27 ms·

Disaster planning for regular folks (2015)

244 points by seancolsen 5y ago

jordanpg 5y ago
Of course, there is a non-trivial cost to spending time dealing with this stuff, particularly the less likely outcomes. As with any risk assessment, one has to judge the probability of certain events and act accordingly. The thing that bugs me about this culture -- and I don't include the author of this piece, who sounds imminently rational and level-headed -- is that a lot of people in this space seem to want these outcomes. In some extreme cases, they relish it or see it as a forgone or morally good outcome. We should be putting most of our energy into avoiding catastrophic scenarios, and making these outcomes less and less feasible. But I fear that it is increasingly difficult for people across the political spectrum and below a certain socio-economic line to not be extremely cynical about society, and therefore the future. The result is "prepping" getting more attention than building a better world.
- teddyh 5y ago
  Yup. Also people who write things like CollapseOS, and many HAM radio people. They fantasize about being relevant and important, and their hobby is a way to indulge in those fantasies. No wonder they secretly want the worst to come to pass – it’s the actual point of it all.
- poulpy123 5y ago
  I've noticed (from an external point of view) that 1/ many people use it for some kind of escaping (myself somewhat included) 2/ Fantasize about being the hero of a post-apocalyptic novelbut IRL
- irrational 5y ago
  But, many of the catastrophic scenarios are nature-made instead of man-made. I’m not aware of any way to avoid volcanoes, earthquakes, hurricanes, tornadoes, wildfires, floods, drought, etc. unless you are suggesting that everyone move to someplace where none of these things can exist.
- dmje 5y ago
  You put that beautifully - it really is the case that "normal" preppers seem to be totally relishing becoming the next Mad Max hero, roaming the wilderness with their stash of weaponry... What's really great about this piece apart from the fact it isn't this ^ is that it is beautifully written...
  - hef19898 5y ago
    I always wonder how many of those preppers have the actual skil, and yes gear, to roam the country side for long. Orientation, navigation, endurance, you name it. I'll take any long distance hiker for tjose scenarios than some wpuld be prepper siting on a stash of gear that would need a small truck to haul around.
- Trasmatta 5y ago
  That's why I can't spend time on places like the Collapse subreddit. There are many people that fetishize the idea. This clouds their judgment and predictive power, and you see so many poor predictions of outcomes of world events there.
boredumb 5y ago
Cash on hand, a gun with ammunition, canned food, and bottled water.
- irrational 5y ago
  What use is cash in the case of a true catastrophe? And I don’t see the benefit of having a gun with or without ammunition. I would never ever be willing to shoot another person (or even an animal), even to protect myself or mine. I’d rather we are raped, tortured, and killed than harm another person.
  - PragmaticPulp 5y ago
    Cash on hand is important for basic trade. There are plenty boring examples of extended power outages where people fall back on cash for buying groceries and such.
  - graphpercolator 5y ago
    Honestly, I think if you had resources you would eventually run into someone who would use violence to take those resources and the last line in your post is exactly what would happen.
  - tablespoon 5y ago
    > What use is cash in the case of a true catastrophe? Not much long term in a civilizational collapse, but even then it might still be useful before everyone realizes what's going on. > And I don’t see the benefit of having a gun with or without ammunition. I would never ever be willing to shoot another person (or even an animal), even to protect myself or mine. I’d rather we are raped, tortured, and killed than harm another person. I think that's probably an unusually high level of commitment to nonviolence. It's also creates moral dilemmas: allowing someone to be "raped, tortured, and killed" by others is harming that person. All your principle may mean in practice is the innocent are the ones harmed and the guilty are left unharmed.
  - bluGill 5y ago
    While I understand non-violent, sometimes violence is the worst of your bad choices. I have no plan on shooting another human, but I need to reserve that right because there are people who will shoot me (Russia if you are in Ukraine)
snowwrestler 5y ago
The book Eternity by Greg Bear had an interesting take on this. In that book (spoiler) there is an exchange of nuclear weapons between the U.S. and Russia, which devastates the surface of the Earth. But many people survive, and a society quickly develops post-war. But it is dominated not by those who were most individually prepared, but by those who contributed the most to their neighbors and communities. There is some overlap of course; some preppers have a lot to give and do so. But the ones who isolate in compounds with their hoard for too long emerge into the new society to be met with scorn, or even outright violence in some cases. I had not thought about it that way but it kind of makes sense. It’s easy to like someone who is helping you. And shared hardship can bond a group of people. It’s a great book, in addition to this aspect (which is a somewhat minor part of it).
- CPLX 5y ago
  Since we are talking about books I’d like to add “The Road” by Cormac McCarthy to the reading list. It’s almost unimaginably bleak but just completely incredible.
  - marcellus23 5y ago
    I just read Parable of the Sower by Butler and it's also very relevant I think.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- rvense 5y ago
  Here in Denmark, it's impossible to get more than maybe ten kilometers from a settlement of 500+ people. I am, by local standards, comparatively out in the sticks, but I'm still no more than a few hours walk from a city of a 100,000. Even if something happened that wiped out 90% of them, that's still a lot of people who are likely to walk by here and want my food. Prepping for just myself would be a solipsistic fantasy.
- toomuchtodo 5y ago
  Enjoyed this comment. Vibes with an essay by Cory Doctorow about needing a “bug in bag” not a “bug out bag”, to run towards community to help versus running to the mountains, as you need collective action to survive. https://boingboing.net/2015/12/21/a-survivalist-on-why-you-shoul.html https://boingboing.net/2015/12/21/a-survivalist-on-why-you-s... https://boingboing.net/2008/07/13/postapocalypse-witho.html https://boingboing.net/2008/07/13/postapocalypse-witho.html
csee 5y ago
How many people would an all out nuclear war kill?
thematrixturtle 5y ago
> In the US in the 90s, your lifetime likelihood of victimization was estimated to be around 80%; the odds of suffering criminal injury hovered at 40%. Any source? These figures seem absurdly high, and I say that as a former resident of NYC in the 90s.
- sushibowl 5y ago
  I found a 1987 report from the bureau of justice statistics: https://bjs.ojp.gov/library/publications/lifetime-likelihood-victimization-0 https://bjs.ojp.gov/library/publications/lifetime-likelihood... Uses data from approximately the 1975-1985 period, so not about the 90s.
  - tablespoon 5y ago
    >> Any source? These figures seem absurdly high, and I say that as a former resident of NYC in the 90s. > Uses data from approximately the 1975-1985 period, so not about the 90s. Also, wasn't violent crime notoriously high during that period? For instance, my understanding was Times Square used to be gritty and a little dangerous, then Giuliani turned it into a Disneyland in the 90s.
    - ghaff 5y ago
      I don't know how actively dangerous Times Square was but for it and 42nd Street "gritty" is a pretty good description. You see remnants of it at e.g. the Port Authority, aka one of the world's worst bus stations. Being there late at night was... interesting (as I once was). For a lot of people who knew NYC in that era, the "Disneyfication" isn't the worst thing that could have happened.
      - decafninja 5y ago
        My dad commuted to his office somewhere in Midtown Manhattan in the 1980s. One day I was rummaging through his briefcase and found a steel baton. I asked him what it was for and he said it was to protect himself from the bad guys. As a kid I distinctly remember being somewhat afraid whenever my family had reason to go into NYC from our home in NJ. I know he's controversial, but that fear subsided at some point during Guiliani's term. Yes I know today he seems to have become a total crazy loon, but I highly respected him as mayor for making large swathes of NYC feel safer. And yes, I know some people loathe him even for his tenureship as mayor.
cosgrove 5y ago
As someone who has never had to truly live through a disaster (knock on wood), I found this story to be compelling in thinking about disaster planning: http://www.theplacewithnoname.com/blogs/klessons/index.html http://www.theplacewithnoname.com/blogs/klessons/index.html >On August 29, 2005, Hurricane Katrina became the largest natural disaster in United States history. After the levees failed, it became the largest man-made disaster in United States history. This blog is a chronicle of what happened to myself and my family during those events. It is also a documentation of lessons learned from a survival and recovery viewpoint. I think it delivers a lot more backstory on what happens when you don't prepare for something, which you don't get simply reading a how-to list.
seanhunter 5y ago
If you want to learn how to do disaster planning as an organisation, a really good example to follow is Waffle House, who take it extremely seriously. https://disasterphilanthropy.org/blog/preparedness/disaster-preparedness-the-waffle-house-way/ https://disasterphilanthropy.org/blog/preparedness/disaster-...
- chasd00 5y ago
  I bet a good thing to know is all the Waffle House locations within a 100 mile radius.
verisimi 5y ago
First line, from 2015. "In the public consciousness, its portrayals have all the makings of a doomsday cult: a tribe of unkempt misfits who hoard gold bullion, study herbalism, and preach about the imminent collapse of our society." Well, that hasn't aged well...
- goodpoint 5y ago
  > a tribe of unkempt misfits If anything, it's an accurate description of preppers. Together with the unsustainable individualism.
- playpause 5y ago
  Why?
  - verisimi 5y ago
    Do you think that society is more coherent now, after the past 2 years? Are things improving or are the wheels coming off? The Canadian government was freezing people's bank accounts like they are North Korea, and most cheer this on? With Russia going to war? Etc etc. If you had bought gold 7 years ago, you would have doubled its value.
    - UncleMeat 5y ago
      > If you had bought gold 7 years ago, you would have doubled its value. Over five years VTI is up 77% vs gold at 54%. VTI is up over 100% since Jan 2015. GLD is only up 45%.
    - jcims 5y ago
      Re-read the first four words. This is a description of the public perception, and it was spot on then and is largely still true now. (Add in some racist/white nationalist overtones, they seem to have been layered into the persona as well)
    - PragmaticPulp 5y ago
      Turn off the news and step outside to interact with real people. The situation is much nicer when you’re not letting a 24/7 stream of news and hot takes teleport your attention to whatever the worst event in the entire world happens to be at the current moment. > If you had bought gold 7 years ago, you would have doubled its value. And you would have made the wrong investment choice, because the stock market outperformed gold. Gold has a reputation as a great inflation hedge but it hasn’t really lived up to that reputation at all in recent history.
Tepix 5y ago
For me, planning for a five day power outage in the winter seems like it's something that takes only a limited amount of effort and resources and could come in very handy indeed. Make sure you have enough water (and a way to make it potable), heat, food, light, 1st aid and communications. Going all in and getting a year of supplies seems excessive. As always, YMMV :-) PS: In Germany, the BMI (interior ministry) publishes a free guide for preparedness at https://www.bmi.bund.de/DE/themen/bevoelkerungsschutz/zivil-und-katastrophenschutz/selbstschutz-und-selbsthilfe/selbstschutz-und-selbsthilfe-node.html https://www.bmi.bund.de/DE/themen/bevoelkerungsschutz/zivil-... They recommend a 10 day food and water supply.
- Melio 5y ago
  This also reduces the first respond burden. After that a lot of people would dye sooner than later.
- DocTomoe 5y ago
  > the BMI (interior ministry) Remember that these are the guys who coordinated the Corona and Ahrtal responses, and understand that if they say 10 days is enough, it is prudent to plan for 30 days upwards.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- ghaff 5y ago
  For heat in northern climates, unfortunately there's only so much you can do (outside of a backup generator with a big propane tank). A wood stove/fireplace can keep you comfortable but you'll still probably end up with frozen/broken pipes. But I agree with your basic point. Early on in the pandemic there were people stocking up on 6 months of rice/pasta/etc. In cities. You basically plan for relatively short outages or you plan for civilizational collapse which probably involves getting out of cities and preparing for people trying to take stuff from you.
  - giantg2 5y ago
peckrob 5y ago
The thing is, you don't have to be a Doomsday Prepper to just be prepared. It's about mitigating the risk of the disasters you are likely to face in your locality. I lived through the 2011 Super Outbreak [0]. Following the tornadoes, we had no actual damage (and most places didn't, tornadoes are pretty localized disasters, even in big outbreaks), but we had no power for about eight days because the tornadoes tore up all the transmission lines that feed the town. The biggest lessons I took from that were: 1. Have enough supplies on hand for the duration of the event. I now keep 10 days of food and water for everyone in the family. It's not a lot and it won't win awards - mostly shelf-stable canned goods and bottled water that gets rotated out regularly - but it will keep us fed and watered. Things like toilet paper, a hatchet, matches, a first aid kit, etc. All in my "tornado box." 2. Keep enough cash on hand to last you 10 days with minimal spending. At one point during the outages that followed the Super Outbreak, we went to a pharmacy to pick up some supplies. Obviously with no power it was cash only. They were "ringing" up by writing things down on paper and manually tallying up with a pocket calculator. We were able to get some essentials using the cash my wife and I had in our wallets, but we were fortunate because we usually don't carry cash. I now keep $500 in cash in a safe in the house. 3. Keep at least a half tank of gas in both our vehicles. Basically enough to get us a few hours away from town. These days if I know we're going to have a big storm I top off. That's enough to get us to our family that lives a couple hours away, should we need to bail. 4. Have a crisis communications plan. When the power went out, initially the cell network stayed up in a degraded form on backup generators. But when those ran out, we lost cell coverage. On the third day I drove about 45 minutes down the highway to where I could get a cell signal and let everyone know we were fine. My Mom was so freaked out that she couldn't reach us after the tornadoes happened that she almost drove over to look for us. Now, they know to wait 48 hours before worrying. Now, it's easy to say "that was a unique event." And you would be right. The 2011 Super Outbreak was a "once in a generation" event. But I have lived through so many rare events in my life so far that it makes sense to be prepared for another one. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Super_Outbreak https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Super_Outbreak
- germinalphrase 5y ago
  re: communications - in the events that cellphone and internet infrastructure fails, what are the viable alternatives? Are landlines intrinsically more robust (or they share the internet fiber)? Shortwave seems obvious, but there’s an obvious education/investment/network barrier (no one I would want to communicate with is a HAM).
Friday_ 5y ago
I liked the book from lcamtuf "Silence on the Wire" , I used to read what this guy writes. But then as i recall he started to work for google. Probably helped there with browser security and user tracking. He wrote some good open source tools thou.
- jcims 5y ago
  Pretty weak rationale to dismiss (?) someone who's contributed quite a lot to the world over the past ~20 years.
PragmaticPulp 5y ago
This is a much more practical and realistic prepping guide than what a lot of self-labeled preppers tend to practice. Suggestions such as getting in shape and building good relationships with your neighbors are great suggestions for both good times and disasters. It’s also easy to map these suggestions to recent disasters and see how people who practiced them would be (or were) better off. There’s a weird element to the prepper community that leans toward a sort of role-play: Some get into prepping because they imagine it will be something like a heroic disaster movie, where they’re going to need a lot of guns and ammunition and a lot of expensive technology gear. Maybe fun to buy and collect, but most of those things are useless in real-world situations where people really need shelter, food, water, and support of the community.
- hef19898 5y ago
  It is worth noting that even the worst disaster in human history, while sometimes toppling empires, failed to really destroy communities within less than a couple of generations. And after more than one generation a community changed, or migrated, more than it was destroyed. The plague didn't do it Europe. All the earth quakes and other natural disasters didn't do it long term (immediate effects are catastrphic so). Famines come close, and even then communities rebuild and survive. I have yet to see a real world example of a Walking Dead like scenario. The dinosaurs and the asteroid maybe, but those dinosaurs left so little documebtation, it's a shame.
throw0101a 5y ago
Some decent guides from government: * https://www.ready.gov https://www.ready.gov * https://www.getprepared.gc.ca/index-en.aspx https://www.getprepared.gc.ca/index-en.aspx To start: have an emergency fund for 3-6 months' worth of expenses, be able to cook/eat/drink/clean/toilet and heat your abode for 3 days in case the power goes out. Then prepare for 7d, 14, one month, etc: stop when you think you have "enough". Some will feel comfortable for more time and some less. One piece of advice I heard: make sure you have enough food in your pantry to survive to cover two pay cycles in case there's a hiccup with pay roll. Having your emergency fund at a second bank in case your primary one has (e.g., IT) issues. Perhaps have a bag of necessities (clothes, toiletries) in case you have to evacuate your abode quickly.
- hef19898 5y ago
  Ot's funny how close you automatically get there if your favoured vacation style is camping. Even during those periods when you don't prepare for a trip.
orangepurple 5y ago
"(...) putting the rest of their money in a rainy-day fund (...)" What do we do when we are outcast from the financial system or it ceases to function?
- erwincoumans 5y ago
  Buy a house, whenever possible and reasonable.
d23 5y ago
> Putting somewhere around 30-40% of your emergency stash into the stock market may be a good call. > The fundamental rule is to not be greedy: within the scope of this guide, your goal should be to preserve capital, not to take wild risks. It's best to pick about 10-20 boring companies that seem to be valued fairly, that are free of crippling debt, and that have robust prospects for the coming years. > It is worth noting that many personal finance experts advise against hand-picking your investments. Instead, they advocate a process known as "indexing": buying into an investment vehicle comprising hundreds of stocks, structured to represent the stock market as a whole. The proponents of indexing have a point: most people who try to pick individual winners in the stock market usually fare no better than an index fund. But in the context of prepping, I think this is advice is flawed. To remain calm in tumultuous times, it is important to maintain a firm grasp of the merits of your investments. One can convincingly reason about the financial condition, the valuation, or the long-term prospects of a paper mill; the same can't be said of an S&P 500 index fund - which, among other things, contains the shares of about a hundred global financial conglomerates. Oh come on. He's advocating putting 40% of your emergency fund into the stock of a handful of companies. This is hard to take seriously.
- horsawlarway 5y ago
  I also disagree with his take here, but I think there is some merit to the advice of "understand what you've invested in". It's fairly hard to personally evaluate companies in a fund - it is somewhat easier to evaluate a single company (or even 10 single companies). If I assume he means "~40% of non-retirement emergency funds" I can let this skate by. --- I also think there's some risk to index funds precisely because they appear like such low-risk investments. If the majority of investments are in index funds, I suspect there are systemic risks that we just don't understand very well yet, because the vehicle is so young. Whether that's low liquidity, poor capital allocation, fraud, etc - it's hard to say exactly what risks come with that market structure, since we have no real history to look at. (side note - I'm about 80% invested in index funds... so certainly don't read this as me recommending against them)
  - skybrian 5y ago
ziggus 5y ago
Darn it, I thought this was going to be about IT backup and recovery strategies, which is much more relevant to me than whatever this nonsense is.
notakio 5y ago
One aspect that the article does not cover enough is the importance of training. Whether that's medical training, self-defense training, survival training or general preparedness training, training is what makes gear/supplies useful. Far too many people will purchase x, y, and z in order to be "prepared", but if you can't properly apply that tourniquet you bought a dozen of, then it is useless, and so are you in the event of an emergency. Circa 2006 or so, I decided to start spending my free/vacation time on training across a wide spectrum of skills. My motto: "Always become more deadly, or harder to kill." I've learned how to do a lot of things that I will very likely never have to do, but if I do, I hope that I am more prepared than I would be without the training. As with any training, the skills are generally perishable, so you have to work to maintain competency, but, personally, I'd rather spend my time learning important things than wasting it on the bread and circuses provided as "mass entertainment".
- hef19898 5y ago
  Why not training in stuff like gardening (the food stuff variety), repair, house building, emergency medical care? Even in pre-feudal societies there was only so much need for "warriors".
  - stinkytaco 5y ago
    I linked the Sarajevo Survival Guide in another thread (about refugees) today, but it's again relevant. One of the things it points out is that a "disaster" isn't always an all or nothing deal. In many likely scenarios (including the siege of Sarajevo), skills like carpentry, mechanics and ham radio operators were in high demand.
  - buginabag 5y ago
    > Even in pre-feudal societies there was only so much need for "warriors". No the user you've replied to, but it's not "either or" that you (might) imply. I would also like to emphasize, pre-Feudal society was as it was due to pre-Fedual technology. The AR-15 and Glock 19 aren't going to disappear with the COVID-23 epidemic or the nuclear flash. One can learn basic marksmanship fairly well at a local shooting range, but something like Close-Quarters Battle or other necessary-but-uncommon (to civilians) training will require some amount of professional training. How effectively can you clear a room with a pistol or rifle (solo, partnered)? Are you aware of the effects of glass (home, auto) on a round? Best not to learn these things the hard way. Let us not forgot, in the original iteration of the American Republic, we (able-bodied men, at least) were all the militia. Even in this ideal "community sticks together" outcome in a SHTF world, you need to have some competencies in shooting. To contrast, one can more casually learn primitive cooking or home gardening... at home. I, personally, practice martial arts... that's the gist of my daily fitness training. Though I very much agree, the medical training is one you're going to want to go to a professional for and should not be forgotten amongst the High-Speed Low-Drag oper9r culture that co-travels in survivalist circles.
prescriptivist 5y ago
For the most intense emergency situations: If you take up wilderness camping (hiking, floating, snow travel based) you accrue the kinds of equipment that can carry you through most realistic emergency situations. But, more importantly, you learn to use and maintain that gear to keep you hydrated, fed and warm. Beyond that it's a matter of knowing where to collect water and having or finding enough calories. The skills and equipment acquired in this pursuit of fun is far more practical than watching youtube doomsday preppers tie 30 different knots for tarps or ordering a barrel of MREs.
- hef19898 5y ago
  But is it tactical?
1970-01-01 5y ago
The author seems to be missing some important developments: Written by lcamtuf@coredump.cx, Dec 2015, minor updates Jul 2021. ... Pandemic. It's been a while since the highly developed world experienced a devastating outbreak, but it may be premature to flat out dismiss the risk. In 1918, an unusual strain of flu managed to kill 75 million people. Few years later, a mysterious sleeping sickness - probably also of viral origin - swept the globe, crippling millions, some for life. We aren't necessarily better prepared for similar events today.
Havoc 5y ago
The most likely one is missing I think - full collapse of the financial systems globally. Everything is interconnected and incredibly fragile and correlated.
chasd00 5y ago
I was thinking about this earlier. To me a high priority would be movement, be able to get out of the disaster zone and be able to move to safer locations.

244 points by seancolsen 5y ago

Of course, there is a non-trivial cost to spending time dealing with this stuff, particularly the less likely outcomes. As with any risk assessment, one has to judge the probability of certain events and act accordingly. The thing that bugs me about this culture -- and I don't include the author of this piece, who sounds imminently rational and level-headed -- is that a lot of people in this space seem to want these outcomes. In some extreme cases, they relish it or see it as a forgone or morally good outcome. We should be putting most of our energy into avoiding catastrophic scenarios, and making these outcomes less and less feasible. But I fear that it is increasingly difficult for people across the political spectrum and below a certain socio-economic line to not be extremely cynical about society, and therefore the future. The result is "prepping" getting more attention than building a better world.

teddyh 5y ago
Yup. Also people who write things like CollapseOS, and many HAM radio people. They fantasize about being relevant and important, and their hobby is a way to indulge in those fantasies. No wonder they secretly want the worst to come to pass – it’s the actual point of it all.
poulpy123 5y ago
I've noticed (from an external point of view) that 1/ many people use it for some kind of escaping (myself somewhat included) 2/ Fantasize about being the hero of a post-apocalyptic novelbut IRL
irrational 5y ago
But, many of the catastrophic scenarios are nature-made instead of man-made. I’m not aware of any way to avoid volcanoes, earthquakes, hurricanes, tornadoes, wildfires, floods, drought, etc. unless you are suggesting that everyone move to someplace where none of these things can exist.
dmje 5y ago
You put that beautifully - it really is the case that "normal" preppers seem to be totally relishing becoming the next Mad Max hero, roaming the wilderness with their stash of weaponry... What's really great about this piece apart from the fact it isn't this ^ is that it is beautifully written...
- hef19898 5y ago
  I always wonder how many of those preppers have the actual skil, and yes gear, to roam the country side for long. Orientation, navigation, endurance, you name it. I'll take any long distance hiker for tjose scenarios than some wpuld be prepper siting on a stash of gear that would need a small truck to haul around.
Trasmatta 5y ago
That's why I can't spend time on places like the Collapse subreddit. There are many people that fetishize the idea. This clouds their judgment and predictive power, and you see so many poor predictions of outcomes of world events there.

boredumb 5y ago

Cash on hand, a gun with ammunition, canned food, and bottled water.

irrational 5y ago
What use is cash in the case of a true catastrophe? And I don’t see the benefit of having a gun with or without ammunition. I would never ever be willing to shoot another person (or even an animal), even to protect myself or mine. I’d rather we are raped, tortured, and killed than harm another person.
- PragmaticPulp 5y ago
  Cash on hand is important for basic trade. There are plenty boring examples of extended power outages where people fall back on cash for buying groceries and such.
- graphpercolator 5y ago
  Honestly, I think if you had resources you would eventually run into someone who would use violence to take those resources and the last line in your post is exactly what would happen.
- tablespoon 5y ago
  > What use is cash in the case of a true catastrophe? Not much long term in a civilizational collapse, but even then it might still be useful before everyone realizes what's going on. > And I don’t see the benefit of having a gun with or without ammunition. I would never ever be willing to shoot another person (or even an animal), even to protect myself or mine. I’d rather we are raped, tortured, and killed than harm another person. I think that's probably an unusually high level of commitment to nonviolence. It's also creates moral dilemmas: allowing someone to be "raped, tortured, and killed" by others is harming that person. All your principle may mean in practice is the innocent are the ones harmed and the guilty are left unharmed.
- bluGill 5y ago
  While I understand non-violent, sometimes violence is the worst of your bad choices. I have no plan on shooting another human, but I need to reserve that right because there are people who will shoot me (Russia if you are in Ukraine)

snowwrestler 5y ago

The book Eternity by Greg Bear had an interesting take on this. In that book (spoiler) there is an exchange of nuclear weapons between the U.S. and Russia, which devastates the surface of the Earth. But many people survive, and a society quickly develops post-war. But it is dominated not by those who were most individually prepared, but by those who contributed the most to their neighbors and communities. There is some overlap of course; some preppers have a lot to give and do so. But the ones who isolate in compounds with their hoard for too long emerge into the new society to be met with scorn, or even outright violence in some cases. I had not thought about it that way but it kind of makes sense. It’s easy to like someone who is helping you. And shared hardship can bond a group of people. It’s a great book, in addition to this aspect (which is a somewhat minor part of it).

CPLX 5y ago
Since we are talking about books I’d like to add “The Road” by Cormac McCarthy to the reading list. It’s almost unimaginably bleak but just completely incredible.
- marcellus23 5y ago
  I just read Parable of the Sower by Butler and it's also very relevant I think.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
rvense 5y ago
Here in Denmark, it's impossible to get more than maybe ten kilometers from a settlement of 500+ people. I am, by local standards, comparatively out in the sticks, but I'm still no more than a few hours walk from a city of a 100,000. Even if something happened that wiped out 90% of them, that's still a lot of people who are likely to walk by here and want my food. Prepping for just myself would be a solipsistic fantasy.
toomuchtodo 5y ago
Enjoyed this comment. Vibes with an essay by Cory Doctorow about needing a “bug in bag” not a “bug out bag”, to run towards community to help versus running to the mountains, as you need collective action to survive. https://boingboing.net/2015/12/21/a-survivalist-on-why-you-shoul.html https://boingboing.net/2015/12/21/a-survivalist-on-why-you-s... https://boingboing.net/2008/07/13/postapocalypse-witho.html https://boingboing.net/2008/07/13/postapocalypse-witho.html

csee 5y ago

How many people would an all out nuclear war kill?

thematrixturtle 5y ago

> In the US in the 90s, your lifetime likelihood of victimization was estimated to be around 80%; the odds of suffering criminal injury hovered at 40%. Any source? These figures seem absurdly high, and I say that as a former resident of NYC in the 90s.

sushibowl 5y ago
I found a 1987 report from the bureau of justice statistics: https://bjs.ojp.gov/library/publications/lifetime-likelihood-victimization-0 https://bjs.ojp.gov/library/publications/lifetime-likelihood... Uses data from approximately the 1975-1985 period, so not about the 90s.
- tablespoon 5y ago
  >> Any source? These figures seem absurdly high, and I say that as a former resident of NYC in the 90s. > Uses data from approximately the 1975-1985 period, so not about the 90s. Also, wasn't violent crime notoriously high during that period? For instance, my understanding was Times Square used to be gritty and a little dangerous, then Giuliani turned it into a Disneyland in the 90s.
  - ghaff 5y ago
    I don't know how actively dangerous Times Square was but for it and 42nd Street "gritty" is a pretty good description. You see remnants of it at e.g. the Port Authority, aka one of the world's worst bus stations. Being there late at night was... interesting (as I once was). For a lot of people who knew NYC in that era, the "Disneyfication" isn't the worst thing that could have happened.
    - decafninja 5y ago
      My dad commuted to his office somewhere in Midtown Manhattan in the 1980s. One day I was rummaging through his briefcase and found a steel baton. I asked him what it was for and he said it was to protect himself from the bad guys. As a kid I distinctly remember being somewhat afraid whenever my family had reason to go into NYC from our home in NJ. I know he's controversial, but that fear subsided at some point during Guiliani's term. Yes I know today he seems to have become a total crazy loon, but I highly respected him as mayor for making large swathes of NYC feel safer. And yes, I know some people loathe him even for his tenureship as mayor.

cosgrove 5y ago

As someone who has never had to truly live through a disaster (knock on wood), I found this story to be compelling in thinking about disaster planning: http://www.theplacewithnoname.com/blogs/klessons/index.html http://www.theplacewithnoname.com/blogs/klessons/index.html >On August 29, 2005, Hurricane Katrina became the largest natural disaster in United States history. After the levees failed, it became the largest man-made disaster in United States history. This blog is a chronicle of what happened to myself and my family during those events. It is also a documentation of lessons learned from a survival and recovery viewpoint. I think it delivers a lot more backstory on what happens when you don't prepare for something, which you don't get simply reading a how-to list.

seanhunter 5y ago

If you want to learn how to do disaster planning as an organisation, a really good example to follow is Waffle House, who take it extremely seriously. https://disasterphilanthropy.org/blog/preparedness/disaster-preparedness-the-waffle-house-way/ https://disasterphilanthropy.org/blog/preparedness/disaster-...

chasd00 5y ago
I bet a good thing to know is all the Waffle House locations within a 100 mile radius.

verisimi 5y ago

First line, from 2015. "In the public consciousness, its portrayals have all the makings of a doomsday cult: a tribe of unkempt misfits who hoard gold bullion, study herbalism, and preach about the imminent collapse of our society." Well, that hasn't aged well...

goodpoint 5y ago
> a tribe of unkempt misfits If anything, it's an accurate description of preppers. Together with the unsustainable individualism.
playpause 5y ago
Why?
- verisimi 5y ago
  Do you think that society is more coherent now, after the past 2 years? Are things improving or are the wheels coming off? The Canadian government was freezing people's bank accounts like they are North Korea, and most cheer this on? With Russia going to war? Etc etc. If you had bought gold 7 years ago, you would have doubled its value.
  - UncleMeat 5y ago
    > If you had bought gold 7 years ago, you would have doubled its value. Over five years VTI is up 77% vs gold at 54%. VTI is up over 100% since Jan 2015. GLD is only up 45%.
  - jcims 5y ago
    Re-read the first four words. This is a description of the public perception, and it was spot on then and is largely still true now. (Add in some racist/white nationalist overtones, they seem to have been layered into the persona as well)
  - PragmaticPulp 5y ago
    Turn off the news and step outside to interact with real people. The situation is much nicer when you’re not letting a 24/7 stream of news and hot takes teleport your attention to whatever the worst event in the entire world happens to be at the current moment. > If you had bought gold 7 years ago, you would have doubled its value. And you would have made the wrong investment choice, because the stock market outperformed gold. Gold has a reputation as a great inflation hedge but it hasn’t really lived up to that reputation at all in recent history.

Tepix 5y ago

For me, planning for a five day power outage in the winter seems like it's something that takes only a limited amount of effort and resources and could come in very handy indeed. Make sure you have enough water (and a way to make it potable), heat, food, light, 1st aid and communications. Going all in and getting a year of supplies seems excessive. As always, YMMV :-) PS: In Germany, the BMI (interior ministry) publishes a free guide for preparedness at https://www.bmi.bund.de/DE/themen/bevoelkerungsschutz/zivil-und-katastrophenschutz/selbstschutz-und-selbsthilfe/selbstschutz-und-selbsthilfe-node.html https://www.bmi.bund.de/DE/themen/bevoelkerungsschutz/zivil-... They recommend a 10 day food and water supply.

Melio 5y ago
This also reduces the first respond burden. After that a lot of people would dye sooner than later.
DocTomoe 5y ago
> the BMI (interior ministry) Remember that these are the guys who coordinated the Corona and Ahrtal responses, and understand that if they say 10 days is enough, it is prudent to plan for 30 days upwards.
- deleted 5y ago
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ghaff 5y ago
For heat in northern climates, unfortunately there's only so much you can do (outside of a backup generator with a big propane tank). A wood stove/fireplace can keep you comfortable but you'll still probably end up with frozen/broken pipes. But I agree with your basic point. Early on in the pandemic there were people stocking up on 6 months of rice/pasta/etc. In cities. You basically plan for relatively short outages or you plan for civilizational collapse which probably involves getting out of cities and preparing for people trying to take stuff from you.
- giantg2 5y ago

peckrob 5y ago

The thing is, you don't have to be a Doomsday Prepper to just be prepared. It's about mitigating the risk of the disasters you are likely to face in your locality. I lived through the 2011 Super Outbreak [0]. Following the tornadoes, we had no actual damage (and most places didn't, tornadoes are pretty localized disasters, even in big outbreaks), but we had no power for about eight days because the tornadoes tore up all the transmission lines that feed the town. The biggest lessons I took from that were: 1. Have enough supplies on hand for the duration of the event. I now keep 10 days of food and water for everyone in the family. It's not a lot and it won't win awards - mostly shelf-stable canned goods and bottled water that gets rotated out regularly - but it will keep us fed and watered. Things like toilet paper, a hatchet, matches, a first aid kit, etc. All in my "tornado box." 2. Keep enough cash on hand to last you 10 days with minimal spending. At one point during the outages that followed the Super Outbreak, we went to a pharmacy to pick up some supplies. Obviously with no power it was cash only. They were "ringing" up by writing things down on paper and manually tallying up with a pocket calculator. We were able to get some essentials using the cash my wife and I had in our wallets, but we were fortunate because we usually don't carry cash. I now keep $500 in cash in a safe in the house. 3. Keep at least a half tank of gas in both our vehicles. Basically enough to get us a few hours away from town. These days if I know we're going to have a big storm I top off. That's enough to get us to our family that lives a couple hours away, should we need to bail. 4. Have a crisis communications plan. When the power went out, initially the cell network stayed up in a degraded form on backup generators. But when those ran out, we lost cell coverage. On the third day I drove about 45 minutes down the highway to where I could get a cell signal and let everyone know we were fine. My Mom was so freaked out that she couldn't reach us after the tornadoes happened that she almost drove over to look for us. Now, they know to wait 48 hours before worrying. Now, it's easy to say "that was a unique event." And you would be right. The 2011 Super Outbreak was a "once in a generation" event. But I have lived through so many rare events in my life so far that it makes sense to be prepared for another one. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Super_Outbreak https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Super_Outbreak

germinalphrase 5y ago
re: communications - in the events that cellphone and internet infrastructure fails, what are the viable alternatives? Are landlines intrinsically more robust (or they share the internet fiber)? Shortwave seems obvious, but there’s an obvious education/investment/network barrier (no one I would want to communicate with is a HAM).

Friday_ 5y ago

I liked the book from lcamtuf "Silence on the Wire" , I used to read what this guy writes. But then as i recall he started to work for google. Probably helped there with browser security and user tracking. He wrote some good open source tools thou.

jcims 5y ago
Pretty weak rationale to dismiss (?) someone who's contributed quite a lot to the world over the past ~20 years.

PragmaticPulp 5y ago

This is a much more practical and realistic prepping guide than what a lot of self-labeled preppers tend to practice. Suggestions such as getting in shape and building good relationships with your neighbors are great suggestions for both good times and disasters. It’s also easy to map these suggestions to recent disasters and see how people who practiced them would be (or were) better off. There’s a weird element to the prepper community that leans toward a sort of role-play: Some get into prepping because they imagine it will be something like a heroic disaster movie, where they’re going to need a lot of guns and ammunition and a lot of expensive technology gear. Maybe fun to buy and collect, but most of those things are useless in real-world situations where people really need shelter, food, water, and support of the community.

hef19898 5y ago
It is worth noting that even the worst disaster in human history, while sometimes toppling empires, failed to really destroy communities within less than a couple of generations. And after more than one generation a community changed, or migrated, more than it was destroyed. The plague didn't do it Europe. All the earth quakes and other natural disasters didn't do it long term (immediate effects are catastrphic so). Famines come close, and even then communities rebuild and survive. I have yet to see a real world example of a Walking Dead like scenario. The dinosaurs and the asteroid maybe, but those dinosaurs left so little documebtation, it's a shame.

throw0101a 5y ago

Some decent guides from government: * https://www.ready.gov https://www.ready.gov * https://www.getprepared.gc.ca/index-en.aspx https://www.getprepared.gc.ca/index-en.aspx To start: have an emergency fund for 3-6 months' worth of expenses, be able to cook/eat/drink/clean/toilet and heat your abode for 3 days in case the power goes out. Then prepare for 7d, 14, one month, etc: stop when you think you have "enough". Some will feel comfortable for more time and some less. One piece of advice I heard: make sure you have enough food in your pantry to survive to cover two pay cycles in case there's a hiccup with pay roll. Having your emergency fund at a second bank in case your primary one has (e.g., IT) issues. Perhaps have a bag of necessities (clothes, toiletries) in case you have to evacuate your abode quickly.

hef19898 5y ago
Ot's funny how close you automatically get there if your favoured vacation style is camping. Even during those periods when you don't prepare for a trip.

orangepurple 5y ago

"(...) putting the rest of their money in a rainy-day fund (...)" What do we do when we are outcast from the financial system or it ceases to function?

erwincoumans 5y ago
Buy a house, whenever possible and reasonable.

d23 5y ago

> Putting somewhere around 30-40% of your emergency stash into the stock market may be a good call. > The fundamental rule is to not be greedy: within the scope of this guide, your goal should be to preserve capital, not to take wild risks. It's best to pick about 10-20 boring companies that seem to be valued fairly, that are free of crippling debt, and that have robust prospects for the coming years. > It is worth noting that many personal finance experts advise against hand-picking your investments. Instead, they advocate a process known as "indexing": buying into an investment vehicle comprising hundreds of stocks, structured to represent the stock market as a whole. The proponents of indexing have a point: most people who try to pick individual winners in the stock market usually fare no better than an index fund. But in the context of prepping, I think this is advice is flawed. To remain calm in tumultuous times, it is important to maintain a firm grasp of the merits of your investments. One can convincingly reason about the financial condition, the valuation, or the long-term prospects of a paper mill; the same can't be said of an S&P 500 index fund - which, among other things, contains the shares of about a hundred global financial conglomerates. Oh come on. He's advocating putting 40% of your emergency fund into the stock of a handful of companies. This is hard to take seriously.

horsawlarway 5y ago
I also disagree with his take here, but I think there is some merit to the advice of "understand what you've invested in". It's fairly hard to personally evaluate companies in a fund - it is somewhat easier to evaluate a single company (or even 10 single companies). If I assume he means "~40% of non-retirement emergency funds" I can let this skate by. --- I also think there's some risk to index funds precisely because they appear like such low-risk investments. If the majority of investments are in index funds, I suspect there are systemic risks that we just don't understand very well yet, because the vehicle is so young. Whether that's low liquidity, poor capital allocation, fraud, etc - it's hard to say exactly what risks come with that market structure, since we have no real history to look at. (side note - I'm about 80% invested in index funds... so certainly don't read this as me recommending against them)
- skybrian 5y ago

ziggus 5y ago

Darn it, I thought this was going to be about IT backup and recovery strategies, which is much more relevant to me than whatever this nonsense is.

notakio 5y ago

One aspect that the article does not cover enough is the importance of training. Whether that's medical training, self-defense training, survival training or general preparedness training, training is what makes gear/supplies useful. Far too many people will purchase x, y, and z in order to be "prepared", but if you can't properly apply that tourniquet you bought a dozen of, then it is useless, and so are you in the event of an emergency. Circa 2006 or so, I decided to start spending my free/vacation time on training across a wide spectrum of skills. My motto: "Always become more deadly, or harder to kill." I've learned how to do a lot of things that I will very likely never have to do, but if I do, I hope that I am more prepared than I would be without the training. As with any training, the skills are generally perishable, so you have to work to maintain competency, but, personally, I'd rather spend my time learning important things than wasting it on the bread and circuses provided as "mass entertainment".

hef19898 5y ago
Why not training in stuff like gardening (the food stuff variety), repair, house building, emergency medical care? Even in pre-feudal societies there was only so much need for "warriors".
- stinkytaco 5y ago
  I linked the Sarajevo Survival Guide in another thread (about refugees) today, but it's again relevant. One of the things it points out is that a "disaster" isn't always an all or nothing deal. In many likely scenarios (including the siege of Sarajevo), skills like carpentry, mechanics and ham radio operators were in high demand.
- buginabag 5y ago
  > Even in pre-feudal societies there was only so much need for "warriors". No the user you've replied to, but it's not "either or" that you (might) imply. I would also like to emphasize, pre-Feudal society was as it was due to pre-Fedual technology. The AR-15 and Glock 19 aren't going to disappear with the COVID-23 epidemic or the nuclear flash. One can learn basic marksmanship fairly well at a local shooting range, but something like Close-Quarters Battle or other necessary-but-uncommon (to civilians) training will require some amount of professional training. How effectively can you clear a room with a pistol or rifle (solo, partnered)? Are you aware of the effects of glass (home, auto) on a round? Best not to learn these things the hard way. Let us not forgot, in the original iteration of the American Republic, we (able-bodied men, at least) were all the militia. Even in this ideal "community sticks together" outcome in a SHTF world, you need to have some competencies in shooting. To contrast, one can more casually learn primitive cooking or home gardening... at home. I, personally, practice martial arts... that's the gist of my daily fitness training. Though I very much agree, the medical training is one you're going to want to go to a professional for and should not be forgotten amongst the High-Speed Low-Drag oper9r culture that co-travels in survivalist circles.

prescriptivist 5y ago

For the most intense emergency situations: If you take up wilderness camping (hiking, floating, snow travel based) you accrue the kinds of equipment that can carry you through most realistic emergency situations. But, more importantly, you learn to use and maintain that gear to keep you hydrated, fed and warm. Beyond that it's a matter of knowing where to collect water and having or finding enough calories. The skills and equipment acquired in this pursuit of fun is far more practical than watching youtube doomsday preppers tie 30 different knots for tarps or ordering a barrel of MREs.

hef19898 5y ago
But is it tactical?

1970-01-01 5y ago

The author seems to be missing some important developments: Written by lcamtuf@coredump.cx, Dec 2015, minor updates Jul 2021. ... Pandemic. It's been a while since the highly developed world experienced a devastating outbreak, but it may be premature to flat out dismiss the risk. In 1918, an unusual strain of flu managed to kill 75 million people. Few years later, a mysterious sleeping sickness - probably also of viral origin - swept the globe, crippling millions, some for life. We aren't necessarily better prepared for similar events today.

Havoc 5y ago

The most likely one is missing I think - full collapse of the financial systems globally. Everything is interconnected and incredibly fragile and correlated.

chasd00 5y ago

I was thinking about this earlier. To me a high priority would be movement, be able to get out of the disaster zone and be able to move to safer locations.