[BMassBMore]

Preface: Please do not take anything said below as a personal affront or insult. I am describing MY personal throught process, and not intending to judge anyone else's position, beliefs, or strategies.

I believe in being prepared, just as nearly everyone here does, obviously.

However, it seems that the prevailing opinion here is that being prepared MUST be a lifestyle, that there is no way to truly ever be fully prepared. There is much debate about what level of preparedness is sufficient, with most believing that nothing you do will be sufficient - in essence, this is a way of life and it's all about the pursuit of greater levels of preparedness - you are never truly done.

Thus, we have never ending threads about how much ammo to store, how much water, how much food, whether any amount of storing anything is good enough or if you really need to have sustainable and renewable methods for providing all of your needs (i.e. homesteading).

I am certain I am in the minority here, but I do NOT want prepping to take all of my free time, energy, and resources. I do not want prepping to become an obsession, or even to be my primary hobby. I do not want to "bug out now" before the big one hits, because to do so would guarantee a much lower standard of living for me and my family, compared to the chance of a much lower standard of living if something catastrophic does happen. In other words, I do not want to sacrifice my most productive pursuits in the pre-SHTF world, so that I can be better prepared for an unlikely mad max scenario.

I want to achieve a certain level of preparedness that will satisfy 100% of the scenarios that I consider likely in the next ~5 years, and maybe the most likely 80% of scenarios that are realistic in the next 20 years. I believe I can do this with a reasonable and manageable level of investment of my time, energy, and resources, but that to account for more and more less likely scenarios would be wasteful and not likely to make a significant difference in any case.

To that end, I have divided the common scenarios into the following groups.

Likely in the next 5 years:
Personal security incident (i.e. home invasion)
Personal Health issue
Personal Economic issue
House Fire
Civil unrest (race riots, political uprising)
Hurricane
Tornado
Flood (in some important area that will have some effect on the broader economy/food distribution system)
Localized terrorist attack

Realistic in the next 20 years:
Electrical grid collapse (via EMP, CME, terrorist attack, or otherwise)
Economic collapse
Plague (natural, i.e. H1N1, SARS, Ebola)
Nuclear
Massive Earthquake
Massive volcanic event
Large scale war, foreign theater
Localized chemical spill/accident (impacting groundwater)

Unrealistic in next 20 years, OR Realistic but can't feasibly prepare for:
Flood (in my area)
Large Scale war, Continental US
Widespread Biological attack/event
Widespread Chemical attack/event
Alien invasion
Asteroid strike
Massive Tsunami (i.e. Cumbre Vieja/Canary island hypothesis)


I have 2 specific requests for responses to this thread.
1. What are your thoughts on my philosophy, outlined in the first several paragraphs?
2. What scenarios are missing or in your opinion, miscategorized?

Thanks!

 

[Mels thinkingitover]

I'm one of the few who think scenario prepping is a good thing.

To a point.

The problem with scenario prepping is that people tend to pigeonhole an event and that and that alone is what they look at. Then they look at the next area of concern and prepare for it and it alone assuming all the supplies they used to plan for the first disaster will be available for the second one they look at.

Unfortunately, life doesn't work that way and disasters don't either.

As an example, we live with a hurricane bullseye on our area. However, we haven't had a hurricane in several years. That is wonderful and if you look at it on paper, it might appear hurricanes are not quite the threat some of us know they are. We may go another several years without a hurricane but when they hit, they hit. Not a thing you can do to stop it, you can do your emergency prep list, you can hunker down, you can evacuate if you must. None of that will lessen the chances of the hurricane hitting.

In 1995, we got hit by a hurricane. Did a bit of damage, tore up the roof, the fence, a bunch of trees, one of the shops, we were a week without water, power or telephone. All of that is just part of living in the most beautiful area God ever put on a piece of land and it was not a surprise.

The first surprise was I tripped over a downed tree trunk the morning after the storm and broke my foot. Now we have a ton of hurricane damage, no way out of our area yet, all the non-life-threatening medical facilities closed, husband wasn't even home for the storm nor the aftermath as his job required them to be staged to hit the streets the minute the storm passed. All of my supplies were down two small (when my foot wasn't broken they were small anyway) sets of steps. ALL of them! It seemed like such a bright idea at the time. It wasn't so bright when I spent a week before I could get to the doctor to get my foot set, with a scared disabled child, and a husband working 16-18 hour days.

We made it. Got the foot set, the roof fixed, the fencing partially replaced, the shed repaired, the trees cut and piled up for later attention.

Foot came out of the cast after seven weeks, was a bit long due to the damage caused by not getting it promptly attended to.

Life was good.

Five days later (61 days from the first one) we got hit by another hurricane. I didn't break my foot the day after the storm. Nope, I broke the next bone over from the first break the day before the storm. Tripped over part of the wood from the first hurricane while putting everything up for the second one. Roof (brand dadburned new roof) was damaged, trees down, replaced fencing torn out, a different shop damaged. And I was again hobbling around on a broken unset foot. At least we had sense enough to stage supplies this time so I had 2 weeks of supplies readily at hand instead of impossible to get to.

Had we prepped for A hurricane we would have been in a mess when the second one hit. As it was we just went back to the stack of tarps and supplies to keep the weather out. We hadn't replenished any of the other supplies at all except to refill water containers but didn't miss a lick there either because we didn't plan for A hurricane. We just planned.

The hurricane x 2 and the broken foot x 2 could have been a major disaster financially also but we prepped for anything not just some things and could weather those assorted hits all coming at once .

So, it is good to look at the most likely problems in your area and prepare for them but keep in mind, they may slap you several times in a row and you need to also be prepared for multiple, possibly over-lapping events.

 

[Kalashnikov47]

I prep for mostly three things:

1) Natural disaster (my neck of the woods is prone to hurricanes)
2) Personal financial (lowering debt and putting money aside) be it for a health emergency, retirement etc.
3) Firearms (because we may not be able to "legally" buy certain guns or ammo in the future).

As for your questions, its a personal thing for each individual as to what they prep for, for me its the above.

 

[topgunic]

I dont think you're in the minority. Just part of a quieter majority.

I believeyou are correct in analyzing what is most likely to happen and preparing for those scenarios first and best.

Personally my long term prep goal is more to be self sufficient. Not so much for prepping but because I dont want to be reliant on others. And I'm cheap lol.

I plan for to be able to support my family for 12-18 months without support. Which i feel is long enough to recover from most any type of disaster. Anything that lasts longer than that I'm not sure I want to be around in what's left of that world.

 

[shado]

Unrealistic in next 20 years, OR Realistic but can't feasibly prepare for:
Flood (in my area)
Large Scale war, Continental US
Widespread Biological attack/event
Widespread Chemical attack/event
Alien invasion
Asteroid strike
Massive Tsunami (i.e. Cumbre Vieja/Canary island hypothesis)


Thanks!

I'm a little puzzled. You say 'large scale foreign war likely in the next 20 years.' If it's that large scale, why is large scale war in the continental US not likely? And what is 'war'? Feels to me that a bunch of stuff happening right now - terrorism - IS large scale war and we are seeing more of it on our soil here in the US - and I count Ferguson et al to be part of that.

Ditto for widespread biological/chemical attack as part of a terror attack. Note that Japan already had a sarin gas attach in the Tokyo underground.

Asteroid strike...is certainly possible. There was an asteroid that (nearly) struck Russia last year.

I can see how you might say they are unreasonable but I'm not sure they are as unreasonable as you think.

 

[PurpleKitty]

It depends on the personal situation.

Someone living on a disability check in a bad area will want to focus more on home security.

A more affluent poster living in the middle of nowhere may want to focus on food storage.

In my case, I live in a sub-tropical city, prone to floods and hurricanes. I am married to a very disabled man, no kids.

What are my reasonable crises?
Transportation failure (we don't drive, as I am also "invisibly" disabled).
Flood/hurricane
Water line break
Health crisis with hubby
(had all of these, by the way).

So, for me, I have a hospital bag (Kindle, snacks, cash, cell phone charger, his insurance information), in addition to a bug out bag.

I have things stored off the floor, in my home. For instance, the bottom shelves of my racks/crates are all left empty. My desktop is sitting on top of an end table.

I have tarps for my roof, but no ladder, but I have 2 neighbors with ladders.

I cultivate drivers, be they cab or civilian. If the bus system is out of service somehow I will be walking (happens during flood/hurricane events).

My basic premise: disaster has struck. I cannot get out of my home for whatever reason, for some period of time. During our last hurricane, the bus didn't run for about a week, and power was out about that long, on average, in most areas.

I proceed accordingly.

 

[hardcalibres]

BMassBMore

I think your idea of ranking scenarios by probability is a generally good one and simple enough.

At the risk of making it more complex and in an attempt to make it work better, perhaps you could take a couple of other factors into account:

1) Severity - the more severe the scenario, the higher the priority to prep
2) Commonality - the more preps that are in common with other scenarios, the higher the priority

I agree with Mel that there are limitations to any method like this, but perhaps some sort of disciplined system would help to maintain perspective and avoid fixation with less likely/severe scenarios at the expense of others.....

 

[TachMed]

The area you live in will, or should be the first thing to look at when preparing. If you live in Tornado alley then you might first want to prepare for those. Like wise on the coast and hurricanes. As far as asteroids whatever else might be lurking out there to come and make life more interesting for us all, who knows. For myself and family I prep for what is likely to happen first such as tornadoes after that I prep to survive whatever might come. Sitting around trying to figure out what might happen will give one a headache at best.
It may be a lifestyle to be a prepper, but you do not need to let it consume your every waking moment. However something like planting a garden can be relaxing and a hobbie. At the same time it is giving you the skill to produce your own food. Going out for a weekend camping trip can be fun, but when you get home take a minute sit down and think about what you learned. What worked well and what didn't. You do not have to go at prepping every minute of everyday. But the things you do in your free time can teach things you might use if and when.

 

[InOmaha]

One thing I learned growing up on a farm is storm, drought, bugs, diesease, fire, etc. generally come every 5 to 10 years to try and wipe you out.

So homesteading is no guarantee of anything. Last decade a tornado wiped one of the two farmstead off the planet. It spread nails over acres of ground so tires still occasionally go flat.

A couple years ago a spore killed a group of animals.

My number 1 concern in this area is thunderstorm and maybe a tornado attached. Since that's already happened before a couple of times.

 

[hardcalibres]

The area you live in will, or should be the first thing to look at when preparing. If you live in Tornado alley then you might first want to prepare for those. Like wise on the coast and hurricanes. As far as asteroids whatever else might be lurking out there to come and make life more interesting for us all, who knows. For myself and family I prep for what is likely to happen first such as tornadoes after that I prep to survive whatever might come. Sitting around trying to figure out what might happen will give one a headache at best.
It may be a lifestyle to be a prepper, but you do not need to let it consume your every waking moment. However something like planting a garden can be relaxing and a hobbie. At the same time it is giving you the skill to produce your own food. Going out for a weekend camping trip can be fun, but when you get home take a minute sit down and think about what you learned. What worked well and what didn't. You do not have to go at prepping every minute of everyday. But the things you do in your free time can teach things you might use if and when.

I think this approach also has merit and should be part of how you do things.

Decide what capabilities are useful in multiple scenarios and then develop and test these capabilities.

That way you also get a balance between specialist skills (survivalism?) and material resources (prepping?).

You need lots of both to survive in a wide spectrum of scenarios.

 

[topgunic]

I'm a little puzzled. You say 'large scale foreign war likely in the next 20 years.' If it's that large scale, why is large scale war in the continental US not likely? And what is 'war'? Feels to me that a bunch of stuff happening right now - terrorism - IS large scale war and we are seeing more of it on our soil here in the US - and I count Ferguson et al to be part of that.

Ditto for widespread biological/chemical attack as part of a terror attack. Note that Japan already had a sarin gas attach in the Tokyo underground.

Asteroid strike...is certainly possible. There was an asteroid that (nearly) struck Russia last year.

I can see how you might say they are unreasonable but I'm not sure they are as unreasonable as you think.

Large scale war on US soil is not really likely at all. The US military is extremely large and capable. No other military has the ability to force project on to us soil and then support an invasion. Even if they could the average citizen would turn every house into a killing zone. Terrorist attacks and full blown war are different.

Asteroid strikes happen like they did in Russia but I believe the OP is referring to larger asteroid impacts that would have regional or global effects. Which as said are unlikely.

 

[Nomad 2nd]

Scinario planning is dooming yourself to failure.
You WILL forget something.

30 days of independence and 6-12 months of economic automatically will cover over 99% of "issues"

 

[dmas]

After the canary island scenario came out there was additional information that made the assumptions around the event extremely unlikely.

 

[naturegirlmia]

Personally, I think it all boils down to one thing: a sense of security.
It's kind of like insurance. A person might be content with the minimal liability insurance on their car or a basic health insurance policy. Another person wants full coverage for both (including the vision, dental, prescription, etc.) and STILL seek out more.

What's "right" for one person may not be "right" for another. The important thing is that the individual is at least making some attempt at covering their tush when things go wrong.

My decision to homestead isn't because I'm worrying that the economy is going to collapse, or because I'm anticipating zombie invasion. I do it because:
1. I enjoy it.
2. I know where my food comes from, how it has been raised, and how it has been handled until it gets to our plates.
3. I love the rewarding feeling I get from the work that is involved.
4. I see the effect the lifestyle has had on my children, and like what I see.

We are not off the grid. We have electricity and internet. We do have preparations in place for times when the electricity goes down...that's a pretty common occurrence with storms and such, here.
We get tornadoes, too. In fact, three neighbors were killed by one, right down the road from here, when my fiance was young. We have plans in place for that scenario.
Since we are prone to have snowstorms and blizzards, and know that blackouts often accompany them, we make plans and stow preps for those scenarios.
We know that unemployment, illness, and other factors can cause devastation on an unprepared family. This is another scenario we try to buffer the impact of in our preparations.

Often, preps needed for a likely or reasonable scenario cross over to a less likely scenario. For instance, blackout preps would also be necessary in an earthquake situation. While we haven't had any major quakes in decades, here, we ARE near enough to a fault line that a surprise quake could do some damage... therefore, we added that to our emergency plans. Our plans for that would probably be quite different, though, if we lived in LA instead of central Ohio.

 

[MattB4]

...

I have 2 specific requests for responses to this thread.
1. What are your thoughts on my philosophy, outlined in the first several paragraphs?
2. What scenarios are missing or in your opinion, miscategorized?

Thanks!

1. Does not align with my approach since it favors a urban existence. Plus it seems self defeating.
2. You list rather broad categories of things like Personal health issue. Preparation for which could be incredibly complex or simple like having bandaids on hand. If you are not careful you can find yourself doing nothing to prepare because preparing interferes with your standard of living. Or is too much bother.

Preparation seems to be a credit card and cell phone with emergency numbers ready to go.

 

[petergunn]

However, it seems that the prevailing opinion here is that being prepared MUST be a lifestyle, that there is no way to truly ever be fully prepared. There is much debate about what level of preparedness is sufficient, with most believing that nothing you do will be sufficient - in essence, this is a way of life and it's all about the pursuit of greater levels of preparedness - you are never truly done.

Lifestyle? no frugality is my lifestyle but life yes. Living rural requires one to think, plan and have on hand because the store ain't down the block and wasted trips is wasted money.

I am certain I am in the minority here, but I do NOT want prepping to take all of my free time, energy, and resources. I do not want prepping to become an obsession, or even to be my primary hobby.

So I'm guessing you just want to buy "stuff" stick it on the shelf and call it good?

I really don't have a defined Hobby I like guns so I shoot, I also hunt/fish, cut firewood and repair stuff. All a part of my life as is Prepping, it's the program that's always running in the background and I don't even notice it.

 

[naturegirlmia]

Lifestyle? no frugality is my lifestyle but life yes. Living rural requires one to think, plan and have on hand because the store ain't down the block and wasted trips is wasted money.



So I'm guessing you just want to buy "stuff" stick it on the shelf and call it good?

I really don't have a defined Hobby I like guns so I shoot, I also hunt/fish, cut firewood and repair stuff. All apart of my life as is Prepping, it's the program that's always running in the background and I don't even notice it.

You beautifully worded the thoughts that I didn't even realize were in my head, Petergunn.

 

[CanadianInfidel]

I don't think you are in the minority at all in fact I'm pretty sure 80% of the people on this site feel exactly as you do when it comes to prepping...you want to be as prepared as you can for the most realistic scenarios for your area and lifestyle but you don't want it to consume you life or you emotional well being.

having said that enough is probably never enough because nobody can predict with any type of certainty what scenario will befall us and how extensive globally it might be. So once you hit a threshold of prep that you feel comfortable with you throttle back and enjoy day to day living but continue to invest some time in keeping skill sharp and periodically reassessing needs as circumstances change.

That's what real preppers are all about.....and deciding how much of your life you want it to consume is a personal choice not something mandated by a peer group.
:thumb:

 

[MikeK]

having said that enough is probably never enough because nobody can predict with any type of certainty what scenario will befall us and how extensive globally it might be.

Which is why it's wiser to prepare for "whatever might happen" rather than focus on pet scenarios. Other than the disasters typical of your region of course. Floods, hurricanes, tornadoes, etc.

Being a scenario prepper is a good way of being blindsided by the things we don't expect.

 

[BMassBMore]

Which is why it's wiser to prepare for "whatever might happen" rather than focus on pet scenarios. Other than the disasters typical of your region of course. Floods, hurricanes, tornadoes, etc.

Being a scenario prepper is a good way of being blindsided by the things we don't expect.

I get what you and many others are saying with regard to prepping for a specific scenario. No, really, I do.

But I think it's important to differentiate between those who prep for 1 specific "pet scenario", and trying to prep for "whatever may happen" while being informed by the probabilities. What I'm advocating is the latter.

While I agree, it's not useful to prep for a single pet scenario, I'd argue that it is highly useful to attempt to determine probablities, and spend our precious resources (time, money, etc) addressing that which is likely to be useful if a specific likely scenario were to occur, or that which may be useful in a wide variety of scenarios, any one of which may be unlikely but collectively reach a certain threshold of likelihood.

For example, I store food, not because I think it's highly likely that there will be an oil shortage disrupting transportation and therefore the food supply, and not because I think it's highly likely that some plague will wipe out farms and therefore the food supply, but because food is essential to life and any number of things could happen to disrupt the food supply. The cumulative probability of dozens of different scenarios that would impact my ability to acquire food rises to the level of "worth preparing for".

I do not store a gas mask, geiger counter, or NBC suit, because these things are not applicable to a wide variety of likely scenarios. I believe they are extremely useful in a few very highly unlikely scenarios, but I don't think the cumulative probability of all scenarios in which an NBC suit would be useful rises to that level of "worth preparing for", so I don't bother with these things. If I'm wrong, I'll surely die from this mistake, but given that I can't do everything (resource constraints), I choose to focus on what I think will be most likely to benefit me and mine.

In order to make effective decisions about how to prepare, and how NOT to prepare, I think you have to factor in the probabilities of all possible scenarios.