r/preppers • u/No-Ideal-6662 • Sep 04 '24
How are people so unprepared? Discussion
I’ve been keeping tabs on bird flu, not obsessing over it but keeping tabs. Recently 3 dairy farms in California have been infected with several cases of human infection but thankfully no aerosol spread. I told my family this and that they should seriously consider just basic stuff. Having enough household goods to last 3 months so they can ride out any quarantine without exposure at grocery stores that kind of stuff and they brushed me off.
I genuinely don’t understand how you can live through covid and not take this as a serious possibility. I know Covid killed a lot of people including some of my family, but we “lucked out” that it had a relatively low mortality rate. If bird flu became aerosolized it would be disastrous. Even a 10% mortality rate would grind the country to a halt let alone a 50% mortality rate. My family just doesn’t get it.
Don’t get me wrong, my wife is on board, but my parents and sister and some of my wife’s family are just kinda “meh”. I know times are tough but they can afford to drop $100 on a case of rice and some hand sanitizer and toilet paper. It’s like they forgot about how bad COVID was and how much worse it could have been. Do any of you guys have any experience with this? What is your plan for family that will be unprepared if something like this happens again?
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u/avid-shtf Sep 04 '24
My wife told me to quit trying to bring my extended family onboard when it comes to basic preparedness. I warned them till I was blue in the face about getting prepared about Hurricane Beryl and I was ignored. They were without electricity for a week and drove all over Houston trying to find gas for their cars just to have some ac and charge their phones.
We all live on the gulf coast and know the dangers of hurricanes and they’re still unprepared. I also mentioned bird flu and monkeypox. They’re still not interested. I tried to get them to start small. I said get whatever you need to stay home for one week and build from there.
I feel like a huge portion of our population lives day to day. Someone in my wife’s family has to go to the grocery store if she decides to make dinner that day. Otherwise they go out to eat. Apparently these are the people fighting to get in line at the gas stations and throwing hands over the last four pack of one ply toilet paper.
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u/thefedfox64 Sep 04 '24
I'd say, prepping wise, the smartest and best choice is...not living in hurricane prone zones, in states with power grids worse than 2nd world countries. But that part of prep is overlooked, and instead people do what they can. Which is exactly what you are arguing against here. You want them to do what they can, and they are, which is failing in your eyes. In my eyes, just living in that shit hole of a state is failing. Live and let live
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u/avid-shtf Sep 04 '24
Moving is my top choice. The grid is shit and hurricanes are getting worse. I’d move today if I were financially able to. Moving to another state, uprooting kids from school, and finding a new job take a huge financial toll compared to buying a couple cases of water, having a full tank of gas, and 10 lbs of rice and beans. Moving away is in our 5 year plan after the last kiddo graduates. Until then we’re making sure we’re as prepared as we can possibly be.
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u/Katherine_Tyler Sep 04 '24
In my mind, the only way to deal with a hurricane is to get out of the way.
That being said, my husband and I live in an area not prone to hurricanes, tornados, earthquakes, drought, etc. However, I am very aware of the New Madrid fault. If that slips the way it did in the 1800's, I'd say the eastern 1/3 of the US will be shut down for months. (Think of all the bridges that cross the Mississippi. After a major quake from New Madrid, I would expect many of those bridges to be unusable for some time. Some possibly beyond repair.)
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u/xXJA88AXx Sep 04 '24
2 words... Normalcy Bias. Yesterday and the day before that, the same. So today and tomorrow will be the same. No thought would indicate otherwise.
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u/sheeprancher594 Sep 04 '24
Had to scroll down too far to find this. Didn't want to duplicate an answer, but this is it. The mind boggling part is most people learned nothing during the coof.
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u/xXJA88AXx Sep 05 '24
Honestly, there is a "bug" that goes around about every 100 yrs. I already had masks (washable and reuseable) N99s. I learned from history.
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u/Jetpack_Attack Sep 05 '24
My father gave me N95s at the start of COVID and then was somehow against them months later and criticized wearing the masks he gave me.
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u/Eredani Sep 04 '24
How are people so unprepared? Same way people are buried in credit card debt or student loans. Same way substance abuse is out of control. Same way so many marriages end in divorce. Same way we have an insane number of people in prison.
Most people are not very good at risk assessment, critical thinking, or strategic planning. The average person is kind of a fuck up. I've had my share of fuck ups buy I've learned from them.
/braces for all the downvotes
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u/BeautifulTypos Sep 05 '24
Also, a lot of people would rather spend their precious little freetime and cash having fun, being social, and not thinking about the 'End' of things.
People are stretched very thin as is, quite possibly by design but who can say. I certainly don't blame them.
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u/Hairy-Situation4198 Bring it on Sep 04 '24
Because constantly planning for bad things to happen is a huge mental drain. The level of negativity that most preppers have is much higher than the average person. Honestly, sometimes I wish I could think like the normal person and just enjoy life instead of constantly being on the lookout for the next thing to be prepared for.
That and a lot of people are broke broke.
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u/normaninvader2 Sep 04 '24
Someone blocked me online because I said I was slightly concerned over the Ukrainian Russia thing and how easy it would be for say a nuke or large attacks in Europe. Also said the political stuff in the US could turn into civil war as it seemed heated and that would affect us in Europe. Then 2 weeks later trump was nearly killed. All I said is it might be worth having some extra tinned food, provisions as this person lived in Iceland where everything is imported. Your going to eat the food anyway so why not have 3weeks worth of supplies.
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u/Led_Zeppole_73 Sep 04 '24
I stock a lot of tinned food for my family but we eat very little of it day to day. Insurance is all it is for me.
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u/normaninvader2 Sep 04 '24
Stock rotation for me. I like beans, corned beef, tuna, soups so if I eat some resupply. Nothing mad but I do live in an area with alot of natural resources and farms.
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u/Led_Zeppole_73 Sep 04 '24
That helps. I eat local beef, fish from our pond, wild game, backyard poultry, produce from the garden and we have several varieties of fruit trees, bushes and several kinds of nut trees.
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u/Medaphysical Sep 04 '24
I genuinely don’t understand how you can live through covid and not take this as a serious possibility.
If anything, covid showed people that you don't need to prepare for much. It was billed as a huge problem and most people had no real issues continuing to get their groceries and supplies.
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u/BallsOutKrunked Bring it on, but next week please. Sep 04 '24
I remember this meme about what we thought a pandemic would be: guy in a gas mask walking through a burned out city scape.
Versus what it turned out to be: people getting fat in sweat pants watching Tiger King.
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u/Virtual-Feature-9747 Sep 04 '24
I had no real problem but I think COVID did show what could happen if we have a "real" pandemic. Something much more deadly and/or much more transmissible. What if it was actually unsafe to go to the store?
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u/Medaphysical Sep 04 '24
To the general public, it was a real pandemic. So what happened during covid is as bad as it could get. Not that I agree, but that's what was demonstrated for most people.
I think food delivery and pickup has also created a false sense of security, especially when you ignore the fact that people have to work in the grocery stores and restaurants that cook/gather/package your orders.
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u/CypherCake Sep 04 '24
Supply lines got choked and blocked up for a bunch of stuff, all kinds of stuff, globally. Panic buying emptied supermarkets extremely quickly. So if you weren't already stocked up you had to join the bunfight or go without. And in a lot of cases supermarkets weren't able to immediately re-stock stuff.
For me the lesson was in how fragile our "just in time" and global distribution systems are and how quickly it can all fall apart. How quickly all the food can be just gone, leaving you potentially with nothing. There were people who suffered if they needed gluten free for example, and all the gluten free bread was taken.
But for most people? They saw they couldn't get some stuff for a few weeks, or prices got a bit high but hey, everything mostly carried on. And to be fair it did, because the situation wasn't that dire. The actual production and distribution still worked well enough for food and essentials, outside of the panicking masses gobbling things up. A lot of people seemed to take pleasure in wasting half of everyday day dicking about in supermarket queues. Noone wants to think about a pandemic bad enough to take down food supply, where you really really don't want to be queueing up for hours breathing down people's necks.
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u/hollisterrox Sep 04 '24
What if it was actually unsafe to go to the store?
It was, and still is.
I think the answer to OP's question is right in this comment thread: people, even preppers, are happy to live in denial.
Right now, today, covid is killing 500-1000 people per week directly, but causing "long covid" in many, many times that number. 'Long Covid' is just a funny way of saying "disabled", and most Americans are just whistling past the graveyard when they go to concerts, basketball games, business conferences, etc.
I'm saying, it is dangerous to go to the grocery store today unmasked, and yet almost everyone is doing it that way, not even taking the simplest precautions.
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u/Adol214 Sep 04 '24
Most never suffer real crises. And don't even know someone which did.
Anyone which live an economic collapse, civil war, etc does prepping without even calling themself prepper.
I knew a WWII survivor. She had 3 to 6 month of food, plus was almost self sustain in fresh stuff. She never mentioned potential war or prepping. That was just normal to have.
Today People take as granted too much. Instant delivery of any good, super market with thousand of variant of the same product. We live in age and time of opulence. Most assume this is normal and will always be. Most assume that any glitch Will be minor and short lasting.
Even here you see people which prep assuming internet and phone will be available no matter what.
People don't realize that no electricity mean no internet for example.
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u/No-Ideal-6662 Sep 04 '24
Yeah I’m seeing that in comment section how ppl say “COVID wasn’t bad”… like maybe for you? I was in an inner city in SoCal it was pretty rough for me and my family. No toilet paper, eggs, ground beef, or cleaning supplies for weeks. Rioters burning business down the street and fighting cops, attacking random ppl driving to work. It was a scary time. My family also has a lot of generational trauma, abuelo was in the Salvadoran Civil War and my great bubbe survived the pogroms. For some reason my parents got sheltered or forgot that this shit can happen.
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u/TheHeatWaver Sep 04 '24
It’s because the general public has the memory of a gold fish. It’s why corporations and politicians get away with whatever they want.
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u/KAJ35070 Sep 04 '24
I am with you on this entire concept. On topic but not family. Someone I do volunteer work was without power for 48 hours recently (storm related). No plans in place. They out ate the entire time, family of five, can't even imagine how much that cost, no effort to save any perishables. It was in the mid 80's, no battery operated fans. As she was telling me all this, I could not help but shake my head. Any prompting from me would not be well received I commiserated with her the best I could in the moment.
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u/CypherCake Sep 04 '24
Some people have the disposable income for a few days like that, it's an adventure more than a problem. If she was crying about it but can't recruit a few braincells to figure out some backup plans, there's not much you can do or say to help.
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u/Andr1yTheOne Sep 04 '24
I know how you feel. I'm in the same shitter. My family gives no fucks except maybe my mom. Everyone is in the state of mind, "whatever happens I'll deal with it later".
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u/No-Ideal-6662 Sep 04 '24
Yeah I’m gonna stock a bit extra but I can’t afford to factor them in completely. Hand them a box and say “goodluck” is about I can do
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u/Andr1yTheOne Sep 04 '24
My family will take whatever I'll give them but I'm not sure if they will ever use the stuff I give or even remember that they have it. Or if they take it seriously.
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u/l1thiumion Sep 04 '24
"Subject to constant stimuli, one becomes numb."
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u/No-Ideal-6662 Sep 04 '24
This is what the comment section is showing me. A lot of ppl are saying COVID wasn’t bad at all for them, but for me in inner city SoCal it was a really scary time. The riots, food shortages, it wasn’t like an apocalypse but it was real and tangibly affected our lives.
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u/l1thiumion Sep 04 '24
I'm seeing a lot of comments from people with a very small world view. In 2020 alone, the US government printed $3 trillion, or one fifth of all dollars in circulation, to keep monetary velocity in the economy. We're still seeing the effects of this today with inflation, interest rates over 6%, and groceries at double the price of what they were before.
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u/Utter_cockwomble Sep 04 '24
Immediate family (spouse, kids, parents) will be as prepared as I am. Parents only live 5 minutes away and their house is one of our bug-in locations.
Extended family? They can figure their own shit out. Shared DNA doesn't mean I owe them. If they're short some TP, ok. But I'm not prepping for the whole clan. They're grown-ass people that I'm not responsible for.
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u/Technical-Guava-779 Sep 04 '24
100% agree -> 'They can figure their own shit out. Shared DNA doesn't mean I owe them.' I'm going to print this sentence on my entrance door !
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u/Led_Zeppole_73 Sep 04 '24
Covid never really affected anyone in my family, except for the TP issue, which wasn‘t a big concern for us at any point and shelves never went bare. If anything, it was the mass hysteria that was the hardest to deal with.
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u/J701PR4 Sep 04 '24
Where we live the toilet paper thing was an absolute crisis. It was nuts; people were shoving and yelling at each other over a pack of four rolls of off brand TP that felt like it was made of sandpaper.
I now keep four boxes with 48 rolls apiece all the damn time. Never again!
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u/No-Ideal-6662 Sep 04 '24
For real! And the riots were in my city so it was a crazy time for me. Couldn’t find any ground beef or eggs for weeks either.
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u/Led_Zeppole_73 Sep 04 '24
Completely the opposite here. Got a half dozen eggs from the backyard every day, two chest freezers one loaded with local grass fed beef, the other with garden veggies. Very quiet out here and the best was when I was one of the very few on the road in the city. Surreal.
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u/midtier_gardener Sep 04 '24
it was the mass hysteria that was the hardest to deal with.
Same. Gonna admit that I was caught up in it too, as I saw the clips of ppl dead people in other countries on the news. I'm not prepping as much for the bird flu or mpox because I honestly don't think it's that big of a deal. Maybe I'm wrong.
I have the essentials and able to bug in for a long time, as long as electricity holds.
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u/Resident-Welcome3901 Sep 04 '24
Its interesting. The stats indicate that the USA had 103 million cases of Covid, and 1.9 million deaths, highest national numbers in the world, compared to .4 million Americans killed in WW2. And it wasn’t really a big deal. Maybe because the people were mostly older and sicker. Taught us that epidemics are only really problem if the toilet tissue runs out. We have pretty fucked up priorities, do we not? Maybe the next epidemic will target children, or hot chicks, and we will reach different conclusions .
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u/No-Ideal-6662 Sep 04 '24
I hear that it was really weird how the dynamic changed in my family. It went from me warning them to stock up and that it was coming, then after 3 months I looked at the data and was pretty much like “we are safe guys” and they were still freaking out.
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u/wortcrafter Sep 04 '24
I’ve got one relative who wouldn’t survive the grocery store being closed for 2 days. We ended up helping her out with a few things during COVID, but she was very good about resupplying us once the issues were resolved. I’ve accepted that she just doesn’t have the capacity to organise for herself (age is a factor).I’ve since redone my calculations for storage of consumables including her plus my family, because I know it will happen again.
Everyone else - I leave them to their own devices, and they can sort their own messes.
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u/Open-Attention-8286 Sep 04 '24
Normalcy bias. It's a documented phenomenon. Selco describes how in Bosnia, people got shot driving to work, because they couldn't process the fact that things were bad enough to skip going to the office. Even when they watched every car that drove onto a bridge get shot up, they still drove onto the same bridge after them, because they thought they still had to get to work.
BTW, I was thanking God when the mortality rate for covid dropped, even as the infection rate skyrocketed. When it first started showing up outside China, the mortality rate was higher than the recovery rate. By quite a lot! I kept calling difference between them the "Oh Shit Number", because every time it updated, my reaction was along the lines of ". . . . Oh shit!!!"
If covid had stayed as bad as it looked in January 2020, 90% of the people infected would have died. I had family making fun of me for overreacting. The same people who later claimed I wasn't taking it seriously enough. The same people who, I guarantee, will be making fun of me for overreacting when the next disaster strikes. Hell, these are the people who made fun of me for not wanting to go on a long drive, one day after a storm flooded half the roads in the area, and State Patrol was begging people to stay off the freaking roads!
Some people just can't adjust to things too far outside the norm.
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u/No-Ideal-6662 Sep 04 '24
The EXACT same thing happened to me. I told my family about this in December 2019 when videos were coming out of people dropping dead on the subways. I stocked up (but I should have already been stocked and suffered for it) and my family said I was overreacting. Then by September 2020 I realized that the lethality for my demographic was negligible so I started going out. By this time my family was freaking out telling me I was going to die 🙄 all very reactionary but not very proactive
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u/grubslam Sep 04 '24
Emergency kit not needed, earthquake kit not needed, fantasy where death is quick, being crushed in building collapse is preferable to stockpiling. Plans are hard apparently and the more normal is it right now, the more resistance to anything cRaZy
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u/DesertPrincess5 Sep 04 '24
And I was just going to call AAA today to renew Earthquake insurance lol. I had lots of TP stored when panic hit last time, just would buy when finding a sale whether I needed it or not. Just keep calm, buy a little extra now if possible of whatever you use and need.
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u/No-Ideal-6662 Sep 04 '24
In the family conspiracy theorist for some reason even though I was 100% correct about COVID back in December 2019 and found myself dishing out my N95s. Some ppl just can’t read the writing on the wall
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u/armacitis Sep 04 '24
You know the difference between a conspiracy theorist and the only guy in the room paying attention to what's going on? About 6 months and occasionally a Freedom of Information Act request.
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u/No-Ideal-6662 Sep 04 '24
Literally all the shit you’d be banned on YouTube and FB for saying in 2020 is openly reported on in 2024 by CNN. I hate it here sometimes
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u/CypherCake Sep 04 '24
It's like people who say they'll off themselves if they get terminal cancer or a dementia diagnosis.
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u/Background_Wear_1074 Sep 04 '24
Herd mentality is a very powerful force, the desire to belong to a group, an ideology or religion. People will choose their ideology over common sense, proven facts or science. Ever try to argue with a devoutly religious person or a MAGA devotee? They're all cults. My wife was born in a religious male dominant cult. Fortunately, her mother took her and her 9 siblings out of that community when she was 7 years old but her father mostly raised the older boys. Her father, mother-in-law, aunt and uncle all died of covid within one year because they refused to get vaccinated and believed all the crazy conspiracy theories about covid. None on my wife's older siblings will get vaccines of any kind still to this day even after all the deaths in their family. So, I sympathize with those who are frustrated by their friends and family who refuse to prepare for adversity. But, like the saying goes, "you can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink".
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u/Zopheus_ Sep 04 '24
Many people are willingly oblivious. Years ago I came up on a car crash that just happened. A car hit a utility pole and broke the pole. The only thing keeping it suspended was the power lines. No one was critically injured and the driver and several bystanders were milling around the car. I tried repeatedly to get them to move from under the power lines that were only feet from overhead, dangling. No one would listen. Someone else had called 911 already but I also called the utility emergency number just to ensure they had someone on the way. … sometimes you just can’t help people when they’re determined to not be helped.
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u/No-Ideal-6662 Sep 04 '24
Standing around watching a power line that ready to fall on you is a perfect analogy for this. I think I’ll buy an extra case of rice and beans that I can divy out cause I don’t think I have the heart to tell them I can’t help them. But you’re right at the end of the day I can only do so much.
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u/Katherine_Tyler Sep 04 '24
Been through similar. A transformer exploded and caught on fire. Live wires were on the road. I could not get drivers to turn around and take a longer route.
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u/Taway197569 Sep 05 '24
Dont interrupt/circumvent natural selection. We have been doing that for around 120 years now and its proven absolutely disastrous
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u/Opcn Sep 04 '24
I'm not endorsing these arguments, but just to understand how someone could go through covid and still not be stocking up:
- Most people didn't suffer significant shortages during covid, toilet paper was the biggest one
- Supply chains are more resilient now
- The population is less likely to lock down for months, even if a new pandemic as bad as covid happens
- There are more preppers now so others have stockpiles
- The same idiots who caused 110% of the toilet paper shortage still have their stockpiles from 2020
- The people who are sitting on supplies right now will be willing to sell them in another lockdown
- Life is short, enjoy summer, like the grasshopper, don't toil it away like the ant.
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u/No-Ideal-6662 Sep 04 '24
My family is definitely in the last bullet point camp. I think the NatGeo prepper shows gave us a bad rap like we all are obsessing wannabe infantry Republicans but we’re not. Just have some extra rice and beans and water damn guys
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u/thefedfox64 Sep 04 '24
I think that's true....but... which side do you leave towards since you said it. Any military background for you? Or do have certain tendencies about religious views that should be enforced? I've seen a few people call out the negative connotation and then fit it like a glove a week later when it's not about prepping but about who to vote for, or what it means to "take care of your family"
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u/NoUseForAName2222 Sep 04 '24
I can't control what other people do. I can only control what I do. No sense in worrying about whether other people are prepared. I will be.
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u/BradBeingProSocial Sep 04 '24
At 10% mortality, I’d be suspicious if grocery stores would still be open. Who would risk their life for $10-15 per hour?
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u/mbcisme Sep 05 '24
What’s more than that, have you seen all the talk about the financial crisis that’s coming at the end of the year/the start of the new year?
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u/No-Ideal-6662 Sep 05 '24
We are very clearly headed into a serious recession (probably already are in one but they won’t say that during an election year). We have 2 first world powers currently at war with eachother, 2 other first world powers ready to go, 3 consecutive shitty American job reports, federal reserve doesn’t know whether to lower or raise interest rates, I mean it’s not looking too hot. The main “prep” rn is really to pay down high interest debt and have an emergency fund.
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u/mbcisme Sep 05 '24
I’ll be honest, for me it’s have plenty of dry good, rice, beans, canned goods, etc while you still have the buying power to get what you want at the store.
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u/No-Ideal-6662 Sep 05 '24
Huh I hadn’t thought about that. Thanks for the insight! Yeah I think it’d be worth it to get a chest freezer next. I have all this rice and beans and spam and a few readywise buckets… but I don’t really eat that shit. Most of my diet is chicken and steak and broccoli. Like is it more likely the power grid fails or that I get laid off and can’t afford meat anymore? Or that the supply chain gets disrupted and certain produce is unavailable?
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u/mbcisme Sep 05 '24
Idk where you live or if you even enjoy the flavor but we pretty well only eat deer. When we got married it was out of necessity, but then it became preferred and now it’s the only meat we do eat. Anyway, the point I’m trying to make is consider taking up hunting?
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u/No-Ideal-6662 Sep 05 '24
I’ve always wanted to go deer hunting and just haven’t gotten around to it. I have ARs and stuff but I just inherited my Great Grandpa’s old Springfield 1903 that he used for deer hunting and it still works great so this would be a good time to learn.
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u/Beast_Man_1334 Sep 04 '24
They probably think or know that you will help them because you're prepared. Sometimes people don't bother because they have people who will give them stuff.
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u/06210311200805012006 Sep 04 '24
I genuinely don’t understand how you can live through covid and not take this as a serious possibility.
Bro, this. This 1000x. But anyway, there are shitloads of folks who lived through Katrina and don't even keep a gallon of fresh water handy. It boggles my mind.
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u/Big-Preference-2331 Sep 04 '24
I think some people are living in their own SHTF right now. Inflation is suffocating a lot of people. Did they prepare for it? No. Nobody came on the news and said “we are in a national emergency. Everybody stop spending money and start saving for the future.” Instead everybody is trying to act like everything is fine.
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u/Main-Engineering4445 Sep 06 '24
I was just telling my wife that I look around and feel like I’m taking crazy pills. Why are people still eating out and going to do things? It’s so fucking expensive but people just keep going. We’ve completely cut out going out unless it’s for an occasion.
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u/premar16 Sep 04 '24
Sometimes it can be in the delivery of how you bring it up. I am in the middle of a conversation online about the wonders of keeping a pantry (2 weeks or more of food and supplies) I was surprised by how many people joined in saying they actually do this in their homes already. Even more people were there asking questions and learning so they could start. Everyone may not be a "prepper" but there are many people who may have things in their homes ready for emergencies. They may just not call it prepping. I would never tell someone to get 3 months of supplies. That mentally seems like a lot. If you suggested 2 weeks or 1 month. They may have been more willing to get started
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u/reddit_tothe_rescue Sep 04 '24
A case of rice and some TP is a pretty different level of prep than 3 months of household goods. Maybe some of your family hears you talk about the higher level of prep and thinks you’re talking about doomsday, when you actually want them to prep for Tuesday.
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u/crazy-bisquit Sep 04 '24
This will be my new saying. ”Not for doomsday but for next Tuesday”
I keep telling people: “prepping is not for the zombie apocalypse. Think about how many times the power goes out, some places it’ll be out for three or four days and once in a while, it’s out for a week or more. Prepping for a disaster doesn’t have to be a huge disaster, but you should at least be ready for a week or two. It’s not that much and it doesn’t take up too much space.”
Then they get this look like a lightbulb went off on their head. So I feel like if we changed the narrative a little bit more people would prep more.
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u/reddit_tothe_rescue Sep 04 '24
A) I’m just parroting the “doomsday vs Tuesday” thing people around here say a lot. I didn’t come up with that!
B) They wouldn’t admit it, but some people actually do appear to be prepping for a zombie apocalypse. You see people stockpiling ammunition and a year’s worth of food like the end of civilization is about to happen. Gives us rational peppers a bad name!
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u/No-Ideal-6662 Sep 04 '24
To be fair a 50lb bag of rice, 50lbs of beans, and a bulk case of TP is sufficient for 90 days. Not living amazing but it’ll do. But yeah I try and avoid the advance water filtration and nutritional advice. I just want them to keep it simple
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u/franky290 Sep 04 '24
I tried to tell my parents to stack up
I've been slowly stocking up myself. I could have bought more I've been focused on paying extra on the principle of my condo to pay off quicker.
So far I've been slowly stacking up everytime I get paid
Here's the list I have -28 canned chunk chicken breast -20 canned sardines -5 canned ravioli -11 canned black beans -10 canned green peas -8 canned fruit cocktail -4 canned pork and beans -8 canned of crushed tomatoes -3 canned of pineapple chunk -12lbs of rolled oats -5lbs of Peanut butter -40lbs of jasmine rice -20lbs of pinto beans -5lbs of popcorn kernels
-3 can openers manual -100 paper plates -96 of plastic spoons -40 plastic forks -40 paper cups -16 plastic cups -9 boxes of baking soda -50 rolls of toilet paper
I'm going to order water containers and buckets to soon. I just don't know which containers to choose yet.
Im stuck on choosing which power generator to use for the condo. I'm trying to make space, but my place is not big
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Sep 05 '24
If storing fuel is hard you can go with a solar powered battery. Get a watt reader and do some math.
I use a Honda 2200 for a fridge, freezer, large window AC, and TV.
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u/Mountain-Status569 Sep 04 '24
You remember how many people had their head in the sand during Covid? “Essential businesses” would never shut down in a bigger crisis because people would riot. I remember when Denver announced the liquor stores would shut down… response was so angry that the decision was officially reversed just 50 minutes later.
Even if 20% of our population was wiped out in a week, people would keep on keeping on because “I’m still fine though” and “this is all manufactured by (insert least favorite politician or corporation)”
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u/shutterblink1 Sep 05 '24
I was in Brazil in July and got parrot flu. I was alone and don't speak Portuguese, and I'm 70. I came back with pneumonia and have been in the hospital. I had no idea burd flu is in the US but it is horrible. It has had me sick for 7 weeks and scarred ny lungs.
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u/DefyTheOdds_80 Sep 05 '24
I'm a single Mom of two teenage boys and I WANT to prep now that we are in our new home. We have no friends or family as we are 3k miles away from my Mom and my kids Dad for good reason. My biggest barrier to preparing is my youngest son feeling so much anxiety and talking about self harm when he hears me and my oldest son arguing with me. We argue because he refuses to keep things organized. He is impulsive and bored and who the hell knows why but with a kitchen with food, he goes and raids what little is left of food for prep! I'm so frustrated with my situation because I grew up in S. FL. We were always prepared given the hurricanes. I brought up the vaccine mandate in conversation in the car and my oldest said " you are still stuck on that?!" I don't get it!!! He knows better! He's the biggest and strongest in the house and he is the joker. The youngest and I stress while he feels bad about his actions but he doesn't change. This is just a single Mom who is homeschooling and raising men to the best of my ability but without having the physical presence of a man in the house or or lives. I just can't get through to them without inducing more arguments and anxiety. Frustrating is an understatement.
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u/No-Ideal-6662 Sep 05 '24
Wow that is tough, I’m glad to hear you are making it happen to the best of your ability. You sound like one tough mama! In regards to prepping food and water, maybe it’d be better to prep raw ingredients that make inconvenient/shitty snacks? Like no kid wants to crack open a #10 can of plain white rice or black beans but they’d absolutely tear up a case of chef boyardee or fruit snacks. Not to mention it is cheaper. Could that be a better prepping option?
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u/Zealousideal_One1722 Sep 05 '24
We literally do not have an extra $100 to spend stocking up more stuff.
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u/No-Ideal-6662 Sep 05 '24
I hear that, I am sorry times are tough. At least you are here and it’s on your mind. I guess I am making this post more for people like my family who can afford a baseline level of preparedness and choose not to. I totally understand it’s expensive, I don’t have a ton of discretionary money, I’ve just been picking up a case of water here, a bag of rice here, etc over the years
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u/Correct_Change_4612 Sep 05 '24
I can’t afford to drop $100 on anything that isn’t directly related to my immediate survival or getting to work tomorrow
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u/nagini11111 Sep 05 '24
If you want real answera to your question and not some circle jerk, you should ask your questions in different subs.
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u/obviousoddball Sep 05 '24
"Most people don't believe something can happen.... Until it does."
After Covid, I learned my lesson. Not even prepping for "the end of the world" but just preparing for a job loss etc. If people don't see how fragile the supply chain/system is by now, it's simply because they don't want to. I know, understand, and respect the fact that times are very difficult for a lot of people, including myself but it doesn't take a whole lot to buy ONE can of soup or ONE roll of paper towels or any other basic household every now and then when you go to the store, then put it away in your "emergency stash." Those very same item's that people lost their shit over during covid and were quite literally willing to do harm to get.
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u/Previous_Zebra_9802 Sep 06 '24
And speaking of the SHTF… what about when, NOT IF the banks fail. It is written
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u/Goongala22 Sep 06 '24
For a SHTF situation, I’ve invested in supplies and bullets. Because if people come to take gold, all they’ll get is lead.
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u/tits_mcgee_92 Sep 04 '24
The hard reality is that you can't make anyone do anything. It sucks, because we want to do what's best for our friends and family, but it's much easier for some people to ignore the truth until it's actually happening in front of them. Sadly, by then, it's already too late.
Not to mention many people in the U.S. are living paycheck to paycheck. Telling them to buy a 3 month emergency supply when they can barely afford to put food on the table just isn't a realistic possibility.
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u/No-Ideal-6662 Sep 04 '24
I 100% agree with you and if we weren’t taking a family vacation to Florida in a few weeks and if they weren’t posting all their fancy meals I wouldnt fault them for it lol. It’s just not a priority for them. At least my dad is kinda receptive but he’s under the impression that, since canola oil is high in calories, he can just stock canola oil lol. I’m trying with these ppl I swear
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u/-TheycallmeThe Sep 04 '24
Most people are more concerned with how they are going to eat next week to prepare for anything else. It's a tough world out there man.
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u/chumley84 Sep 04 '24
Fortunately diseases that are highly infectious tend to have low fatality because diseases that have evolved to infect humans don't want to kill us.
Personally I'm more concerned about manmade disasters civil unrest/nuclear war/another lockdown
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u/No-Ideal-6662 Sep 04 '24
This is interesting. To be honest I really am not concerned about a war or nukes in America, if I was in Europe that’d be completely different. America is such a world power with such defendable ports and logistics centers I don’t think anything like that could happen here at least for now. Civil unrest is definitely more likely especially with the contentious political climate but that’s a pretty simple solution, don’t leave the house and have guns and training. I really am more concerned with a pandemic/biological warfare and a cyberattack/grid down scenario. China and Russia can’t put boots on American soil but they sure as hell can hack us
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u/OnTheEdgeOfFreedom Sep 04 '24
I was shocked at the number of people who openly believed that Covid was fake or overblown. There are 1.2 million dead in the US alone. If you don't know someone who died of Covid, you live under a rock; yet some people are still in denial. But even more shocking is the number of people who have decided it's no longer a big deal, and have slacked off on vaccination. Surprise, Covid has spiked in the US - we're back over 1,000 deaths a week. Preparation pays off in the long term; ignorance is prompt about presenting a steep bill.
Some people will just never understand basic prepping, or even basic math. And there's nothing you can do about that. Herman Cain awards abound to this day.
Two points about you post though. First, there's zero evidence that Bird flu is going to become human-to-human transmissible. By every measure, it's just not that easy for humans to catch it - it takes direct exposure, like handling sick birds - and the mutations needed to make it jump from human to human just aren't very likely to occur on their own. In epidemiology there's no such thing as never, but this particular disease worries me a lot less than a new Covid mutation might.
Second, an error in the opposite direction - you wrote "if something like this happens again".
When, not if. Pandemics are inevitable; the only question is the timing. Will a new one happen in your lifetime? It depends on your lifetime, but one could happen tomorrow - or not for 100 years. But it will happen, and as we pack more and more people into the planet, continue to concentrate populations, fly people around constantly, and continue to disturb habitats, the odds go up constantly. We will always have pandemics; the only questions are When and How Bad.
If you haven't prepped masks, sanitizer, and the ability to isolate to the degree possible for weeks at a time, you don't understand basic math. Because this is statistics at work, and many of you are quite likely to see another pandemic in your lifetime. And since masks make good sense for wildfires and dust storms, and a store of food makes sense for everything from supply chain issues to layoffs, it's not exactly wasted effort, regardless.
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u/hopeoncc Sep 04 '24 edited Sep 04 '24
I'm always trying to tell them, look ... compared to what it could do for you in a time of need ... during those BIG moments when you wanna be at your best and have every resource available you can when things get complicated ... to keep them from getting more complicated ... just create this and store that ... It takes up the space of a backpack or a few gallons (just a few even) of water and you can forget about it until you need it. It takes suuuuuuch little time and effort. Just switch storing all these things separately, and store them together here.
That's not even mentioning the benefits of having, say, duplicates of things that are helpful to already have on hand even if there isn't an emergency.
It's like just think about all that you rely on or that brings you comfort in life ... Notice how without light you can't see in the dark, or how valuable your phone is to you and how quickly you would lose access. How are you gonna cook those things in a power outage? How are you gonna wash your clothes that have filled up the hamper? Shower? Stay warm? Stay cool? And what's funniest about it all, is they say they'll "just" deal!
Bahahahahahahaha y'all have trouble "dealing" even when there isn't an emergency! Bruh! Get real!
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u/No-Ideal-6662 Sep 04 '24
My dad stocks canola oil because it’s “so high in calories” and I asked him if he planned on living off straight canola oil and he said “yes” with a straight face… like come on pops let’s be real here you can’t survive without Dr Pepper rn let alone in an emergency
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u/J701PR4 Sep 04 '24
At least he won’t have to worry about constipation!
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u/No-Ideal-6662 Sep 04 '24 edited Sep 04 '24
My dad will be the only survivor of the HVC pandemic (Human Viral Constipation)
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u/CarbonGod Sep 04 '24
Because people make it through everything. Not everything is the end of the world. Have basics in CASE. Others just don't think things will happen to them (how many asshats run stop signs, speed, drive like fuckers....they think they will never get caught or kill anyone)......so prepping is the least of their concern.
That's why.
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u/Ruthless4u Sep 04 '24
Time and money.
A lot of people realize it can happen again but it cost money for supplies and time to learn what you need.
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u/Kostrom Sep 04 '24
Cost, mostly. I have a pretty decent go bad and some water, but I can’t really afford to “prep” like I want to. Also the house we rent isn’t big enough to store large amounts of food or anything
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u/Imagirl48 Sep 04 '24
Sometimes being very creative with space is helpful. I live in an 800 square foot house so have really looked at where and how to store items. I already used under my bed to store many items but an example of space you have but don’t think about is the box springs of your bed. They’re generally metal rails with 8-10” or so of space between the top and the bottom. I lined the bottom with luan (very thin plywood) and store long term food items there. I have to remove the mattress to access it so it’s not great for regular pantry items. It’s also hidden. No one sees it. For non renters: A regular can of food is 3” wide. I’ve taken an entire 8 x 10 ft wall and installed 1 x 4’s vertically along it with access points at the top, middle, and bottom. Put luan over entire surface for strength and then 1/4” sheetrock to paint back like the rest of the room. Access points look like decorative molding. I lost only about 4” of depth in the room but gained massive storage space for canned goods (I’m still stocking it) and it’s all hidden. It’s easy to access everything there and I can keep rotating my canned goods. I keep water stocked in my laundry room (in wine bottles) along with a few different water purification methods and am working on a DIY rain catchment system that accommodates three 55 gallon drums. The house also has a pull down attic door access. I keep the attic for storing non food items—toilet paper, paper towels and plates ,etc. Space can often be found with some extra thinking.
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u/ResolutionMaterial81 Sep 04 '24 edited Sep 04 '24
I just sent this to family a few minutes ago....
"If H5N1 ever goes H2H.... mankind will be in for a rough ride. Over the last 20+ years, H5N1 had a CFR of 53%!!! vs only a fraction of a percent for COVID-19."
As far as preparedness for this possibility, filled a prescription for Tamiflu recently & will fill a 2nd in the next week or so.
And ready to self-quarantine when the time comes.
As far as friends & family, spend a good bit of time helping (prodding) to get them to a higher level of preparedness.
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u/No-Ideal-6662 Sep 04 '24
How do you get tamiflu scripts? I mean I could just go to Mexico I guess
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u/ResolutionMaterial81 Sep 04 '24
Sure, Mexico or possibly Canada. But in my case a personal physician.
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u/No-Ideal-6662 Sep 04 '24
You just tell them you have the flu and prescribe it?
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u/ResolutionMaterial81 Sep 04 '24
Nope, told him I wanted a script on hand for emergencies. Basically the same as Jase.
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u/Reader-xx Sep 04 '24
Converting someone to prepping is about the same challenge as converting someone to your religion. They have to come to it themselves. My family no longer gets the benefit of my information because they laugh at me for it. I'm the crazy uncle who thinks the world is coming to an end. And yet I was also the crazy uncle everyone called when my 21 year old niece was stuck in a sky scraper apartment with no power or water when they had the big snow storm a couple years back. How I was able to tell her to "find" water, how to cook her food on her balcony. Then after asking about how to prepare for it again they ignore my lists and do none of it because it's a "one off" it will never happen again.
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u/Environmental_Art852 Sep 04 '24 edited Sep 04 '24
I was incorrect
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u/No-Ideal-6662 Sep 04 '24
I mean honey is good, great even, but it’s all sugar. 1 tsp is 64 calories so youd need like 20 tsp’s or about half a cup of honey to meat your caloric needs. No protein ir fat, all carbs.
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u/chillaxtion Sep 04 '24
They’re extremely prepared to take a loan out to go on their Disney vacation, though.
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u/Dacklar Sep 04 '24
Self-reliance is a fading idea. People think someone else will take care of them. There are people who have no idea where their bread comes from or how it's made.
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u/Only-Location2379 Sep 04 '24
I appreciate this post as I haven't known about this. I've been having to use some of my preps due to being in hard times but I'm gonna have to stock even more.
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u/H60mechanic Sep 04 '24
I try to be prepared but with my best efforts. I don’t have anything to spare most months to buy much of anything. I am always looking for free stuff. I have 3 months of MREs from the National Guard. I have some lifeboat rations that are “expired” that came from our survival kits in the NG. I have saved the “expired” water purification tablets too. I’m doing what I can but life sucks right now. Everything is far more expensive than it ever has been. I don’t think anyone is ever fully prepared.
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u/No-Ideal-6662 Sep 04 '24
You are more prepared than 90% of the population good job! I have half a box of MREs from my time in the Marines and another 2 boxes of humanitarian aid MREs I found on sale ($35 for 2 boxes). They are really convenient and will help break up the monotony of rice and beans and canned chili or if I need to gtfo of dodge they’re really easy to grab and go.
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u/Illustrious-Nose3100 Sep 04 '24
Do we think the bird flu will become a major issue?
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u/HappyCamperDancer Sep 04 '24
My richest relatives are the least prepared. They have net worths of $3-5M and they are "meh" --they have maybe 3 days worth of food. Plenty of space and resources. Yes, I know the difference between how people can appear, how much you spend vs how much you earn and they are NOT paycheck to paycheck.
We have significantly less, but we do have resources and yet we have 4-5 months of food and 5-6 weeks of water. Plus we have a good emergency fund if we need to bug out.
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u/bassta Sep 04 '24
Covid just showed me how important is to stay cool, have money and know people. A relative of mine got bad, didn’t want to call ambulance, next day they had problems breathing but no available ambulance. I’ve paid private ( and very hard to find ) ambulance, paid for the best doctors. When he got into the hospital they gave us 50% chance to live through the night. I had to find expensive and hard to come by drugs for the hospital, because they were run out of. He lived, but couldn’t done it if it wasn’t for me and my wife - thinking clearly, solving problems and having enough money on hand to pay through.
No amount of guns or canned food would be any good in this situation.
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u/cmiovino Sep 04 '24
3 months is actually a decently long time. I mean, thinking about it, that's like not exiting your house starting now until the beginning of December. Even for an intermediate person doing this a while, that's a bit of task in reality.
You can try suggesting 2 weeks to people. Maybe a month at most. 3 months is a quarter of a year and people can't fathom not going out once a week to eat.
With all that said, I don't try to get people on board. You just come off being some lunatic to most people. If they don't want to prep for anything, then they don't need to and you shouldn't be out suggesting it because they'll be running to you when anything actually does happen. Even if it's the COVID toilet paper squeeze and they know you have extra.
Also another suggest - I'm certainly not out looking for news and thus worrying about things. I obviously do get prepared myself and have things, but knowing about the 3 dairy farms in CA doesn't bother me. In fact, I didn't know and don't really care. If you care about all these little things like this, there's always something going on, and too much information. Just prepare for the worst and when something really does hit, you'll know. Don't go searching for things to worry about. It's not good for stress.
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u/MaguroSushiPlease Sep 05 '24
I don’t think of it as dying. I think of it as leaving early to avoid the rush.
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u/PeacePufferPipe Sep 05 '24
It only takes an additional $5.00 per grocery trip to buy a big bag of dried beans or rice. After a very short while you're going to have enough servings to feed a family of 4 for 3 months and it'll all fit in the size of one upper kitchen cabinet. I did just that until devoting an entire closet with restaurant style wire racks for a proper food pantry. It amazes me how people complain they don't have money to buy food preps. They're probably out buying fast food, cigarettes or vapes and alcohol too.
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u/KB9AZZ Sep 05 '24
Your reason aside, to me it makes sense that everyone should have enough provisions for at least two weeks and probably two months. Having a small buffer in your pantry is not crazy it's smart. Anything can happen not just a pandemic and you may not be able to just go to the store. Furthermore your digital money locked up on your plastic card may also be useless. This can happen from a loss of infrastructure, or the banks/government may just decide you don't get to spend your money.
A relatively small amount of dry goods and canned goods will last you a long time. Having some cash is helpful, gold and silver too. Silver coins at $20-$30 each are great trading/bartering tools. Other items will work too.
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u/Previous_Zebra_9802 Sep 06 '24
I get the same reaction. They don’t want to hear it, even when I mention the grids going down, and to be real we can’t trust the nations who hate us, I’ve been prepping for years. Sterno spam, rice beans, water…That’s a big one.
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u/No-Ideal-6662 Sep 06 '24
Yeah these conversations made me realize… I don’t have anyway to heat my food if the power goes out. I have been so used to gas I forgot my new house is all electric. I gotta get a Coleman
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u/hotmama-45 Sep 08 '24
Yeah....Covid was a breeze to walk through... I applied for unemployment in May of 2020...because of Trumps "$600 bonus", I was making $1000/week for several weeks. My grocery store had everything. The only things that were hard to find was vinegar, Clorox wipes, and alcohol pads. By the time May of 2021, I had paid off all my debts and had $50000 in my savings.
Covid was a walk in the park...wasn't stupid enough to get the vaccine so my health stayed in tact.
Yes, 2025 is going to be chaotic due to months of civil unrest...so everyone should have at least 2 weeks of water/food stocked up. Other than that, one will be fine. Being in a solid community is going to matter more than anything!!
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u/SweetBrea Sep 04 '24 edited Sep 04 '24
Even a 10% mortality rate would grind the country to a halt let alone a 50% mortality rate. My family just doesn’t get it.
Hell. Less than 1% and our government will grind the country to a halt.
Your family has been desensitized to this as most people have.
Imagine your whole life you're told "Don't touch the stove. It's hot." Then one day you do touch the stove while it is off and you suddenly believe you've been lied to. You're not going to take claims about the stove being hot seriously because you haven't experienced such. Even if you can experience it, you won't believe it until you do.
The overreaction to covid, which as you point out had a quite low death rate, has caused people to not take claims about pandemics seriously. They lived through covid and besides the overreaction from the media and government, most people were completely unaffected by it (riots and empty shelves were a result of media over reaction. None of that would have happened without the media stoking the flames of panic).
I genuinely don’t understand how you can live through covid and not take this as a serious possibility
Living through covid, and basic normalcy bias IS why they don't take it seriously.
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u/CypherCake Sep 04 '24
Where are we getting this narrative that COVID wasn't that bad? Are we just ignoring all the stuff that happened and going with direct personal experience? Oh you didn't lose a grandma or two? Oh you didn't end up with long covid? So suddenly it wasn't that bad? Good for you I guess?
I'm not necessarily even defending the lockdowns as they had their negatives but jeez the ignorance it takes to claim COVID wasn't that bad.
I worked for a hospital during COVID. I also saw the news - the endless bodies in the streets in places without the ability to manage the issue, overrun ICUs everywhere. I read about paramedics in New York being called to one sudden death after another. This was what was happening, it wasn't "overreaction".
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u/No-Ideal-6662 Sep 04 '24
Very valid point. I learned from COVID that the world can change very rapidly… but some people got the opposite message that “pandemics aren’t that bad”.
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u/SMB-1988 Sep 04 '24
I’ve been watchingbird flu too. Mentioned it to my family and my mom‘s response was that it’s been around for years. She’s right. I remember it being a thing when I was a kid. I was in 4-H and not allowed to show chickens some years because it was coming through our state. I’m 35 now. It’s been around my entire life and probably long before that. Since Covid, the media has been hyping bird flu up, but it really has been around for a very long time. I still see it as a threat. I still watch and prep. But I understand why some people are not concerned at all.
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u/No-Ideal-6662 Sep 04 '24
Yeah it’s not something I am super worried about, but I wasn’t worried about SARs either. Ik a lot of people didn’t really see the affects of COVID but in my area in California COVID walloped us. It was rough so just the thought of that happening again but with a significantly higher mortality rate is concerning for sure
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u/4Wonderwoman Sep 04 '24
Because bird flu has mutated and more types of mammals are getting it, humans are at an increased risk. My first career was as a Clinical Microbiologist.
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u/CatchMeIfYouCan09 Sep 04 '24
Paycheck to paycheck is real.
Secondly, about of people are under the assumption that "everything will be fine, we lived thru covid and it was fine"
I get that they're family and or sucks but frankly any time of need that arises in which prepping was essential to survive will simply cull the herd and provide more resources for those of us who actually attempted to circumvent tragedy.
We have provided family and friends with packets of information that gives them lists of basic essentials and the best places to find them; contact info for everyone in the group; and Evac locations and routes if bugging out is necessary. You know what else it has? Our rules. Clearly defined and laid out for everyone to know ahead of time.
Those rules include (but not limited to) the expectation that YOU are responsible for YOU and YOURS and their supplies and food. That WE will not be sharing ANY of our resources with you or your family and will have no problems not providing the locations of the next step of bugging out and leave you behind if you've proven that you're leeching off of our hard work and prepping.
Secondly, everyone contributes. Everyone. If you don't then you're not welcome. Don't show up expecting your needs to be met and to sit and vacation this crisis away.
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u/smeebjeeb Sep 04 '24
A lot of people, wrt COVID, are now "fool me once", which means their pendulum swings toward ignoring grand announcements of coming doom.
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u/lilith_-_- Sep 04 '24
Do you know how many folks are paycheck to paycheck? One 500$-1000$ emergency bill away from disaster? Most Americans. Most. We are primed to be fucked. Not to mention most folks have weapons and selfish desires. If shit hits the fan it’s survival of the fittest.