federal and most State Government agencies were just woefully unprepared to do just about anything but collect taxes. We have both served on active duty and in the National Guard and got called up to deal with disasters. One thing I remember doing was walking around neighborhoods that had not been flooded and handing out FEMA flyers. Meanwhile a few miles away there were families that had been flooded with no water, no electricity, and no help from us. The last straw for me was when they had us pass out flyers in an area that had received no damage and a unit had been through the very same day but earlier passing out the same flyers! Still no help to the folks that needed it. My wife saw much of the same when she was deployed to New Orleans a few days after Katrina. She was in a civil engineering unit that was tasked to help securing building and bridges from basically falling over and causing more damage. Instead of going out and doing that to help out the people of NOLA they were tasked with setting up tents at the airport. Oh by the way the whole time all the people in the unit were asking why were they setting them up when another storm was possibly coming through. Sure enough about eighteen hours after they set them up they were tasked with taking them down. Then Rita didn't hit them and what do ya know they were told to set them up again. All in all they never left the airport. But I digress.

So if anyone in the North, South, Central to East Texas is interested reply here, PM me or email me. I don't want to go into details out in public as to what our current ideas/plans are but once I've talked to someone and we both agree that neither of us has our tin foil hat on too tight we can possibly move forward with bringing them into our little group.

Finally I understand to some this just seems silly and paranoid. To those all I can say is that my views are based on first hand accounts and I realize that while the day may never come when I'll have rely on not having any help from the government, city water, or electrical it just may. I'd rather be prepared and eventually wind up with an efficient house on some land which I would want anyway.

:txflag:

Re: Any preppers on here or other survival minded people?

Posted: Thu Oct 28, 2010 2:33 pm
by puma guy
I'm ready! I just watched Ray Milland's "Panic In The Year Zero" two weeks ago. :tiphat:

Re: Any preppers on here or other survival minded people?

Posted: Thu Oct 28, 2010 2:45 pm
by WildBill
puma guy wrote:I'm ready! I just watched Ray Milland's "Panic In The Year Zero" two weeks ago. :tiphat:
I want to be a Prepper too. :hurry:

Re: Any preppers on here or other survival minded people?

Posted: Thu Oct 28, 2010 2:52 pm
by puma guy
WildBill wrote:
puma guy wrote:I'm ready! I just watched Ray Milland's "Panic In The Year Zero" two weeks ago. :tiphat:
I want to be a Prepper too. :hurry:
WoW! I'm a Prepper, You're a Prepper (take a sip of a famous soft drink) then complete the verse in you're best singing voice! Wah! Lah!
You're a Prepper "rlol" "rlol"

Re: Any preppers on here or other survival minded people?

Posted: Thu Oct 28, 2010 3:06 pm
by Rescue1
gregthehand wrote:I first started down my road after reading "Light's Out" which I have a copy of that I can email should anyone like to read it.

that is an awesome story! i hope someday they make it into a movie. very good read!!

Re: Any preppers on here or other survival minded people?

Posted: Thu Oct 28, 2010 3:53 pm
by PRO
I've been prepping for a while now and I'm approx 70% set. My father came from the post depression era and always had ½ years of food and supplies on hand. When he died he passed on the tin foil hat to me.

I agree, odds are nothing will ever happen. Well, apart from hurricanes, tornados, drought, pandemic, pestilence, terrorist attacks, all out war, collapse of the monetary system or on a simpler note, everyone in my house losing their jobs to a bad recession and needing food. After Katrina and Rita, I have little faith in anyone coming to my rescue for a long time. So I do have bug out bags in each vehicle, a year’s worth of food stored, and weapons for the protection of myself and family. I’m also an outdoorsy type with plenty of camping gear, trained in wilderness medicine, canning and storage of food and I make really good beer and wine.

I also agree that some of those preparers are as far out there as some of those gun people.

I have often had doubts about my reasons for prepping because everyone knows the government will provide for us.

On a serious note, like my CHL, I keep all this to myself and never let anyone know I’m prepping. I also know if it really happens, I can’t do it alone so I’ll PM you and we’ll compare the gauges of our foil.

Re: Any preppers on here or other survival minded people?

Posted: Thu Oct 28, 2010 4:06 pm
by karder
I have been a "prepper" for many years. It is not something I share with the masses, so I don't get a lot of funny looks or comments. It does not take much to prepare for an emergency situation, but most people don't bother either because they believe that nothing will ever happen or that the government will be able to take care of them in such an event.
I always suggest that each family keep a years worth of dry food and very basic supplies in the event of a pandemic or breakdown of society. If several families can do this and band together, they will probably do better than those who go it alone. Anyone with a yard should learn to garden and practice basic gardening and canning skills. A lot of people survived the Great Depression by doing that, and sometimes it feels like we are heading toward another one.

Re: Any preppers on here or other survival minded people?

Posted: Thu Oct 28, 2010 4:42 pm
by TLynnHughes
I'm a reasonably new prepper. Sometimes I get overwhelmed because I am painfully aware that I do not have the skills necessary to sustain myself for an extended period of time. But I'm just taking baby steps right now.

T.

Re: Any preppers on here or other survival minded people?

Posted: Thu Oct 28, 2010 5:08 pm
by Oldgringo
There's some beautiful country up in northern Idaho and it ain't too crowded? There's this one place called Ruby Ridge and I'm sure that there are some others...?

Re: Any preppers on here or other survival minded people?

Posted: Thu Oct 28, 2010 5:08 pm
by The Annoyed Man
I don't know if you would call me a "prepper" or not. Maybe I'm just a dilettante at it, but I have not devoted as much time or money to it as some. It's not that I don't think it a worthy thing to do. It's that I have had to balance the cost of preparation against the cost of daily living.

Having moved here from California, we always had a degree of prepping because we lived with a certain amount of risk that an earthquake would knock our house down and interrupt services for some period of time. Our prepping was organized, but pretty light weight. We had about 2 weeks worth of food and water stored, plus mobile shelter, cooking gear, flashlights, batteries, emergency radio, weapons & ammo, sanitation supplies, first aid, and prescriptions. But all of that was geared more for a natural disaster scenario rather than a societal breakdown or zombie attack.

Since moving here to Texas, our preparations are similar - the difference being the nature of the disaster. An earthquake may bury your supplies under the wreckage of your house, but a tornado may uproot your supplies and drop them on peoples' heads the next county over. But I do have a plan. It will take years to execute it fully because it involves the acquisition of land which I don't yet own. Until then, I continue to operate on the principle that I'm not likely to need to survive in suburbia for more than a couple of weeks without normal services.

Re: Any preppers on here or other survival minded people?

Posted: Thu Oct 28, 2010 5:09 pm
by WildBill
karder wrote:I have been a "prepper" for many years. I always suggest that each family keep a years worth of dry food and very basic supplies in the event of a pandemic or breakdown of society. If several families can do this and band together, they will probably do better than those who go it alone. Anyone with a yard should learn to garden and practice basic gardening and canning skills.
Not to bring in religion, but this is exactly what many Mormon families do. After talking to several Mormon friends, I started to do the same thing, storing wheat, dry milk powder, sugar and/or honey, water, and ammunition. I used to buy a lot of my survival supplies from a local store run by a Mormon family. It was also part of my survival plan preparing for the "big one" earthquake.

Re: Any preppers on here or other survival minded people?

Posted: Thu Oct 28, 2010 5:17 pm
by Rex B
we are preppers, I suppose.
I keep a year's supply of food.
Bulk water storage.
firearms of course.
Bugout bags.
spending spare money on such things instead of buying more firearms.
Wife is onboard with it.
I do believe in teaming up, but in a typical suburban neighborhood it's not that easy.
Some are suitable, some are not.

Ideal situation is a rural group of 5 or 6 homes.
That's part of our long-term plan.

Re: Any preppers on here or other survival minded people?

Posted: Thu Oct 28, 2010 5:37 pm
by Oldgringo
:clapping:

In addition to northern Idaho, there may be some land available outside of Waco for communes? The movie star people have taken over Taos, NM and Bigfork, MT. That said, there are other places...? :patriot:

Re: Any preppers on here or other survival minded people?

Posted: Thu Oct 28, 2010 7:13 pm
by cbr600
Oldgringo wrote:There's some beautiful country up in northern Idaho and it ain't too crowded? There's this one place called Ruby Ridge and I'm sure that there are some others...?
Oldgringo wrote::clapping:

In addition to northern Idaho, there may be some land available outside of Waco for communes?
Some of us are able to survice without government handouts. That doesn't make us crazy, nor communists.

Re: Any preppers on here or other survival minded people?

Posted: Thu Oct 28, 2010 7:19 pm
by Beiruty
I am living the American dream, or this is my perception of life. When life turns into American Nightmare, life would be very short.
When there is no water, no food, no electricity, people will unit in search of the essentials. I lived those days in Beirut, Lebanon. Lucky we did not have Nukes falling on our heads.