I was eight years old at the time. I don’t remember any problems getting groceries afterwards.
Our pantry is a cupboard maybe 18" on a side, and 6 feet high. The canned food, rice, pasta, peanut butter, etc. in there would feed us for a month if the power went out - and that’s without any particular efforts to prep for a disaster.
Preparing for an interruption to everyday civilization that lasts longer than a month? Not going there. Hurricanes happen: Isabel in 2003 knocked out our power for four and a half days. I was in South Carolina for Hugo in 1989; in Alexandria, VA for Agnes in 1972. None of these remotely resembled the end of civilization as we know it.
This bit isn’t true. If you already live out somewhere in the middle of nowhere, miles away from other people, none of the nuclear powers currently have enough warheads to waste one on you. If the Russians fired everything they have, you’d probably still be standing after the flashes in the sky die down.
It turns out, the fallout isn’t as bad as they make it out to be, either. It depends on wind patterns and where you happen to be located, but you wouldn’t need a hermetically sealed shelter 100 meters down. Hiding under a few meters of earth is apparently enough in most cases.
Farming or hunting after the event? Yeah, waste of time. You’d join the hordes of starving gringos trying to cross the Mexican border, seeking shelter…
So, I guess a few hundred bucks worth of dry food and water and enough fuel on your farm to reach Mexico, and living in a rural area away from any targets, would be how to maximize your chances of survival.
Of course, there are very few job prospects out there, or anything to do, and you’ll more likely than not die of a heart attack or something miles from the nearest hospital. But if the nuclear holocaust comes, you’ll probably survive.
One interesting thing about preppers with “bug out bags” is that a number of them, similar to the US population at large, are often overweight, older, out of shape, and have chronic medical issues (usually related to their diet and being out of shape). Some are even smokers. The number of preppers who are young and in shape is seemingly fairly low.
When the apocalypse comes and society collapses because of gay marriage, black presidents and the Tri-Lateral commission summoning the Anti-Christ to earth I’ve always wondered where these intrepid souls are going to go overland hiking to with their bug out bags on their back. I’m guessing most would not make it to the end of their street lugging these bags.
Those of you who have read Stephen King’s “The Stand” will understand this. I’ve been asked more than once, “If anything like that ever happened, where would you rather go, Vegas or Boulder?” My response has always been, “Neither. I would want to die so early in the epidemic, my name would be in the book.”
Even an epidemic that killed 0.6% of the population and left 99.4% alive would cause major disruptions in the social order. Look at what happened in 1918, or more recently in some of the “Ebola zones” in west Africa.
Well parsed. I’d add that another flavor of 4 is the widespread technological disaster, e.g. the ultimate solar flare, that kills the modern economy but not the populace. Although I suppose a good argument can be made that such a tech/economy disaster would still cause widespread death within a couple weeks due to widespread starvation.
I’m a 2.5 working up to 3 as well. Living a couple hundred yards from the Atlantic ocean in the center of Hurricanesville means a widespread multi-week power & water outage is a very plausible risk every year. In fact hurricane season started yesterday.
My challenge is more in the decision tree for whether we evacuate when and what we take where versus my preferred response of hunker in place.
This seems like a rational decision on both parts. If you are old and out of shape, the best way to increase your likelihood to survive an exigent scenario is to purchase gear and equipment. But if you are young and healthy, you have much less income, so purchasing survival gear is more difficult. Conversely, getting in shape is much easier, and has other rewards as well (e.g. sex). Seems to me that there’s no hypocrisy or irrational behavior here.
On the other hand I think there is a reasonable chance a lot of people could suffer from a personal economic catastrophe. For example you lose your job, the prices of food and energy explode. So there is a lot to be said for frugalizing your life, building up savings, doing energy efficiency things. [It seems I was just reading that 40% of the population couldn’t handle a $400 emergency expense without borrowing or selling something] http://www.nationaljournal.com/economy/here-s-how-many-americans-would-struggle-to-pay-a-400-emergency-expense-20150528
Our “plan” is living beside a nuclear submarine base. Should nuclear armageddon happen, either the Navy will save our lives, or we’ll be the first ones dead
I was 11 (5th grade) at the time, living in Los Angeles. One day during the Cuban Missile Crisis, my mother came home from the supermarket and said “The shelves are empty!”
Sales were brisk for fallout shelters. We had a neighbor down the block who got one installed under his backyard.
And this was California! Far beyond the reach of Russian missiles in Cuba. I saw maps of the eastern part of the United States, with concentric rings centered on Cuba, indicating how far the missiles could get in 1 hour, 2 hours, 3 hours, 4 hours. IIRC, Washington DC was in the 3 or 4 hour zone. No way those rockets were going to get to California.
The crisis was over in just a few days. I don’t recall any prolonged panic extending beyond that.
I have a friend who’s very involved as a volunteer with her local community response organization. Her point about “Go Bags” is that you’ll probably never need to/be forced to evacuate–you’re much more likely to “shelter in place,” as they say. But you still have a few days of necessities in one place, and if you DO have to go, they’re already packed.
I live in Southern California. I can easily imagine an earthquake damaging my home such that I wouldn’t be able to stay–maybe no gas or water or electricity, and I’d prefer to take my family somewhere else for at least a few days.
That said, while I do have emergency supplies at home and in the cars, I don’t have Go Bags. :rolleyes:
I live in Philly. In the twenty or so years I’ve lived in my current apartment, the neighborhood drugstores, grocery stores and convenience store have never closed due to weather.
In the unlikely event of the end of the world as we know it, I would be unable to get my medications and would likely not want to live.
My bug-out bag comes from being in an apartment fire once in the carefree days of college life. Standing on the street I wasn’t sure just what was lost but one thing for sure was I wasn’t getting access back for a day or so until official stuff got done. Now, in old age and living in a frame house, I figure some clothes and meds and a few other small things to fly out the door with can’t hurt. Yeah - the Sallies or someone could probably help and would. But I’m not much for counting on things like that.
It would be the latter. The Russians must have it on their list of places to blow up. And, any subs leaving in the event of possible nuclear war :
Would be in a big hurry. Minutes matter.
There’s only enough room on them for the crew and maybe 10 additional people, tops. Those things are so crowded they don’t really have room for their own crew, people have to share bunks, sleep on top of torpedoes, and are generally cramped all of the time.
If such an event happened, you’d want to get in your car and try to get as far away from the base as possible. In a rural direction.
The russkies had long range ICBMs at that time. And, Los Angeles is a pretty juicy target. Just saying. It wasn’t as expensive a city during the missile crisis, but there was a major military training facility there and a propaganda production center. You know, Hollywood.
