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I’ve never prepped so asking out of sheer curiosity. I wonder if there’s value in simulating disaster-living. It’s one thing to be ready with supplies and anot

I’ve never prepped so asking out of sheer curiosity. I wonder if there’s value in simulating disaster-living. It’s one thing to be ready with supplies and another to actually live through it, albeit for lesser time. Would it help discover a few more unknowns? Maybe some supply that you would only realize you need when you experience it? Think of it a life-version of chaos monkey or similar to a fire drill?

vidanay 6y ago
Back in the day, we called this "going camping for the weekend"
- p1esk 6y ago
  Camping for a couple of weeks would be more relevant.
  - dylan604 6y ago
    A weekend is a pretty decent test though. If you flip the main breaker on your panel and use the water service shut off valve, you'll know in 24 hours how well you can cope. After 48, you'll know exactly what needs to be addressed. Provided you're in a house with access to those kinds of shut-offs
    - p1esk 6y ago
      No it’s not. I know I can survive 48 hours without water (let alone food or power). I can just sit around and do nothing. Not so with two weeks.
      - llukas 6y ago
        Have you thought how your toilet will look like after 48 hours without water?
helij 6y ago
The trick is to actually prep with stuff you normally eat and use.
pharke 6y ago
A simple way to do this is to just shut off the main breaker in your fuse box, instant power outage. Leave it off for whatever amount of time you want to practice for. Same thing goes for the main water shut off. You could leave those two off all weekend and quickly find out what you need. Another good and simple practice run is if you normally drive to get to a local store to plan and execute a route for walking there and back. Vice versa for if you normally walk everywhere, figure out what it would take to drive to a more remote location. Planning and knowing the ground truth of alternate routes is very important in a disaster scenario. For food preparedness you can do something I call the Bean Day exercise, simply don't go to the grocery store for an extended period of time and eat only what you have in your fridge, freezer and pantry. You'll have to get creative to reach the end, you'll realize how quickly you work your way through your stock, and you might discover a whole new set of go-to foods and dishes.
FooHentai 6y ago
Huge value. We rented a small farm cottage for a year and the power there was unreliable, the water supply ran out regularly, and the road flooded a couple of times a year. It really helped us develop core preparedness habits out of learned experience. Even recently we had a power cut at our place and discovered storing our power-out gear in the garage wasn't very useful with an electric main door and a blocked off side door. If it had been an extended outage I would have needed to break windows to get essential gear. In my experience you'll find more isolated communities take preparedness more seriously because they experience grid frailty regularly and so build backup options into their daily lives. The least prepared live in denser urban areas where issues are far less likely. Problem is that when they do occur, and on a long enough timescale it's inevitable, general preparedness is low and so the shock and risk is greatly increased.

vidanay 6y ago

Back in the day, we called this "going camping for the weekend"

p1esk 6y ago
Camping for a couple of weeks would be more relevant.
- dylan604 6y ago
  A weekend is a pretty decent test though. If you flip the main breaker on your panel and use the water service shut off valve, you'll know in 24 hours how well you can cope. After 48, you'll know exactly what needs to be addressed. Provided you're in a house with access to those kinds of shut-offs
  - p1esk 6y ago
    No it’s not. I know I can survive 48 hours without water (let alone food or power). I can just sit around and do nothing. Not so with two weeks.
    - llukas 6y ago
      Have you thought how your toilet will look like after 48 hours without water?

helij 6y ago

The trick is to actually prep with stuff you normally eat and use.

pharke 6y ago

A simple way to do this is to just shut off the main breaker in your fuse box, instant power outage. Leave it off for whatever amount of time you want to practice for. Same thing goes for the main water shut off. You could leave those two off all weekend and quickly find out what you need. Another good and simple practice run is if you normally drive to get to a local store to plan and execute a route for walking there and back. Vice versa for if you normally walk everywhere, figure out what it would take to drive to a more remote location. Planning and knowing the ground truth of alternate routes is very important in a disaster scenario. For food preparedness you can do something I call the Bean Day exercise, simply don't go to the grocery store for an extended period of time and eat only what you have in your fridge, freezer and pantry. You'll have to get creative to reach the end, you'll realize how quickly you work your way through your stock, and you might discover a whole new set of go-to foods and dishes.

FooHentai 6y ago

Huge value. We rented a small farm cottage for a year and the power there was unreliable, the water supply ran out regularly, and the road flooded a couple of times a year. It really helped us develop core preparedness habits out of learned experience. Even recently we had a power cut at our place and discovered storing our power-out gear in the garage wasn't very useful with an electric main door and a blocked off side door. If it had been an extended outage I would have needed to break windows to get essential gear. In my experience you'll find more isolated communities take preparedness more seriously because they experience grid frailty regularly and so build backup options into their daily lives. The least prepared live in denser urban areas where issues are far less likely. Problem is that when they do occur, and on a long enough timescale it's inevitable, general preparedness is low and so the shock and risk is greatly increased.