Do You Consider Yourself a Prepper? Extreme or Just Slightly?

[donrae]

I just want to be ready for whatever I realistically think may happen. I live in a pretty moderate climate with low incidence of natural disasters, but even here the power can go out. Even if it's only for a few hours, I want to be ready for that, cause I can guarantee you two teenage boys and one large man are still going to want to eat

I think it's pretty obvious anyone can lose their job. I've been out of work twice in the last 3-4 years. The first time we were totally unprepared and wound up much more in debt. The second time we were more prepared (thank you Dave Ramsey!!!) and, while it wasn't great, it wasn't near the hardship it had been before. We had an emergency fund, were debt free except our house, and had tons of food in the house. Cause again, those guys still want to eat, even if no one's working!

Now, I have leukemia and am on disability. It's less than half my salary was, but........you guessed it.........everyone still wants to eat! Funny how that happens!

I've always been a "stock up" person. I can't imagine having less than 2-3 weeks worth of food in the house. Absolute, bare minimum. Literally, if that was all we had, I honestly think I'd start having panic attacks! I've always had ready to eat meals in the freezer or canned, and those have come in so handy with the fatigue from the chemo. Easy for the guys to fix to eat when I'm just not up to it. Then, when I'm feeling better, I make more meals.

I also can't imagine not having at least a basic first aid kit. Getting a stomach bug and puking is NOT the time to start thinking about going to Wal-greens for some pepto!

I do check out some "prepper" sites on line. Most of them I just lurk, and some of them are pretty over the top and overwhelming for me, but they do help keep me on track and give me good ideas.

Plus, if you even need to entertain a teenage boy, take him out and tell him he needs to work on his fire building and cooking skills. We killed hours at the county park recently with this!

 

[frenchblackcopper]

In the event of a national catastrophy,natural or man-made, there is only enough food on supermarket shelves for 3 days. Add in panic buying and those shelves can be bare in hours! We have a huge area for a garden,about 40' wide by 100' long. I mainly plant waterelons,cucumbers and viney plants to cover theground quickly to help slow weed growth,but these veggies and fruits also are fed to my peacock flock fast approaching 100 breeding birds.
"Prepper" to me has a definition of planning ahead for whatever situation occurs that would inhibit normal living,such as power outages,shortage of store bought food,supplies,electricity,and water.We have been without power for 11 days back in the 1980's due to a huge ice storm,causing power lines to come down by the hundreds of miles.We had kerosene heaters,but still had water pipes freeze because it happened during February,and after the ice storm,temps here dropped into the teens at night.Yet we stayed here,4 miles from town,and stayed warm,and had hot meals to eat using canned goods heated on the kerosene heaters.
Each fall before our first predicted snowstorm we go thru our checklist insuring if we do get snowed in for days,or maybe a week,us and our animals can get by. I always have 3 weeks of poultry feed on hand. We always have 20 gallons of kerosene to use for heat,and we do have a fireplace if worse came to worse with enough wood cut to last several months.Packs of fresh batteries for flashlites,enough dog food stocked for at least 10 days for our 9 German Shepherds we raise,and 30 gallons of water saved in 1 gallon milk jugs.Candles for lite,and the pantry full of canned goods too. I don't know how to can food but we do have a foodsaver and our half sized freezer is always full,and kept full all during winter.Granted if we lose power the freezer will still keep food frozen for 4-5 days if the lid is kept closed and not opened all the time.But anyone who plans ahead is considered a "prepper" in my opinion.

 

[RHRanch]

Recently a Fresh and Easy grocery store announced that it would be closing and that everything in the store was half priced. I went there to get bargains. Even though only a tiny percentage of the town's population had become aware of the sale and actually went to the store to shop, by the time I got there at 11am, the store was decimated. Empty. Nothing. The town I was in has a population of 143, 000. I guess maybe a few hundred shopped that day. There will be no food in grocery or other stores in the event of a disaster after 1 day, let alone 2 or 3.... Hope this story helps people decide to prep for emergencies.

 

[Baymule]

by the time I got there at 11am, the store was decimated. Empty. Nothing. The town I was in has a population of 143, 000. I guess maybe a few hundred shopped that day. There will be no food in grocery or other stores in the event of a disaster after 1 day, let alone 2 or 3.... Hope this story helps people decide to prep for emergencies.

We go through that very thing EVERY time there is a hurricane on the way. And afterwards, the stores are still shut because anything cold is ruined by no electricity and the store must be cleaned up, everything thrown out and finally get a shipment in to restock the shelves. Picture Walmart boarded up and closed, gas stations OUT of gas, no street lights, no nothing.

Everyone remembers hurricane Katrina obliterating New Orleans, 3 weeks later, hurricane Rita barreled straight at Houston, Tx. At the last minute it veered off to the east and avoided a direct hit on Houston. But by that time, people were in an all out evacuation, between 2.5 to 3.7 MILLION people. I live in a small town 75 miles north of Houston. We were covered up in desperate people. The evacuation plan was for people to go past our town, but the highways quickly clogged up and a 2 hour drive took over 28 hours. People just ran out of gas and couldn't go any further. It was over 100 degrees both before and after the storm. People died in stalled cars in the heat.

Our town opened up our schools and churches. Most people were grateful, but some were ugly and some were downright destructive. Our Junior High was trashed and was closed for weeks to repair the damage and sanitize it as people actually rubbed feces on the walls. I spent nights at an elementary school to help out and there was no food, no power, no drinks, no beds, no nothing. Some people were indignant that we didn't have better facilities for them, others were grateful to have a wood gym floor to sleep on.

My church sheltered about 60 families, members brought food and cooked it on gas fish fryers. I spent a couple of nights at church on patrol with other members, as we had to open all the windows and doors hoping for a breeze. At the same time I had a house full of people and I went home in the mornings for a few hours sleep before starting all over again. My DH held down the fort at the house, it was crazy. I got to the store too late, the shelves were bare. So I baked bread before the storm, cooked beef roasts, so we could make sandwiches. When that ran out, I made flour tortillas over a fire pit in the back yard. I can tell you, waking up to the smell of coffee boiling in a pot over a fire in the back yard, as I stumbled through the house, scratching bodacious mosquito bites was the most heavenly scent ever.

The hurricane was over, fuel trucks ran again, people filled up their cars and went back home. But what if it had lasted longer? What if they didn't go home? The entire situation was about a week, any longer and it would have gotten real bad. It wasn't just my town, but ALL the towns along the evacuation routes.

What if it was your town?

Scroll down to Texas, Mass Evacuations and Deaths.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Rita

 

[StupidBird]

There are quite a few things I wish to have, just in case. This summer has seen a steady stream of minor catastrophes, so I feel everything's all disorganized, and supplies are low. As soon as the budget recovers, off to shopping for the annual 25 lb sack of new crop California brown rice, organic, from the Asian market. Canned good stock up from the warehouse clubs. See if I can finally sneak in that generator for the freezers and BiPap.

We joke about the zombies, but all the pantry storage sure helped! Family emergencies eating up all my time, car accident, college student... This sure put to rest the worries about "am I becoming a hoarder?".

 

[Bear Foot Farm]

Quote: I'd say three to four days is more realistic, since in true "disasters", many won't have the ability to travel;

In 1999, during Hurricane Floyd, most stores here still had some foods on day four, although choices were limited

Our entire county was cut off from the rest of the world for 5 days unless it was by boat or helicopter.

Gas stations mostly ran out on the third day also, or limited purchases to just a few gallons

In addition, many stores were totally flooded, and all the food ruined:
Many people were without electricity for over a MONTH, and what they had AT HOME was all they had to live on, since many of the roads looked like this:

 

[boxofpens]

We were part of the evacuation for Rita (lived in Galveston County at the time) and it was a nightmare. I have to say that everyone headed in the direction we were going (towards New Braunfels) were very cordial and helpful to each other. Ike was a different story. That hit us, and it didn't take long for the undesirables and gangs to move in afterwards. In fact the looting started before the hurricane actually hit. Homeowners were already gone and the cops were too busy to care. You could hear people breaking into houses. 6 weeks without power with gangs roaming around was a definite wake up call for us. Many of the people who don't prepare either are or will become looters. They may not have food, but they sure as heck have drugs, and that's the scariest part. That's the true zombie apocalypse . Bullets won't stop someone hopped up on drugs. They are pretty much zombies. We're not in a hurricane zone any longer, but we still prepare. We're in a farming community now, so I imagine there will be much bartering going on should the SHTF. We have our mini farm, our cows, our chickens, our bees, and our ammo .

I think the term prepper is supposed to be derrogatory. Anyone who is trying to get back to the basics or become self sufficient is now considered a prepper. Maybe it's a way of trying to discourage people from doing it. In general, people are afraid of what they don't understand. What's perplexing to me is: It's considered perfectly normal, and is in fact lauded, if you call yourself 'green' or an environmentalist, or even 'organic' But if you do it because you don't want to be dependent on the government, or if you want to make sure your family doesn't starve in the event of some disaster, well, then of course you must be a wackjob.

 

[StupidBird]

Sure think I see that too. It's all cool at dinner parties at the co workers to talk about DH having pet chickens and me a garden all organic. But if the conversation strays over to the fact that I have to grow my own food for my delicate constitution and my working my ***** off on garden, cooking and ground support for three working and schooling adults and just manage to pay off mortgage? Or how I'm raging and crying that I'm laid up for three weeks with a concussion and the fall planting is not done? Yeah, I knew they weren't friends no matter what DH says.

 

[Baymule]

Sure think I see that too. It's all cool at dinner parties at the co workers to talk about DH having pet chickens and me a garden all organic. But if the conversation strays over to the fact that I have to grow my own food for my delicate constitution and my working my ***** off on garden, cooking and ground support for three working and schooling adults and just manage to pay off mortgage? Or how I'm raging and crying that I'm laid up for three weeks with a concussion and the fall planting is not done? Yeah, I knew they weren't friends no matter what DH says.

Real friends would be there to get the planting done for you, or at least help. Oh wait! That would mean getting DIRT on their delicate hands....... (faints at the thought of dirty dirt........)

 

[Baymule]

I think the term prepper is supposed to be derrogatory. Anyone who is trying to get back to the basics or become self sufficient is now considered a prepper. Maybe it's a way of trying to discourage people from doing it. In general, people are afraid of what they don't understand. What's perplexing to me is: It's considered perfectly normal, and is in fact lauded, if you call yourself 'green' or an environmentalist, or even 'organic' But if you do it because you don't want to be dependent on the government, or if you want to make sure your family doesn't starve in the event of some disaster, well, then of course you must be a wackjob.

Does anyone besides me find it funny that in WW2, the government encouraged everyone to plant Victory Gardens as part of patriotism? The government wanted people to grow their own food so that more of the farm produced food could be used to feed our troops. Now, the government wants everyone on food stamps. People are lazy and no longer take pride in doing something for themselves when it is so much easier to let someone else do it for them.