In less than a day, there was no water or food to be purchased in Tokyo, per friends of friends in Tokyo.

Also, people living in the big cities cannot get out, because there are no traffic lights, and there is complete gridlock (not to mention some of the roads being damaged). There is no bugging out to be done.

Also, there are no potassium iodide tablets available to be bought from anywhere in Japan. It's to protect your thyroid from radioactive fallout (competes with the radioactive iodine that you are exposed to, that will cause thyroid cancer).

It's just one of those things that if you don't have it when you need it, you'll never be able to buy it. Same is true in the US. It can be purchased from the manufacturer online (and through resellers on the internet), but good luck getting some if you need it!

I was talking to a Mormon friend tonight, and he made a joke about being told to have food storage, "but no one does it." I didn't say anything, but what I was think was "speak for yourself buddy" (I'm Mormon too, but unlike him, I try to be prepared).

There is a TON of preparation you can do for just $500. A ton. Yet most people would rather spend their money on frivolous things. Like a purse!

I hope you guys do common sense things...like start adjusting your food budgets so that you have 3 months worth of the normal staples that you eat, and start rotating through it (i.e. pasta, canned foods, flour, sugar, salt, etc). You don't need MREs or any of that stuff. Just make the conscious effort to give yourself a 3 month buffer.

I got some more tin foil hates here with me, if anyone wants to have one!

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Yet most people would rather spend their money on frivolous things.

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Well yea.

Especially when the medicaid's show up to appointment with their iphone, ipad, and "no, junior doesnt need any stickers. I dont want him to get them all over our new BMW."

Japan is not Texas. Somehow I think we'd be OK. Country boys can survive.

These SHTF threads are hilarious. Now we have people comparing Japan to Texas. Keep them coming.

3 month supply of food? Why not juat all build nuclear fallout bunkers instead? Id need a pod delivered to the front yard to store 3 months

Japan-Island nation with a large concentrated population of people and a large number of nuclear reactors (due to their lack of petroleum located in the most seismically active region on the planet.

Texas-Complete opposite. Large population, but not nearly as dense (Tokyo 4.5x more densely populated than Houston), very few nuclear reactors relative to the size of the country (54 in Japan, 70 active reactors in the entire US). Very little seismic activity.

Whoa, whoa Tmoney! Let's not bring logic into the conversation here. Just get to the store as soon as possible and purchase 1000 gallons of water, 1500 ramen noodle packets, canned food, and a couple bottles of lotion incase you and the wife get separated for a while. Oh yeah, and don't buy any more frivolous stuff for the rest of your life. Only idiots buy that stuff.

[This message has been edited by txaggie02 (edited 3/13/2011 11:29p).]

txaggie02 - no need to be so flippant. The Op makes a good point and I don't see anything folly in taking some reasonable steps to give you and your family a little added insurance in a worst case scenario.

Sh** does in fact happen and we are no more immune to it here in America than most other places, within reason.

I am not advocating all this SHTF stuff I see posted here and anyone that follows those threads knows I don't even post on them. I have plenty of guns and ammo and many other devices and supplies that suit my family fine. That has much more to do with my outsdoors and shooting sports lifestyle than it does with some need to prepare for the apocalypse.

Anyway, unless the OP had been preaching fire and brimstone mass chaos and destruction, I don't think it's necessary to be such a smart ass. You just seem to take particular offense to the comment about frivolous purchases, but what he posted is true. Most Americans would rather blow $500 on fatty foods, movies, video games, porn, booze, etc, than taking a little effort to put some reasonable insurance in to protecting themselves and their family, regardless of how unlikely that scenario may be. I have no quarell with that. It's true.

Its difficult to compare a disaster of an earthquake/tsunami to something that will happen here. If your house gets washed away, burns, or collapses, all the prep in the world does you no or very little good.

The closest thing we have are tornadoes, but they don't really devastate large areas.

I think most people affected by Hurricane Rita in SE TX would say the SHTF pretty good. I agree 100% with the OP that it is good to make reasonable preparations in case a variety of situations were to occur. Nothing wrong with having a few extra canned goods and bottles of water around just in case.

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people living in the big cities cannot get out, because there are no traffic lights

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WTF? Really?

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These SHTF threads are hilarious. Now we have people comparing Japan to Texas. Keep them coming

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This. I chose to not live my life in fear of such things.

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I think most people affected by Hurricane Rita in SE TX would say the SHTF pretty good.

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IMO, a hurricane isn't a SHTF scenario. It's not like hurricanes pop on the radar a day ahead moving at 100mph. Everyone in the path of a hurricane has at least a few days notice. Unless they're lazy and/or complete idiots, i.e. residents of New Orleans, there's no reason not to be fully prepared.

You can tell those that weren't affected by Ike or Rita. Even here in BCS we had shortages of fuel and some groceries. Lots of evacuees cleaned us out.

I don't choose to live my life in fear either.

But I am a gun owner.

But I have life insurance, I have a will, I have disability insurance, I have life insurance, I have home owners insurance, I have a savings account.

You all have probably had a friend or acquaintance die way before his time, and one of the things that gets asked is "did he have life insurance?" And the answer is no. A widow and a couple of very young kids are left behind, a fund is set up at a local bank. And people sigh, and say "that's too bad." Another man who didn't take steps to protect his family if he died. NOBODY criticizes the man that DID buy life insurance.

I honestly think it's kind of funny that people could be so critical of this. "You pays your money, you makes your bets."

Ding ding ding we have a winner folks.

Get your sorry ass out of the hurricane path and don't waste my tax dollars on rescue missions to save your sorry carcass.

On the traffic light thing....What I meant was that they were not working.

Many of us have had the experience of trying to drive in a major city at rush hour, on side-streets and have lights flashing or not working. It's a huge-slow down factor.

And then you look at the evacuation of Houston during the last major hurricane. New Orleans as well. It was literally bumper-to-bumper travel 1 mile in an hour, cars running out of gas on the road. And that's with the infrastructure and lights working perfectly well.

On the topic of city vs. country (I don't necessarily see a huge advantage for unprepared "country boys" in the city, btw), FERFAL has some interesting points about some of the disadvantages of living in the country, that you might not think of. But that's another topic, and much more tin-foil-hatty.

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Most Americans would rather blow $500 on fatty foods, movies, video games, porn, booze, etc,

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Hey, hey, hey... I'll have you know that booze is necessary for my survival. And that of my children since I'd probably have to kill them without it.

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and don't waste my tax dollars on rescue missions to save your sorry carcass.

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this.

You can tell the people that lived thru Rita and Ike b/c they'll tell you Rita was a complete BS/joke situation with people that didn't need to evacuate that got into a panic and blocked the roads for those of us on the coast that did need to get out.

As for Ike, unless you were in the storm surge area, it was bad, but not SHTF. I stayed here in Webster, survived 140+mph winds (as did my house) and lived for several days on the food and water I stored up with MUCH to spare. We could have gone on for 2-3 more weeks with the supplies we had that we stored up a few days before the storm. I had about 30 gallons of gas to drive to wherever if need-be. It was not that difficult. The only real annoyance was the hot, humid weather for the first couple days. Even those that lost their houses had friends, neighbors, generous people to lean on for support. We had gasoline trucks showing up two days after the storm.

The U.S. is so big, if something happens to one part, the rest of the country can help out to bring them out of a pinch. Japan - not so much. Everything has to be shipped in by boat/plane.

It's good to be prepared, but a true SHTF situation in the entire U.S. would basically mean one of the following:

1) Full-scale invasion by the Chinese/Russians, but we'd be ready for that.

2) Nuclear war - kiss your butt goodbye if they get to impact and you live in a major metro area, no need even trying to survive. If the blast doesn't get you, the radiation will.

3) Major asteroid/comet impact - See #2 - no need even trying to survive.

4) Complete breakdown of the social/government system. Probably the most likely of all the scenarios, but still VERY unlikely due to the number of patriots that would fight to keep order intact and probably a quick response of the National Guard and Military.

So according to your post you had about 4 weeks worth of food stored. That's all I'm talking about here. Having a little something prepared just in case.

You can get by on peanut butter and pasta for quite a long time. Water is the critical item in a disaster. You won't live three days without it. We filled 100qt ice chests and barely put a dent in them during Ike. Had a couple cases of bottles and a few gallon jugs. Worked out well. Surviving a couple months would have been a different story.

I believe that the most likely scenario for a nation-wide SHTF situation is an infectious epidemic. A respiratory virus with a 30% mortality rate.

That would shut down the nation, potentially, due to quarantine. In other words, if you go to work, you risk dying. Any contact with other people would be dangerous.

The thing about disasters over history, is that they are rarely predicted beforehand. It's helpful to be prepared in general.

And if you have extra food storage, by far the most likely use of it would be your own personal economic hard-times, i.e. lost your job, savings running low. It might beat going to the local food bank, getting food stamps, or begging from friends and family.

I imagine that you could find a water source and enough materials to build a fire with and subsequently boil water though.

Correct? And stray cats/dogs wouldn't be an issue if food became scarce.

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And then you look at the evacuation of Houston during the last major hurricane

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The evacuation of Houston for Ike, the last major hurricane, was superb compared to pretty much any hurricane the last 20 years. Ed Emmitte(sp) did a fabulous job in the Ike preparedness and recovery, IMO. I would know, I lost my house as did my dad and grandmother. Rita and Katrina were the ones you were reffering too.

People evacuating from Houston for Rita or ike were ridiculous. Part of being ready for a "shtf" moment is common sense. There was no reason to flee central/west/nw/spring etc

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Most Americans would rather blow $500 on fatty foods, movies, video games, porn, booze, etc, than taking a little effort to put some reasonable insurance in to protecting themselves and their family, regardless of how unlikely that scenario may be.

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I'm gonna charge you 20 bottles of water to watch my porn videos when this SHTF scenario happens. And my Blue Bell ice cream and Crown Royal? Well, don't even bother asking. You'd need a milk truck full of water to get those.

[This message has been edited by txaggie02 (edited 3/14/2011 9:30a).]

Here's the way I look at it take it for what it's worth.

People diversify their portfolios to hedge against risk right? People conceal carry just in case right? I don't see any level of prepping as anything different. After you decide it would be good to have something put away "just in case" it boils down to how much. There are a lot of factors that determine how much. Money to devote to it, space to house the stuff, etc.

Not fruit to call anyone out here. Not trying to flame. But it does seem a bit hypocritical for the same people how are adimant about carrying to hedge against the unknown to be so dismissive of folks doing things to hedge against the unknown.


For us, right at this moment, our problem is funds. We plan on stocking up on our regular consumables when our bank book gets back to normal. If you have the space there really isnt a reason not to have extra of the things you know you'll use anyway.

FWIW, the Average urban resident has THREE days of food on hand. I think the average suburbanite has closer to 7. I could live off the food in my house for about 3 weeks or so.

The problem is when a massive number of people can't get food or clean water. They get desperate pretty fast, and supplying them isn't easy.

See: Africa.

Some of you have a carry's a month's supply of calories right on your person, securely stowed under the skin!

But the people in Japan, at least what we've seen aren't roiting or demanding anything from the govt. they seem to be conducting themselves in a pretty orderly fashion in the wake of this diaster.

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(Edit: to shifty)
Shhhhh!! I'm my own bug out bag.

[This message has been edited by Dough (edited 3/14/2011 10:13a).]

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Some of you have a carry's a month's supply of calories right on your person, securely stowed under the skin!

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I resemble that statement!