4 ms·

This is something everyone should do anyway. In fact I would recommend keeping at least a week or two of food, water, and other critical supplies. Defensive w

by _mlbt 2y ago

This is something everyone should do anyway. In fact I would recommend keeping at least a week or two of food, water, and other critical supplies. Defensive weapons are also a good idea. They don’t need to be anything fancy. A baseball bat or a tire iron can do the job.

dijit 2y ago
The issue is things go bad. Keeping 8L bottles of water around is an exercise in of itself, they’re easy to forget and bottled water doesn’t last terribly long so you meed to remember to cycle it. (120 days for normal filtered water with heavy agitation, 2 years for distilled sealed water).
- seszett 2y ago
  > (120 days for normal filtered water with heavy agitation, 2 years for distilled sealed water). Bottled water in France at least has a 1-year expiration date. I have drunk water well past this date without noticing any particular taste.
  - unsnap_biceps 2y ago
    I have a habit of drinking Fiji water. It's a terrible habit but it tastes great. The bottle I have in my recycling bin has another year and a half on its best by date. Microplastics might be a concern, but I'd be surprised if it's not safe to drink for many years after the best by date.
    - _mlbt 2y ago
      Dehydration will kill you much faster than microplastics will.
- redserk 2y ago
  There are a few ways to keep cycling through supplies if you’re already using food/water that can last some time. For water, could get a water cooler. Keep a few 5 gal jugs around, and just use it for some drinking water. By periodically using it, you’re able to rotate through jugs. For food, plan canned food supplies around what you normally eat. For example, I like soup in the winter and fall, so I’m always cycling through it every year. Another couple of days are from me eating various kinds of instant noodles. I always have a dozen or so at hand. I buy bulk oatmeal for breakfast as part of my normal breakfast routine. That’s several days of food in a pinch. I go camping several times a year so the freeze-dried foods are worthwhile keeping stocked up, and I just bring a few when I go out. If you use your pantry as part of your supply planning, the hardest part isn’t stocking up, it’s tracking nutrients.
  - theshrike79 2y ago
    The old prepper adage is "two is one, one is none". If you know you need a can of tuna for tuna salad, buy two. If you only have one in your pantry, get a second one the next time you go shopping. Just having a backup bottle of ketchup is amazing, because you always notice you've got a mostly empty bottle of it when the pasta is already cooked an everyone is hungry. Plant proteins are good for storage, beans, chickpeas and even soy in different forms store well and are easy to use in day to day cooking. You can only take so much canned tuna and other canned meats are either crazy expensive or just plain gross. Just remember to ONLY stock up on food you actually use. Don't buy a massive box of dried camping food unless you go camping and actually eat it. It's not exactly gourmet even when it's fresh - even less so when it expired in 2015. Ask me how I know :D
- firecall 2y ago
  In South Australia, as a requirement for building our house, we had to install water tanks. We have 22,000 litres of water stored, with pumps and filters. And we are on mains water too so it’s never used. We also have 6,000 litres of water stored for fire fighting. As do many other houses on our street and local area. Then there is the solar and storage batteries… We could go for a good while and we live in a metropolitan area! Rural Australians could probably survive for longer as isolation is their life anyway LOL ;-)
- dh2022 2y ago
  In America most households (single family homes or appartments or condominiums) have a water heater with something like 60 - 80 gallons of hot water (how hot? it is up to the resident to make it really hot or not that hot. Households with small kids usually do not make the water really hot). In case of disaster water necessities could be covered by cooling hot water from the water heater.
  - tzs 2y ago
    Careful. Hot water from a water heater is generally not considered to be potable so you may want to avoid drinking it or using it for cooking.
- Symbiote 2y ago
  The cheapest bottled water I bought in Denmark has a 2 year expiration date. I don't intend to drink it, I will just throw it out when I replace it. If I forget, and there's then a situation where it's the only thing I have to drink, I won't worry about it being past the date.
- theshrike79 2y ago
  I can buy 5 litres of water for 1,89€ at my grocery store. Because it's industrially packaged into a sterile container, it keeps for a good year or two. I have one of those for every member of the family (including pets) and a calendar alarm a month before they go "bad". Then we either use them for boiling pasta/potatoes or watering the flowers and get new ones. We've had to tap into them ... twice in a decade I think? Once when a neighbour did some DIY plumbing and the water was shut down for 12 hours while actual professionals fixed their oopsie and once when the municipal water treatment plant fucked up and the water was tainted for a bit.
eesmith 2y ago
Over and over again we see that defensive weapons are not needed when disaster comes. What job can a tire iron do while trying to get out of your flooded home, or escape a wildfire? What can a baseball bat do for the residents of Helsinki in the event of armed aggression against Finland?
- reaperducer 2y ago
  I guess you missed the part of the headline that read "or attack."
  - eesmith 2y ago
    dlachausse said it was "something everyone should do anyway", and not just for an attack. I ended with "What can a baseball bat do for the residents of Helsinki in the event of armed aggression against Finland?"
    - reaperducer 2y ago
      Weaken the invading force by one.
      - eesmith 2y ago
        In a comic book fantasy perhaps. A bat doesn't weaken a missile or drone attack, and it encourages the armed soldier to shoot you.
- err4nt 2y ago
  A few years ago I ran through all the realistic emergency scenarios I could think of, living in a large city and driving in a car, and except for "being attacked with a gun" the emergency tool that seemed to be useful in basically every other scenario from a building on fire to stuck in an elevator to being in or coming across a car accident was a tomahawk or an axe with a spike/pick on the other end. They also tend to be cheaper than large axes and so it's easy to toss in the car or leave near the door, etc. It may not be the single best tool for some situations, but it seemed like the best all-around tool for almost every situation.
jandrewrogers 2y ago
> Defensive weapons are also a good idea. Violent crime really isn’t a thing in the immediate aftermath of disasters, at least in the US. Looting can be an issue but that is usually predicated on the absence of residents e.g. areas that have been evacuated, so you aren’t likely to run into looters if they exist.
- rascul 2y ago
  There was some violent crime in New Orleans after Katrina.

by _mlbt 2y ago

dijit 2y ago

The issue is things go bad. Keeping 8L bottles of water around is an exercise in of itself, they’re easy to forget and bottled water doesn’t last terribly long so you meed to remember to cycle it. (120 days for normal filtered water with heavy agitation, 2 years for distilled sealed water).

seszett 2y ago
> (120 days for normal filtered water with heavy agitation, 2 years for distilled sealed water). Bottled water in France at least has a 1-year expiration date. I have drunk water well past this date without noticing any particular taste.
- unsnap_biceps 2y ago
  I have a habit of drinking Fiji water. It's a terrible habit but it tastes great. The bottle I have in my recycling bin has another year and a half on its best by date. Microplastics might be a concern, but I'd be surprised if it's not safe to drink for many years after the best by date.
  - _mlbt 2y ago
    Dehydration will kill you much faster than microplastics will.
redserk 2y ago
There are a few ways to keep cycling through supplies if you’re already using food/water that can last some time. For water, could get a water cooler. Keep a few 5 gal jugs around, and just use it for some drinking water. By periodically using it, you’re able to rotate through jugs. For food, plan canned food supplies around what you normally eat. For example, I like soup in the winter and fall, so I’m always cycling through it every year. Another couple of days are from me eating various kinds of instant noodles. I always have a dozen or so at hand. I buy bulk oatmeal for breakfast as part of my normal breakfast routine. That’s several days of food in a pinch. I go camping several times a year so the freeze-dried foods are worthwhile keeping stocked up, and I just bring a few when I go out. If you use your pantry as part of your supply planning, the hardest part isn’t stocking up, it’s tracking nutrients.
- theshrike79 2y ago
  The old prepper adage is "two is one, one is none". If you know you need a can of tuna for tuna salad, buy two. If you only have one in your pantry, get a second one the next time you go shopping. Just having a backup bottle of ketchup is amazing, because you always notice you've got a mostly empty bottle of it when the pasta is already cooked an everyone is hungry. Plant proteins are good for storage, beans, chickpeas and even soy in different forms store well and are easy to use in day to day cooking. You can only take so much canned tuna and other canned meats are either crazy expensive or just plain gross. Just remember to ONLY stock up on food you actually use. Don't buy a massive box of dried camping food unless you go camping and actually eat it. It's not exactly gourmet even when it's fresh - even less so when it expired in 2015. Ask me how I know :D
firecall 2y ago
In South Australia, as a requirement for building our house, we had to install water tanks. We have 22,000 litres of water stored, with pumps and filters. And we are on mains water too so it’s never used. We also have 6,000 litres of water stored for fire fighting. As do many other houses on our street and local area. Then there is the solar and storage batteries… We could go for a good while and we live in a metropolitan area! Rural Australians could probably survive for longer as isolation is their life anyway LOL ;-)
dh2022 2y ago
In America most households (single family homes or appartments or condominiums) have a water heater with something like 60 - 80 gallons of hot water (how hot? it is up to the resident to make it really hot or not that hot. Households with small kids usually do not make the water really hot). In case of disaster water necessities could be covered by cooling hot water from the water heater.
- tzs 2y ago
  Careful. Hot water from a water heater is generally not considered to be potable so you may want to avoid drinking it or using it for cooking.
Symbiote 2y ago
The cheapest bottled water I bought in Denmark has a 2 year expiration date. I don't intend to drink it, I will just throw it out when I replace it. If I forget, and there's then a situation where it's the only thing I have to drink, I won't worry about it being past the date.
theshrike79 2y ago
I can buy 5 litres of water for 1,89€ at my grocery store. Because it's industrially packaged into a sterile container, it keeps for a good year or two. I have one of those for every member of the family (including pets) and a calendar alarm a month before they go "bad". Then we either use them for boiling pasta/potatoes or watering the flowers and get new ones. We've had to tap into them ... twice in a decade I think? Once when a neighbour did some DIY plumbing and the water was shut down for 12 hours while actual professionals fixed their oopsie and once when the municipal water treatment plant fucked up and the water was tainted for a bit.

eesmith 2y ago

Over and over again we see that defensive weapons are not needed when disaster comes. What job can a tire iron do while trying to get out of your flooded home, or escape a wildfire? What can a baseball bat do for the residents of Helsinki in the event of armed aggression against Finland?

reaperducer 2y ago
I guess you missed the part of the headline that read "or attack."
- eesmith 2y ago
  dlachausse said it was "something everyone should do anyway", and not just for an attack. I ended with "What can a baseball bat do for the residents of Helsinki in the event of armed aggression against Finland?"
  - reaperducer 2y ago
    Weaken the invading force by one.
    - eesmith 2y ago
      In a comic book fantasy perhaps. A bat doesn't weaken a missile or drone attack, and it encourages the armed soldier to shoot you.
err4nt 2y ago
A few years ago I ran through all the realistic emergency scenarios I could think of, living in a large city and driving in a car, and except for "being attacked with a gun" the emergency tool that seemed to be useful in basically every other scenario from a building on fire to stuck in an elevator to being in or coming across a car accident was a tomahawk or an axe with a spike/pick on the other end. They also tend to be cheaper than large axes and so it's easy to toss in the car or leave near the door, etc. It may not be the single best tool for some situations, but it seemed like the best all-around tool for almost every situation.

jandrewrogers 2y ago

> Defensive weapons are also a good idea. Violent crime really isn’t a thing in the immediate aftermath of disasters, at least in the US. Looting can be an issue but that is usually predicated on the absence of residents e.g. areas that have been evacuated, so you aren’t likely to run into looters if they exist.

rascul 2y ago
There was some violent crime in New Orleans after Katrina.