Can You Survive A Month Without Any Outside Help?

pinkbunny said:
Does murdering neighbors and stealing their stuff count?
I don't think that counts as help, cause, you know, the whole murder thing.
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I guess it all depends on who you're murdering.
 
I am going to say yes, but if we start looking at many months, things can get a little tricky with water being the especially difficult one, in part because around here wells run about 500' deep. We do have some ponds on our property, and one is joint with the neighbors that appear to be spring fed as they have water all year round, but fetching water, especially by foot, would be a significant chore.

The buildings are on gravity septic, so we should be good for a while with that, especially as normal use from things like washing machines, dishwashers, and showers would be minimal or even moved outside.

The house has a generator that could run for a good length of time, maintaining even AC or it could be rationed to a couple of hours a day and last a lot longer. This would keep the freezers going for quite a while, but at some point, one would have to find a way to preserve in mass whatever you can from them.

In the greater community, a lot of the area around here is dedicated to agriculture and a few local farms could provide enough to feed the community, but some form of trade / exchange would need to be figured out. However, if we're getting to this point, we're also at the point where roving raiders are going to be a problem and community security will be necessary, which could be part of that trade as even the farmers need to sleep.

So, short answer, yes, I think we would be fine for a month, if not several, but we'd be looking at bigger (area wide) problems by that point.
 
I would say yes, I could survive for a month.
Water, shelter, fire and protein would not be my issue.
I need to up my veggie and fruit game but for a month don’t think that would hurt me.

Oooops wait a minute coffee lol coffee might be an issue after a week or so.

Philippians 4:13
😎🙏💪🏻
 
johnpaulgolf said:
I would say yes, I could survive for a month.
Water, shelter, fire and protein would not be my issue.
I need to up my veggie and fruit game but for a month don’t think that would hurt me.

Oooops wait a minute coffee lol coffee might be an issue after a week or so.

Philippians 4:13
😎🙏💪🏻
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I am confused, you are or are not married? 😁
 
pinkbunny said:
Does murdering neighbors and stealing their stuff count?
I don't think that counts as help, cause, you know, the whole murder thing.
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We generally refer to that as "Doom Rules", as in the game, Doom. It is frowned upon in the prep community as bad etiquette.

As a matter of fact, we had a NC guy who posed as an "organizer" who was later discovered to actually be setting up a list of resource rich "targets". Some of us agreed that "Doomers" would need to be dealt with, harshly, when discovered.


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georgel said:
We generally refer to that as "Doom Rules", as in the game, Doom. It is frowned upon in the prep community as bad etiquette.

As a matter of fact, we had a NC guy who posed as an "organizer" who was later discovered to actually be setting up a list of resource rich "targets". Some of us agreed that "Doomers" would need to be dealt with, harshly, when discovered.


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Did not know that was a thing. A bit horrified at the cold bloodedness of some people. :p
 
jimmyjames8 said:
yep. I checked this a.m. 29 days left, they will refill so I guess if I could live a day without meds. My luck the ballon would go up the day before I was going to the drug store. I'm about to old to care anymore.
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This has honestly been my biggest “prep” concern. I have to take a medication every day for the rest of my life, and there is no real alternative. A few days won’t kill me, but a long term omission of it will. Short of robbing several pharmacies, there’s no way for me to get even a few years advance supply. Even if I could find a doc to write generic scrips, you can only import 90 day supplies from places like Mexico. I have yet to find a real solution to this.
 
Supermatch said:
This has honestly been my biggest “prep” concern. I have to take a medication every day for the rest of my life, and there is no real alternative. A few days won’t kill me, but a long term omission of it will. Short of robbing several pharmacies, there’s no way for me to get even a few years advance supply. Even if I could find a doc to write generic scrips, you can only import 90 day supplies from places like Mexico. I have yet to find a real solution to this.
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This was one of the motivations behind Forstchen writing, One Second After. He realized that his father, who was in a nursing home would not survive a prolonged power outage due to the generator running out of fuel. His pharmacist revealed that hundreds of patients would die within 90days as they ran out of life sustaining meds, because they don't really keep back stock anymore. The girl on insulin? That's his daughter. A huge portion of the population (I forget the number.) will not survive the first few months of an extended grid down scenario due to life sustaining medical needs.

This is what got me about his book. Many stories you can sort through and say, yeah but you can to this or that. Or that's not likely. His book left me without good answers. It would (will) be horrific.

It's interesting that people here are just coming around to these realizations when we were doing it 10yrs ago. And I've been trying to build our ark since.
 
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To all who answered "yes...........................I have a generator" do you have 30 days of fuel for the generator?

Are we talking about surviving an event where all utilities are interrupted, such as electric, water and gas?

.
 
Gator said:
To all who answered "yes...........................I have a generator" do you have 30 days of fuel for the generator?

Are we talking about surviving an event where all utilities are interrupted, such as electric, water and gas?

.
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If power is out for a month, it seems more likely that it won’t be back for a long time (not for the masses, maybe for some of DC and some military bases). 30 days is probably past the point of no return if it is regional, much less nationwide. We have had state level disasters and most people had power in a week. I suppose New Orleans was on that scale but nearly everyone could get to a different state, even if they had to be pulled out of their situations by rescuers.
 
JimP42 said:
30 days is probably past the point of no return if it is regional, much less nationwide
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Agreed, a week, two at the outside and beyond that indicates a much bigger problem. So far, the major power outages have been of relatively short duration and regional, so that other areas have been able to help mobilize relief.

Still, I recall being at a Big 10 & Friends utility conference in 2014 and had the Sunday dinner (alone) with two of the utility guys from Rutgers Univ. in the aftermath of hurricane Sandy. They said as the storm came in, they saw the local utility become unstable and islanded the university from it. Even during the storm, they kept their (coal) cogeneration plant online that provided steam heat and electricity to the local hospital and all the campus dorms and dining facilities.

The point being, the model of mega power generation and distribution is facing challenges, it wasn't meant to solve.
 
JimP42 said:
If power is out for a month, it seems more likely that it won’t be back for a long time (not for the masses, maybe for some of DC and some military bases). 30 days is probably past the point of no return if it is regional, much less nationwide. We have had state level disasters and most people had power in a week. I suppose New Orleans was on that scale but nearly everyone could get to a different state, even if they had to be pulled out of their situations by rescuers.
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And this is what differentiates events like EMP or CME from others. Power's not coming back for a year, there's nowhere that you can get to and there's no one coming to help. Not from the US anyway. Most if our events are regional. Hurricane comes through Louisiana people in other unaffected states come to help, with supplies. And those affected can go to friends and family in unaffected states. In a national grid down everyone is affected. There are 3 major grids, east coast, west coast and Texas. Even a single grid going down will be catastrophic.
 
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pinkbunny said:
Does murdering neighbors and stealing their stuff count?
I don't think that counts as help, cause, you know, the whole murder thing.
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It helps supply the large bbq you’re gonna have
 
Yep
Got a nice spring for water and a wood cook stove and plenty of home canned goods.
And plenty of ammo to make sure nobody takes off with my supply.
 
georgel said:
This was one of the motivations behind Forstchen writing, One Second After. He realized that his father, who was in a nursing home would not survive a prolonged power outage due to the generator running out of fuel. His pharmacist revealed that hundreds of patients would die within 90days as they ran out of life sustaining meds, because they don't really keep back stock anymore. The girl on insulin? That's his daughter. A huge portion of the population (I forget the number.) will not survive the first few months of an extended grid down scenario due to life sustaining medical needs.

This is what got me about his book. Many stories you can sort through and say, yeah but you can to this or that. Or that's not likely. His book left me without good answers. It would (will) be horrific.

It's interesting that people here are just coming around to these realizations when we were doing it 10yrs ago. And I've been trying to build our ark since.
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About the only thing I have going for me is that its a very commonly prescribed medication, and in a variety of dosages. Even a single "master" bottle from a pharmacy could net me a few years supply. I could get by from getting something similar through cow and pig slaughter, but am definitely not equipped for that. The inability to readily import low priced medications into this country is one of my biggest gripes with the entire medical system.
 
georgel said:
This was one of the motivations behind Forstchen writing, One Second After. He realized that his father, who was in a nursing home would not survive a prolonged power outage due to the generator running out of fuel. His pharmacist revealed that hundreds of patients would die within 90days as they ran out of life sustaining meds, because they don't really keep back stock anymore. The girl on insulin? That's his daughter. A huge portion of the population (I forget the number.) will not survive the first few months of an extended grid down scenario due to life sustaining medical needs.

This is what got me about his book. Many stories you can sort through and say, yeah but you can to this or that. Or that's not likely. His book left me without good answers. It would (will) be horrific.
Click to expand...

Prolonged power outage will kill millions for sure. Yes, generators can last only so long. O2, vents, daily life-sustaining medications, inability to access fresh water. Katrina was a snapshot of this, a microscaled event.

JimP42 said:
If power is out for a month, it seems more likely that it won’t be back for a long time (not for the masses, maybe for some of DC and some military bases). 30 days is probably past the point of no return if it is regional, much less nationwide. We have had state level disasters and most people had power in a week. I suppose New Orleans was on that scale but nearly everyone could get to a different state, even if they had to be pulled out of their situations by rescuers.
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Longest we/I had no power in NC from any event was about 5 days, maybe 6. My in-laws in north Durham, the big ice storm in December 2002 (2001?), they were out 3 1/2 weeks. Once the companies start the restoration it may take a few days, but it's coming.

RE: Katrina, there were a lot of people who did not leave because they could not leave. They weren't being obstinate or hard-headed, they simply fell through the cracks because local government and state government failed to do their jobs.
 
Assuming all utilities are out, at my house here in Hawaii the answer is yes since we are off grid. Power is solar, water is 10k gal catchment, hot water/stove is propane and a tank lasts 3 months and we have 2 tanks. Plus we have a deep freezer with plenty of meat, chickens for eggs, and a garden for greens. We could hunker down for a considerable time with no problem.

For our house in NC...not so much. We are on a well so water isn't a problem but power is since we don't have a whole house or even a limited use generator. Once we are there permanently a 30/60/90 day prep plan will be implemented.
 
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