Are you really a survivor?

[FiLtH]

Lets say that today, something catastophic happened. Be it nuclear war, an asteroid hit, whatever. And it ended life as we know it. No electricity, no medicines, no computers (argh).

   To eat, you finished what was in your kitchen. Beyond that you had to find whatever you could to eat. Winter is coming...no fuel will be available. Do you have a woodstove? Wood? The means to get some wood? Saws, axes, can you start a fire without matches?

   Your wife is pregnant. Can you deliver the baby?

   Are you armed? Do you have enough ammo? Are you good with guns...firing, cleaning, repair. WHen the ammo runs out could you make weapons? Do you have tools?

    Personally I think the people with the best chances would be country folk. Small communities that could rely on one another. My guess is ,in the first 6 months most of the world would starve to death. Mostly in the cities. After that disease would claim the rest. Communities would'nt allow strangers in, due to disease and distrust.  Someone would be left to carry on Im sure, providing radiation wasnt involved.  

   Frankly...I dont think Id make it. I dont think Id want to live in that world. I depend on society. Without it Id surely perish.
It seems as technologically advanced we are..the simple things that were the lowest tech at one time, have been forgotten. Take the sword for example. Could you make one? Where do you find iron ore? How would you melt it? Form the blade? All the little things of every aspect of basic tools,farming etc. We would be worse off than the middle ages. Which in my mind was probably one of the most miserable times there was. So if it will be that bad, I think Id rather the asteroid fall on me.

[Jackal1]

To borrow a line from Jr.......................
............................. .....
A country boy can survive.

[BlueJ1]

Read the Dark Tower series, its is basically the above with more.

[Curval]

The whole island I live on would die.  We are a spoiled rotten bunch.

[Meatwad]

I got a book on the story like you mentioned, have to find it and get the title. I can remember it, just the title I cant.

Its a story about a US/Russia nuclear war. Almost all electronics are fried from russian EMP armed warheads.  It is a tale of one man as he travels across the US to view the damage (and get home to his wife).  Remember clearly California has become its own military state, where californians stay on, outsiders stay out. Guards are to shoot to kill anyone trying to get into the state, kinda like crossing countries in europs in 1943. They have made their state back and running again, leaving the other 49 to rot because they dont care. (Kinda like now, eh?)

Anyways its a science fiction/suspense book. If I find the title i'll post it.

[Ripsnort]

30 days food, water and fuel (for generator, or transportation in our Truck Camper to our mountain fortress in Montana)

Wife is an RN, neighbor across the street is a doc, next door neighbor is a fireman, and I'm a good shot with a rifle (we live next to an Elk preserve)

We could actually stretch this to 45 days if we're careful.

[ROC]

I'd like to think Yes, I could.

Dark Tower Series, read the series 3 times, bout to start the 4th go around having just gone through the Potter books again.

[Hangtime]

Cites will die, survivors would flood the countryside.

Open season fer country folks. All liberals would die. Especially the anti-gun nuts.

[x0847Marine]

Nothing says "ill be ok" better than Smith & Wesson..

[Sandman]

Originally posted by Hangtime
Cites will die, survivors would flood the countryside.

Open season fer country folks. All liberals would die. Especially the anti-gun nuts.

Hmmm... there seem to be an awful lot of "liberals" living off the grid.

[Mustaine]

posted a while aog, something similar:
http://www.hitechcreations.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=92308

my reply back then:

OMG I cant believe someone else thought of this

I have been mulling this over for about 5 years... it just came to me one night. What would you do?

Now when I am lying in bed and can't sleep this is what I think about. With the time I have spent on this I have found so many problems that go in circles it’s not funny.

My Plan

There are 3 basic things you need to deal with, food, shelter, and water. Of course the first few days would be having some fun, but mostly planning. My first stop would be a gun shop, then the local Hummer dealership. Read on to learn why.

Food
I personally have a hard time killing and dressing an animal, not for moral reasons, I just think it’s kind of disgusting. Because of that I would get as much canned meat and Spam I could. You will need some place to store all these goods so the animals will not get into it, so you have to first secure some type of warehouse.

Once you realize you have to survive alone your first though should be location, location, location. Where are you going to live? Near the ocean? Far inland? In a climate with harsh winters? Where is the nearest nuclear power plant? Wisconsin is not too bad, but the climate makes for some unique situations. Near where I live there is a major food distributor’s warehouse; complete with a freezer you can drive a forklift into. I would first have to go there and secure the building.

Why secure the building? If there are no other people around creating garbage and other food sources for the local wildlife they starve. A starving raccoon is one mean SOB, and will get into almost anything not to mention the other animals. I figure there will be an explosion of creatures in the first year or two. There will be no cars to hit the fuzzy bunnies, basically no human blocks on their growth. Soon though they will start dying off fast. The food supply that we as humans create for them can not be replaced. They will starve in droves.

After you secure the building and dump anything that will rot and attract scavengers, you have to bring what you want to it. That means learning to drive a semi. I don’t know how to ‘double clutch’ or have a clue what it even means. I just know I need something to transport my goods.

All this has to be done in relative days after the realization (or test day as I call it). The reason is the perishables in the grocery store are just that, perishable. Within about a week the fruits will be growing parasites. Small mammals will break into the store to get food. It will basically become overrun with disease infected animals within a few weeks. Imagine walking down an isle looking for something to eat and a crazed, rabies infected raccoon jumps out and bites you. You’d be dead in a few weeks. Don’t forget about the smell and the gasses from the rotting food. You would need a gas mask just to go in the door. Basically you want to save all the food you can early on.

Eventually you will need to learn to cultivate crops. You can’t live on preserved food forever, it will run out or go bad. Also you can’t go around killing whatever you want and eat it. You won’t be able to test for diseases in the animal. After time you will have to worry about radiation poisoning too, but we’ll get to that later. Basically no matter how repulsive it sounds, you will become a vegetarian after about 10 years I figure, and you will need to sustain yourself.

Water
Once you have gotten all your food stores set up you need to worry about water. For the first few years you could drink all the bottled water at the grocery stores. It will eventually go bad though and you will need to find a clean water source. My thought is the library will be where I spend most of my time. You will need to learn how to work a well digging machine, and where to dig. You will also need to know how to maintain the equipment. Where this well is kind of dictates where you will live too. You might want to consider learning some basic masonry skills to be able to build a foundation near the well for a house of some kind.

Shelter
Personally I would build a small 15’ by 15’ house or there about. It would be underground too, to help with insulation, and protect from weather. It would be one of those half-buried homes, like a mound. You would also need to get electricity to it. The best bet is a generator. The only thing you need electricity for is lights and entertainment. If you dig a deep enough hole it can work as a crude refrigerator.

The design of the house is for basic protection. You will not be able to predict the weather, so you need to expect a tornado every day. Eventually you might want to find a storm chaser’s van with a Doppler radar attached to it, but that’s low on my list. Anyway, I would make 2 identical buildings next to each other, one for living and 1 for storage. Why two separate ones? That would be easier to build. The smaller the roof span the better for safety from storms. The reason for burying the house is two fold, insulation and protection. The earth above and next to the house will do both. Imagine a mound about ten feet high with a door and glass block window going into it. 3 sides of the building would be a 50’ long rise to the top of the mound.

As stated above location is the key. Where you are dictates what is most important. If you are in the south there are a lot of bugs and stuff you want to keep out (though you pretty much want that everywhere). There is more rain in the south so you need to think about drainage too. If you are near the Atlantic Ocean you need to think about hurricane force winds that last days at a time. The design I talked about covers all possibilities basically.

Back to the generator. A kerosene powered one would be best, but hard to find. Propane would work also, you basically need to stay away from gasoline. The reason to stay away from gas is that I have been told it goes bad in less than a year. If that is true get all your fast car driving out of the way early (and don’t hit a deer or something… wouldn’t want to get an injury and slowly die sitting in a car on the side of the road). You will need to learn how to run and wire up the generator, so back to the library. A generator is lower on the list depending what time of year it is. If it’s close to winter it’s more pressing, but as stated in the beginning of the scenario, electricity is still working… for a while. Somewhere along the line a transformer will blow and shut down the grid. Over time more and more will go out. The biggest concern is the nuclear plants generating the electricity. They WILL melt down eventually, and you need to be at least 500 miles away when it happens to avoid dying right away. That also means you need to find a Geiger counter, and learn how to use it. Learning to set up a solar power system would be helpful too.

Medicine
Medicine is a really tricky one to take care of. Most antibiotics and stuff degrade to not being effective in a few months, due to the organic ingredients. My cousin works at the blood center and they have a freezer like the kind you keep steaks in, but it keeps nitrogen solid and stuff. I think she said it goes to about  –100° Celsius. That is cold enough to keep penicillin indefinitely. I am allergic to penicillin myself, so I need to get something else. You would also want to get some other basic medicines to cover anything that might happen. Then you have to transport this freezer back to your house and wire it up.

Miscellaneous
After all your basic necessities are taken care of you can work on learning more things to help you survive longer. I would learn how to do EVERYTHING on a car and motorcycle. I would have a large diesel four wheel drive truck. I would modify it by taking off everything cosmetic. Then add very high-powered lights in all directions (driving at night with animals about without seeing everything would be a bad idea). In the back of the truck (or the roof of the Hummer) would be:

• A complete set of tools
• A small generator
• At least 50 gallons of fresh water
• At least 50 gallons of gasoline
• Enough food for 3 weeks (MRE’s taken from a nearby military base)
• An off road motorcycle for scouting and getting home if the truck breaks and I can’t fix it
• Ammo (yes I’d ALWAYS carry at least 2 guns… you never know what might attack you)
• Extra clothes for all seasons

Talking about a vehicle makes you talk about gas again too. I heard there are additives that you can add to extend the shelf life. I also believe diesel gas lasts longer. Either way there are alternative fuels out there. There was that truck that drove across America on used cooking oil. Supposedly it took only minor modifications. I would defiantly look into that.

Like I said I have given this a TON of thought, and I can expound on any part of it if you’d like. (I usually end up talking in circles about it so please forgive the randomness of this LOL )

[Mickey1992]

I would think for the first year or so you will need to spend most of your time protecting yourself from others that want what you have.

Inner cities will be a free for all of burglary and murder.

Outside of the cities you will have neighborhoods that become fortified.  Any house with smoke coming out of a chimney or a light at night will be a target.

[FiLtH]

I dont believe there would be enough survivors in the generation that this happened to..that know enough across the spectrum of basic needs...farming, horse care, plumbing, mechanical, medical etc to pass it on successfully to the next generations.

  Survivors would likely group up for mutual defense, and farming/hunting needs. Local wars would rage. It would take centuries to get back to even Middle Aged standards of living.

 And all the while, dead satallites and space junk orbit the earth...a reminder of what we once were.

[airbumba]

Fully stocked camp with well, 5 hours north of Montreal......just hafta get there,lol. Be fine if it aint no surprise attack, hehe.

[BlueJ1]

Only garenteed safe place would be on a sub for a few months. Then who knows what when you run out of supplies. Hardest thing to deal with on land would be other people.