End of the World Survival Skills and Tools Required

I grew up on the bayou not far from Lafayette. I got guns and camping stuff and traps. If I can get to the Atchafalaya swamp or maybe a smaller swamp. I know I could make it. Originally Posted by spear88
Russ38's Avatar
I was never worried about Zombies myself but rather Aliens from outer space. Originally Posted by Zanzibar789
I'm not holding my breath for zombies either but my main concern would be a worldwide pandemic or a major power grid failure....
Fast Gunn's Avatar
Pheew! That Rambo character was and still is the Gold Standard of what it means to be really macho.

Personally, I am not worried about aliens, zombies or other fabricated menaces created to sell apocalyptic films.

. . . From my perspective, the real danger humanity faces is the insanity of humanity itself. WWI was supposed to be the war to end all wars, but it only proved to be a warm-up for WWII. In reading "Ape Man" by Rod Caird, he makes the chilling observation that 99.9% of all species that have ever lived are now extinct. Some days I think we are all living on the knife-edge of extinction before some lunatic pushes a button that incinerates the entire planet!


Originally Posted by wickerman1

you going out in a blaze of glory
I'm not holding my breath for zombies either but my main concern would be a worldwide pandemic or a major power grid failure.... Originally Posted by Russ38

When hurricane Ike hit I was without power for weeks. My gas line still worked so I could use the stove stop and my neighbor is an electrician so he came over and wired my hot water heater to the portable generator using extension cords. It was very uncomfortable for a minute but you're right. A power grid failure or pandemic is very real and prepping now for it isn't a bad idea. I see Spice is kinda laughing at doomsday preppers but it's best to be prepared.
you going out in a blaze of glory Originally Posted by Zanzibar789
Sorry that was my zombie survival kit.
Sorry that was my zombie survival kit. Originally Posted by wickerman1

ohh no I'm aware. I just thought it was funny but I'm with ya. Need some grenades in there. Zombies can take bullets pretty easy and a couple of wooden stakes or silver bullets in case you run across some vampires.

This is one of my doomsday type of scenarios:

Wow, way to be a Debbie Downer Fast Gunn
Fancyinheels's Avatar
For the last 20 years I've lived in a wee cottage out in the deep, dark, spooky woods in the Sam Houston National Forest beyond Cut 'n Shoot with neighbors who were ready for the zombie apocalypse way before the original "Night of the Living Dead" came out.

A few years after I moved in, my brother came home from the Merchant Marines for the first time and was hunting for a key I'd hidden under the porch. He felt something cold and hard in his back, and heard an ominous growl in his ear. A couple of the neighbors had spotted him, come over, and put a shotgun and a pit bull on him. They called me and I was feeling evil, told them to hang on to my brother until I got home shortly, not to call the police, and they said, "We NEVER call the police." Did I mention that I live out in the deep, dark, spooky, DESOLATE woods with lots of places to bury bodies that won't ever be found?

One night I got spooked by what I thought was a prowler and called it in. Somebody heard it over the police scanner in their garage and 4 guys with shotguns and another with a bow and arrow (shades of "The Walking Dead") showed up and scared the bejeesus out the the poor deputy when he got there 30 minutes later.

In 2005 after winds from Hurricane Rita flattened every power pole in my area and the electricity was going to be out for weeks and I couldn't get a generator even if I had been standing naked on a street corner holding a bag full of 14-K gold coins, the neighbors showed up with a brand spanking new one and wired it directly into my house. When I asked them where they had got it from, they just smiled and said, "Bubba has a few extra." They wouldn't take money. I've paid them in home-baked yeast rolls and Irish soda bread every Christmas since.

When Hurricane Ike hit in 2008 and the power died, I just flicked a switch. They kept the generator full of gas, and where they got THAT from I have no idea because there wasn't any to be had in the entire area. There were trees down that made the California Redwoods look tiny, but a dozen fellows in torn and stained coveralls, chewing and spitting tobacco, descended on the road with chainsaws and had it cleaned up in less than a day, and that night we had a "block" party, complete with kerosene lanterns, BBQ deer, fried raccoon, a keg of Coors, and, I swear, a banjo.

Another eve I came home late, feeling really bad, couldn't get in my driveway 'cause my brother's car had broken down and was blocking it, he had left for sea, I parked on the street (and by "street" I mean the wide spot in a barely asphalted road), staggered in, evidently left my car open and dropped my wallet with a wad of cash out there in plain site. I was feverishly sick for days and didn't leave the house. Some neighbors towed my brother's car out of the way with a wrecker that looked like it had been new in the 50's, pulled my car in, put my money in a coffee can, and left it on my porch next to
chicken soup made from a bird PLUCKED by hand and veggies out of a backyard garden. They also left a beat-up tin can with some foul-smelling salve in it that cleared my nasal passages and a few OTHER passages right out.

At night the chihuahuas chirp with the crickets, but during the full moon the hounds bay joyfully while chasing critters through the woods along the creek like rabid werewolves. During hunting season I keep my head low, wear an orange scarf, stay out of the forest when doing my exercise walk, and nervously ignore the rifle shots as best I can, but I always have a freezer full of meat.

When I run out of "medicinal Jameson" they bring me moonshine. I contribute peaches every year for flavoring. One year the peaches didn't make it due to a freeze, and the wife of one of the neighbors brought over a half dozen jars she had "put up" for me "just in case" a year or two back. I now buy the canning supplies and trade for mayhaw jelly, wild blackberry jam, and pickled green tomatoes. By the way, anyone ever try a muffin baked with home-ground acorn flour and wild pecans? Nice nutty flavor.

They have flowers in discarded toilets in their front yards, wind chimes in the trees made out of empty beer cans, tire swings over ditches, dead lawn mowers propped up like sculptured art, smoking sheds hung with curing meat, and most of the time I feel like I live amidst the hillbillies in the Ozarks, but I think that I might be safer there than anyplace on Earth. Once I get the moat done and put the gators in, stock up on candle wax, seed, and gunpowder, and get the compost heap going, I'll be ready for the end of the world, too.


Some of my longtime gentlemen friends wonder why I won't let them come out to the house.