How prepared are you?

[Despare]

We've all seen the apocalypse movies, from zombies to environmental hazards if the shit hits the fan you've got to be ready. Are you? Do you have a bug-out bag put together? Do you have any skills that would help sustain you in the event of a power grid failure? Can you fish or hunt? Do you know your edibles? Can you build a fire with very little supplies?


Cool, because there's a 99% chance you'll never NEED those skills. Realistically, I just dig camping and find that working on "survival" skills is both fun and helps to balance things out a bit. I wish I had more time to go but I have been putting together a bag that I can just grab and go camping with for a few days without having to pack up every time I want to head out. I guess the skills I really need to work on are hunting (which I'll probably never do, I'm not against it in any way but I won't do it unless it's a real necessity) and identifying what's safe to eat as far as berries, roots, and mushrooms go (I've never been good at that).

[MichaelMyers]

Quite prepared, I think. Unlike most, I believe a zombie attack is a distinct possibility, as I have several times seen the dead raised in the Peruvian mountains and among various Australian aborigine tribes.

This was a very big motive in building my current cache: apart from 3 years worth of MREs, I keep in my quarters an emergency am/fm radio, water filters, flint and steel, flares, fishing and mess/first-aid kits, alcohol/cigarettes/seeds for trade, toothbrush, monoculars, utility belts, compasses, tarps, tape, shovels, plenty of kevlar clothing, facemasks, and headlamps.

I also maintain assorted crossbows, serrated combat knives, axes, and other weaponry for both melee and ranged "situations." I have taken various courses in diplomacy and "negotiating tactics" should those scenarios ever arise. Currently I am trying to lose some extra weight so I can jog for a great distance without getting winded.

To your last comment: I am currently reading The Book of Edible Plant Life. Well worth spending time with, IMO.

[ImmortalSlasher]

I'm probably more prepared than the average person. But not as much as MichaelMyers, unless that was a joke post.

[ralfy]

The crises one preps for are economic crashes due to too much debt, peak oil, and global warming coupled with environmental damage. Preparations will include permaculture, herbal medicine, and localization in general.

[Angra]

Bought myself a stick. Feeling well prepared.

[Jack C]

I'd be in terrible shape for a zombie attack. We've got a one story house with lots of windows - they'd just waltz in here and have a nice feast :( There's a house down the street with a pretty solid looking fence around it, I think I'd head over there pretty quick.

I don't have a gun or even a baseball bat. I'd be swinging electric guitars at the zombies. Pretty pathetic.

[hammerfan]

I live on the third floor of an apartment building. Front door is pretty flimsy. However, I DO have a baseball bat with metal studs in it. I was a fair ball player back in the day. :D

[Sicknero]

Not in the slightest.

I'm barely coping with life as it is now, come the apocalypse I'll be one of the first to go.

[Ferox13]

Pretty shit - I know how to put up a tent and have (or at least had decent martial arts skills), other than that nada.

[Kandarian Demon]

Well if the zombie apocalypse does happen, I hope they're not the kind that crawls out of the ground... this town has a crazy amount of cemeteries, and they're all within a 5 to 20 minute distance from my apartment :D

To be serious, though, I don't really get the whole "prepare for the apocalypse" thing... to save yourself for what reason? I'd rather go in an instant, rather than dooming myself to a slower, even more unpleasant death, or a life in a world that has been turned into a nightmare.

But, I know... instinct would probably kick in and cause most of us to fight for our own survival, even if it would make more sense to just let go... which again makes me think that the luckiest people would be those who went without knowing what hit them.

It's not really something I worry about... there's nothing I could do personally to prepare anyway. I'm alive right now, and the world is still here... like it's been for eternities already, and most likely it'll stay like that for the 40 or so years that the statistics say that I have left to live in it. Life is too short and too precious to dwell on something that has less than a 1% chance of actually happening.

[ferretchucker]

I'm probably a goner to be honest. In my home town I live in a bungalow and my bedroom here is on the first story but with a balcony for easy climbing access. Whilst I have a cage that I can pull across to block the big ass glass doors it's pretty flimsy. Plus I'm in London so...lotta people...lotta zombies.

BUT, assuming I managed to make it out to the countryside - let's say back around my home town, in one of the flattest most rural parts of Britain, I think I could last a while. I have a pretty good knowledge of survival skills - the right bark for kindling, certain edible plants, how to catch a fish without a line. The question is how to not draw attention to oneself. Then again, even if your fire in the woods IS billowing smoke...does a Zombie know what that means? If any zombie-disaster movie aesthetic is to be believed, smoke clouds are everywhere in post-apocalyptia.