What are you prepping for?

[transformer84]

you can only prep for every eventuality with a very large credit card, im just trying to give myself a comfortable time of self reliance.

when i read the zombie survival guide and my mind wasnt drawn to the differences between availible fire power when compared to the states, but to where to bug out too... were such a small and over populated island in any disaster (a more realistic prolonged civil unrest for example), if i needed to bug out, where too? i live in south yorkshire, we have vast areas of green beauty... but if enough people took to the hills, there would not be enough room... scotland, the highlands... but how many people will think of that? i cant think of anywhere to run and settle down too... nomadic?

[bulldogeagle]

you can only prep for every eventuality with a very large credit card, im just trying to give myself a comfortable time of self reliance.

when i read the zombie survival guide and my mind wasnt drawn to the differences between availible fire power when compared to the states, but to where to bug out too... were such a small and over populated island in any disaster (a more realistic prolonged civil unrest for example), if i needed to bug out, where too? i live in south yorkshire, we have vast areas of green beauty... but if enough people took to the hills, there would not be enough room... scotland, the highlands... but how many people will think of that? i cant think of anywhere to run and settle down too... nomadic?

not many people will know where to run to, so they'll just run around in ever decreasing circles and panicking! you have the time, now, because you are prepping, to sort yourself out somewhere to go, the first thing is to get a map of your area and study it, find some likely looking spot on the map, and go and look at it,does it have a building you can use? what about trees for firewood? any clean water source? how far from a road?is that road used a lot/seldom/or not very much? dont stop at 1 location, find 2 or 3 just in case the first one becomes compromised, then make notes on your map where things are, farms, machinery,fuel tanks, coal, timber, anything you could use in an emergency.

[Ian]

Why not dig out the Risk Register for your area? A quick look will tell you all you need. There will be one and it is public domain so just ask your local emergency planning department.

Here is the one for the Thames Valley:

http://www.thamesvalleylrf.org.uk/getas ... mode=asset

I had input to this document, so it must be good.

[Huntsman]

upcoming economic collapse leading to wide spread rioting and civil unrest, a nuclear incident in the uk would be devastating so in some ways i prepare for that (gieger counter, nbc equipment, potasium iodide), not having time to go shopping and being really hungry... etc
really i prepare to survive to the best of my abilities. my preps are my life assurance, i do not setup my preps to assure life in one or two circumstance but to assure my life under all circumstances.

[tigs]

personally i think we are all prepping for the unknow ! it could be one event or a collection of events, natural disaster, man made a combo of both! who knows. Its like the old boy scout saying be prepared , we all hope it never happens but if it does we are ready or as ready as we can be , its like life or accident insurance

[spindrift]

Hi everyone, and apologies if this is the wrong catagory or its already been done to death. I suck with the search function

But what kind of events are people planning for? I have to admit that im pretty new to the whole thing, and as such am simply stockpiling food and some basic supplies. And in my part of the country we dont really have any real extremes of anything. Sure a slight snow flurry shuts down the roads for a bit. Flash floods hit but i live on a hill, and we are at the top of the rain catchment area so the flooding is short lived. I get the whole thing about EMP, solar flares ect but dont really think thats too much of a threat. This doesnt mean I dont prepare for it though. I dont live near any power stations or anything that could go boom and render my area unlivable. So my thoughts were geared towards short to medium term civil unreast, harsh economic times and the need to bug in. In short, if ive got food, shelter, water and very little debt so felt pretty much bomb proof. Then I read the following article on an American prepper site (www.survivalcache.com) and it took the wind out of my sails.

"If the volcanoes really blow in Iceland it's going to kill the harvest here for a year or two in most of West Europe, and bring very long and particularly cold winters (like it did in 1783 during the time of Louis XVI, one of the longest and coldest winters in Europe on record....) Also, the volcanic debris could virtually stop transport by air for an extended period.....

http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/s...ano/50750556/1 "

We in the UK rarely have to deal with anything truely apocolyptic. The odd landslide, twisters ripping garage roofs off, tiny tremors. A tidal wave reaching me here in Pendle would signal game over for the whole uk, so I tended not to worry.

Thanks to Itsybitsy for pointing me to the write topic

[Maddie_cat]

I did do a MARVELLOUS reply to this post. It was erudite, witty, scholastic and a general masterpiece. Save it got lost in the system so now you will have to make do with this version....

This is a really hard question to answer as my reasons for prepping have evolved. I am, by nature, a hoarder so my food stores have built up as a result of that - a security blanket I suppose. I have then evolved into self sufficiency but over time, that has developed into prepping for a reason.

My reason for prepping is that I believe there will be a financial and economic collapse and it will come sooner rather than later. To see economies in the EU in virtual collapse (Greece, Spain, Ireland etc) is very worrying. Although we are nominally part of the EU and we have been told that the UK will NOT provide any further monies to support these failing economies, my view is that by being linked to these countries, we will be affected and it will affect our economy. Even the US is not able to avoid the problems: there have been various towns in California over the past few months that have filed for bankruptcy.

I also have grave concerns about the current weather patterns. With the terrible summer we are currently having, I can see food prices rocketing. I am hoping my food stores will give me a buffer against that.

But if it does go pear-shaped, I can see a societal collapse, - riots etc. Just look at how quickly the riots started last year and does anyone really remember why it started? If we are lucky, there will be sufficient superstructure to contain the riots but I suspect that as prices increase, riots will start all over the place leading to wholesale collapse.

That is the reason I prep - plus of course the imminent Zombie invasion!

[dazz675]

ive always hoarded batteries and salmon(call me john west ) but there are other potential societal crisis, euro , peak oil, volcanoes super one in yellowstone, imagine any of thes happening together? If a crisis does emerge dependant upon the extent and effectiveness of your prepping you get that amount of breathing space to plan. I have not yet really started prepping in a organised way, going to start with water though and maybe a camping stove. i hope it doesnt but if the proverbial hits the fan, a lot of people are in for a rude awakening.....just my ten penneth

[Dr_zoidberg]

Specific scenarios I'm prepping for. Most can be prepared for in a similar way really. Trying to develop the knowledge, skills, supplies and ability to survive without the grid for a couple years.

My main concern is an economic crisis of some kind. Mainly related to the Euro collapsing and sparking a world wide bank run and hyperinflation. Thus making money worthless and given that the UK imports everything we'd be screwed. The Euro collapse could just be the start of the next war in Europe. Here's for staying positive anyway...

Other things similar to this could be a collapse in the food supply (the Irish potato famine killed 1 million Irish people) or an oil crisis caused by war in Iran.

Second would be a high altitude Electro-Magnetic Pulse attack by a rouge nation like Iran or North Korea. Where a nuclear weapon is detonated at say 200 to 300 miles above the earth would destroy all electrical items within a radius of 1000 miles around the detonation.

A nuclear terrorist attack on London with a stolen or improvised nuclear weapon (its a case of when and not if as far as I'm concerned). The resulting fallout would make large parts of southern England uninhabitable. A nuclear power station melting down is not really a concern of mine.

A solar storm like that of 1859 would create massive geomagnetic currents that would burn out the power grid for years which mimics the effects of the later stages of an EMP.

There's also the possibility of some kind of pandemic sweeping the globe. Avoiding contact with other people until the plague has run its course is key to survival.

There's also the possibility of the Yellowstone super-volcano erupting and causing a global famine and winters like nothing in the industrial age.

Most of my survival strategies are more about fortifying my house, lying low and scavenging in the urban jungle rather than heading for the countryside. In an island as small and overpopulated as ours my guess is the countryside would be more crowded than the city's.

[PreppingPingu]

I prep for social and ecomomic reasons. I prep for me and my immediately family. As mentioned in another thread, it was the unemployment bit that came true for our family. But I take seriously adverse weather, pandemics - (surely we are over due for one in our over crowed world?) and for any future ecomomic reasons. I say prep, but I use the term loosely as I suppose I dabble with prepping really. 3 months worth of food will help but I don't have that much water and I am not self-sufficient - would like to be - but am not self-sufficient from a fuel or food point of view. So I prep to make me feel better about myself and my life. I joined the forum to get ideas and information so I feel better prepared for what ever the future throws at me. (Thats part of the battle after all.) Another thing that I am preping for is to learn new skills or re-learn old skills lost in the modern way of life that in a SHtF senario will be useful once more.