We don't have a plan. We should. I think that we'd each run and grab our pets, keys, and our wallets. That's about as far as I'd be able to get if time were of the essence.

ETA: My comments above are if we needed to evacuate. If Ok to stay in the home, I think we'd do ok for a bit ... maybe a couple of weeks? We don't have a lot of food in the house at any given time, but we could make do.

Even in my tiny apartment I have months of food stored. (Of course, this thread will eventually talk about guns, in a disaster/shtf often the strong/armed can simply walk in and take what they want from the old/weak/unarmed.)

In a disaster there is commonly a need for nursing skills, I would trade my skills for things I needed. I keep gas in my vehicle, always enough so I could get/go to the kids/grandbaby to help.

How about you Marilyn_Sue?

We live with the expectation of a reliable supply of electrical power. A lengthy interruption would create chaos. I do not think there is much I could do as an individual that would help me survive over a prolonged outage.

Living in Florida, my biggest concern is loss of power. Typically that would occur as a result of a hurricane. We had one come through here in September and we never lost power (maybe because everything is buried). Loss of power would mean that refrigerated items would go back; loss of power would mean that we could not cook (all electric); loss of power would mean no hot water.

We have some food, but it would not last more than 5 days without power.

As long as I have a sufficient stock of liquor, I could make it a while. I wouldn't care, due to the liquor!

We could last for a while...maybe a week...if we carefully rationed our bottled water and canned tuna, but we wouldn't smell very nice.

I don't have a gun so probably wouldn't survive even if I survived the primary disaster.

We have the 72 hour pack sacks for 4 people. One in the house and 1 in each of the cars. I haven't refilled my water since we moved but once the freezer is going again I'll be filling up my jugs. We always have the same amount of food for our pets in case of emergency too. Apparently we're due for a big earthquake here in BC so this is on my mind. We did get a tsunami a couple of weeks ago when there was a quake in Alaska.

No suits of armour in case of zombies though. ;)

I think we could. We live in the woods on lake and hunt and fish. With a well and septic we could manage the water situation. Fruits and veggies would be hard at first but maybe we could barter with our friends/neighbors for seeds in exchange for firewood or meat. I might run out of books and lighting would be difficult. Laundry would be quite a challenge.. I guess we would have to build an ice house and cut slabs of ice off the lake for our "Ice Box". No need for much entertainment though, it would take most of the daylight hours to gather food and firewood.

We could survive fine for a couple of weeks at least. We are on well and septic, and have a diesel generator. We have two diesel vehicles, so fuel from them could power the generator to run the well pump. Refrigeration would be a bit of an issue, but we have a chest freezer that would stay frozen for a few days if it wasn't opened. Enough food in the house to eat, even if it wasn't what we wanted at the time. We have a wood stove and a hefty supply of firewood, so if it was winter, we could stay a little warm and cook . DH fishes, so he might be able to catch something edible.

Internet might be a problem.... :)

Zombies. Hadn't thought about that. Hmm. I'm doomed then.

We could probably get by better than a lot of people. I have been without power for 10 days....a couple of times following hurricanes. If it turned into much, much longer....we could still get by better than most people, I think. My husband is very resourceful. We can make do with very little. We do have guns. I wouldn't want to live in a city if the grid went down for any length of time. One thing about living in the country, our neighbors are very helpful and I know they would pool their resources together.

I have hopes of moving before this time next year. We are thinking about moving out of the area because the value of the property and what you can buy for the same amount of money, is far greater away from here. Living on the bayou, though, you can always fish....but all the places we have looked at have big, stocked farm ponds...so fish would always be available. Plan to get a few cows....and chickens again.

My cat would survive better than I. She has got claws and can hunt. I do need to think about stockpiling drinking water.

I could probably survive but i would kill my husband with all my whining.

I guess it depends on how you define "disaster". To me, true disasters that happen unexpectedly, present real danger, and that don't allow for preparation and protection, are really quite rare, don't you think? Earthquakes, explosions, unexpected tsunamis, fire storms. We've had several earthquakes in my adult life and didn't have the bad luck of being somewhere where falling something or another killed people. I've always had the attitude that "things" can always be replaced, people can't. If I were warned of a coming problem, I'd vamoose.

Some disasters come from people making questionable choices. I remember seeing TV footage from the past few hurricane/tropical storm events, showing "rescues" of people by boat from their homes. It made me think - "Hello? I knew they forecast areas were going to flood and I'm 1500 miles away, what happened to you? You could have gotten into your car, driven 20 miles or less away from the coast and/or to higher ground, and waited it out. What were you thinking?"

For those that worry about being without water unless you have switched to a tankless hot water heater with rationing you probably have a weeks worth of water in your hot water tank. Where I live there are trees and bushes that I could gather the dead branches from on and surrounding them to use to cook with. If you have a big pan you could toss a lot of your frozen stuff in it. As long as there is enough water to keep the pan from burning and heat enough for it to simmer you could depending on size of pan, I have a 3 gallon pasta pan, you could eat for a couple of weeks by just keep adding water. Soon it would just be watery broth. The idea is to keep it simmering so it would be safe to eat.

After that you had better have some method to find food. Some natural disasters like large volcanic eruptions as there have been in the past can prevent things other than leafy vegetables from growing for years.

Many of the people in Hurricane Harvey did not evacuate because they had never flooded before. This was an 800 year flood. DH is a map guy. He specifically looked at topo maps when we bought. We knew we were higher than most, but leery because we had never experienced a hurricane before and weren't sure how our drainage system would work since this neighborhood didn't exist during the last flood.

We would do ok for quite a while. I have plenty of food. I buy things on sale and stockpile so I don't have to pay full price. I'm ok with a bow and arrow and fishing pole. There are a bunch of ocean birds here. Who knows, those gators might start looking tasty. We have all kinds of camping supplies. I have seeds and would rip out my flowerbeds to see what I could grow.

We lived without electricity and water for over a month after Hurricane Ike, I always have important papers, batteries, radio,flashlights,etc. in a bin ready to go. Keep pet kennels, leashes, food and water ready. I hope we would be ok. During our outage with Ike, I was flying weekly to TN to be with a terminally ill family member. My poor husband was left to deal with it all.

There's a big difference between a few days without electricity within a limited area, when 'help is on the way' -- and the destruction of the entire power grid over an enormous area -- when no help is coming to rebuild.

Even with outside help, large parts of Puerto Rico are isolated, with no power since October.

The Crash and resulting Great Depression were that kind of mammoth disaster.

I doubt anyone would survive a full scale nuclear attack. Read the book by Jonathan Schell The Fate of the Earth.

I have a whole house generator powered by natural gas. But some truly major catastrophe? No, at my age and in my health, I would not survive.

I imagine people who live in rural areas would have a better chance than those who live in the cities. Once grocery stores ran out of food and water, things would deteriorate quickly in the cities. Those who live in the country tend to have gardens and / or raise livestock for meat and eggs. Hunting and fishing is also an option for rural people. People in rural areas usually get their water from wells and many have generators because they are used to the power going out.

While neither hubby or I are hunters, we could learn and there are many kinds of game here from wild turkeys to rabbits to deer. Both of us know how to fish and there are lakes and rivers nearby. We have a generator that is connected to a 500 gallon propane tank which would last a long time if we only ran it for a few hours per day. In our wood shed is a three year supply of firewood and there is no shortage of trees that could be harvested if needed. We also have wonderful neighbors with many useful skills. I could see us pooling our resources to help each other in a dire situation.

It would not be an easy life, but we could manage for quite some time if necessary.

I do not call being without electricity for a week to be anything at all. Have done it before. Yes, I do have a plan for staying here and with children nearby to help we could all make it work. When food starts to thaw in the freezer, especially the meat, get out the canners and start canning. I have 4 pressure canners and they would get put to work. My jars are clean just need sterilized and that would be no problem, put them in the boiling water. Water for drinking and cooking stored in jugs and the water from the water heaters, water for toilet, the creek that is nearby. I have lots of dry beans, rice, nuts and lots of canned tomato juice. I have plenty of canning supplies as I have canned for years and all my girls know how to can. Chickens in the family so we would have some eggs, have a fireplace insert that I can and have cooked and baked on and in. A barbecue grill with an extra propane tank, a great supply of firewood and able bodied men to deal with that, can collect rain water drinking can be rain water and I have a lot of staples and canned goods on hand. I really would want more paper products on hand and more bleach. Plus a good first aid kit. The solar lights are good, not too long ago for a short term outage I got my solar lamp for a patio table and brought it in, it worked really good. Even the solar lights in the ground could be gotten up and used and put back out to charge. Of course I have an endless supply of kerosene lamps, need more oil, candles and batteries and flashlights. I think for washing clothes, I would not worry about it a lot unless I know a lot of time was going to pass with out electricity. I have the necessary tubs to wash clothes and lots of supplies to make my own detergent. I also have a clothesline and clothes pins I could soon put up and use. Be on good terms with your neighbors, you can help each other out. Worse comes to worse, could build a fish trap and fish with a pole, plenty of deer, rabbits and squirrels here as well as other critters. Everyone has guns out in the country. We never hunted but it is in our background. I have not fired a gun since I was probably 13. There are ice storms that take down the grid in this area as well as tornadoes. Of course we know how to grow a garden. I may have left out a few things but, as you know Necessity is the Mother of Invention. If you don't have something and you see you need it, you will come up with a plan.. Hope all will at least think about being able to care for your family and those you can help in time of need. You can do more than you think you can.

Sue

One thing to think about having on hand is a Lifestraw. Since they do break I would suggest several for each person. Used in parts of the world and by hikers where water is questionable.

I don't consider being without power a "disaster". Highly inconvenient but not a disaster :-) In my area a true disaster would be the BIG earthquake or Mt. Rainier blowing its top, both of which are distinct if uncertain possibilities. And if either happened, my area would pretty much be toast so I choose not to worry about it much.

OTOH, if trapped at home for any reasonable period of time, I would survive as I have ample stores of food and water and pet food. And power.....until we run out of propane for the generator :-)

No electricity, water, no gas stations open, no airplanes to take you
out of the area, no food in the groceries.

I would be fine for a while... prolly a couple of weeks. Now no running water would be tough, once the water heater is empty. Toilet no problem, don't flush unless it's brown in there, just keep that door shut to keep the smell contained ;)

I don't think I need much of a plan. I can get by with very little, I practice that while I am out on my bike tours.

Moni

I learned from watching the forest fires up in Fort Mac, that trying to leave the city is going to be IMPOSSIBLE! My husbands cousin was up there and it took them six hours to leave the city. Most people ran out of gas before they even got out of city limits. And they had a mandatory evacuation. As for food, we don't eat processed foods much, so we would probably starve to death. LOL And if this disaster happened in the winter, we would freeze before we starve. If it happens in the summer, we can cook over the fire pit outside. I do have lots of meat downstairs, but it would go bad............. So never mind. Yup. We'll die.

Being without power isn't a "disaster" but it can work well as a test run for an actual disaster. If you can't manage a week long power outage, you won't be able to manage a real disaster. During a week long power outage associated with a "Derecho" a few years ago we failed. We managed to cook on the propane grill, and managed to buy a small generator to power the fridge, a few lights, and the internet, but it wasn't able to run the 240V well pump so water for us and for the horses was a problem, especially given that the following week was 100 deg F. Our power was restored by the electric co-op after about 5 days, friends about 1/2 mile away on Dominion power (a large for-profit electric company) were without power at least another week.

Hurricane Harvey didn't hurt us. It was after it hit, went in shore, turned around, came back and stalled over head that did the damage to us and many other people. When you get more than 50 inches of rain in a very short time, you are likely to flood, I don't care where you are. Why don't people in California leave when they know it is going to rain and they have already lost all the brush (from fires) that hold the soil in place? Some places in Houston flood every time it rains. We don't leave from storms for several reasons. One....sometimes you can't get back in. Two, we have shrimp boats that must be seen after. Three, animals that must be taken care of. And last, but not least, the idiotic way that people evacuate around here. Over 100 people died evacuating from here for Hurricane Rita. Ninety nine percent didn't need to go....but they were scared spitless due to what happened with Hurricane Katrina, which was nothing like conditions here. They had never been through a hurricane, because actually here, we don't have them all that often. Had one in 1961, one in 1983, and then they thought Rita was going to get them in 2005. People came through Katrina okay....it was afterwards when the levy broke that all the disaster happened. There is no way we would get on the highways with all of those people....who ended up stranded in traffic, no gasoline available, in intense August heat. People died evacuating, and guess what...........it didn't hit here. My husband's deckhand evacuated to Jasper...in East Texas, and it hit there and she couldn't get back for days afterwards.....no gas and no electricity to run the pumps. Everything isn't always as cut and dried as what people think....looking at it from afar.

I can't even think about any type of disaster. I already have a bad case of PTSD.

I know what it takes to survive under those conditions, and it is not pretty. Hand powered tools are the thing. In a complete disaster, there would be no refined fuels, Your tool shed would contain a general purpose chopping axe, spare axe. splitting wedges, a mall, hammer, assortment of nails, screws, and nuts, binding wire, binder twine, auger and bits, metal hand drill and drill bits, garden tools, etc. You should also have a hunting rifle and ammunition

I'm too far north to have the type of vegetable garden needed, so that means I should go south, and I should carry enough fuel with me to get to where I wish to go. The area you go to should have wild fruits, nuts, and berries. These items are useful for supplementing your diet and food supply. After arriving, your first priority is to secure a source of clean drinking water.

You are going to meet a lot desperate people. Come to think of it, maybe I'd be netter off staying home, defending my home, and making do with what ever is left. There will be a lot of folks leaving and vacating their property. If I too left, I would be competing wih many others for the same resources. I should not move unless I or my family members already owned land to the south.

I just completed a CERT (community emergency response team) course offered though my town. Sponsored by FEMA, the (no cost) course provides training in subjects such as first aid and fire suppression. Since natural disasters vary based on your location, the local municipality tailors the training programs to specific location-based risk factors. Some people take the course to become a certified volunteer, available to respond to local disasters, and others take the course simply to become better prepared to weather and respond to a small or large scale disaster or act of terrorism. I found the course well worth the time. You can find out more at this link

Many communities/counties offer emergency preparedness training, like rockypointdog's CERT (in our city it's called CORE, but essentially similar). With the uncertainty of earthquakes, it's difficult to prepare since one can't automatically assume access to a home's interior.

We have a 50-gallon water heater, for example, but my chances of accessing after a truly severe quake might be iffy. I live less than three miles from a major faultline.

One interesting tip I learned from one of the classes: in an urban area two of the most difficult items to obtain in an emergency are gas (fuel) and money. Not only are all the gas station pumps electrical, but so are ATMs. One of the suggestions was to not only have an emergency cash "stash", but to also make sure you had plenty of $10s and $5s, not just large bills.

Society might well fade back 200 years where very little cash changed hands out on the frontier. Much was done by trading things and labor. Example: If you will give a cord of those taper sawn wide shingles, I'll come over and dig that line of post holes for you and set the posts. (He has a post hole digger.)

One disaster that every family should prepare for is a meeting spot outside should the house catch fire. We plan to meet by the mailbox. Don't want to be in the position of someone not making it out alive because they were in the house looking for someone else who is already outside.

We like to think we are pretty safe from fire, but I swear, every day on the news there is another house/apartment building/residence that's been hit by fire. They end up losing everything.

Unless the mailbox is away from the driveway the firefighters do not want you standing there so plan on having another place away from the house.