Are you prepared for disaster? If society shut down tomorrow, how long could you last at work? At home? In your car?
I just noticed that I have to cycle out the supplies in my classroom. I always keep 48 hours worth of MREs and a case of bottled water in a filing cabinet, just in case. Ditto the truck. We have a months worth of supplies at home just because we live in earthquake country. If you got stuck in the office for a week because the Venusians invaded, could you survive?
Crap, wrong forum. I scrolled up one to far. Can some nice Mod move this to IMHO?
Well over a couple weeks with my supplies on hand. I have a couple MREs left over from a recent camping trip. I just got back from camping in Wyoming, so I have all the equipment I need. Tents, coldweather gear, propane, etc… Once out in the field, I’ll have to fish/hunt, but I’m prepared for that as well. I use to hunt deer when I was younger with my dad. Not too good of a fisherman however.
I’m drought and famine resistant, a la Homer Simpson, plus I have about 100 cans of soup and tuna. Assuming adequate water, even if nothing else, I could stay holed up in my house for at least a month.
If water was also cut, I’d have a problem. Possibly I’d break out my camping and army gear (assuming, of course, that my reserve unit doesn’t order me to report to help deal with the crisis, in which case I’d probably be better off living off their resources) and walk down the mountain to the river.
My home stock of medical supplies would last me probably 10 days (for the painkillers) and a month for the other stuff. If I had to resort to reusing certain items, which I probably could do, then I could stretch out the other stuff to last maybe 6 months. The problem then would be infection, which without access to antibiotics would probably off me within that time, much quicker if there’s no source of clean water.
I wouldn’t have lasted all that long on ‘Lost’ island.
So, if there’s a total breakdown in society with no short-term (<1 year) hope of a return to normality or rescue, I’d be the one volunteering to act as a rearguard against the zombies so the rest of the family can escape.
I’m not nice, but eh, what the hell. Moved. (Not being nice means I’ll survive forever. That’s just the way of the world. And the Grump.)
I’ve started stockpiling water, buying one of those 2.5 gallon things every time I go to the grocery store. We have enough food for a week or so. I’m not sure what we’ll do when we can’t flush the toilet, but I guess we can stand the smell and flies for a few days. I live in a city, so if services aren’t restored after a few days I expect anarchy and death anyway.
Roddy
About 3 days with no change in my lifestyle - that is if I knew that all services were shut off for 3 days then restored then I could get through it w/o any sacrifice. I would have full water, power, heat - OK I guess the interenet wouldn’t work and no central A/C.
If it were longer or the time to services being restored were unknown I could streach that to about a week or more fairly comfortably before I would be living off canned foods and hunting.
I could survive about as long as there was at least one other more skilled survivor willing to trade sexual favors for food, water and shelter. 
Hey! That was my plan!
Wait… some of you guys have MREs? Where do you find them? Army surplus?
Not that it’s at all relevant, given the reason for hoarding them, but how do they taste?
Some analysis here. You can get civilian versions of MREs any number of places. Try eBay for a start. We have a mix of MREs, Canadian IMPs, Cold-Weather MREs and Mountain House freeze-dried in the Disaster Kit.
They actually aren’t bad at all. Canned food without the can, mostly. I can see getting sick of them if they were the only thing I had to eat for a couple of months, but as a fall-back, not bad at all. Lots of calories in a small package. The Canadian IMPs offer a different selection of menus, for variety.
Work or in my car, all bets are off. I live in a pretty small county, and my first job would be to get me and my Wife home.
Water will never be a problem at home. We have a stream that runs pretty much all year. When it doesn’t we have snow, or it’s just under the snow. While it gets cold in the winter, we are in a solar house and heat with propane, the tank usually lasts 6 weeks. We have plenty of wood for the chopping, so we can melt snow for water, or put it on the propane stove.
I heated with wood for about 12 years. But I wouldn’t worry to much about trying to heat the house when the propane goes. We have plenty of cold weather gear just as a mater of day to day living.
Food would be the first issue. Not too much to hunt at our alltitude. And I’m not a fisherman, though, there is a reservoir full of fish about 1.5 miles away.
Shelter first, then water, then food. That’s what you need to survive. I have about 8000 rounds of .22 that would keep us in birds and ground scrirrels for a bit. I’ve plenty of larger rounds (.356 and 30-30 that I could take deer with, but we only see them in the fall).
My father has boxes of freeze dried food that he bought when he was sure the world was going to end at midnight 12-31-1999. A couple of months worth for 4 people. That was his idea.
The ‘plan’ was then to come to our house in the mountains where we have water and shelter. ehh.
Eating just a substinsance diet, just my Wife and I would be hungry pretty soon, but could stay pretty strong for about 2 weeks with our basic larder.
No earthquakes here or volcanoes, but if we got stuck in the house, we have 90 gallons of water stored in water heaters (provided they survive the event)
At the risk of seeming overly callous twice in one day, the truth of the matter is that I have guns and plenty of ammo. If it really comes down to it, I have all the supplies that I’ll need, courtesy of non firearm owning hoarders and my own will to survive. We do have enough canned food and beer on hand to last easily a week or maybe 10 days. After that, it’s reappropration time.
The previous post is assuming an end of days scenario. If we’re talking about a bad snow storm or something, I’m not going off blowing away the neighbors. Unless they have cigarettes… 
I’m relieved that you don’t live anywhere near me!
Our neighbors wouldn’t last long with both of us preying on them
Internet or store. There seems to be an abundance of army surplus stores in my area so they are relatively easy to get. I also have a coworker who serves, so he can get me the military versions. Regarding taste, I happen to like them. They are kinda bland (until I add my own spices) but are filling.
Our food supply would probably only be good for a week or two.
**What is the shelf life on MREs? ** I would hate to have to rotate every few years.
Water is unlimited. I have a well, plenty of bleach, Septic systems, Wood Stove and Fireplace and most importantly a large Solar Panel system on my roof I can rig for daytime power to run the well as needed and much else.
I am a trained electrician and a handy carpenter so I guess I could secure my home against minor threats.
To hold the Cluricaun’s of the world off, I will need to do some fast hard practice with the Bows in my basement. I have two, so I’ll have to train my wife as quickly as possible. I am badly out of practice. I should probably have some Shurikens handy, I use to be very good with them.
Jim
I live on a cattle farm, surrounded by about 12,000 acres of woodland. Have a large lake full of fish, eight or ten guns and enough ammo to start a small revolution. Our power was out for 24 days after hurricane Opal in '95, and nobody suffered.
As long as gas for the generator and truck and diesel fuel for the tractor held out, we could go on with only minor inconvenience.
After the petro-fuels were used up we’d still have horses for transportation. We already heat with wood and get water from a well, so no problems there.
I guess we could hold out for years here, unless I had to expend too many bullets shooting Cluricaun and others of like mind.
Uh, Queen Tonya: How YOU doin?
It depends on the storage temperature. Unless you keep them at 90 degrees, they are good for 5 years or so. After that, the nutritional value slowly diminishes. But I’ve eaten 10 year old MREs without ill effect. They tasted fine. I rotate mine out of the truck and office every two years, just because. The new ones are: Chicken Strips w/salsa, Meat Loaf, and Beef Stew.
MRE cases come stamped with an “inspection date.” If you but some, look for a 2008 date. Those are current manufacture (brand new).