Long Term Survival of a TEOTWAWKI Event

[knobster]

Excellent post. My group of like-minded folks have food, water, shelter, heat and defense pretty much covered. The surrounding neighbors have plenty of animals including sheep for wool and are learning how to make clothes. The topic of bartering is also being discussed. However, there are many, many skills that are lacking. We are still very dependent on running out to Menards or Home Depot for replacement blades, tools, nails, etc.

Learning how to make biodiesel is my current research project. Lye, methanol and veggie oil. Now, how can I acquire these if TEOTW hits? Burn hardwood to make lye; construct a still to burn wood to make methanol, grow sunflowers to get the oil. How do I make a still when I can't run to Home Depot to get copper tubing? Yikes... so much to do.

[Janoosh]

Great thread.
Clothes. ...learn to dis-assemble and then re-assemble into what you need. Take all that you can from looting the dead or.....empty homes. Note pics from WW2 and study the refugees and what they're carrying.
Horses...a hungry mob will eat the first horse they come across. Same with dogs/cats/rats/pigeons.
Without proper sanitation, and/or the knowledge of proper sanitation, people will pollute their drinking water.
Pestilence will reign.
Batteries.???? Most car batteries will be dead in 1 year without use.
Any motorized vehicle will be fair game for the taking....
Inner cities, suburbs, 10 mile radius of urban area will be life or death situation for a long while.
How many of your "Neighbors" will help, or hinder, or will use you, because they don't know any useful skill.?

[Janoosh]

It all comes down to.:
Can you shoot your neighbor.?
Maybe not that drastic, but he doesn't know anything useful, and he and family are coming to your home, and you see them walking up the road, because he knows you have what he and his family need to survive, and his kids/wife are crying cause they're hungry, and they're walking up your road, towards your house, and your wife is saying "What are WE gonna do.?", cause there is just enough for your family, and they're closer now.....

Great scenario....

Oh....your neighbor is the manager of the Walmart that's the smoke on the horizon.

[Janoosh]

Scenario:
Teotwawki.....
You have just told your wife and two girls that:
There is no more toilet paper
There are no more razors
There are no more sanitary devices of any sort
There is no more soap.!!

Just for a laugh....

[Garyshome]

Lots of good opinions here....for a change!

[starmac]

Lots of imagination too. lol

[Janoosh]

Isn't it all just imagination.??
You gotta imagine the good, and the bad, and the humorous. !
I grew up in NYC and have seen that part.....
now live 70 mi north and have seen that part....
I like to study the human condition, I find it fascinating. ...
LOL

[BrassMagnet]

Remember that Soylent Green Is People!

Soylent Green came from the book "Make Room, Make Room" by Harry Harrison. Nowhere in the book does it say "Soylent Green Is People!"
Make Room, Make Room is Harry Harrison's prediction or where we could go if population continues to explode. Y2K arrived during the book and it was centered in New York City. Imagine our welfare system expanded to the point where everyone draws welfare for subsistence that is below the minimum required. Now imagine working full time and paying the taxes to support that welfare system leaves you with just enough for a few extras. Now go read it. It is a good book!

[GhostHawk]

Community is indeed in my opinion the key.

But community can be a lot of different things.

Let me put it this way.

Ol Daniel Boone when he got to Kentucky encouraged like minded friends and neighbors to join him there.
Right off they built cabins with a stockade, so they could herd the kids, the animals inside the walls and fort up to defend them.

Now in many respects ol Daniel you could say was a prime developer of the bug out bag, cept he probably called it a possibles sack.

But he knew if a buncha redskins came calling it was going to take mass firepower, neighbors, and a wall to stop them.

Fast forward a few years, and think about what it would take to live and survive in a world where you could probably count on roving bands of hungry bad guys the same as you can count on death and taxes now.

Like minded friends and neighbors willing to work together, walls, and massed firepower will still do the job.
All while keeping your gardens, your kids, and your livestock safe and alive.

As to soap, that is still very doable.

What can't be taken away from you in a worst case scenario?

What you believe
Who you are
What you know how to do.

They can perhaps shake rattle and roll your convictions, your self confidence.
They can kill you.
But they can't steal what you know how to do. They can only enslave you and try (and mostly fail) to get that knowledge out of you.

But you still have it.

So bank skills.

Learn how to make a bow, and arrows starting with just a knife, time, and local materials.
Which I would define as what you can find in a half hours walk.

Learn how to make soap, I admit I stash almost as much Lye as I do powder.
In a true SHTF scenario I figure it will be worth 3-5 times as much.
Fat's and oils can always be had, it just takes work and time to get them.

If your under 40 I'd concentrate on

Basic bush craft, camping with a knife or a tool or 2 in your pocket, and that is all.
Trapping/snaring, throwing up a shelter in an hour, how to make a fire the more ways you know and the more diverse the better.
Basic gardening/farming/butchering/tanning.
Soapmaking
Primitive weapons

All of those will serve you better than a bug out bag and a big knife. And in your planning anticipate that there will be no power,no reliable communications, and no transportation other than walking. If you are planning on a horse, you'd better have it. And plan for the fact that at some point someone is going to see that horse and want to take it away from you. If you are seen carrying a big bag chances are it will be taken from you. Keep those points in your mind as you plan.

Once truly gained skills and experience can not be lost. You will always have them, and the confidence they bring.

[starmac]

I guess a little imagination is fun at times, I do hope I don't start imagining I might have to shoot the neighbors because they are hungry. lol

Knowledge and skills can't be taken away, but if the disastrous event, whatever it be, happenned tomorrow, knowing how to grow a garden will not help much, if you are not already growing and preserving the harvest. A guy would get mighty hungry, and probably shot by the neighbor, before the garden he started, produced anything to eat.

[Boerrancher]

Earlier the topic of bug out bags was touched upon. I have a rucksack, M4 and 300 rounds of 7.62x35 (300 BLK) in magazines that travel with me everywhere I go. I never get more than about 3 days walking from home, and the contents of my rucksack change with the seasons. For example a pair of long underwear does me no good in the late spring through early Fall here in MO, so I replace them with a few summerish items like insect repellant, and more socks. The contents of my ruck is always changing depending on the season. I never pack food or water. I keep a bottle of H2O purification tabs with me and a collapsible 2qt canteen. I can go three days with out food, and there is plenty of places I can get water from. If I get hungry I know how to find food even in the winter. There are lots of edible fungi in the winter that contain high amounts of protein as well as a few creepy crawlies that can be eaten.

I always carry a military poncho and the liner in the winter. There are many uses for the poncho. If I am away from home and need to get home and have to travel with out my vehicle, I will move at night and sleep in the day, especially in winter. Deer shift their eating and sleeping habits when the cold winter months set in. They move at the coldest part of day/night, and sleep on the south facing hillsides when the sun comes up. It pays to study wild life and how they behave. There is nothing better about teaching you how to survive in the wild, because they have adapted to do it over tens of thousands of years. Animal behavious when learned will teach you how to move, find food, and evade predators, like the two legged kind.

Fires are nice but when trying to travel and not be seen are not a good idea. Nothing says to another human, "hey, come here," like a nice warm fire. Candles make a good substitute and can be safely burned under a poncho to provide a bit of warmth and the poncho blocks much of the light. I used candles under my poncho in the Mtns of Afghanistan, to keep warm when away from the comforts of the FOB. As far as my ammo, yes 300 rounds is a lot. Even though I have no intention to ever discharge my rifle, I would rather have the option of being able to instead of just using it as a club should the need arise and I was only packing a 20 round mag. The one thing that close combat with other humans taught me was that you can never have too much ammo. There were many times we would roll out with two to three times the basic combat load and before we would get back to the FOB. In any survival situation where you are not on your home turf surrounded by people you know and trust, your best bet is to avoid people all together. Gun fights don't always go the way you plan, so avoid them at all cost.

Think things through, before you ever make a move, this goes for the preping phase as well. Try to think of as many situations as you can and pack accordingly without having a 500lb pack. Then if you have to move, before you do think about how you are going to do it. When moving think about the places you walk and where you put your hands and feet. One misstep and you have a broken ankle or leg. The rougher the terrain the less your chance of encountering other people but the greater the risk of injury. I spent hours as a kid climbing along the edge of a cliff just to get to a cave so I could hunt arrowheads, because all of the surrounding property owners were very unfriendly. No one ever saw me come and go from the cave and the property owners never knew it was even there, because it could only be seen from one exact spot on the other side of the river. I knew the route because my ancestors had been using that cave since before the white half of the family arrived here. It is little things like this, that when preplanned can make a difference in being seen or unseen.

Best wishes,

Joe

[GhostHawk]

First off to the OP, Salute, I agree with you. The only LONG TERM solution is to build a community of like minded people with a wide variety of skills. Then learn to defend what you have with what you have or can make.

Tough job, no matter how old you are or how much bark you have on.

But it will take a community to survive long term.
Individuals may survive for a month, a year, or a decade.
But you leave nothing behind. It takes children to teach to leave a legacy, and raising children is hard enough in a community.
Dang near impossible out in the wilderness.

Learn skills today, while you can. What is in your head and fingers can not be stolen from you.
They can take your life, but not your knowledge.

Basic things like soapmaking, a little plumbing, a little gardening, being able to butcher your own animals.

Then if you have time, how to tan hides, blacksmithing, or how to make paper.

In the long run, it will be the community's that pass on what they know, that become the centers for learning new skills.

Think about the city/states of old Greece and the world they lived in.

The Pioneers who settled Kentucky, Tennessee, Ohio would have few problems. They had huge skill sets and were used to living on little.
But we are much much removed from them. We are for the most part soft, spoiled.

The hardening will happen easy enough, the cost will be in lives, and knowledge lost.

Bugging out is no answer. What makes you think you'd survive getting past the first chokepoint where some gang has setup shop and demands half of all you have or your life? What makes you think once you and everyone else is out in the wilderness that there will still be animals for you to survive on? They'd be gone in the first week or 2.

What makes you think that you can survive your first winter with what is in your bug out bag?

Dang sure you wouldn't up here in Dakota country. And take a good look at the weather you are having right now.

It is either cold out, or every mothers son will be headed to where it isn't cold out.

Then there won't be food enough to go around will there?

Don't bug out, skill up, fort up, form a community and build to survive.

[Outpost75]

Soylent Green came from the book "Make Room, Make Room" by Harry Harrison. Nowhere in the book does it say "Soylent Green Is People!" .... Now go read it. It is a good book!

You are entirely correct, I was quoting Charleton Heston's closing lines in the 1973 movie. About the time the movie came out our mess was in the habit of serving warmed over mushy peas with eggs for breakfast and the concoction acquired the name Soylent Green, and whenever it was served a chorus of whispered chants would echo off the concrete block walls which was a bit errie!

[Bonz]

IMHO, it all comes down to "is it possible". If you believe that a TEOTWAWKI ( The end of the world as we know it ) event is possible, then you will probably do something to prepare for it in an attempt to survive. Personally, I think it is very possible, just look at everything that is happening right now around the world. Years ago, the History Channel talked with some experts and had them come up with the most possible "worst case scenario global event" made a documentary and aired it. It was called "After Armageddon" and the full length version is still available to view on youtube.com A movie with similar global events is "World War Z". A middle eastern county invented a highly contagious biological weapon that caused something like rabies in humans. This movie is not about zombies eating people, the movie shows the infected people biting and infecting others.

Luckily for me, I have several friends that truly believe something really bad is heading our way. Unfortunately, the planning has not gone very far but we have some great members already. And everyone in our group believes that this will not be something that we can run and hide from, we will have to "defend in place"

[Janoosh]

Thank you Boerrancher
Thank you GhostHawk
and Thank you Starmac.
The thought of bugging out, and the problems associated with bugging out only work if you are notified way ahead of time. Otherwise, you and your family and thousands of others will choke whatever highway.
The reason I posted about shooting your neighbor is just a scenario that can develop. Think back to the Danner fiasco. People use people. It's modern society. In an TEOTWAWKI situation, it will definitely come down to "city states" or most likely "fortified hamlets" of workers, and not paper pushers.

[762 shooter]

Once you open your mind to the possibility that some type of event could impede your ability to acquire needed items, the hard part is over.

762

[R3104D3R]

I wouldn't expect any notification in such an event, unless it came from friends or relatives. What's in it for "XYZ" to tell you its the end as we know it, since XYZ won't care or exist afterwards anyway? If 5 people knew it was the end but had a slim chance to survive, would they tell 50,000? Maybe if they were bleating hearts, but telling would likely adversely affect their survival. Easier to go shopping for those last items you need on a regular day, than on Damned Black Friday.

If you did get notification, it would either be in-progress or give you 15 minutes maybe. After notification, you probably wouldn't be able to use your cell phones for the mass congestion or possibly due to being disabled because of the event.

Talking about possibilities, nearly anything is possible. Is it possible any great civilization can survive forever? Maybe, but unlikely. If there is a 1 on a X-sided die, you will eventually roll it no matter how big X is. If it can happen, it eventually will. Murphy's Law.

[RogerDat]

Bug out bag only makes sense if there is someplace to bug out to, a reason to go someplace. So ability to evacuate due to natural or man made disaster makes sense, as does materials to allow you to make your way home on foot from work or other non-home location.

It takes a few acres to feed a family with semi-modern pre-mechanized farming, without herbicides or bug sprays, no tons of fertilizer without infrastructure so we can't feed the existing population without modern infrastructure. At least not at anything near the level we currently do. And absent transportation infrastructure the current large scale one or two crop farms won't be able to distribute and exchange what they produce making them much less effective.

We as a society don't remember how to make and use the tools normal for 17th or 18th century civilization. What you know how to do does not a civilization make. Care to tell me what angle the teeth are on a lake ice cutting saw or the tooth pattern, or even what saw design is required? What shape works best for a clay oil lamp? Pounded any wool into felt lately? Trade routes and markets for things such as metals, cloth and grains develop over time as do the skills of the different trades themselves.

Make it simple - we collectively don't know how to identify the right stone for a grind stone, don't know how to quarry it by hand, or make it into a grind stone by hand, and can't build a mill to use the stone. Therefor the energy and time required to grind grain by rubbing it between stones will become the new norm and that does not lend itself to commercial trade.

How long can a family of two adults manage to carve out an existence AND keep watch 24/7 against threats? Heck most houses are built without windows on the ends so they won't have windows facing each other when house is in a subdivision. How hard is the house to approach with a blind spot at each end? Three guys can flank one guy pretty easily. Four to six people can attack from more directions than two people can defend. So yes you better be on good terms with the folks that would have to cover your blind spots and flanks.

Don't forget the mountain men lived with almost no "gear" and little in the way of supplies but it was not an existence designed to raise a family. Long term civilization and society would have to redevelop along new and somewhat unpredictable paths if this one fails.

[Janoosh]

I do believe the term "bug-out-bag" has been redefined. My b-o-b now is my "get me back home" bag. Most of what is contained in it is supposed to get me home easier. Flashlight, butane lighter, swiss army knife, a real knife, multi tool. There are times I am take the subway and these should help me out. I carry a bottle of water in the summer. As it is NYC I'm talking about, all the tools I've mentioned were chosen as not to be defined as weapons. My vehicle has it's own survival gear.

[Moobra]

As I grow older and study the issues more I have become convinced the long term survival of a TEOTWAKI event will be found in a community approach. It will become necessary to draw together and function as communities composed of similarly minded individuals with a variety of skills to be able to provide a division of labor in order to have a reasonable lifestyle.

This has lead to a consideration of listing skills which would be essential to start, necessary over an extended period, and nice to have for the long haul. The selections will depend to some extent on where the community is located, its size, the resources, and surrounding communities, however their should be some commonalities. Another consideration will be the amount of disruption and the duration of disruption to the current infrastructure and distribution systems.

So how about a discussion of skills and ranking of importance. To start I would consider Blacksmithing not essential but necessary over an extended period. The ability to make and repair tools would be highly desirable. Some of the allied trades such as Fairer, Cutler, Gunsmith, etc. would probably be handled by the same person in smaller communities and until the demand justified specialization. Skills and the ability to concentrate on the work at hand brings along the requirement of other skills to support the efforts of the skilled trades. These support trades require their own skills and may or may not require full time work. Returning to the Blacksmith as an example he requires fuel for his forge which historically has been either coal or charcoal. In the past there were many "charcoal burners" who turned wood into charcoal. Some did it full time but others such as farmers did it in their off season, during the winter they would make charcoal to trade or sell. If coal deposits were available the support skills for it would involve mining and transport. Transportation needs wagon makers or boat builders, who need saw mills, and harness makers who need tanners, etc., etc.

What skills do you see in a community?

Most people are unrealistic about TEOTWAWKI. They think the power goes out and it becomes Mad Max forever. Possibly for
a while but the idea that the survivors would live a 17th century existence based on horses and blacksmithing is
silly.

Consider: 90% of the population is dead after 6 months. Do you find some horses somewhere, train them somehow using
ploughing gear and harnesses that probably don't exist or do you find a generator, run your welder and cut down the farmer's plough to fit your SUV (or any vehicle you happen to find) or just weld up a simple plough for a car/SUV and do in 3 days what horses do in 10?

The 17th century did not have all the tools, plastics, metals and fuels used by 7 billion people. I imagine that would last
700 million people a long time. I imagine the warehouses full of new machinery sealed in plastic and oils would be fine
for another 50 years.

In addition, the 17th century didn't know how to wind a simple alternator, stick it in a stream and generate AC or DC
power 24/7. They couldn't build a steam engine to run a coal fired generator or vehicle. We do and a lot of people can do
this. Especially if they have the electricity from temporary generators to run the tools.

The hallmark of civilisation is knowledge, tools and electricity. The latter is easily doable on a local and even regional
level. Communities close to coalfields and fast rivers will have abundant electricity. It runs your lathes and welders to
repair and make other tools- like more lathes and welders, transformers, wire extruders and smelters. These make
machines like harvesters. They convert simple, old 8 cylinder trucks to wood gas. They make steam engines.

The 17th century shut up shop at sundown. Not much can be done by kerosene light but electricity makes
24/7 ploughing, working and fabricating possible. It allows schools and knowledge transfer to happen 24/7.

The Romans had excellent water and sewage systems. The middle ages English lived in their filth and died. What was the difference? Knowledge. The Romans drained their swamps and alleviated mosquito borne diseases. Knowledge.

That's not to say we would not lose a lot of skills and knowledge. Without a surgeon, morphine and anaesthsia we will
die of simple appendicitis. But slowly the skills would redevelop.

It took centuries to figure the fundamentals of electricity, magnetism and power generation and distribution. The average
electrician would have a fair idea of how to build a 10KW generator from shafts and bearings, windings and DIY rectifier.
New generators could be built and existing ones maintained or modified. This power runs the millions of abandoned
AC motors in existence in TEOTWAWKI land. Forges and furnaces, washing machines, refrigerators/freezers at a local level.

And slowly the population and skill base to repair/replace these technolgies would develop.

No the hard part was developing the knowledge so I doubt people will learn how to shoe a horse when the region
modifies abandoned cars for wood gas or manufactures steam cars.

1920 maybe but not 1720.

Just my .02