To be disturbed by the "Prepping" board.

[TheoriginalLEM]

Is this a thing now?

Is there really a need to be stockpiling food, medicines and creating a bolt hole?

Am i missing something? Seriously (this is not a light-hearted thread), i suffer from anxiety and this is really disturbing me.

Hopefully people have just been watching too much walking dead.

I don't share this great faith that disaster can't happen in the UK, because we're British, of course.
That a town, village or region can never find itself cut off for several days and run out of supplies.

Could we quit the mental health related insults please?

"Out of interest, what would you do if a DC was visiting you when it all went to tits. They aren't family, just a friend of your children. Would you kick them out rather than let them deplete your supplies?"

It would depend on exactly what happened and where their parents are, is it possible to get their parents to pick them up etc.

It's not a cheap insult. I do think that 'prepping' to that level is a symptom of mental health problems when it is not necessary due to the environment.

thick
paranoid
stupid
OTT

Seems to be a lot of unnecessary rudeness and deliberate misunderstanding going on here.

The non sharing was slowly, and carefully explained many times, whilst also pointing out that this was not the sort of thing we are talking about.

Let's clear this up once and for all. The Preppers board is NOT about apocalypses, the End of the World, WWIII, aliens, or any other silly book theme stuff. We are discussing power cuts, being snowed in, and for some of us, flooding. Which, seeing as my local councils have collaborated and put up a load of Evacuation Route signs costing over £100K, is not quite as far fetched as some of you think.

If you don't want to read it, don't. Hide it, and find something else to do. Meanwhile, we don't mock the Yoga, Facebook, EBay, Ebola, religion, or other more niche boards that we might find faintly ridiculous. You just sound petty and a bit head in the sand, frankly.

Through why be so rude? I haven't been rude to you at all. I actually took an interest, and said it may be my bad Google skills. What an unpleasant person you seem.

As it stands now though, Maudes post may be of interest to you.

From many first hand accounts of SHTF situations I've learned stories of survival through acts of trust and shared humanity despite the horrors around them. I'm sure there would be ethical dilemmas to face but going in with a predetermined resolve not to give to others is not something I could contemplate.

Don't - but you live in the UK?. What do you think might happen that would ever cause a town or city in the UK to be cut off from everything to the point that people are literally starving and you have to make the awful choice to watch your neighbours starve to save yourself?. No-one had to make that choice in New Orleans either. A huge, unprecedented disaster in an enormous country but as you said, government help got to everyone after a few days.

What do you think could happen in the UK where no help arrived for weeks?.

I work in the NHS and whether this reassures you or not, there are plans followed by contingency plans followed by more plans from everything from a hospital catching fire to a terrorist attack, global pandemic, a declaration of war from another country or major utility failures. It literally only stops short of a zombie apocalypse plan!.

And all levels of public services and the armed services are involved in the plans.

I am at are reasonably senior level (but nowhere near the top to the point I would never even set eyes on anyone near the top!) in the NHS and the planning involved around the African ebola crisis possibly resulting in a global crisis was bloody huge even though it was so, so unlikely to happen.

Stock up on stuff in case you're snowed in for a bit or whatever but please don't waste head space imagining a scenario in the UK where your neighbours are starving.

Maud 39 people died in rioting in Argentina in Dec 2001 because of the debt crisis.

Starving to death, I dont know. I havent researched it. But as banks weren't letting people have their money I woould think many would have been pretty desperate, if not starving.

Oh and btw Iris, nobody has a bunker. And the MH jibes are both below the belt and very ignorant. Read the board, you'll find that most of us live rurally, and are simply prepping for things that we've already experienced in the past.

But if you want to pretend it's all about nuclear bombs, bunkers and zombies, that says more about you really.

I can imagine that Dont is the one that falls over and get devoured by zombies because no one gives a shit about going back to help the selfish people.

I doubt if people would share in an emergency with more than close family - and judging by recent threads about Xmas invitations, maybe not even with them.
Best not to rely on the goodwill of strangers to feed you and your family.
Not being horrible, just realistic.

The bit in bold was a quote from a previous post, Stratters. About bunkers. So I mentioned bunkers. Yes?

"Because it's the apocalypse Dont. If your tin of Heinz will stop my DD starving my moral compass may go a little skew whiff. "

And this entitlement attitude is the reason I don't tend to talk to others about prepping anymore. "I can't be arsed taking responsibility for my own DD, it's your duty as a random stranger to provide for her and if you don't then I'll just steal from you" is no better than not getting house insurance and then saying that you expect your neighbhours to finance you buying replacement stuff, and that you'll steal from them if they don't.

Maud I provided an example where a modern civilized 1st world city went completely to pot, people dying in the streets, looting occurring all across the city, people SCREAMING in desperation for the government to please come and help because they are dying, all of that because they were cut off from the outside world for a few DAYS. While we don't need to worry about hurricanes, it's completely plausible that a community in the UK will be cut off from the outside world for a few days isn't it? And we have seen what just a few days can do.

During the Somerset floods there were two villages completely cut off from the outside world for over 3 weeks. They had to have supplies air lifted to them.

During the Worcestershire floods Upton on Severn was cut off for 5 days and even when the floods started to subside a local school had a helicopter land on its roof with medical supplies because the 'Powers' couldn't get it to them by powerboat.

Even Whitney (not quite chipping Norton I know) was cut off for 2 days.

And Brenda, I know being flippant is your 'schtick' but people did starve to death in Sarajevo - mainly children and the Elderly because whilst they 'had an inkling' that there was a war going on they had nowhere to run to and no money to get them there. I went into Sarajevo - not all the bodies died of gunshot wounds. No really something to take the piss out of.

Oh and btw Iris, nobody has a bunker. And the MH jibes are both below the belt and very ignorant. Read the board, you'll find that most of us live rurally, and are simply prepping for things that we've already experienced in the past.

See thats what I originally thought it was and I thought it was a good idea. Just not something that relevant to me due to my location.

But the whole scared to cook in case they attract hordes, leaving children to starve and washing in rain barrels .. I think thats what make people get the uh oh feeling about the "preppers" board.

In reality there are going to be some very big and ugly people around, so unless the No Sharers have a weapon and the training to use it they are going to have the life expectancy of a fart in a wind tunnel. Rendering all the hypothetical musings about their beans rather redundant.

Exactly Iris

Whilst your neighbour is sitting pretty with their gun and you're there with your stockpile of water....

Which one of you is gonna get thirsty?

"Don't - but you live in the UK?. What do you think might happen that would ever cause a town or city in the UK to be cut off from everything to the point that people are literally starving and you have to make the awful choice to watch your neighbours starve to save yourself?. No-one had to make that choice in New Orleans either. A huge, unprecedented disaster in an enormous country but as you said, government help got to everyone after a few days."

New Orleans showed us that it only takes a few DAYS of a community being cut off from outside help for people to start dying through lack of water, and start fighting each other for food and other supplies. Now I don't worry about an actual hurricane hitting the UK, but I can easily imagine all sorts of things that might cause a town or a city to be cut off from outside help for several days, bad flooding, being snowed in.

"No-one had to make that choice in New Orleans either. A huge, unprecedented disaster in an enormous country but as you said, government help got to everyone after a few days."

People who had plenty of supplies did have to make that choice. People were dying in the streets because they hadn't had a drink of water in days, and people were fighting each other for food, and looting places where there was supplies. Anyone who had a spare bottle of water to give away knew that they couldn't, because they would have been mobbed the second they did. When food and water aid eventually arrived they needed the national guard to protect it because people were so desperate and violent at that stage, all because they had gone a few days without food and water. And help didn't get to everyone. Those who died because in the fighting or through lack of water weren't helped in any way by the fact that government aid arrived 2 days after their death. If anything this supports the idea that we should be prepping for short term emergencies. Yes government help will almost certainly come and everything will return to normal, but what do you do in the short time lag before help arrives?

I've been snowed in in a small village in Essex - Bicknacre to be precise. The only vehicles that could get in or out for nearly a week were tractors. There was one small village shop, and the nearest supermarket was in South Woodham Ferrers. We ran out of everything like bread and milk on Day ONE. By Day 3, when the tractors made it out, people had already started getting nasty over the last tin in the shop, and WWIII broke out over the last bottle of sherry.

That was mid 80's, can't remember exactly when, I'd have been around 18-19, so '85-6 possibly. Be interesting to see if there are other MNers who remember that.

And Swine and Avian flu, it seems there's a fair few of you who are blissfully unaware of just how close that got to being bad. My then 17yo DD1 caught it, and she was incredibly sick. Try asking some NHS staff what they think.

Power cuts - the National Grid is at full capacity, it's highly likely we will have power cuts this winter. And I will be glad that I have had the forethought to ensure we have enough candles, food that I can cook without electricity, and things to do.

That's all prepping is. Thinking of things that are possibly likely to happen to you personally, and making contingency plans. How is that thick, stupid, paranoid, or indicative of MN problems?

"In reality there are going to be some very big and ugly people around, so unless the No Sharers have a weapon and the training to use it they are going to have the life expectancy of a fart in a wind tunnel. Rendering all the hypothetical musings about their beans rather redundant."

This is why we don't generally talk about it to others. Those big and ugly people you're talking about won't be searching every home, they are going to go to the places they think they can get stuff from. I'd imagine most preppers do have a weapon of some sort even in the UK. And if I was a looter, I'd probably avoid prepper households for that reason. Yes they are likely to have more supplies than a random household but they are also more likely to have a weapon and be willing to defend that stash.

The siege of Sarajevo went on so long that no amount of prepping would have helped those residents who starved or froze.

No amount of prepping would have helped the thousands who are stuck at borders across Europe at the moment.

Stockpiling for some unspecified disaster where it is possible to sit it out within the comforts of your existing home is one thing. The reality is that a lot of calamitous events - natural or manmade - are going to force people to move.

Yes Stratter5 it seems as though every time I've listened to the R4 news they seem to highlight power cuts as being inevitable this winter. My prepping for that is mainly to keep the washing up to date, ugh I hate it when there's a backlog of dirty clothes.

It does seem a bit strange.

Maybe there's a lot of anxious people on those boards too?

Either that or they just want any excuse to hoard.

Having said that, I do tend to get more tins of things than absolutely necessary in case I feel ill or as I'm pregnant with SPD, can't really get out of the house much.

Don't - you're still not telling me what you are anticipating will happen in the UK that will mean you have to make the choice to watch your neighbours starve to help yourself. Nor did anyone in NO starve to death.

If I know what your fear is, I might understand it.