What is a SHTF situation?

[I-K-E]

SHTF for me is a exactly the as "the end of the world as we know it".

All the shorter term things will be an emergency, inconvenience, etc lossing job would fall into that bracket and the thing that got me interested in prepping was that but from a food stock piling point of view but I'm more and more looking into the wider view of prepping. But I'm looking at the questions like how to get clean water or heating etc if these go down for a longtime no the reason they go down.

[Prepper1]

(11 December 2012, 09:00)Highlander Wrote: The phase SHTF is often over used, or used in the wrong text or at least it is for me,... I was inside the Belfast bus station when the bomb went off ....in 1969 was it?,.. yes I am that old,...there were bodies and body parts all over the place,... I didnt think that was the SHTF, it was just something that needed dealing with,...and was becomeing normal at around that time

SHTF has to be something that is out of the normal, that has to be effecting,.. not your life, but the way you have to live your life from that point on, no matter what the emergency is,.. if at the end of the day everything returns to normal, then the s**t didnt hit the fan

100% TOTALLY ABSOLUTELY AGREE.

---

The rest would be minor inconveniences that need fixing, tiz all.

[bigpaul]

TSHTF for me would be something that forces a complete lifestyle change, anything else be it 1day, 1week, 1month, 3 months then everything is back to the way it was is NOT SHTF its a temporary glitch!

[Skean Dhude]

In my view TSHTF is an everyday event. The shit is there and you need to deal with it. TEOTWAWKI is, maybe, at least 50% more serious.

I keep spare cash in my car, medical kit, insurance, phone, etc, for TSHTF and for TEOTWAWKI I do the bulk of my preps.

[Highlander]

Normal is the way in which you are living at the time,... let me go back to Northern Ireland when I first went there in 1969,.... I was a member of the very first battalion to enter Belfast, murder and maiming was so common then it was happening almost every night,.... having to deal with that every night was then the `normal`,.... gun battles on almost a daily scale became the normal,.... we didnt think the sh*t had hit the fan,... because it was normaly like that.

So Seal although you say normal means different things to different people,...its not realy, its just what you are used to,...whatever that might be

Scythe,.... thats an interesting question, and I had to think about it,...

A tour of NI was four months, and none of us thought it too bad,... but there again its what we were trained for,.... so I am thinking that maybe the sh*t never hits the fan for people who are prepared and trained for something,.... maybe its only a case of the sh*t hitting the fan if something happens when we dont really expect it to happen
To be honest I am not sure of my answer,... I must think more about it

[Highlander]

(11 December 2012, 10:36)Scythe13 Wrote:

(11 December 2012, 09:00)Highlander Wrote: SHTF has to be something that is out of the normal, that has to be effecting,.. not your life, but the way you have to live your life from that point on, no matter what the emergency is,.. if at the end of the day everything returns to normal, then the s**t didnt hit the fan

I really agree with that. The only thing I would add, would be a timescale to the amount of time you have to live in the changed way.

I just had a bath, so gave your question some more thought Scythe

I am not sure if there ever would be a `time period`,..if anything happened I am sure we would all shout that `the sh*t has hit the fan`, but thats more a statemnet about the country as a whole, as preppers we would be much more prepared and so wouldnt be quiet so suprised or shocked

....and of course the longer it went on the more `normal` life would become,..if the grid went down we may well be very suprised at just how quickly we would become used to it, we would adapt

That may well be the difference between `preppers` and `none preppers`, it might not be so much what we do now, as what we become after an event, to us these two are linked together, to others they are not

[Scythe13]

Using that logic then Highlander, even the film The Road, wouldn't be depicting a SHTF situation. It would have simply depicted everyday life, where people eat each other, because crops aren't growing, or anything like that. It would just be everyday life.

I get what you're saying, but feel there's much more to calling something a SHTF situation, that we realise. It's a term thrown around so often that it's become a meaningless scenario.

If the government pushed in Martial Law, and 7pm Curfews, and stuff like that, it would be normal life after the first month. Living as a Jew in Nazi Germany, a few years before WW2, that was normal life, but to the Jews it was a SHTF situation. If you can imagine yourself saying "TSHTF we need to get out of here!" Then you leave and get to a new safer destination.....then you're right, it was a SHTF situation. If it permanently changes the way you live, that's an EOTWAWKI situation. But a SHTF, can be localised, temporary, OR permanent...in which case it is also an EOTWAWKI scenario.

Does that make sense?

[bigpaul]

(12 December 2012, 09:55)Scythe13 Wrote: Using that logic then Highlander, even the film The Road, wouldn't be depicting a SHTF situation. It would have simply depicted everyday life, where people eat each other, because crops aren't growing, or anything like that. It would just be everyday life.

I get what you're saying, but feel there's much more to calling something a SHTF situation, that we realise. It's a term thrown around so often that it's become a meaningless scenario.

If the government pushed in Martial Law, and 7pm Curfews, and stuff like that, it would be normal life after the first month. Living as a Jew in Nazi Germany, a few years before WW2, that was normal life, but to the Jews it was a SHTF situation. If you can imagine yourself saying "TSHTF we need to get out of here!" Then you leave and get to a new safer destination.....then you're right, it was a SHTF situation. If it permanently changes the way you live, that's an EOTWAWKI situation. But a SHTF, can be localised, temporary, OR permanent...in which case it is also an EOTWAWKI scenario.

Does that make sense?

no i dont agree, "The Road" was NOT normal life compared the what went before, nor was it temporary, so therefore it was WTSHTF.

[Scythe13]

(12 December 2012, 09:57)bigpaul Wrote:

(12 December 2012, 09:55)Scythe13 Wrote: Using that logic then Highlander, even the film The Road, wouldn't be depicting a SHTF situation. It would have simply depicted everyday life, where people eat each other, because crops aren't growing, or anything like that. It would just be everyday life.

I get what you're saying, but feel there's much more to calling something a SHTF situation, that we realise. It's a term thrown around so often that it's become a meaningless scenario.

If the government pushed in Martial Law, and 7pm Curfews, and stuff like that, it would be normal life after the first month. Living as a Jew in Nazi Germany, a few years before WW2, that was normal life, but to the Jews it was a SHTF situation. If you can imagine yourself saying "TSHTF we need to get out of here!" Then you leave and get to a new safer destination.....then you're right, it was a SHTF situation. If it permanently changes the way you live, that's an EOTWAWKI situation. But a SHTF, can be localised, temporary, OR permanent...in which case it is also an EOTWAWKI scenario.

Does that make sense?

no i dont agree, "The Road" was NOT normal life compared the what went before, nor was it temporary, so therefore it was WTSHTF.

How do you know it wasn't temporary?

If it lasted only 15 years, that would be temporary.

I'm not saying The Road wasn't a SHTF situation. I'm just saying that the situation was ongoing and thus became 'everyday life'.

[bigpaul]

(12 December 2012, 10:13)Scythe13 Wrote: I'm not saying The Road wasn't a SHTF situation. I'm just saying that the situation was ongoing and thus became 'everyday life'.

what i'm saying is, you have to have a base line for what is "normal" first, so we HAVE to say the life we have now is NORMAL or at least its normal for the 21st century, now anything that alters that normalcy FOR GOOD..there aint no coming back to it, its not temporary-not even for 15 years...its permanent, then that is your SHTF event, yes you could say that new life then becomes normal life but its NOT the same normal life that went before, its different.