What do you really worry about...if anything ?

[Straight Shooter]

Although many of the members no longer participate in thread replies ....i do wonder what the remnants worry about ? if anything ? is there one thing you put above all else or are there many facet's that you consider that could turn into tshtf or.....do you think there is NOW nothing really to worry about ? ....no need to prep or nothing has happened up to now ...and you have lost the will or reason to prep at all ? or have you turned into a pure survivalist and moved on to a higher plain where your needs are serviced to the full ? ......i am looking for at least three replies and twenty views to make the time i spent typing the thread to be an overwhelming success.

[Skean Dhude]

My biggest concern at the moment is the disintegration of society. With Justice not on the table and our country filling up with illiterate savages I see us returning to a lawless state and increase in personal attacks and thefts and many of us being left without protection. The law can, as is, used more and more to protect the elite.

Just want to ensure we are in the position where we don't need to rely on anyone bar ourselves for a while.

The biggest issue for that is our lack of self defence capabilities.

[Mortblanc]

Actual real life worry?

Not total fall of this, or complete failure of that, everyone dies but me and you and you don't look so good, or it happened once 260 million year ago and could happen again tomorrow?

I have pretty much gotten over that after all these years. More chance of an asteroid strike than most of that crap. We could not even get a good Ebola epidemic past the disease control people that last go round. And the young people seem too absorbed by their video games to create a revolution and over throw anything.

Even terrorist attacks can not sustain a good armed police presence for more than 48 hours before the whining over excess begins.

I have two real concerns and I am in continuous prep mode because they happen to me on a regular basis.

Tornadoes/severe wind storms and winter power outages.

I have never had to survive the end of the world, I have never had to survive a complete financial collapse, I have never seen the "golden horde" roaming the countryside, civil war, political collapse or complete breakdown of the social order. Not here at home anyway. Neither have you in England.

If any of those things happened and the problem was not resolved within a few weeks/months I would be dead due to medical complications anyway, so there is no need for me to have any illusions that I could survive a world changing event.

Perhaps there are places where a total and complete disaster can wipe out civilization as we know it and never have it return to that area, but I do not live in one of those places. Neither do you.

In the past 60 days I have seen two areas the size of England severely damaged or nearly destroyed, and an Island the size of Wales flattened to the ground, and before the event even ended there was aid waiting to enter the areas and begin the rebuilding process. Most of that aid was from private sources and not government. It is one of the advantages of being big, having a strong national identity and a culture of helping others when trouble happens.

I do have to deal personally and immediately with electrical power outages due to wind storms in spring/fall, and due to ice taking miles of electric lines down in winter. I have short outages every few weeks and I have had outages of over 48 hours every year or two throughout my life. Some outages have been up to two weeks duration.

It is difficult to understand in England but over here our storms kill people, sometimes lots of people. People are blown away, never to be seen again, killed by flying debris, or they freeze to death in their homes in winter due to lack of preps or thought.

I have already spent the past week in the annual gathering of winter supplies, filling all the propane tanks, making sure the Coleman lanterns have good mantles and spares are available, knowing the exact location of the emergency heaters and cook-stoves and having the wool blankets cleaned and stacked for use.

These activities are basically done so I do not have to impose on friends and relatives by invading their homes, or going to a motel outside my area every time something goes wrong. I can stay in my own little habitat and tough out the problem.

[MaryN]

Interesting question that. What do I worry about? Hmmm. Well, since Nibiru failed to put in an appearance, I'll strike that from the list. i am inclined to agree with SD. Society is becoming increasingly unstable, and people seem to have lost the will to reason without hysteria. I do think we are more likely to be the subject of terrorist attacks, although these would probably be centred in the larger urban areas, so people like me in the back end of the countryside would probably not be affected (fingers crossed). Pandemics? Er, probably not, even the media hype about Australian flu is not particularly alarming yet. Weather can get a bit alarming, but so far nothing too dramatic has touched this area. So, I would have to say societal disintegration and with people like Comrade Corbyn alive and spreading their poison, things could get quite nasty..... quite quickly.

[Straight Shooter]

Between the first two posts (not including mine) is the mix of where i am at.....social collapse , monetary collapse , and the deliberate import of illegal aliens designed to destabilise A country on a global scale .....even a planed demise of the host .

Even as a child i remember hiking up the mountains (less than a mile from where i sit ) and playing at survival....i would dig up some potatoes from a farmers field make some fire (with the help of the sun and magnifying glass and some sheep's fleece that was caught up in a barb wire fence) build a shelter if it was raining so i suppose i have form ....as far as i am concerned i always was and still am (playing survival) i cannot see ANY reason to stop...None...i see more reasons to continue down this road ....even to echo MB's point of everyday stuff he encounters on a regular basis ...but is ready enough for not so regular everyday stuff....."preparing for winter " is normal for people like us ....but very unusual too a lot of people around here , one big thing i have noticed the past three years is unusual shopping patterns , there is no patterns anymore go out to any supermarket any day or time of the week .....you will see shoppers ...not so much hordes but enough ...do the supermarkets make enough for their shareholders i very much doubt it ...to hide the truth of it , they buy their own stock to keep the share price up.....this cannot continue for much longer even if the banks lend at 1% rate....just look at the dow ...in fact look where you like ...... anywhere.....the only help you are going to get 100% guaranteed is through your own efforts and skill sets .....most preppers believe you should have at least six months of supplies put by some even suggest twelve to eighteen months , the main thrust here is you NEED preps , so newbies get cracking....any action taken now ! will pay you dividends later on down the path ...no matter how big or small always try to move forwards...never slide backwards .

[Talon]

I suppose my biggest worry is making sure the mortgage gets paid every month . Apart from that I'm pretty settled with where I'm at .
I don't worry about total collapse anymore , at least not in my lifetime . I don't have kids to worry about so yup . It's pretty much making sure I can keep up with house payments and a bit extra cash every month to enjoy life. Not very dramatic I know but that's my biggest worry .

[CharlesHarris]

I am a firm believer in what they call the All Hazards approach to emergency planning.

I first got started prepping as a kid growing up in DC during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Dad was in the Army and Mom had been an air raid warden during WW2 and my brother and I filled sandbags, stacking them around the foundation, and over shoring covering the stairway into the walk-out cellar, whilst Mom prepared a stocked pantry and shelter under the cellar stairs.

Over the years that shelter was maintained and used during hurricanes and tornadoes. The high school I attended was hit by tornadoes three times in the years between my attendance there and when I got out of the Navy in 1974 and returned to the DC area to work.

During the years I lived in Northern Virginia as an adult we lived through more hurricanes, ice storms, power outages and an F3 tornado which ripped through the neighborhood, missing our house, but taking 20 feet out of the top of an oak tree in our yard and dropping it onto the next house over, about 200 yards away.

Twice we had to evacuate temporarily for hazmat releases on the nearby I495 beltway, once for an overturned truckload of explosives, and another time for a tanker truck full of aviation fuel which overturned and leaked into a storm sewer.

After 9/11 everyone was on edge, expecting some kind of terror attack.

Then we had the famous Beltway Sniper, who killed an FBI analyst at the Home Depot where I shopped.

All normal things for life in the biog city. If you plan for the real hazards which are more likely than nuclear war or space alien invasion, you will be reasonably well prepared for the low-likelihood, but high consequence events.

Now that I live in the country, a concern is wildfires, if we would have a dry summer and somebody gets stupid.

If they decide to nuke DC I have a year's worth of food storage, wood stove, 5 cords of wood racked up, pump to draw water form the creek downhill, a Big Berkey water filter, my garden tools, etc.

Take like as it comes and don't sweat the details. I will be 69 in October, debt free and living frugally.

[Straight Shooter]

If they decide to nuke DC I have a year's worth of food storage, wood stove, 5 cords of wood racked up, pump to draw water form the creek downhill, a Big Berkey water filter, my garden tools, etc.

I have bad news Charles.....the new hydrogen nukes are 26,000 times the power of what was dropped on Japan .....yes 26,000 more power and that's just one warhead ......if just 10% of Americas nukes were used NO ONE on earth would survive the same applies if Russia just used 10% of their nukes .....not a collective of 20% just 10% of any side .....best if i send you over a bottle of blackberry wine Charles at least you could enjoy being vaporised and wonder if SS's brew shed made it ?.

[Mortblanc]

SS "mutually assured destruction" was the scenario that we all lived under for all of our lives up till 1990-something and holds no real emotional trauma for me and most of my generation.

Memory being short as it is there is no wonder the general population over here does not even think about nuke war on a daily basis, or at all for that matter. Nothing they can do anyway.

And as you say, if 10% of the nukes we formerly had were used there would be nothing but cockroaches left to survive, so why get all quivery in the liver about it and act like we had the slightest chance of survival in that situation.

It is like I tell my American friends, the end of the world is the end of the world. It is not the end of the world for everyone but me or you, it is the end of the world.

"If that button is pushed there's no running away,
there'll be no one to save you with the world in the grave"

Yep, a song about the immediate, eminent and certain end of the world, and it was written more then 50 years ago when the threat was much stronger than now. We are still here.

SS you are now on "life sustaining heart meds". Cut off that supply of meds and you have about 30-90 days on this earth tops. Does not matter if it is famine, disease, social unrest, flood, nuke war or the doors of the zoo are flung open. You have until your meds run out and that is all.

All of us on life sustaining meds are in the same fix. That includes most of the population over age 60. also a big part of the population between 40 and 60. Also anyone on a gluten free allergic to everything existence, all diabetics, all on dialysis, and those being treated for any chronic ailment, which includes a huge number of the present population.

You are not keeping yourself alive, even with all the work you are doing, the meds are keeping you alive.

All the planning and work you are doing is only good for the amount of pills you have left in the bottle, and much of what you are doing might be shortening your life, not adding time to the other end.

When I accepted that situation I came to terms with reality and developed my 6 month survival plan, which I have found sustainable. I have 6 months of meds, 6 months of food, 6 months of fuel and other comforts beyond what I need to safely exist through a blizzard or long term power outage. No need to have much beyond the limits of my med supply.

A 6 month supply was achievable, affordable, and manageable. I had enough time, money and space to do all I needed to achieve that goal and it has nothing to do with expecting the "end of the world". It has everything to do with the fact that in my world there is the possibility that a weather event could alter my reality for up to 6 months before normalcy could be restored. It appears that Puerto Rico is in that situation right now and parts of my nation just 5-6 hours drive from me have weeks of work ahead to return to normalcy, even though the threat to life is past.

By developing a 6 month plan and supplies to achieve it I am also prepared for almost any emergency that I encounter in the here and now "real world".

[CharlesHarris]

MB just nailed it.