Preparing for War or Apocalypse

No point in having a phone let alone numbers!

😂

What's the point in having telephone numbers written down? Surely you will need your phone (which stores phone numbers) to use them?

I remember when I was a on a board of trustees and their policies ran on for pages. Except the crisis one! I questioned to be told there were soooo many possibilities that it had to create a process and plan for who would do what that would work generally which would then be expanded on live for the incident itself.

You have inspired me to rewatch Shaun of the Dead, and I now have a shovel and a collection of Vinyl on hand so that I can behead zombies when the apocalypse comes. Also, I know a secret way to the pub.

Nope. I think I'd rather be wiped off the face of the earth (with my loved ones) than have to "survive" on my own with some tins of beans for an extra few weeks!

This is my view too.
I always have plenty of tins and a full freezer simply because I am used to getting cut off in bad weather and it’s become a habit now.
I have no intention of trying to survive for long simply because I am older and cba 🤷🏼‍♀️
We have a number of springs around here so fresh water won’t be a problem.

Scary in parts but gives a realistic insight into survival alone and some of the problems to be overcome.

But her main threats were from rats and seagulls, not other people!

I'm a midwife. As long as there are babies being born, I will be needed.

I have on occasion, as part of previous jobs, been involved in resilience planning. Current govenrment advice is about dealing with storms or short term service outages. For an actual long term wide spread emergencies it is about as much use as the 1980s advice about sitting under your kitchen table in a nuclear blast.

For wide spread, long term emergencies central planning is about mobilising the army and making sure there are enough body bags - not sitting at home with your three days worth of tin cans and bottled water.

I have batteries, matches, candles, a power pack, a decently stocked food cupboard and a couple of bottles of water (TBH that is more because of bastard Thames Water currently constantly breaking pipes in their supposed upgrade works). That is just sensible short term planning for any situation where you may not be able to leave the house.

The bigger prepper stuff - naah! I live in London - in a longer term disaster we would either be prioritised for any intervention or frankly we would go proper feral and start eating each other after day 4, in either situation I see no reason to do serious prepping.

Also I am not sure my downstairs neighbours would appreciate it if I had a generator!

I used to be much more prepared, but tbh there's too many variables for any long term prepping for it to make sense unless you have infinite space, time and money.
Skills, community, and personal health and fitness are far far more important than a lot of preppers think if there is anything other than a short term scenario.
I think its liberating to decide not to burden the joy of life now by prepping for, say, an economic collapse, then finding it was pointless because actually its a supervolcano erupting that wipes us out.

Having said that, general prepping for lifes bumps is an entirely different matter. If possible, some spare food and water, some cash, an emergency fund, a box of bits for power cuts are all good.
Some planning on where things are if you have to leave your home quickly. Some planning ( even a list) of what you need to take if you're panicking and can't think straight. A pre determined meet up point if you're separated and can't return home. Some first aid training.

I don't think I'm ruthless enough for long term survival.
The only way to survive would be to watch others die around you while you choose not to help or share, and I think life knowing how you've survived would be torture.

Are we in for more damaging storms due to global warming? That's the only natural disaster threat in London I can think of lol. There has recently been contamination of the water supply in some areas. We've not been affected but it looks like plenty of bottled has been distributed. I suppose if it was more widespread there could be water wars.

Giveupnow · Yesterday 19:53
I don’t understand how people can prep enough water? You’d needs hundreds of litres to last? 2 litres per person a day, 14litres a week per person. For a family of 4 a week you’d need 56 litres. That’s a lot of water.”

Get yourself some water purification tablets and find a river.

not a disaster prepped but we’ve kept some since the kids were small after our water was out for a couple of days.

In the late 70s/early 80s we all talked at school about preparing for nuclear war and what we would do in the "final 3 minutes". Being 13 that tended to revolve around which 6th former we would kiss and which table we would hide under. Perhaps not entirely practical, but it stopped us worrying about something we could not control

Zombies!

I said before.

I'm prepared and have a plan for zombies.

I did a bit of prepping through the lockdowns and then at the start of the Ukraine war, but I've decided that as an able bodied and resourceful person, I'm happy to take my chances.
If I needed to walk 4 miles to a government food distribution centre to be given my weekly ration of turnip and oats, I'd be fine to do so and would be able to make a meal out of it. I live on high land near the start of a water source, so could access clean-ish drinking water too.
If it got much more shit than that, I'd rather just die 🤷🏼‍♀️

You would have to lower your standards somewhat and just use what you need. Honestly, in the face of some sort of disaster you can't carry on as normal. How the "I must wash my towels after every use, my clothes if they've been worn once, and I must mop my floor every day" brigade will cope I really don't know!

What natural disasters are you preparing for?
If near coast I suppose flooding is possible.

Geology of UK makes earthquakes and volcano eruptions impossible.
What is worrying people?

But if they usually manage why would covid make any difference? We were allowed out to get food.

I have a good stash of Pepsi Max as it was only a fiver a crate in Tesco.

Nope. I have a few essentials put away in case of an earthquake, and that's it. but I know I could cope for a few days on very little.

If anything else happens I will just take my chances.

My way to get ready for society's collapse was to train in a basic skill, so I am an expert at something crucial for other humans to survive. This is the best way to get respect, protection and the basics of life in a society in crisis.

No underground bunker full of manky tins of tomatoes will get close to guaranteeing this.

Water is never easy to store much. But having just a few litres means you have enough at 6pm to get your household through until tomorrow if the main water pipes had local issue. Saves you having to queue for water late at night with small
tired children, when you can wait until tomorrow. So it’s a temporary amount for most people.

We could supplement water with apple juice, lemonade and Disarano right now

Petrol, don't know and fuel is stored in a brick shed away from the house.

It was bought a few years ago for power cuts and snow, rather than for a zombie or other apocalypse.

I understand that proper preppers would be wary of running a noisy Jenny in case people noticed.

PS we got it from Lidl!!!