anon-ymous99
7 hours ago
“I got a year’s MREs stored in my basement, a 2500 gallon plastic clean water tank, rice, beans, antibiotics, medical supplies and tools. Whadda YOU got?”
“Not much. Just a rifle, and your address.” //

mikwcas DaveM
3 hours ago
I'd be happy to make it a month in a SHTF scenario. Other than that I am not even supposed to be of this present kingdom so I should win out anyhow. Just a thought. //

Min Headroom llme
6 hours ago
There’s at least two kinds of go-prep, as compared to hunker down prep:

• Movie type wide area apocalypse in which urbanites head for the boonies they aren’t prepared for and will be unwelcome in.

• Neighborhood or at most city wide disasters that need evacuating.

The latter includes things like local wild fires that rip through a neighborhood, hurricanes, floods, etc. This is the kind where driving 20 - 200 miles (if one can) will generally get one out of the disaster area, and “living off the land” can be as simple as using a credit card in a roadside diner. While it’s possible to be prepared for the latter with as little as a full gas tank and a credit card, it would likely be a lot easier with a go bag suitable for living a week or two in motels, shelters or whatever, and a big variable in what that includes would depend on the region. For example, being prepared for an emergency road trip in an Idaho winter (or Iowa’s either for that matter), is somewhat different from a road trip fleeing a Gulf coast location in the summer ahead of a hurricane.

In the latter kind of scenario, the advantage comes from being first out the door before the highways jam and/or whatever the disaster is catches up. So having a mind set and a prep that enables just grab and run is what’s needed. I grant this sort of prepping and disaster isn’t as exciting as a zombie apocalypse, but it’s a good deal more likely, and, good news, more survivable. //

TheOtherOne
7 hours ago
Well said. Preparing for an event (tornado, earthquake, hurricane) is doable and a good target. But a cataclysmic life altering event where society collapses? You can’t store enough water or food to wait it out. I’m hoping to go in the first wave personally. //

Louise1
6 hours ago edited
I try to buy emergency food that I don't have to cook. (Either the company selling the food has cooked it, or the food can be eaten raw.) Mountain House says you can eat their food (at least the stuff that I've bought) without cooking it. You soak it in cold water for twice the time that you'd soak it in boiling water.

Make sure that you store enough water to re-hydrate dried or freeze-dried food, besides storing drinking and cleaning water.

I have some prepared meals, like Mountain House meals. I can eat maybe one of them a day. But most are way too salty to eat nothing but them for a week or a month.

So most of my emergency food is canned, dried or freeze-dried fruit, vegetables, TVP, and food from Ready Harvest / Food Storage Depot. (I don't have to cook the TVP that I get.) No canned soup or chili; too salty.

I emailed Ready Harvest / Food Storage Depot customer service, and a lady replied:

Most of our products are 25-30 year shelf life with a couple exceptions. And you are right, we may not have fuel to heat up our foods. That is why we carry what we have in the store. All our products but popcorn and eggs can be eaten right out of the can. Some items require longer soaking in water, but all will soften even with cold water. I did a test with Belgian pasta. I heated the water in the microwave to just about boiling and then put the noodles in. They were perfect within 10 minutes. The pasta soaked in cold fridge water was done within 35 minutes. Beans/Potatoes took 2 to 3 hours with room temperature water. The rice 4 or 5 hours room temperature water. If you have hot water 20 minutes.

If it's an emergency, and I have to eat my emergency food, then the power probably will be out. So I won't be able to cook my food. So I want not-too-salty food that I don't have to cook.