Saturday, July 26, 2014

Narrow Escape?

So, I've been reading with interest how 2 years ago the earth narrowly escaped a direct hit from a solar super storm.


Had the storm hit us, most likely it would have taken down power grids world-wide for months, if not years, and dealt a serious blow to this high-tech civilization of ours.

Hmmmm....


That's sort of a sobering thought, isn't it? I mean think about it, if power grids were to fail worldwide, civilization as we know it would pretty much grind to a halt. Pretty much EVERY aspect of modern life utilizes electricity in some form or another.


It's not just that we wouldn't have electricity in our homes to power things like computers, refrigerators, furnaces, air conditioners and the like, much of our infrastructure depends on electricity.

Most urban areas would not be able to supply water to residents, and who knows about natural gas. Gasoline pumps require electricity, let alone refining crude oil into gasoline. Most modern trains run in diesel, but the switches and systems that regulate the tracks are all electrically powered.

And if transformers world wide were to be blown, it wouldn't be a simple matter of replacing them. Let's face it, the plants that manufacture them require, you guessed it, electricity!


Then there's the damage to communication systems. Most likely all satellite based communications would come to a halt. And who knows what would happen with local telephone service. Back in the old days that stuff was all hard wired, but these days, I'm pretty sure that even when you're talking on a land line to your next door neighbor, the signal bounces to space and back at least once.


Even though the 2012 storm missed us, scientists say there's still a 12% chance that we could get hit by one over the next decade. Twelve percent?!? Seriously? For something that would be so utterly disruptive to life as we know it, those odds are actually a bit frightening.


Anyhow, it all got me to thinking about the idea of emergency preparedness.

I have very mixed feelings about this entire topic. As a person with a mild obsession with bad disaster movies, I've spent my share of time thinking through many of the horrible fates that could befall humanity.


And power outages are not uncommon here in the winter time, though usually they are localized events and within a few days or a week at most everything is back to normal.

But I'm trying to wrap my brain around the idea of the entire planet being pretty much without power for months on end. How could anybody really prepare for an event like that?


I mean... let's look at the bare necessities that we'd need to survive.

First of all there's water.


I don't know the details of Denver's water system, but I think we might be in a fairly lucky position where that one is concerned. Most of our reservoirs are at significantly higher altitude than the city so there's a good chance that our system could function on gravity. But that's just the delivery system... what about the water treatment plants?

Well assuming there was no municipal water supply, what would I do? I do keep about 5 gallons of water in jugs in the basement, but that wouldn't last long. They do make water filters for camping that remove most of the common pathogens. Perhaps it's worth investing in one of those?

Then there's heat.


My house has neither a fireplace nor a wood stove, and there's no way either my heat pump or furnace would work without electricity. I do have a gas powered hot water heater so if there was natural gas I could cobble together some sort of system to keep the house above freezing, but not much more than that.

Over the years I've had fantasies of building some solar window box heaters - they're basically boxes with a glass top that are painted black inside. Air is passed through the heated box and then returned to the home.


I kept the glass when I had my sliding glass door replaced, but building one would be a bit of a project... especially if one was to attempt it without the benefit of power tools! But I suppose that would be a possibility.

Then, of course, there's the biggie: food.


One has to imagine that without power for transportation and communications, food supplies at the grocery stores would dwindle quite rapidly. And forget anything that requires refrigeration. One could hope that people would quickly put local food distribution networks into place, but I'm not sure I'd hold my breath for that one. So what would a person do?

There's the garden, of course, but that only produces food in the summertime, and without irrigation, gardening in this climate would be iffy at best.


One can always stockpile canned and dry goods, but I've been down that road before, and it can easily lead to a lot of food waste if you're not really committed to the whole process.

And even if you can get food, how do you cook it? I do have a solar oven, but it only works, when it's, um... sunny outside!

I could go on and on about this topic, but when it comes right down to it, I'm just torn about what the best approach is on emergency preparedness in general. I mean, there's no way you could possibly be prepared for any and every contingency. But it does seem prudent to take at least a few steps to protect oneself in the event of the unthinkable.


At the moment I'm unsure. I did pick up a few extra cans of beans at the grocery store today, and I got motivated to freshen my stock of drinking water in the basement, but beyond that I'm just not sure. I don't think I'm ready to start buying doubloons in the backyard any time soon.



So tell me, what is your take on disaster preparedness? Are you in the "Que Sera Sera" camp, figuring that whatever will be will be? Do you have a year's worth of supplies stocked away in your basement? Are you somewhere in the middle? I'd love to hear what y'all think about this.

59 comments :

  1. I agree, it is a little scary how dependent we are on electricity. After I read The World as We Knew It I thought about how unlikely it is that I would survive the same circumstances as the family in the book (no electricity, clouds of ash blocking the sun, harsh winter beginning in August, a pandemic). Her house had some helpful features like a wood stove, and she was able to take food from an elderly neighbor's home when she passed away.

    I keep some water in the basement (plus there's the rain barrel and nearby pond if things get desperate) but food would be my biggest concern. I have some canned goods, but I don't have the skills of people living in the past who lived their whole lives (and prepared for every winter) without electricity.

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    1. Oh no... disaster books as well as disaster movies? I think I may be sunk! I agree that most of us simply don't have the skills that our ancestors took for granted.

      I was chatting with CatMan about this and he said something like "Well, if you got desperate, you could always build a wood burning stove." And I'm thinking... oh yeah... I'll just whip out my stove building manual...

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    2. True... but if there's no power grid, I can't exactly go look it up online... I suppose one could print it out and save it just in case.

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  2. We follow the guidelines put out by different agenices both national and local about what should be in our emergency preparedness kit. But none of those are made for long term disasters. Just a week or two. We have non perishable food, drinking water, other water (in 30 gallon trash can) to flush and do other things (no electricity=no water well pump), first aid kit, weather radio with flash light (hand crank), can also plug cell phone into this for charging, emergency money, cat food, litter, 4 cat carriers in case we evaculate, a notebook that has important important papers, and I'm not sure what else. I'd have to go to the basement to look. However, the problem with all of this is every few years, we put a big effort to securing our emergency supplies, then they are out of sight, out of mind. We don't rotate the food in and out regularly and check everything on a regular basis (not even once a year sometimes). Need to put this task on my to do list.

    If we have a huge disaster, all bets are off. Things will change in ways we can't imagine and that we can't prepare for. I can't control that kind of a situation or do anything about it, so I try not to worry about the big ones. I just prepare for what is somewhat in my control. However, I am fascinated by the Preppers. Have you seen that show?

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    1. Oh yes... failing to rotate the food stock... I've been there! The thing is, I just don't like to eat much canned food, so in order to rotate it, I'd have to change my diet more than I really would like to. Hmmm... would I rather be prepared for an emergency, or eat a lot of BPA. I suppose I could donate it to a food bank every year or so, but that sorta seems silly. Sigh.

      Anyhow, I think you're right, in the event of a really big disaster, all bets are off.

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    2. And if there's a TV show about preppers, that alone may be enough to do me in... no disaster required! :-)

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  3. I have faith in man-kind and community. I think people would pull together to deal with it!

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    1. I would hope so. I mean, in small disasters like blizzards, that's certainly what happens. Seems like a much better option than roving bands of cannibals or something! :-)

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  4. I periodically obsess about surviving disaster, and look for supplies online – a water purifier capable of purifying several gallons of water at a time from a nearby creek (very expensive), a solar oven, a large supply of dried & canned food, etc. But I’ve never actually bought any of these things. My condo is tiny, and I don’t have much storage space.

    The websites that sell supplies are often associated with survivalist groups, so I read that stuff and realize I will never have the resources to make myself self-sufficient over the long term to survive a power grid failure, the breakdown of society, the zombie apocalypse – whatever; and the odds of needing to be that prepared are very low. But then I didn’t know about that 12 percent chance of solar storm statistic! I can still be much better prepared than I am now for short-term disasters. I have kind of a list – several gallons of water, the water purifier, emergency medical supplies, an evacuation kit, a month’s supply of food for me and the cats. I just need to make the space for it and buy it all – one of my closets is now nearly empty from my periodic decluttering. I did click my way to the home-made solar oven directions, as I had already priced those online and would rather make one myself.

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    1. Ha! I spent several hours on Amazon.com researching all sorts of disaster supplies. This water purifier seems reasonably priced:
      http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00FM9OBQS/ref=ox_sc_act_title_3?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER

      The solar oven was pretty easy to make and much more reasonable than buying one, but I'm not sure I'd want to rely on it for all of my cooking needs. But it's much better than nothing!

      Anyhow, if you do fill a closet with supplies, be sure to rotate out things like water and food!

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  5. Those odds are crazy. 12% in the next twelve years is no real long shot.

    Oddly, my little Toyota Matrix has the ability to create electricity. Even without a battery, I can pop the clutch with the help of a hill or a few friends. Once running, it has a little outlet that I could run a small appliance from.I only bring it up since it seems that society would (after a short while) have the means to create some small amount of electricity. I have a lot of faith in people and society in a crisis.

    Our main concern is water. We have a little pump that we take camping. In a real pinch, we'd just filter the water out of Tempe Town Lake.

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    1. Actually, I think it was 12.3%, but who's counting? Anyhow, I think you're right that society would find a way to bring small amounts of electricity on line for essential services, and it's great that your car has that capacity. Of course, you'd have to find a way to power the car...

      Anyhow, I'm looking into getting one of those camping pumps. Seems like a small price to pay for some peace of mind.

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    2. Here's the one we use on the AT every year: http://www.highwaterfilters.com/Katadyn-Pocket-Microfilter-Water-Filter-p/8013618.htm?gclid=Cj0KEQjw6deeBRCswoauquC8haUBEiQAdq5zhzP5HcgVoiJnJrNyKjU6RntUWL6HAPkM4sbAqPqiyigaAoDo8P8HAQ

      It's not particularly cheap, but the filter lasts something like 100x longer than your typical water pump. Probably overkill, but in the case of a long term problem...

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    3. The Katadyn products all seem to be very highly rated, but I'm not sure I really want to spend that much for something I will most likely never use. I also like the fact that the Lifestraw model is gravity operated. I figure that in case of emergency I may need to save my strength for fighting off the zombies or something like that! :-)

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    4. I hear you. If you camp or backpack a lot, you'll probably get use out any filter you use. But my buddy's heard of a good filter that's a fraction of the cost...I'll try to find out the name.

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  6. We have adequate food for power outages and we have a generator (and the crank radio/flashlight thingamabobber), and our house has a fireplace, but it's really meant for minor emergencies, not major life-changing events. Living as close to Lake MI as we do, I'm hoping local agencies would find a way to get fresh water to us, but once the gasoline supply is used up, well, who knows? We do have about a month's worth of food stored away, but much of it is in the freezer, which requires electricity ...

    I read a book a couple of years ago--a true account of a modern young woman who was obsessed with the Little House on the Prairie books. She wanted to experience that lifestyle, and one of the things she did was to go on a weekend camping trip with her boyfriend. They went camping with a group of people they had never met and there were workshops in subjects like spinning wool. She and her boyfriend were bombarded with questions along the lines of "Are you ready when IT happens?" She was thinking, when what happens? She and her boyfriend finally put two and two together and realized it was a group of survivalists honing their skills for the weekend. In the book, she said that there seemed to be a lot of time spent learning to can butter, and her thought was, if I'm trying to survive some sort of horrific event, canned butter is not going to be on the top of my list of necessary foods. That part of the book cracked me up.

    We have a Dutch oven for camping--if you can build a fire anywhere, inside our out, you can cook a lot of food using coals from the fire. Just a thought. :)

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    1. Ha! Oh the essential skill of canning butter... I read some article on Huffington Post a few years ago - I can't remember the title, but it was something like. "Do you have essential DIY skills?" Anyhow, the title implied that the article was about survival skills, but when you read the thing it was stuff like how to make your own floating tea candles. In the comments section someone had written something like "Yes, I remember that time I was fending for myself out in the woods, and a floating tea candle really saved my butt." I thought I was gonna die laughing!

      Building a fire would be a really good idea, but I'm afraid wood would be in very short supply rather quickly...

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    2. You are right, especially since wood needs to be seasoned before it burns well. Also, with a fireplace, a lot of your house heat escapes through the chimney so you would want to wait to hit that point of "my house is colder without a fire than with one" (probably somewhere in the 40 degree range is my uneducated guess). My parents have a woodburning stove and it was a lifesaver for them last winter--most of lower Michigan had a terrible ice storm and they were without power for 8 days. They were able to keep their house warm and could cook on top of it--but they were running out of wood, fast. And yes, we offered on a daily basis to drive out and get them and let them stay with us, but they wouldn't leave their home (just in case you think I'm heartless!).

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    3. Did you watch the PBS series "Frontier House?" They basically took 3 modern families and had them live as pioneers would have. The experiment only lasted for a summer but they got "graded" by experts as to whether they would have survived the winter, and despite being told over and over by the experts, none of them had a woodpile that was even half big enough to have survived. And they were only trying to heat tiny cabins, not huge modern houses! I think it would take a LOT of wood to make it through an entire winter!

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    4. Yes, of course I saw it, you should know by now that I'm a PBS nerd. ;) The program's premise was interesting but it seemed to veer off from people preparing for winter and survival, getting caught up instead in marital drama and rich teens smuggling makeup into their cabin. PBS aired other similar series as well and I found the same thing to be true--more about people being hysterical instead of historical. But I do remember that no one was prepared with enough wood for winter in the Frontier House series.

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    5. Ha! I totally agree! I sorta came away from it (and 1900 House, and Colonial House - both of which I also watched) thinking that modern Americans, and I suppose Brits too, are all just spoiled, entitled brats. I'm remembering the scene in 1900 House where the woman was having a breakdown because she had trouble getting water to boil on a wood stove (or was it coal?) anyhow, her macaroni was ruined. Seriously? I mean, if people these days really can't handle the adversity of one pot of poorly cooked pasta, it really doesn't bode well for the future of this society.

      Although, I sorta wonder if the casting directors specifically choose people who would be "difficult" because it makes for more drama. I mean if their subjects just sorta dealt with stuff and took everything in stride, I suppose you could end up with boring television that wouldn't hold the attention of modern drama-hungry viewers. One can hope that was the case anyhow.

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  7. This is the scariest thing ever.

    I don't see making it. Even if you're prepared, if the neighbors find out, you're in trouble. Even if your city is prepared (with, say, lots of spare giant capacitors), again, everyone and their dog is going to be moving to your city (like they moved to California during the Dust Bowl).

    My boyfriend says we could walk down to the lake once a week (maybe ten miles) and pick up some water, then build a fire in the backyard to boil it. We don't have all that much wood or charcoal, even if no one steals it. We have an easy-to-climb chain link fence. He has guns, but not much ammunition.

    What you'd really want is some sort of hidden, well-locked shelter that your neighbors don't know about--and just expect your house to be broken into while you're gone.

    For regular short-term, local disasters, we have some water (much of it in the water heater), canned goods, and some cash money. I don't live in hurricane country anymore, so I can say I'd leave town if anything big happened. (For hurricanes, you can't leave town every time a hurricane might hit your city or you'll lose your job, and if you wait until it's definitely hitting, then it's too late--unless maybe you have a bicycle.)

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    1. Oh yes... the hungry droves roaming the streets, riots, violence, yadda, yadda, yadda. I go back and forth about that one. I'd like to think that people would pull together, but I suppose that might be too much to hope for. Have you seen the film "The Road"?
      http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0898367/

      I'd like to think people wouldn't resort to cannibalism, but I suppose desperate times call for desperate actions. If that were the case it might be preferable to check out early!

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    2. No, I have not seen that movie. It sounds depressingly realistic. But it also reminds me a little of the Louis L'amour books I'm reading--the author likes to go on about the difference between law and the lack of it. With law, you can go about your life without worrying about certain things. Without it, you've always got to have a weapon, be paying attention, and if you don't stand up for yourself, you're doomed.

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    3. Ha! I think I read something once - can't remember the details, but it was some scientist theorizing that part of what allowed early humans to evolve beyond other species was that they did a better job of keeping their bullies in check. I thought it was an interesting take.

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    4. Yes, that's interesting!

      Today I was realizing that even in my modern law-abiding culture, I still have to pay attention sometimes--while approaching a closed door in public places where someone might open it into me, going around corners, and of course driving.

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  8. I'm the opposite of a prepper. We usually run out of food the day the storm hits so I'm one of the crazy hoards stalking empty shelves. We get the odd power outage so I do have a propane heater (which is scary and I haven't used in two years), a crank radio and some battery powered lantern/lights. Plus a tons of candles, but they weren't bought for emergency purposes. And I have a gas water heater and stove, so barring a major disaster we have hot water and can use the stove. But I store next to no water (we drink from the tap, so buying water seems cumbersome) and I'm terrible about keeping a lot of nonperishable food around. I think if something really bad happens, we're all screwed.

    p.s. Does anyone else using a tablet have issues commenting? Something always happens and it eats my comment, or I can't finish it or whatever. Nothing to do with your blog ECL, happens every time I try to comment with my ipad on any site. So annoying.

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    1. I don't do bottled water either. I just save old wine bottles (I drink cheap wine with screw on caps) I wash them out and fill them with tap water. The trick is to remember to dump and replace the water every 6 months or so.

      I sorta can't imagine running out of food. I think I'm down to a few month's supply but seriously, I may be on the verge of having a hoarding problem there. I guess having spent the first few years of my adult life living beneath the poverty level taught me that I NEVER want to run out of food!

      And I have no clue about the tablet thing - I have one, but I find it pretty much useless because I can't stand those on screen keyboards. Have you tried the blogger help forum? I did a quick Google search and found one person who says that "downloading the Opera web browser app" solved her problem. Hope that helps!

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  9. We always have loads of food on hand since that is the way we shop,so we only have to buy items when they are on sale.
    The secret to having a food stash is to only buy what you will eat. Having 20 cans of pinto beans ready for the zombie apocalypse is useless unless you like pinto beans and eat them all the time.
    Stock up on the food you like and will eat and date it so it will get rotated out of your pantry.In the summer we get a lot of our fresh food from the garden.
    I don't stock up on water, perhaps I should, but we live close to a river and we have 2 rain barrels and we don't live in a drought prone region. I have read up on ways to purify water and I have the info on hand and I will eventually get the chemicals to do it.The heating bit will be a problem as we live where the winters get cold and don't have an alternative form of heating.

    Solar super storms etc. don't scare me The economic collapse and climate collapse will be our future challenges and I believe that will not happen overnight and there will be some time to prepare and get used to a new way of living
    Marieann

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    1. Ha! Yes... stocking up on stuff you don't eat anyway is a losing proposition! Learned that one the hard way. My problem is that I just don't eat canned foods - I really try to avoid exposure to BPA because I suffer from terrible migraines caused by fluctuations in estrogen levels, and since BPA mimics estrogen... anyhow, I have many fewer migraines when I avoid canned foods. I also don't eat a lot in the way of wheat or grains or legumes... just because my body doesn't react to them very well. So for me it's a question of whether it's worth it to have foods on hand for an emergency that I probably wouldn't eat regularly.

      Anyhow, I think you're right that in the broad scheme of things, a solar super storm is probably pretty low on the list of things to worry about. What's that T.S. Eliot quote? "This is the way the world ends, not with a bang but a whimper."

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    2. Would you be able to get food in jars. I know there are some brands of tomato sauce here in glass jars. Have you ever done your own canning. I do the water bath method but the pressure cooker can do veggies and more. I have a huge supply of tomatoes I canned last year so I won't be doing those this year.
      I also do jams.
      Marieann

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    3. Well... I'm sorta terrified of home canning. I have a deep and abiding fear of botulism! For years I put up tomatoes in the freezer, but then the tomatoes failed 2 summers in a row - first it was too hot for them to set on any fruit, then it was too wet and they all got a blight. Anyhow, I've resorted to using canned tomatoes for cooking and nothing terrible has happened.

      I suppose I could look for other canned foods commercially available in jars, but I've never really seen them. Maybe I just need to strike a balance between NO canned foods and some, and just keep a small supply on hand.

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    4. More and more things are available in glass jars. The world keeps changing!

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  10. I was going to comment sooner, but then I got distracted looking up the scientific paper, which was harder than it should be because the NASA press release got the publication date wrong (it's actually two years old). That 12% may be the best guess, but it really is a guess. Their calculations are based on extrapolation, which as my PhD supervisor patiently explained to me once, is not generally considered an acceptable scientific method.

    Anyhow, preparedness... um, no, not really. Not beyond a few days' power cut, anyway. We do have a wood burning stove (and yes, it takes a LOT of wood to get through the winter) and bottled gas for cooking, so that would be OK for a while. I'm not sure how our water is delivered, but I think it's by gravity. If not, we'd have to rely on boiling water from the stream. As for food, I don't keep a bit stockpile - maybe a month or two's worth. I like the idea of self-suffiency, so I'm working to increase how much I can grow and find from the wild, but I know that realistically, I couldn't live on what I can forage. I think our best bet is being friends with the local farmers.

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    1. OK, now your response surprises me. Of all the people I "know" I would think that you could weather this sort of thing the best... home made solar panels and all. Perhaps your experiments in self-sufficiency have given you a more realistic picture of what it would be like than most of us have.

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    2. Preparedness just isn't a thing in this country. We get occasional glimpses of American preppers and think they're nuts. As for all the guns... sheesh! Totally outside our cultural framework.

      It's the guns that really make the whole stockpiling thing unrealistic. If I had a year's worth of canned food, would I really defend it with a gun if my neighbours were hungry? Not a chance. I'd rather invest in my skills and my relationships with my neighbours, and hope that if it came to it, we'd be able to get through it together.

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    3. Ha! It always cracks me up to see the prevalence of shootouts in post-apocalyptic movies - well, that and motorcycles. I'm always thinking: where, exactly are these post-apocalyptic Hell's Angels cowboys getting their ammunition and gasoline?

      I think the whole "prepper" phenomenon is probably uniquely American. My guess is that comes from a combination of deep mistrust of the government along with somewhat unrealistic ideas about how "independent" we are. I dunno... perhaps a disaster would bring out the worst in people, but tend to think it would be the opposite. I hope so anyhow!

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    4. There certainly does seem to be a strong assumption here that the government would sort things out. Memories of WWII are strong, with rationing, campaigns to "Dig for Victory" and the blitz spirit. I also agree that people would probably pull together rather than fighting. I'm sure there'd also be a lot of people trying to take advantage of the situation, but in a more underhand, less obviously violent way.

      Have you seen, "Sean of the Dead?" It's a very British comedy apocalypse movie. I don't know how well the humour travels, but we think it's hilarious.

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    5. I love British comedies... well, the parts I can understand. I sometimes have difficulty with the accents. But I've added it to my Netflix cue.

      I'm trying to imagine what it must be like to live in a place where people didn't consider the government to be the enemy. Sigh.

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  11. This is an interesting article. Regardless of the 12% chance of this one time event, we are headed for energy and water problems in the future. I worked with a climate change specialist who was getting off the grid with solar power, gardening and water collection/filtering. Beyond just collecting non-perishable foods and bottled water, I think everyone needs to find out if they are truly resilient for the future.

    You might be interested in this article: http://greengirlsuccess.com/2014/07/14/are-you-resilient/

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    1. Thanks for your thoughts. I think in terms of the areas you mentioned I'm much better off than most folks would be. No debt, ridiculously small living expenses (could get by on around $10K annually in a pinch), good health (cycle 100 miles per week), gardening skills, do all my own cooking, yadda, yadda, yadda. Denver's climate would be a challenge though in the case of a major disaster. But I love my little home town too much to ever consider leaving.

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  12. Hmm...we don't usually get much exciting weather (snow perhaps 2inches max; no hurricanes/tornados; driest part of the UK) so preparedness for disaster is minimal.
    Water- we have a water butt, which holds quite a bit of water. Once that was gone, though, we'd be a bit stuck until it next rained, as we don't have any particularly convenient rivers etc.
    We have a BBQ for cooking- perhaps I should learn to make charcoal?!
    Heating- could probably manage without (we did for a few days one winter when the boiler broke). Luckily, as a knitter, I have many warm woollen things!
    My parents (who live nearby) have solar panels- assuming the panels survived, we could get electricity there. They also have an open fire..so my plan is just to move in with them!

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    1. Wow... your climate sounds sort idyllic! You definitely couldn't make it through a winter here without heat. Non unless you had some sort of a crazy efficient passive solar thing goin'.

      I've been thinking about getting a small outdoor BBQ. I'm not sure how much I would use it, but it would be nice to have in case of an emergency.

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    2. I don't imagine no heat would be much fun- though when my parents moved into their house (built in the 1960s/70s) the main source of heat was a small fireplace in the living room..the historic house I used to work in still had people living in it- there would be frost on the inside of the windows in winter, and a pint of water left by the bed would freeze solid overnight...(mostly because there was very little insulation).

      Not sure what my point is with that..erm...maybe just that a small coal or wood fire would make the house ok. Or just sleep with dogs on the bed! (I've camped halfway up a mountain in October with no fire, though, so my idea of 'warm' might be skewed!)

      I think our pleasant climate is due to being an island, and possibly also the Gulf Stream, which keeps us toasty in winter. Other parts of the country if have more snow and flooding, though. Main threat in East Anglia, where I am, is rising sea levels...not sure bulk buying canned food etc will stave off the North Sea, unfortunately :)

      The BBQ is just the right size for two if us- perfect for when we spontaneously decide to chargrilled food!

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    3. Gosh... if water would freeze inside, how is it that the pipes didn't freeze and burst? That's the main concern here in the winter if the heat goes out. Of course our average nightly low temperature in December and January is around 16F (-9C) and it sometimes gets down as low as -20F (-29C). I guess our extreme temperature are due to having no bodies of water around to moderate it... but hey, at least we don't have to worry about sea levels rising! :-)

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    4. I think they put hefty insulation around the pipes..and I think the water freezing issue was due to one badly insulated room with a very thin roof!

      Luckily we are not that close to the sea, so will get a bit of warning- enough time to move to higher ground (Scotland- it has mountains!)

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    5. Well... I don't envision sea level rise as something that happens quickly, so sounds like you'd be safe! :-)

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  13. I do not think anything like that will ever happen, but ...

    If it really gets that bad, you better be prepared to defend yourself. There will be a bunch of people, especially in the cities, that will make it a point to steal when they need from others.

    I have a few days of hings to eat. It might not be the first choice, but it would get me through most anything. And enough water for a few days. After that, it's time to go find 'stuff'.

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    1. Well, not to be alarmist, but I'm not so sure that it won't happen. In 1859 there was a massive solar storm known today as the Carrington Event that knocked out what few electrical systems were in place and even caused some telegraph offices to explode.
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_storm_of_1859

      If something like that happened today, it would be pretty devastating. Anyhow, I did break down and buy a water filtering system, but you're right... that won't protect me from wandering droves of starving people!

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  14. I love post-apocalyptic movies, TV shows and books, so do spend some time thinking (and weirdly dreaming) about how I would cope with it. I also live in a climate where you don't need heating or air conditioning, so that would be okay.

    However, I don't have any kind of water stockpile. I have enough food in the house to last a couple of weeks because I am a food hoarder, and I have a camping stove that I guess I could cook it on if the power was off.

    Brisbane tends to flood. I haven't been living in the city when we had floods, but I guess if it happened again, I would fill up the bathtub and as many containers as possible with clean water and then start eating up as much food as possible before the power goes off.

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    1. Flooding is unusual here in Colorado - though we got a taste of it last fall with the historic floods that wiped out bridges and highways across the state. But high ground is pretty easy to find here, and since I live on top of a big hill, it's not something I worry that much about.

      I do think that you're fortunate in terms of climate. It would be very bad if there was a widespread loss of power and infrastructure when it was 20 below zero!

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  15. First there is a program about preppers, I don't remember the name of it though. I saw the article about the flare just missing us and it went on to say this usually happens about every 150 years, we are overdue for one. I've thought a lot about sustainability and surviving an economic crisis. For the moment I live in a suburban area with only a small population, although it doubles when the university is open. I have the garden out back, but there are no fences to protect it from looters. I also have a lake across the street and have been thinking about purchasing a lifestraw, but one thing that has held me back is the fine print which says it will purify the water but not change the taste of the lake water. I guess gross tasting water is better than nothing.

    I have finally come to the conclusion that I can not prepare for every and all disasters and it's more important to have some supplies but to build community around me for both protection and to have people to barter and share with.

    The biggest store of food I keep here are dried beans and while I would need water, this summer I could easily survive on the rain we've been having, it would get me by along with growing more greens and adding root vegetables to my indoor winter plants.

    I don't have a way to stay warm at this point either, but should there be a solar flare that knocks everything out I will chop some of the trees outside and use the metal trash can I store bird seed in to have an indoor fire I guess. But while this town has a lot of trees if everyone planned to chop down the trees we wouldn't survive more than a winter or two.

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    1. I found the Preppers show online - it's called Doomsday Preppers, but you have to enter your payTV subscription info in order to be able to watch it. Saved from myself once again!

      Anyhow, you are totally right that there is no way to prepare for any and all possible horrible things that could occur. I did buy a Lifestraw though - didn't read the fine print about the taste issue. But I think you could run the water through a simple carbon filter (like a Brita) after you'd removed anything dangerous to improve the taste. Not that I own a Brita - but maybe one could rig something with the faucet filters that I keep on hand. Although I think if things got to that point water taste would be pretty low on the list of priorities!

      Building a fire inside is an interesting idea, but you'd have to have a chimney or some sort of a vent wouldn't you? Otherwise wouldn't you just fill the room with smoke and/or carbon monoxide and suffocate? Looking on the bright side, suffocation would make being cold seem like less to worry about! :-)

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  16. I'm probably the opposite of a prepper, too...in Australia, we can live just fine without heating in the winter (just put on an extra layer.) And aircon is a luxury we can also live without if need be. Water is a tricky one.

    I think we could happily live off local water supplies - disinfecting water with bleach. Food is the toughest part of the equation. If it was a proper doomsday scenario, we'd get out of town and do our best at 'living off the land'. Coming from a farm as kids, we were taught to hunt, trap and fish with minimal equipment. But extrapolate by milllions upon millions of people....it would be a very sad scenario indeed.

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    1. OK... I have to say that the phrase "proper doomsday scenario" had me laughing out loud! Perhaps this is just a language usage thing, but to me the word "proper" conjures up images of men in tuxedos and top hats sipping tea or something like that. So the gears in my brain were making some awful noise trying to mesh the words "proper" and "doomsday"!

      Anyhow, I think you're right... I can imagine a bunch of ways that CatMan and I could survive if it was just us doing it - but if there were millions of other people trying to do the same thing, the picture gets a lot more scary.

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  17. lol! Now that's made me want to attend Doomsday in nothing but one-and-only gold, floor-length gown. At least I'll go out in style!

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  18. Not sure if you read Sarah's blog, but she just posted about her disaster prep classes/observations on a recent trip to Japan that I thought you might find interesting :)

    http://www.livetolist.com/travel-2/disaster-learnings-japan/

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  19. So many comments! I want to read them all but I have to get home. Anyhoo, I too am obsessed with disaster movies! And paranoid as hell about TEOTHAWKI. I would be fine at my mom's--she is frequently without electricity, etc. But she's got a well with year-round water, plenty of land to grow food on, etc. I think cities will be terrifying to live in during a crisis. It's something I struggle with too. I can't afford to pick up and build myself a little off-grid home. So, how the hell do I manage this? I don't have any answers yet. Just temporary solutions, and lord knows I've read a few books about it.

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