OT: Panic Point

[mikeo80]

The other day, I lost power during a thunderstorm. No big deal. Power was back up in a couple of hours.

But I did start thinking....(Yeah, every now and again the old grey cells rub together... :D)

We as a group have made different levels of plans for different possibilities. We each have our own level of supplies, weapons, and other "necessesities" as we see fit/can afford them.

Have you decided when to blow the whistle? What constitutes the level at which you say "Oh S**T!!!" ?

I'll say this, my personal level is probably in the 12 to 18 hour range. IF Something starts downhill, and there does not appear to be any resolution, I would probably start raising the drawbridge and unleashing the moat monsters somewhere in that time frame.

Of course, each set of circumstances require a review as they are happening. OBVIOUSLY if I see a mushroom cloud off in the distance, the gloves come off NOW!!!

But what if the situation is ambiguous. It's bad, but not instantly urgent. When would you decide "Enough is enough"?

My $0.02

Mike

[raketenjagdpanzer]

That's a tough one.

People like to pick on us here in FL but the fact is we stick together pretty well when Hurricanes come rolling through (that is to say, real Floridians and not gangbangers from up north who were thrown here by judges as a last resort/get out of our state measure who wind up stealing everything not bolted down...but I digress). I guess I'd have to see my friends and neighbors either all gone or preparing to move, and hear news that a large portion of my state had been written off until xyz, or that the gov't was suspending Posse Comitus in my area "for the duration of the emergency".

I guess that would drive me to put the wife, kids, jewelry, photo albums, dog, guns, water and flats of MREs into the car(s) and head for Georgia and Points North.

Now assuming an XK class extinction event? A sort of "Hey the EBS came on for a few seconds, I heard a deep rumble and saw a far-off distant flash but nothing here" kind of event? God, I don't even know.

EDIT: stupid counterquestion. Anyone here have a maintained fallout shelter in/around their house? I guess if you've got a basement you've essentially got one, but, again, this is FL; there's not much in the way of basements here (they're not completely unknown just a little rare - C/R if you will :) ). The best you can do here without Supermoney amounts of $ is go half-and-half, like take a 6' diameter culvert pipe, cap the ends, bury it 3' down and use the backfill to cover it the rest of the way. Trying to dig one all the way underground, by yourself, means in a couple of weeks you're going to have a water-filled trench in your backyard. It can be done, it just takes a feat of engineering, money, and time that most of us (probably) don't have and certainly wouldn't have during a run-up to an actual Event.

[TrailerParkJawa]

Mike,

I guess it's really situational. No power for 24 hours in San Jose, no problem. This is earthquake country so I got food and water for longer. Personally I have no place to go so shelter in place is my only option.

Raj, no fallout shelter for me. Basements are very rare in California. The only ones I've seen are in 100+ year old Victorian houses. Which I don't live in.

[weswood]

When do I say "Oh sh@t"?

December 21, 2012:o

Seriously, losing electricity isn't a big deal. After hurricane Ike hit, over 2 million customers in the Houston area lost power for up to 3 weeks and in a few rare cases longer than that. Even if the power goes out when there's no storm it's possible some idiot took out a service pole and disrupted a circuit. That's happened before.

Now if the power goes out and cars won't start and electronics don't work, that's almost an immediate Oh Crap.

Basements are about as rare in this part of Texas as in Florida. I do know of tornado shelters at 2 different houses, both miles away from home. One is under an old house (probably 75-100 years old) and was flooded last time I was there, the other is at an equally old farmhouse about 40 yards from the house. First time I saw it I thought it was a covered machinegun pit, it would make a great one.

[mikeo80]

Basements are very rare in this part of NC. THe water table is very high. So basically, you have a slab for a foundation, and not much else. So no below ground fallout shelter here.

My $0.02

Mike

[Capt_Bowman]

Here in the UK we're pretty much screwed if it goes down big time. I can stock food, I can stock shelter and, with a bit of cash, i could get a house with a decent basement.

But if it goes boom i have no way of defending myself without breaking several fairly strict laws on weapon ownership (I can get away with a kitchen knife in my own house but nothing longer than a 3" blade on a multi-tool on the street and even then i might get arrested for "Going Equipped") and there's virtually nowhere to flee to where i wouldn't be on the raged edge of a blast wave or so close to a population centre to risk violence or disease.

So for me, I have to think probably weeks ahead of an event rather than hours. If there is something big on the horizon that i can see is inevitable then i need to be planning a move while there is time to react.