Any Preppers in the House?

Go to Walmart and buy a single package of Mountain House and try it. It is very expensive if you wanted to buy a year supply, but manageable for 72 hours. Mountain House are considered the premium in the freeze dried foods. But like someone else suggested, the best food is to store and rotate foods that you like from the grocery store.

Another option are the SOS Ration Bars. They are actually really good. They taste like Granola bars. They have a 5 year shelf life (Walmart sells them for $11 a package), but there are places here in town that you can get two packages for like $18). No water, no cooking, and you can store them in just about any temperature. The Coast Guard and others use them in their emergency kits.

Water is definitely key. It is all about how you store it though.

I could go on and on. This is a hobby of mine. The term "prepper" gets a lot of negative hype, but there is nothing to wrong with being prepared so that you can provide for your family. Look at Venezuela right now. Turkey is in chaos this morning. But it can also be simple things. Here in KC you risk a Train Derailment with Hazard Waste, Tornadoes, Ice Storms wiping out power lines, a Nuclear accident at one of the power plants, and some debate about the New Madrid Earthquake. There are several groups on Facebook in this area that are about preparedness. There are several groups around town (you can find them on FB) where you will find people ranging from ones that just want to know what to store for 72 hours to ones that want to be prepared for zombies. The people watching alone can be entertaining sometimes.

The two indepensible things you need; knowledge and a plan. Getting everything together is part of the plan and knowing what is important is the plan. I'm not going to tell you about long term (years) survival because no one really can unless you're willing and able to spend a lot of time and money. It will become a lifestyle which will include what work you do, where you live, how you live, and who your friends will be. The vast majority of people will not or cannot do it.
Short term (months) is something else. Forget survival food. Most canned goods have an expired date either two or three years down the road and they are good for longer than that. Stock up and rotate through your stock. Dry goods have a long lifetime; beans, flour, spaghetti noodles. Just stock up and put them in something to keep the moisture away. Luxuries: coffee, tea, toliet paper, tobacco, liquor, sweets can be used for barter, favors, or just something to treat yourself with. WATER, WATER, WATER maybe the most useful short term and long term thing you can have; clean, pure water. You can go to the store and buy five gallon bottles of water or you can go to TSC and buy a 500 gallon tank to put in your backyard or basement. No big secret. Have some smaller containers (non breakable) for carrying it around with you. Heat...gas, electric, wood, charcoal, clothing. You don't know when you'll need this stuff; January or July. Speaking of July; refrigeration and air conditioning. This means you need electricity. Some people will die from lack of cooling after a tornado in 100 degree heat. There are gasoline electric generators that you can get for a few hundred dollars, natural gas generators that cost more and need to be permanently mounted. How big you want to get is up to you.
Bringing up a large generator or air conditioning; do you intent to stay in place? If the civil authority coming back after a few days, will services be back after a couple of weeks? Do you want to be able to move or do you have to stay put.
You can spend your money on a vehicle (four wheel drive, good engine and chassis) or you can walk out. If things are really bad then others will want your vehicle and what you have on board. Try to avoid a red Jeep. Walking out is slow, quiet, and limits how much you can bring. Here's an idea that I've been working on....boating. This area (Kansas City) is cut with creeks, rivers, and streams. Have a canoe of some sort. You can plan ahead with bundles of supplies and have a starting point in mind. You can drive (if you're lucky, you're close enough to drag) to a water entry point. With a canoe you can carry anywhere from 50 to 200 lbs of stuff with you. You'll be quite, you'll be low, and even if you become incapacitied from wounds or sleep you'll continue making progress.
If you're going to elect to move, then have a place to go. Don't just think you're going to wander the frontier like David Carradine. Have a cache of supplies some place safe away from the city. They can be buried, they can be in an old root cellar, they can be in your other house (if you have that kind of money) but plan ahead.
Finally, weapons. In a situation like this someone is going to want what you have and how far are they willing to go to get it. In Florida when I was living there, Hurrican Hugo hit and after a few days (fewer than would surprise you) armed gangs started moving around taking what they wanted. You didn't hear too much about them because the loss of life was very small but a lineman was robbed at gun point as he hung from a pole trying to restore power. Another man was almost robbed when he was clearing brush in the street with a chainsaw. The three punks didn't know about the pistol he had holstered at his waist. It cost of them his life.
Get something you know how to use. A .22 rifle is good for hunting small game, a .22 pistol can be used for self protection. .22 are small, light, inexpensive, and plentiful. A shotgun has many purposes including self defense and hunting. Want something bigger for targets farther away? There are gun companies that make survival rifles that have multiple barrels for .22, 20 gauge, and .243. For less than 400 dollars you can have the services of all three. If you want to play soldier though, the AK 47 or AR 15 variants is where you're heading. Forget submachine guns. They're not reall machine guns and they're only useful for gang bangers. A bolt action hunting rifle is better. If you want to carry multiple (they're heavy) weapons then pick a good handgun (.22, 9mm, or .45 ACP), a good rifle (.22, .223, 30-06, 30/30), a good carbine (9mm or 45 ACP), or a good shotgun (20 or 12 gauge). Have a cleaning kit and plenty of ammunition. The government is not going to provide any in a short term situation and there will be no more made in a long term situation.
Finally the dark areas. I'm not recommending this, nor do I wish to practice this but it is out there. If you don't have the money then you may have to take what you want from those who already have it. The guy a couple of streets over has a really good SUV perfect for your purposes, you know someone who has a vacation cabin near the lake, that house in the woods that you drive past every so often would be perfect hideaway. Know how to fly a plane? The airport is the perfect place to get out of Dodge if you're traveling light. No, I'm not talking about an airliner. I'm talking about a single engine Cessna. The kind you see hangared around most suburban airports.
How far are you willing to go? How about a fantasy scenario? You borrow a large bus or RV from some dealership, head for the local college, find some nursing students and tell them, "if you want to live then come with me". You, your supplies, your RV, and your girls can ride off into the thermonuclear sunset.


I suggest heading west away from civilization and fallout.

There are a lot of good suggestions here. Mountain House is good. A few food items and a mini stove packed in with my gear: I am ready to leave.

Do you ever feel that you just have to get some space, to get away from everyone and have some peace. Ever feel like you are in danger of blowing up at your friends or family.

Take a break. Get away. I keep a bag packed at all times, just like the times I could be called in an instant to go somewhere for business. I called it my AWOL bag (as in absent without leave - from the old military days). It just has the essentials to grab it and go. I second bags ready to go with my fishing gear. I can be as a trout stream within three hours (Bennett Springs or the White River in about 4 hours). Two more bags are already packed with enough camping gear for a week.

If you don't like fishing, or camping, the same get away bags apply if you want to go get a hotel. What are the essentials you need so you don't need a lot of packing time.

Just grab and leave.

JR

I forgot to add; a good knife or two and a tool set. Plus don't forget your meds.

The best food for an emergency situation is food you already know and love. Cup o' noodles, instant oatmeal, CLIF bars, jerky, trail mix, fruit cups, instant mashed potatoes, canned tuna or chicken, powdered drink mixes, etc... All are lightweight, inexpensive, and easy to prepare. I can't have commercially produced camping meals because they are full of nitrates and I kind of try to die, so I stick to what I know. Originally Posted by Ginger Snap

Your examples are nice but how long can you live with them? Protein bars and Pop Tarts would be a logical choice too but look at the expiration dates. Not much!

Anyway, the reason I asked all this is from last summer when the power went out in the neighborhood I lived. My street was the last to get turned on, more than 48 hours. I had bought a Nesbit stove and fuel a few weeks earlier so I had coffee. I was VERY close to throwing out $100 or so of meat, ice cream, etc. Back in '02 there was a metro wide power outage that lasted a good while for many neighborhoods. Shit happens.

All that started me thinking about things. Later, last year, I bought a "30 day supply" of Wise Emergency Food. I started to rest easy, then 'bout 3 weeks I ago, I got a hair up my ass and decided to try one of the "meals". WHAT A FUCKING JOKE! I tried Wise's "cheesy beef". It looked like rabbit food, as in pellets! It tasted like I thought rabbit food might taste like. Worst excuse for "delicious" food I have eaten in my life! Just fucking NASTY!

So that got me on my quest again!! I've learned a lot. "Serving" does not equate to what most would of us would think of as a meal. Other issues too but too much to type. Anyway, I've settled on military MREs to throw under the shelf, for two meals a day for my target 30 days and Mountain House breakfast meals for breakfast and a few Bridgford Ready Made Sandwiches when the rest is not quite enough. I bought one at Walmart last year. They're actually pretty good.

Most reading this will probably think 30 days is a bit much. You're right!! But, as the lady said, better to have it and not need it than need it and not have it! 'Sides, if we do have a 12" blanket of snow or the Zombie Apocalypse or worst of all, Trump actually gets elected , I'll most likely end up feeding a few neighbors.

Have you tried the mountain House breakfast meals? In my opinion, breakfast is the one thing they suck at. The biscuits and gravy isn't too bad, but I don't like any of their egg items and I don't care for granola.

I do think 30 days is overkill. Floods, ice storms, and blizzards are the only likely things in my mind that would cause a real issue with food. There are a million different scenarios that would be worse, I just don't think they will happen and if they do it is far more likely that I will be dead immediately than starving on the streets weeks afterwards.

It's human nature to think the worst is coming, it is also human nature to think it can't happen to you.

There are a lot of good suggestions here. Mountain House is good. A few food items and a mini stove packed in with my gear: I am ready to leave. Originally Posted by JRLawrence

I've tried Mountain House Scrambled Eggs w/Bacon. Aside from the excess water, it was good.

Mountain House and Backpacker's Pantry and others are expensive as hell! Another issue which I've thought long and hard about is "serving". Most pouches have more than one "serving" in them. Instructions are for the whole pouch, 2 "servings" for example. So what do you do with the extra "serving"? For a couple that would be just fine. For one or 3 or so, it becomes more precarious. I don't think I'd want to curl the top of the pouch and save the remaining portion of that "serving" for the next day! Your "30 days" isn't quite the "30 days" you were thinking about. If you have one of those "buckets" hidden in the shed or basement or whatever, look at the breakdown and apply some "what if" logic. I think you'll see what I'm talking about. The big advantage the dehydrated food industry has is weight. Ain't much!

A case of military MREs is 20lbs, pretty much on the money. I weighed them. Case "A" and case "B". 20lbs each. That's where the dehydrated food benefit comes in. MREs are considerably heavier. Each military MRE meal is about $8 a pop, more or less. Civilian versions go from $3 - $8 a meal. For MREs, one package = 1 serving of several items = 1 meal. For dehydrated they advertise their product(s) as one serving is one meal. As someone suggested, go to Walmart and try one of their pouches for dinner . . . not lunch. Your gonna fuck'n starve before you go to bed. Unless you get one of the multiple "serving" pouches, which is mo money! Again, apply some of that logic to the "30 day" scenario and starts to make sense. The "30 day" supply ain't gonna last 30 days. 1 "serving" is NOT one meal, necessarily.

I've been filtering my water for years. Brita is my friend! Lifestraw is famous world wide for their high capacity water filters in Africa and elsewhere but they're not convenient for home use. Their filters will filter 4755 gallons better'n just about anybody. Each Brita filter is $4.50 and each will filter 40 gallons. You can spend $500+ to filter the 4755 gallons w/Britta or $58 for a Lifestraw filter, more expensive for their others. Like I said, the Lifestraw is or would be a bit awkward in the house. With all the stories of municipal water supplies in the news all of this becomes important. Lead and other assorted nasty shit is NOT our friend! Amazon has Lifestraw and water testing kits.

One of the benefits of living in the KC area is IS or AQ don't care about us! Nuclear attack or dirty bomb is prolly not gonna happen (knock on wood). A storm knocking out power for days is a much more likely scenario.

I have a few MREs partially for what you said but mostly for backpacking so I have a days worth of food if I run into water issues in my pack. I will take a little extra weight for a days piece of mind.

I have a few #10 cans of mountain House meals for emergency and enough regular food to survive a few weeks without normal cooking appliances..

Water filters are great, but to me the most likely water issue will be a chemical spill issue and life straws and Sawyer minis aren't going to help with that. That's why I think having water storage should be towards the beginning of any preps.

Have you tried the mountain House breakfast meals? In my opinion, breakfast is the one thing they suck at. The biscuits and gravy isn't too bad, but I don't like any of their egg items and I don't care for granola.

I do think 30 days is overkill. Floods, ice storms, and blizzards are the only likely things in my mind that would cause a real issue with food. There are a million different scenarios that would be worse, I just don't think they will happen and if they do it is far more likely that I will be dead immediately than starving on the streets weeks afterwards.

It's human nature to think the worst is coming, it is also human nature to think it can't happen to you. Originally Posted by bigryan2222

As stated I tried the scrambled eggs and bacon. I thought it was pretty good. I don't go for granola either. I think most of us Americans consider a one "serving" breakfast as a meal unless we're eating in a restaurant. Then we're looking for other servings of other things, sausage, pancakes, etc. That's why I opted for Mountain House for breakfast only and MREs for lunch and dinner. A new item, invented by the military, are packaged sandwiches under the Bridgford name. Seems like they'd be good as a supplement or even one or two in the glove box or take on a plane trip. 3 year shelf life. I ordered a few this past week. French toast sounds interesting.

I don't visualize any zombie apocalypse or nuclear holocaust either but will we survive a Trump Presidency? Your local yocal land management office should be able to tell you about flood plains. Remember the flood of '93?

I was told long ago to get ready for the most likely scenario not worst case. "'Bout time you motherfuckers shoveled the snow! Damn, 3 days to get to my street?" "Damn, KCP&L, I got no heat and my pipes are frozen for 3 days now!!"

Water filters are great, but to me the most likely water issue will be a chemical spill issue and life straws and Sawyer minis aren't going to help with that. That's why I think having water storage should be towards the beginning of any preps. Originally Posted by bigryan2222

You might be right but Lifestraws filter down to .02 microns, that pretty much filters about anything. If in doubt, test it! Kits are cheap.

Sounds more logical to me to NOT filter your water before you store it. Rather filter it when you need it. You should treat your water regardless so why drink treated water when you can drink filtered water that's already been treated? I think Lifestraw filters Chlorine too.

After doing the math comparing Brita, Pure, whoever with Lifestraw I'm gonna figure a way to use the Lifestraw in the house. It'll be a little clumsy but I'll make it work!

You might be right but Lifestraws filter down to .02 microns, that pretty much filters about anything. If in doubt, test it! Kits are cheap.

Sounds more logical to me to NOT filter your water before you store it. Rather filter it when you need it. You should treat your water regardless so why drink treated water when you can drink filtered water that's already been treated? I think Lifestraw filters Chlorine too.

After doing the math comparing Brita, Pure, whoever with Lifestraw I'm gonna figure a way to use the Lifestraw in the house. It'll be a little clumsy but I'll make it work! Originally Posted by dumars

Life straws website states it cannot filter chemicals. The reasons to store water for natural disasters is you can't garuntee that you will have running water. Plus Brita filters have limits depending on the type you get. The faucet based model filters the most chemicals. The Brita containers only filter 1-4 different chemicals according to their website.

I guess I don't see the point of getting a months worth of food and then relying on a Brita filter for filtering water. The filters are only good for a certain usage, they are limited to what they filter (their website clearly states that), and if something happens to city water you will have to scramble to get any water just to filter and who knows what is in that. Brita filters are clearly made to piggy back off processed tap water.look at their FAQ page and that becomes clear.

In regards to Water Filtration.. the Berkey's seem to be the cadillac of filters for home. They are expensive but people have found ways to buy just the filters and use food grade buckets to make their own cheaper. For my bug out bag, I am a fan of the Sawyer Mini-Filters. Water storage is definitely advisable rather than counting on running water. Downside is that you can't easily take it with you (very heavy), if you have to leave in a hurry.

Another long term food company is Numanna. The owner lives in Missouri. GMO-free and I have tried a few of the meals and they actually taste really good. A bucket runs about $160, but I think you get like 80 entree meals.

I agree that iSIS & AQ aren't going to care about KC, but then again we are in the heart of the US and a major transportation hub in terms of the railroad. If Russia or China ever decided to attack, Whiteman will be one of the first hit to take out our bombers. Luckily the majority of the time, the wind blows away from KC in relation to Whiteman so a lot of the fallout would not be headed our way.

Everyone is making great points. You really should check out some of the local groups in the area. They are easy to find on FB.

subscribed to read later

preparedness falls to procrastination once again

The scenario that I've been thinking about lately is a cyber attack with malicious intent. It seems like all they would have to do is take out the internet itself. I doubt it would be as hard as we'd like to think. We had an instance a while back where I worked where all productivity came to a complete stop because of one computer got corrupted (nothing malicious, just a network card that went bad). It just happened that was the backup DNS server during a period that the primary was already down for some other reason. For those that might not know, DNS is the system that computers use to know that we we type "anything.com" we really mean "12.34.56.78". With that one server going down, no system knew how to reach any other system. The primary server was eventually brought back online and everyone went back to work, but it got me thinking.

All that someone with malicious intent would have to figure out is one single flaw that breaks one of a dozen systems that have to work in harmony for the whole thing to just be useless. So you might be thinking "big whoop, I won't be able to go to FB or eccie, but I'll be just fine." The problem is that we are becoming more and more dependent everyday on things being connected that once they stop being connected they just stop working. Imagine if the power grid, phone networks, tv stations, traffic lights, stock markets, banks, grocery stores, etc... all went offline at the same time!!! I'd like to think that we'd all come together to fix the issue, and much of the original systems would be back online within a few days to a week. But even if they did, the damage would be done. The grocery stores would be empty in hours and there could be mass looting, and on and on...

That's not to say this would trigger the zombie apocalypse and all life as we know it would end, but that's certainly a month I'd like to be able to stay home and not leave my house. Just because it hasn't happened doesn't mean it can't.

I guess I don't see the point of getting a months worth of food and then relying on a Brita filter for filtering water. The filters are only good for a certain usage, they are limited to what they filter (their website clearly states that), and if something happens to city water you will have to scramble to get any water just to filter and who knows what is in that. Brita filters are clearly made to piggy back off processed tap water.look at their FAQ page and that becomes clear. Originally Posted by bigryan2222

As previously stated, 30 days is excessive, I know that but . . . also already stated.

I started using Brita, Pure, to filter my water for coffee years ago. The inside of the water reservoir of the coffee maker would get funky! I have two coffee makers now that I no longer use but still work. Their water reservoirs are almost as pristine as the day I bought them. Apparently, I done did something right. As it turns out, with Flint and everybody else, I may have done more for myself than originally thought.

Yes, I know filters have their limits but I doubt I'll be moving to Chernobyl (sp?) or contaminated areas of the globe. Doubt if I will filter anything more nasty than the Missouri or Kansas River(s). As soon as I figure out how and where, I'm going store 50 or 100 gallons.

As of now I've tasted MH Eggs and Bacon and Breakfast skillet. Both, to me, were perfectly acceptable in taste, no so much for substance, i.e. sticking to your ribs. Gonna need something else. I lasted about 2 hours before I started looking for something in my cabinets. Quaker Oats and more water (and sugar) got me through.

Enough for now.