Thanks Texags that was a depressing read. Great for my anxiety.

C@LAg:

The bullion is not for a long term, grid-down situation. Rather an economic collapse. Read 299 Days by Glen Tate. Fiction story of what may happen if the economic system collapses..

We are worse than a 3rd world country in many aspects.

Do 3rd world countries have street takeovers and mass looting on a random night just because?

I think not. They'd all be dead.

LMCane said:

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Teslag said:

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techno-ag said:

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CDUB98 said:

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Every part of modern society runs on electricity now. The electricity goes, and boom, we're all cavemen again.

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Avoid Teslas at all costs.

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You think only Tesla's would have an issue? That's cute. They thought otherwise in 1983.


2:00 minute mark

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when the Ukraine war first started I rewatched The Day After and someone else posted a very good English movie from the 1980s about a nuclear war with the Soviet Union.

humanity will not survive a massive nuclear exchange. that will be brutal.

we have literally seen in the past few weeks Hamas supporters shutting down the Brooklyn Bridge and Holland Tunnel entrances to NYC.

that's a few thousand idiot leftists and Islamic Jihadists marching around and they are able to do that in peacetime.

what happens when there are MILLIONS of civilians running around American cities going crazy after an attack?

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Well, for one, no one is going to stop if there's someone standing in the road blocking them.

Widespread Mobile data / internet / gps outage would cause a panic. It would take a while to sink in for most folks that no, help is not on the way.

In the event of a widespread outage, it's possible we might not even know what's going on for days, weeks or months. We have to assume that there was some sort of cyber attack, CME or EMP event. You might get permanently cut off from family and friends unless they were in your immediate area.

We might all be back to terrestrial radio. Would be listening to pick up someone broadcasting analog AM or SW

Setting off on long distance travel beyond the fuel you have on hand would be risky not knowing the conditions 100mi from you. Also everyone is over reliant on GPS.

Best chance of survival might be to already be in the hinterlands when the event occurs and stay put. The more distance between you and a major metro area the better.

Another thing that nobody thinks about is the amount of smoke created when people start burning wood to cook and for heat. Three days in and people would be burning their privacy fence in their yard to boil water.

If grid is down it really doesn't matter what car you have. I'm a big fan of old school carburetor trucks...but there is a whole lot more to cause issues than just electronics.

The gas stations won't be able to pump. If one happens to be open and selling with cash or barter, then it will be some manual pump with alot of people standing around. A total ****show. you are getting blasted from a vapor cloud explosion or someone is gonna rob you.

Even then the distribution will be down. Transport trucks and pipeline pumps are down.

Past that refineries will be down.

If you keep your car/truck filled up you might be able to snag a couple of jerry cans of gas but that is it. it is a one shot deal. If you are brazen you can rob gas form stuck cars...

That is the one thing I didn't like about One Second After, they drove that dang old Ford around and around and I don't recall how they ever kept it fueled.

I've decided that physical fitness and a damn good mountain bike with abundant spare parts is the best bet.

With extremely few vehicles, they were siphoning from all the cars that were out of commission. After that they were pulling from gas station tanks. And finally they spoke about the army fuel bladders they took from Ashville. I'm just finishing re-reading the 3 novels but they did address it. That and they walked just about everywhere for short distances.

And a basket on the bicycle handlebars to put your weapon & ammo

I'm in the hinterlands of the panhandle. I can count 9 grain elevators within 10 miles of me. I don't know how much inventory they have on average but it's probably enough to sustain the local population for several years.

P.U.T.U said:

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It is so hot and we won't have any way to preserve meat without refrigeration. Most people won't be able to get food plots developed enough to prevent starvation.

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I hate to be the one to point out the obvious, but we had people living in the South prior to refrigeration. Pickling and canning foods are a thing. Smoking/drying foods are a thing, Root cellars are a thing. Salting foods is a thing. It is honestly astonishing that you think we didn't preserve foods until the invention of refrigeration.

You forget people in general are idiots (not the poster you are replying to…. Just in general). Also we lose knowledge like this. Only so many books and libraries once power goes out. Then there's the need for materials.

Thanks...I missed that.

TRADUCTOR said:

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And a basket on the bicycle handlebars to put your weapon & ammo

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Heck no that is for the grenades...

People who think you can move to a rural area and avoid the cities while society collapses are naive. As they point out in One Second After, everyone thinks rural areas have an abundance of food. People in cities will begin traveling to rural areas and plunder everything they find. In the book, the town has to band together to defend against outsiders, which is what will happen, small towns becoming virtual city-states.

Rural homes located 100 miles from nowhere will be susceptible. Yes, you're far away enough to withstand most of the carnage in the cities because people forced to walk will be weakened by dehydration/starvation/fatigue by the time they come near you. But what about hundreds of people attacking your house? If you live on a farm, what about people who strip your crops for any hope of nourishment. Do you have a plan to turn your farm into a compound? Do you have friends willing to man the walls armed, to ensure you survive? Do your friends like you enough to follow your leadership? Think any of your friends would depose you?

What do you do when hundreds and hundreds of people, half-mad with starvation, attack? You can say 'shoot them', but they keep coming. What do you do with attackers who lack a self-preservation instinct because dying is a relief when compared to starvation?

These uber-wealthy who announce their 5000 ft bunkers, like Zuckerberg, are idiots. All anyone needs to do is map out their locations and they're the first places that people will attack in a SHTF event. Anyone think the staff/employees/workers for those people will risk their lives to protect their bunker?

AggieKatie2 said:

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You forget people in general are idiots (not the poster you are replying to…. Just in general). Also we lose knowledge like this. Only so many books and libraries once power goes out. Then there's the need for materials.

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You read One Second After, right? The whole Foxfire series is available on Amazon, it's a veritable how-to guide on living without electricity.

Sethtevious said:

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P.U.T.U said:

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It is so hot and we won't have any way to preserve meat without refrigeration. Most people won't be able to get food plots developed enough to prevent starvation.

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I hate to be the one to point out the obvious, but we had people living in the South prior to refrigeration. Pickling and canning foods are a thing. Smoking/drying foods are a thing, Root cellars are a thing. Salting foods is a thing. It is honestly astonishing that you think we didn't preserve foods until the invention of refrigeration.

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The number of people who know how to do those this is very small. Not to mention you need access to the food to can it and unless you grow your own, the HEB supply trucks will not be bringing inventory.

Jack Boyett said:

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I'm in the hinterlands of the panhandle. I can count 9 grain elevators within 10 miles of me. I don't know how much inventory they have on average but it's probably enough to sustain the local population for several years.

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And you get it out, how?

Sarge 91 said:

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Sethtevious said:

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P.U.T.U said:

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It is so hot and we won't have any way to preserve meat without refrigeration. Most people won't be able to get food plots developed enough to prevent starvation.

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I hate to be the one to point out the obvious, but we had people living in the South prior to refrigeration. Pickling and canning foods are a thing. Smoking/drying foods are a thing, Root cellars are a thing. Salting foods is a thing. It is honestly astonishing that you think we didn't preserve foods until the invention of refrigeration.

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The number of people who know how to do those this is very small. Not to mention you need access to the food to can it and unless you grow your own, the HEB supply trucks will not be bringing inventory.

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It's not rocket science, and it is amusing you act like it is some secret knowledge so few people possess. Pickling is simple: 2 parts vinegar to 1 part water, add salt. Heat liquid until boiling. Fill jars with vegetables, pour brine over vegetables to fill each jar. Cover jars, burp to make sure there are no bubbles. Let jars return to room temperature and then store, either in a cold place (quick pickle) or long-term in a cooler, dry environment. Magic!!!

Canning: sterilize some jars; fill with vegetables/food; put the jars in a pot; fill pot with water, bring water to boil until tops on jars pop, Magic!!!

This information isn't difficult to find (tons of information on these methods in libraries and old cookbooks), so again it is amusing that you act like people wouldn't or can't learn. People survived thousands of millennia without refrigeration, we can do it again.

Sethtevious said:

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P.U.T.U said:

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It is so hot and we won't have any way to preserve meat without refrigeration. Most people won't be able to get food plots developed enough to prevent starvation.

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I hate to be the one to point out the obvious, but we had people living in the South prior to refrigeration. Pickling and canning foods are a thing. Smoking/drying foods are a thing, Root cellars are a thing. Salting foods is a thing. It is honestly astonishing that you think we didn't preserve foods until the invention of refrigeration.

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In 1900 the US had 76M people.
It's 330M now. Sheer numbers is a huge part of the issue.

Quote:

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Do you have a plan to turn your farm into a compound?

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My son had a friend in middle and high school, who lived a few miles outside our town of 15,000 people, Son and his buddy would ride bikes out there from school, sometimes. It wasn't a farm, but 20 acres of grass on a small creek. It would be about 20 miles from downtown Amarillo. Not a Houston or Dallas, but still 200,000 hungry people in a SHTF scenario.

After his friend graduated, the parents sold the place and moved. The new buyer was apparently an editor of a survivalist magazine. He transformed the place into a survivalist compound, with 12 foot walls and underground bunkers. Photos came on the Internet when the guy got divorced and had to sell.

I sent them to my son, who responded:

"If I were to build a survivalist compound, I'd put it further from town than the bicycling range of Jr. High boys."

Quote:

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It's not rocket science, and it is amusing you act like it is some secret knowledge so few people possess.

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What is amusing is you think that lots of people have this knowledge.... they don't.
It's also amusing on one hand you think folks will be firing up the smokehouses & digging root cellars,
then on the other talking about how we'll all be overrun by city folk. What?

One Second After, while praised for its realism is fiction. We have no idea how an EMP would play out, what electronics would truly be affected, and what the rest of the world's reaction would be.
If 2020 taught us anything, it would be a sh*tshow.

Apache said:

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Quote:

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It's not rocket science, and it is amusing you act like it is some secret knowledge so few people possess.

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What is amusing is you think that lots of people have this knowledge.... they don't.
It's also amusing on one hand you think folks will be firing up the smokehouses & digging root cellars,
then on the other talking about how we'll all be overrun by city folk. What?

One Second After, while praised for its realism is fiction. We have no idea how an EMP would play out, what electronics would truly be affected, and what the rest of the world's reaction would be.
If 2020 taught us anything, it would be a sh*tshow.

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Having just rewatched that opening segment (saw it when it was first on TV) a lot of old testing footage was interspersed. Having been way involved in a civil case that was specifically on EMP's effects on a variety of vehicles (DOD's mission was to how to get SAC crews to their positions) hardening those systems was the goal. That was in the 80s.

I must assume there have been a lot of improvements since then on hardeing critical components for military assets, if not more.

I will assume you know way far than me on that subject so many years later.

Apache said:

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Quote:

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It's not rocket science, and it is amusing you act like it is some secret knowledge so few people possess.

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What is amusing is you think that lots of people have this knowledge.... they don't.
It's also amusing on one hand you think folks will be firing up the smokehouses & digging root cellars,
then on the other talking about how we'll all be overrun by city folk. What?

One Second After, while praised for its realism is fiction. We have no idea how an EMP would play out, what electronics would truly be affected, and what the rest of the world's reaction would be.
If 2020 taught us anything, it would be a sh*tshow.

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I'm not worried about an EMP, I think an attack on our national power grid is a bigger threat. We saw in 2021 how vulnerable we are in Texas when our grid was compromised because of weather/lack of maintenance.

As for the 'lack of knowledge' argument, people are capable of reading books. A lot of people got into cooking, baking, and fermentation projects during the pandemic. Even if someone is a complete novice on food preservation, the information is out there.

jrdaustin said:

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oklaunion said:

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Start with a garden. It is not as easy as it looks, particularly on a larger scale than the average backyard garden. Make the mistakes now and learn from them.

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If you have land, review your water wells. Most people I know have converted their wells to electric submersibles. Make sure you have at least 1 well that's run on an old fashioned windmill and that everything is working properly... ie. Greased, leathers current, etc.

I have a good setup for a good 3-4 acre garden, but the leathers are out on the windmill. A 2024 priority.

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Unfortunately, we just had to convert our last windmill to solar. Couldn't find anyone willing to service anymore out in hill country. Everyone has stated for past year that everyone is getting out of the business and moving everyone over to electric...

Sethtevious said:

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Apache said:

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Quote:

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It's not rocket science, and it is amusing you act like it is some secret knowledge so few people possess.

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What is amusing is you think that lots of people have this knowledge.... they don't.
It's also amusing on one hand you think folks will be firing up the smokehouses & digging root cellars,
then on the other talking about how we'll all be overrun by city folk. What?

One Second After, while praised for its realism is fiction. We have no idea how an EMP would play out, what electronics would truly be affected, and what the rest of the world's reaction would be.
If 2020 taught us anything, it would be a sh*tshow.

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I'm not worried about an EMP, I think an attack on our national power grid is a bigger threat. We saw in 2021 how vulnerable we are in Texas when our grid was compromised because of weather/lack of maintenance.

As for the 'lack of knowledge' argument, people are capable of reading books. A lot of people got into cooking, baking, and fermentation projects during the pandemic. Even if someone is a complete novice on food preservation, the information is out there.

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Wood burning stove or propane with a huge ass propane tank?

I'm in the early stages of building a home on some land reasonably far away from major cities. I have a couple water wells and enough land for gardens and livestock. I have yet to actually prep any food or supplies. Since I'm still early in the construction are there practical things I could do now, or include, in the construction to make my house more prepared for this EMP scenario?

ElGoatarod said:

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Since I'm still early in the construction are there practical things I could do now, or include, in the construction to make my house more prepared for this EMP scenario?

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faraday_cage

BTW, do none of you read zombie books? This entire thread is covered pretty well in them.

There's no perfect situation, but your odds are much better on remote wooded land in ETx than in the cities or burbs. Especially if you or people you know have been working that land and know what they are doing. But ideally, you have a small heavily armed commune. I wouldnt want to be ANYWHERE all alone, without a team of armed men who know how to handle weapons.

Strange thing is my work colleague gave me One Second After back 8 years ago. Tossed it to the side not knowing what it was about and haven't seen it since. However, a week ago I came across it. Was about to add to a box to give away but it all makes sense now…. Maybe I was meant to read it after seeing this thread.

I've actually thought about this for quite some time and started thinking about investing in the future when not if an event actually occurs. May not be in my lifetime but maybe my children or grandchildrens. Good thing is where I live we can use the mountains as choke points which definitely helps in defense of location.

I'm about halfway through One Second After, and I don't think most folks are mentally prepared for all luxuries to be gone in an instant. Having food and supplies for a week or two is a good start, but the grit necessary to survive when everything we've grown accustomed to is taken away is sorely lacking in our society today - myself included.

CanyonAg77 said:

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jrdaustin said:

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CanyonAg77 said:

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Quote:

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corporate farms.

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Ahhh, the mythical, evil, "corporate farms"

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Not at all. They're a necessity. But I'll put up my tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, etc. against their produce any day of the week.

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Again, the vast majority of your food comes from family farms, not mythical corporate farms.

And I'm not about to argue against home grown produce. Farms have to grow crops that are determinate (ready to be harvested all at the same time), mechanical harvest ready, can tolerate shipping, and many are picked before fully ripe.

Home gardens get to choose varieties based on taste and personal preference.

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I was just discussing with someone yesterday whose parents live in Red Lion, PA.

she was explaining how the food tastes so good there because everything is fresh from the Amish farms.

Another reason to buy a summer home near York, when the EMP comes at least you can help the Amish defend their homesteads and not starve.

ElGoatarod said:

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I'm about halfway through One Second After, and I don't think most folks are mentally prepared for all luxuries to be gone in an instant. Having food and supplies for a week or two is a good start, but the grit necessary to survive when everything we've grown accustomed to is taken away is sorely lacking in our society today - myself included.

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it's going to come down to: "can you find like minded groups to survive with?"

for me, that is why I have my bugout bag from my Air Force service with uniforms and boots and survival gear and a weapon.

I figure that there will be a few groups of fellow veterans who will be banding together and will accept other officers to join them.

JohnFootball2 said:

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Strange thing is my work colleague gave me One Second After back 8 years ago. Tossed it to the side not knowing what it was about and haven't seen it since. However, a week ago I came across it. Was about to add to a box to give away but it all makes sense now…. Maybe I was meant to read it after seeing this thread.

I've actually thought about this for quite some time and started thinking about investing in the future when not if an event actually occurs. May not be in my lifetime but maybe my children or grandchildrens. Good thing is where I live we can use the mountains as choke points which definitely helps in defense of location.

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I was thinking that getting down to Hilton Head Island would be a pretty great decision-

only one way in and one way out, either blow the bridge or put enough trailers and trucks to block it off and man a small entrance point.

Until that first significant hurricane blows through…