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.