I must have missed something. What long emergency?
PB

Just in case there is a long emergency

bottled water was essential during the Katrina emergency--and we ate a lot of canned beets, green beans, carrots, any and all canned veggies in lots of different combos for over three weeks--canned tuna, canned salmon, dry milk--they were all handy--but you may have to goggle for shelf life.
Please tell me which emergency you are expecting...

I still have friends that are eating stuff they stored for the predicted Y2K crisis.

For a couple of years I have tried to get a preparedness forum started but no takers. Anyway, over at the Kitchen table we did cover the subject somewhat and there are some good things on the thread. Hope you find what you need and if not ask and I'll look it up for you.
We try to keep politics out of it and just cover what could be a prolonged truck strike, natural disaster etc.

Here is a link that might be useful: How would you get by? - Kitchen Table Forum - GardenWeb

My parents were always ready for an emergency of any kind. They had enough canned goods and paper and hygiene products to last a loooong time. Not much water, because bottled water was not as available. I am not nearly so prepared, buty could last a few weeks without going to the store.

It actually is part of my *banned topic* ethic. I consider it an obligation to set by a storehouse of essentials. It doesn't have to be done all at once, but a few extra dollars from a budget and hours of work a month and a spare pantry or a few shelves are all that is needed to keep months supplies of necessities. If one rotates the foodstuffs once or twice a year, they remain fresh and it's not even an issue.

I have potable water from the ground I can access without power in my spring. The spring house also serves as a refrigerator in an emergency. It never freezes and is cool in the hottest weather. We have a generator, but only need it for the g'houses if we have crops in. Our house is accomodated to run rather comfortably witout electric power. I have two heat sources run off gas without electrical stats. I have coal oil lamps everywhere and extra bottles of fuel. I have wood for cooking if I have to already cut and aged. I keep my 4wd vehicle topped with gas in winter months. I have two pantries with canned foods from my garden......I even can meats and broths when I butcher or come by them economically. I keep about a month's supply of commercially tinned food as well and as I used it, I replenish it. I keep dried milk. Buy pet foods in bulk. Keep enough animal grain to tide my chickens over for two weeks and they can be free ranged. I keep a flock of about fifty and in a pinch they ARE food. Yes, I can kill and pluck them myself and eggs are plentiful. I have a few battery powered radios and a supply of spare batteries. I have a treadle sewing machine, hand cranked mixers, churns, coffee grinders, can openers.

I take a little ribbing about the whole thing, but it is just how we live. I am not an intentional survivalist but it is just an economical way to exist.

I normally keep about two weeks worth of canned goods plus flour, rice, etc. in the pantry. During the hurricane season, I will add more canned meat, extra canned and dried fruit. There is no point in worrying about shelf life, because as things are used, they are replaced on the next grocery shoppiing trip. The longest we have ever been without power was a little over two weeks. We have a gas stove. There is auxiliary power on all the water wells and sewer pumps in the county.

the long emergency is a book by james howard kunstler, ot is not political, kinda covers truckers also it is peak oil related. Thankyou all for the info, I will go to the thread you mentioned. thankyou carol

The Long Emergency is Kuntzler book about what's going to happen when the oil gives out. People think about the problems as relating to cars and heating. That's going to be a minor problem. Most of the food in our stores is moved by either diesel trains or diesel trucks. Even if there is oil for the trains, the trucks need fuel to get food from the railheads to the stores. Anyone ready to start themselves a vegatable garden and get a cow?

Food distribution is a pressing issue but long before that the economy shall go down the tubes because of the inflation caused by anything made with petroleum based products going scarce and precious. That's about everything anymore. Medications, construction materials, packaging, appliance components. The manufacturing process itself runs on fossil energy. Thanks for the heads up about the book Pee Bee, I was clueless. As usual humankind has known fossil fuel was finite for many years, but chose to pretend it came from a cornucopia.

I'll survive. I've survived worse.

check out this site. Scroll down to the Editorial discussion near the bottom. The author seems to go to extremes as he paints a picture of what's going to happen. His basic premise that peak oil production as aready occured and from here on production is going to lessen, may be valid. However, some of "forecasts" about what will happen, and how soon, seem a little off the wall. Yeah, he may be smart, but he's also a little looney tunes.

Here is a link that might be useful: The Long Emergency

ah...Obvioulsy I am just now hearing about it. I may not agree with Kunstler, I do think the future is going to get very interesting. Remember Lilo talking about her plastic CC was late arriving due to the oil shortage and the shortage and expense of plastic bags? The shortage may have been caused by damaged refineries, but it does give us a glimpse into the future, doesn't it.

I have all the usual stuff.
The generator, gas fireplaces,and so on.
An absolute must have is a BIG supply of the
necessary medication. In my case that would be the
(bit@h be gone pills) without those, there is no survival
as far as Neil is concerned.
HE makes sure I take that little pill every single day.
Forget about the blood pressure pills and the ones
for the diabetes, he starts to worry when I get down to a
month's supply of the BBG pills.
I wonder why.

A novel I like to read once a year is "Alas Babylon" by Pat Frank.
for some odd reason it gives me encouragement.

We heard this from our Mom from Day 1; the collapse of society as we know it.
We heard it so many times, all of this seems second-hand----it was DRILLED into us.
Gotta admit, I just cleaned out the cabinets again----I just don't eat here and it all expires. (Had evap. milk that expired a full YEAR ago..)
Right now, the menu consists of croissants w/ black raspberry jam, w/sliced, fresh strawberries, and it's all topped w/whipped cream.
I'm not being a smart-aleck....there it is.

But, you've made me think about tomorrow, which I seldom bother with, anymore.

Gak! .......Don't even know where to start.

I started this thread in hopes of getting info on how to make beef jerkey or foods that store well. I got a couple of good links. the only problem I have with those not believing is that when food shortage comes, they will come after my food. I am not a fanatic I did not save food for y2k. this just makes sense to me. so food storage tips or where to buy dried foods would be appreciated. thankyou carol

I think a homesteading, permaculture, or life on the farm type of forum is really what you are looking for. I have spent coulntless hours on those types of forums learning how to make soap, our candles, can etc and the topic is so large that you need much more than a thread to cover it.

I would start here. They live what you are looking for

Here is a link that might be useful: Homesteading today

Carol,it would probably be easier if you just put your inquiry in to Google. You will probably get a lot more information than you could get here. Just for the heck of it I put "food storage tips" in and this was the first thing that came up..along with many other sites.Good luck in getting everything ready for that emergency.

Here is a link that might be useful: tips

I think a homesteading, permaculture, or life on the farm type of forum is really what you are looking for. I have spent countless hours on those types of forums learning how to make soap, pour candles, can, make root cellars and build cob homes. The topic is so large that you need much more than a thread to cover it.

I would start here. They live what you are looking for

Here is a link that might be useful: Homesteading today

I think that just learning about storing food will not be enough. We will have to learn about doing with less. My husband and I were raised in the South during the depression and then during the food rationing of WWII. We know how to plant food, raise and kill chickens, milk cows and goats, but mainly, do without. Can you make biscuits? There was many a meal that was nothing but biscuits and drippings. You can't store food, if there's not much food available.

veeja did you look at any of the links on the Be Prepared site I posted? A load of food storage ideas on it.
Here is how to make your own wicks for candles. You might want to print out and save.

It was sent to me years ago by a friend who has made candles

How to Make Your Own Wicks for Candles

*Dissolve 2 tablespoons of table salt and 4 tablespoons of borax in 1 1/2 cups of warm
water.

Soak a 1-foot length of regular cotton kite string or twine in the solution for 15 minutes.

Hang each string with a clothespin for 5 days to be sure it is completely dry.

Use a paperclip to dip each string completely in melted wax 3 to 4 times, coating it
completely.
Hang it up to dry as before...

Store wicks rolled up in a newspaper.

Don't forget to lay up a store of beeswax to make your candles. I think (not sure) that the other wax, is made from petroleum. Maybe they will have to go back to the whaling industry to get oil for whale oil lamps. Of course, that would mean a return to sailing ships. The few steamships that would still be around would have to burn coal instead of diesel fuel.
PB

It would be impossible to amass enough stored food to last any significant amount of time. After the stored food runs out you need to be able to be self sustaining, that would involve acreage and livestock - enough acreage to grow feed for the animals, process your own flour, etc. and the ability to live off the grid.

I'll tell you what would be the first policy to fly down the tubes, and that are those perfect little planned communities with the covenants. Chickens would show up on the oversized lawns, and clotheslines and oink oinks. LOLOL. My Mama's gramps and Grams lived on the fringes of town, they did have a big garden, chickens and always a feeder pig. Everyone did.

This is another of those disaster books that pop up from time to time. The last time I remember a slew of them being published was during the oil crisis in the 1970's. According to that round of books we should have landed in the soup in the 1990's.

I definitely thin you should be prepared for a disaster. The hurricanes of this year more than proved that & besides needing a generator, we're in pretty good shape as far as food, water & batteries are concerned. But as Suzanne says, if this guy's scenario actually came true, I'd venture to say that no one on this forum would be prepared for long-term survival on their own.

Personally, I'd rather think that we will come up with alternatives that will avoid the doomsday collapse, and in the meantime try to live as sensibly as possible conserving as much energy as I can.

Doomsday Books do have a certain following. There is no doubt that bad times could certainly come. They have before and they will again. Judging by some of the reviews of this book, the author is a little over the edge. For example....he thinks that the California coast will be in danger from Asiatic pirates. Ok...how are they going to get from there to here? Sailing ship? Are they going to build coal fired steamships just so they can prey on San Francisco?

I doubt that an energy shortage will be the cause of the breakdown in the fabric of society. As oil becomes more scarce and expensive other sorces will be used. There are several that are being developed. I have read that oil will not run out for over a hundred years. I'll be long dead before it's gone.

I think we're more likely to be killed off by a disease or war than energy shortages.

That's the Gloom and Doom report.

jb

I think all the emergency measures offered up were done before we realised the thread was about running out of petroleum. No, all the stockpiling in the world would buy you a little time, but don't hold your breath waiting for help to come.

I have been well baptised in subsistance farming. I have family with farms. I'd survive but have no illusions about what it would take to keep the pillagers off the goods and starving makes the most honest people resort to things they'd never dream they'd do.

The first and most important thing we could do now, and should've done years ago was start to look at what we just blow down the rathole. The energy we waste on light pollution amounts to a billion dollars a year just in this country. We could eliminate that and not decrease the quality of life one iota. We'd benefit.

We could offer tangable tax relief to the manufacturers and consumers of energy efficient products. I don't mean a shot in the pan effort like in years past. I mean something with teeth. Antique and wasteful design of appliances is needless. So, they cost a bit more in the short term? YOu save in the long run. I'm thinking right now of items like on-demand hot water heat like is used in Europe. You only pay for the hot water you actually use. I have a massive ceramic lined hot water tank designed to charge only in off peak hours. I may be converting soon to a tank heated when my boiler charges for the central heating system to be used in winter and a small on-demand for those seasons when we are not using central heat.

Energy efficient home design is practially non-existant. I'm not talking wind or solar source, I am talking the construction of the home itself. Heating and cooling can be cut nearly half by design. My husband and I retrofitted an 1830s house with modestly priced modifications and cut our energy consumption 40 percent.

There are infinate ways to cut waste and just the impact of cutting waste would go very far in cutting our energy needs. That should be the first thing we do.

Just remembered I had this book on the shelf

"ILL WIND" by Kevin J. Anderson and Doug Beason (1995)

Ok - there is the largest oil spill in history and an "oil-eating" microbe is designed to consume anything made of petrocarbons. . . . . . .

A Good read.

calliope,Weebus, minnieTx, you have all been very helpful, I know I can't get all my imformation on a thread but you have given me good links and idea's. As far as Asians getting to the northwest, they are already here. so are the californians. I belive Kunstler says mexicans will take over california, asians and californians will be here to claim the northwest. they already are. I think it will be a combination of peak oil and global warming. I cannot change the minds of the sleepwalkers, I can however prepare for myself. learning what is in the forest that I can eat, what I can save and grow.calliope sounds as if you have a handle on it.Jb please tell me you don't own a gun. thankyou all carol

The thing to do, IMHO, is not to get caught up in one persons "look into the future", they are all around us. Many follow Michael Gordon Scallion's earth Changes Report. He has Denver being a seaport at sometime and Atlantis rising from the ocean.
You have to use your good old common sense and prepare for the kind of emergency that might happen around where you live now. In time things will always work themselves out and it might take a few stages of getting used to a different way of life but mankind will survive.

We hardy (or foolish, take your pick) people who live on or near the coast of Florida year around are always ready for the long emergency. I start saving my water jugs in January, and have them ready to fill for hurricanes. At the end of the season, I have to empty them into the garden, and recycle those jugs (shouldn't use them over again but once) I buy canned and dried food a few cans at a time every week, and store them in boxes so I can get them out quickly. I have a "hurricane kit" full of all other supplies I will need. Haven't had to use it yet (knock on wood), but we've had some close calls.

When I lived further north, we had supplies like that for power outages due to ice storms, so I'm pretty much used to it. When my grandmother died, she willed me all her hurricane lamps, because I loved them, and because she wanted me to have them for storms.

Hurricane season is always an adventure down here, especially the last couple of years. Then on December 1, we all sigh a huge sigh of relief that it's over. This year, it seems it will never end.

I don't own a gun, I don't have stock piles of food or water and I don't worry that some catastrophe that brings the web of supplies to a halt will ever come. An emergency for a week or so? Sure, but a complete breakdown for an extended period of time, like months or years? No.

jb

I find it funny that people feel that oil reserves will just suddenly stop. With no warning - believe me, we'll know because prices will rise, thus forcing us to curb our wasteful ways and invest in alternative energies which will now be comparatively cost effective.

What's going to end is CHEAP energy.

Me, I try and be prepared for the short emergencies and to try and tread lightly on the planet generally.

If this country or my region suddenly suffered a serious emergency, the only thing that would save me would be if I a) happened to be at home and b)had a helicopter on my roof. In a hyper-urban setting like NYC there is no chance of living off the land. You'd probably get sick eating the eggs of a chicken, much less the chicken itself, that had scratched for food in our Brooklyn backyards. There are a few people in this city who keep inflatable boats and MREs and hope that when disaster strikes there'll be a favorable current to take them up the Hudson River to safety. The rest of us just keep enough water and canned food to last a 3-day blackout.

Having worked for an environmental research organization, it's clear to me that oil is a finite resource, and we're rushing too quickly towards its depletion and progressing too slowly towards the next fuel source we and our economies can all reliably depend on.

No, it won't come suddenly....but it'll come more quickly than we think it will if we keep on the same course and don't start making changes. Pricing will help deter use and slow the consumption down, but we need to be changing our attitudes before we have our backs against the wall so that our country as a whole can distribute this resource equitably to all the people and make economic and infrastructure transitions more effectively.

I listened to some presentations on C-span about energy by petroleum experts. I also have family who own wells and worked in petroleum companies. All sources of crude petroleum are not created equal. Some take more effort and energy to bring it to the surface. That is why so many American wells got capped and closed. There is still oil there, but the price of fuel isn't high enough to warrant the cost of going aftr it. I suspect a lot of these defunct wells could be brought back into service for some marginal production. Anyhow, this expert says that the sources we are considering using in the future will take MORE energy to pump up than the oil will produce. IOW A negative energy balance.

As for petroleum sources stopping suddenly. The hurricane should have told us something. Yes, it can. Natural disasters and International incidents can stop energy production suddenly.

As I said however, I don't think many people realised at first the thread was discussing petroleum when they started offering how they should prepare for a long term emergency. Sure, making your own candles and stocking your pantry isn't going to cut it. IT will come on us gradually enough we will make many other lifestyle changes to accomodate. How soon we start making those transitions may very well dictate how successful we'll be at it. It should be a high priority of our goverment to start moving us in those directions, and much of it has very little to do with drilling for oil. It has to do with mandating measures to decrease consumption. It would be helpful if our government stopped trying to spur on our economy by encouraging it. Sticky wicket.

I honestly believe that alternative energy sources will be developed that will replace oil. They will be just as effective and better for the environment. They will cost slightly more in the early adoption, but as time goes by the price will hit an equilibrium.

Part of the price increase with oil is attributed to it's finite nature. If we use solar or hydrogen (assuming we find a good way to distill it) these sources will be nearly inexhaustable.

Certainly today we can't empploy either efficiently, but oil will be in good supply for another hundred years. And it's not that I am just blindly trusting. It's to good of a money making opportunity to be ignored.

jb

Hmmm,
Excuse me please, but all this talk is driving up the price of solar cells on ebay right now. Could y'all hold off for another week or two until I find the ones I would like at the price I would like?

Thanks very much,

8D

ROTFL! Do you think we are the only ones on the web discussing this?

As several of you have already pointed out, it will be very difficult to prepare for a truly LONG emergency unless you are already living a self-sufficient lifestyle. This means you have the land and a good stockpile of the physical materials needed so you can just keep going while others fail, and yes the greatest cultural challenge would be to deal with the hordes of those who are unprepared who would desparately seek access to your resources. Also, I count as an emergency only something that arises over days, weeks, or months. Changes that occur over years will result in a lot of alternative strategies being developed, although there will still be a lot of disfunctionality occuring as well.

It is much more likely that the average person will have to deal with a short emergency. I live in Hawaii on the Island of Oahu and I was shocked to see people lining up in front of darkened stores within a couple of hours of our earthquake to buy what I don't know. How hard can it be to set aside canned goods, bottled water, and batteries? I know the topic of this thread is long emergencies, but frankly only a tiny percentage of the population has the physical resources to grow their own food, while even someone living in a highrise could stockpile enough food and water to last a month.

Keep in mind that there was essentially no damage on Oahu except that a couple of power generators shut down automatically and for reasons that are sort of unclear the rest of them couldn't juggle the remaining load and dropped off one by one. It took a while to start them all back up but it was done by the end of the day. Nothing was really broken. Meanwhile, as I drove to my brother's house 5 miles away to have breakfast courtesy of his SNG appliances and standby generator, WalMart and Times supermarket had lines out front. Apparently these people had provided themselves with NOTHING to eat and drink, and they couldn't even have been hungry yet, plus we still had running water! Their first instinct was to panic and mob stores. I exaggerate. There was no visible panic or moblike behavior, but the lines were there when everyone should have been sitting at home next to the supplies they could easily have purchased the month before, and should have, since we live in a hurricane area. There were news reports of stores charging exorbitant prices for batteries, water, etc. If we can't address such basic concerns, what hope is there for the majority of the population? Should we really expect the government to feed us before we're even hungry yet? I think the greatest challenge in any emergency situation will be to deal with the panic around you for a period of days or weeks. Beyond that only survivalists who are already geared up for self sufficiency will have much of a chance.

Of course, it's easy for me to talk since I have never been in a true emergency. I am haunted by stories from Katrina of people crammed into the New Orleans convention center that were preyed upon by thugs. Granted, their houses were literally under water, but those people at least might have been better off if they could have camped on their own roofs with their own food and water supplies if there was any way to make their own little patch of turf defensible.

We need national leadership to get us all moving in the same direction at the same time.

The US of A geared up after Pearl Harbor in 6 months, it took round the clock work, ingenuity, and leadership but we did it.

Every public building, school and hospital can be converted to direct geothermal heating and cooling. Every occupant can get a few tubes of caulking and double caulk every crevace and crack in their own homes. There's all sorts of window treatments to reduce heat loss. Why are no American mfg. of cars doing any hybrids? Some of the $9 billion tax break given the oil companies might better be used to fund applications already available, while employing everyone who can wiggle in the rapid tooling and gearing up to make the equipment and get it installed.

There's enough land in soil banks to feed every American and half the rest of the world if we will but do it.

The countries that can keep its citizens working, its factories producing, its government viable, without imported oil will survive, the rest will not. We're up to something like 2-1/2 soldiers a gallon and billions owed, with the world's third largest oil supply all but in the hands of terrorists, and even if we wrested it from them, it is a finite amount. We need leadership.

There are some ideas over on the Organizing Forum
It is better to be prepared than caught off guard. For storms, road closures who knows!!

Here is a link that might be useful: Emergency Preparedness