How prepared are you really?

GY A1 wrote: »

any stream nearby,
talk to some old guys in ur area, you'd be amazed the amount of natural springs that can be closeby,
well in the west anyway

There is, but they're all on private land.
Might have to visit some of the neighbours & have a chat.
A lot of the streams & rivers have run off from farms, need to look into that.

We're also considering fitting a rainwater harvesting system, as long as it doesn't require a new mortgage:
http://www.epswater.ie/rainwater-harvesting-storage-tanks/rainwater-harvesting-storage-system.871.html

aaakev wrote: »

No need for fancy expensive equipment, all you need is one or 2 of these and a few hrs of diy to fort it and make a filter to keep out debris. You can even build a box around it so it looks like a compost bin
http://www.donedeal.ie/feedingequipment-for-sale/cube-tanks/4463725

I've 2 of those tanks at the moment one is connected to my down stairs toilet with a tap switch so I can change from it to mains as needed the other one gets filled by the gutters on the shed and I've a hose connected to refill the one at the house

aaakev wrote: »

Sounds good! 2000ltrs will keep you going a good while without even being topped up by the rain! I had planned to hook one up in my old house for the winter because we always had our water turned off (top of a hill, low pressure = no water) in very cold weather.

Any problem with frost?

6 in the house 5lt a flush normal use you get about 10 to 14 days per tank
No problems with frost as yet but if we get heavy snow that will change I'm sure I'm thinking of having antifreeze near hand just in case

Qualitymark wrote: »

First thing I'd do is go and buy a load of tins of kimchi - tinned, in case the electricity goes out and the freezer doesn't work.

http://articles.latimes.com/2003/jun/17/entertainment/et-magnier17

Fill up the 2 20-litre bottles with water, just in case.

Fill up the car with petrol, also just in case. Normally use the bike.

Buy a couple of sacks of rice and a couple of sacks of lentils, loads of onions and carrots.

If there's serious worry about the sewerage going out, I'd dig a long sewage trench along one side of the garden, with the earth from it piled up beside it, so it could be used as a field latrine.

A wind-up radio would be a good thing to have, in case the electricity goes.

Get the neighbourhood network informed so we can help each other.

40 litres of water isn't a lot what I did was keep note how much we used in a week to figure how much is need to store

Rice lentils onions and carrots everyday is going to get boring very quick ( and will use a lot of your water storage ) Id recommend storing what you normally eat. Cans of spam or other canned meat. I've tried my family on lots of different things like stewing steak spam corned beef tinned patatos instant mash ect so I know what to store and can mix it up

A wind up radio is great to have try get one with am fm sw mw lw on it as our stations my be down

I am totally unprepared but I am working on that today

Pros:
1. Very good knowledge of surrounding area
2. Very good knowledge of traps and snares for some food
3. Stream basically beside my house
4. Trained in first Aid
5. Plans for Solar Energy laid out

Cons:
1. I have no haz cem or nbc masks to protect myself against the pathogen
2. I do not have adequate weapons to protect myself
3. I have about a 2 week storage of food (waiting on a dehydrator to combat that)
4. Have a stream near the house, this would become useless if I had to leave or it got severly contaminated
5. I lack basic product requirements

So basically I have 'an initial survival time of about 2 weeks'

Hopefully after some good preperation today and tomorrow I will extend that by two weeks

When I start stockpiling I will be looking at a couple of months. I dont own a gun and dont intent too so masks are a must if close combat is needed. I look at it two ways, someone infected will be too weak to put up a fight, someone not infected would not warrant a mask being needed in a scrap to protect the food and supplies