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At the same time I completely ignore stuff like the giant tsunami on the Oregon coast or the giant super volcano in Wyoming when I drive through/visit there.
If you don't live (or work full time) within two miles of the coast, then ignoring it would be, essentially, the right level of consideration.
The point is, it could reasonably happen, in your lifetime, and it would not be wise to live within two miles of the ocean, when it does.
Most of the posters, here in this forum, at least acknowledge things could happen. It is getting the preparations proportional to the danger, that we discuss.
Some people look at a huge, but unlikely event, and just throw up their hands. I prefer to look at what is the minimum I can do to mitigate it. Sometimes, just moving up the road a ways is all it takes. Other times, it is having a box full of Christmas candles and a few old cans of Crisco, in my basement.
After all, I don't have to live forever, I just don't want to be a surprise to St Peter!
(Not that that is possible, but it is just my weird sense of humor.)
I do not prepare for the event, after all there is nothing much I can do to stop an event happening, I prepare for what comes after the event.
Not the South Seas. Southeast Alaska is where you’d have the best chances.
I've considered that but decided against it.
In the South Seas I am WAY off the grid. I have an ocean full of fish. I have year-round t-shirt weather. I don't even need a house necessarily, but a paddle canoe would be invaluable.
There are lots of places in the world below the equator that have similar climates and advantages. But not many of them are truly off the grid in a big way. Nowhere in Central or South America makes me feel warm and fuzzy.
In Alaska, I face an entire ecosystem and climate that can kill me actively or passively if I'm not prepared and conditioned to handle it. To be way off the grid, I have to go way north. And still that might not be good enough to avoid.... "whatever". PLUS, Alaska is still USA territory. It would be like... escaping to far Siberia when the Bolsheviks took over and you don't want to get caught. No matter what, I am directly between North America and our two biggest enemies in the Asian continent. Alaska WILL BECOME the Northwestern Front if there's major tension in the future.
In Alaska, even today, there are tremendous logistical hurdles to live off the grid. If and when things go south and cargo hauling becomes a matter of doing it myself with a horse or a mule. Or with homemade gas in some sort of suitable vehicle IF I can get the ingredients to make it. Neither are feasible.
If the USA goes firewall Left, it's going to be a real monster even if only for 5 or 10 years. With our military in the hands of another Pol Pot or Stalin.... the free world will quickly see us as 100 times worse than the USSR ever was... and somebody will decide that "whatever it takes" is the mission.
Consider the ramifications for the entire human race if the USA goes to the Dark Side. Even if only as a weakened shell of itself from years of subversive or incompetent Federal leadership. Already we have 4-stars raising red flags about our deteriorating ability to maintain our over-arching military benchmarks. Consider the ramifications.
This is something we American patriots have not thought about enough and put into the public forum. All we do is waste time defending ourselves unnecessarily OR making excuses for why the bad guys act the way they do: they're "stupid" or "crazy" or "misguided".
I've have some of the immigration records from the USCIS Genealogy Service. It's a two step process of first paying $65 for the file number and a second $65 for a copy of the file number's immigration record. A first request for an immigration record was mark "no record found." The second immigration record request found the record! Yeah, but it costed $195 for one record!
It has taken a couple of years to collect birth, marriage, death certificates for my parents, grandparents, great-grandparents, in-laws and grandparent in-laws. Florida was so fast in sending documents. New York is so behind that's not will not accept new document requests now.
I'm in the processing of obtaining an Apostille for each document. It's issued by the Secretary of State in the state the document was issued in. It's required for the document to will be accepted by foreign countries who are members of the Hague Apostille Convention.
I started this time-consuming and expensive process five years ago and I'm not done yet. These documents are needed for citizenship applications aboard.
I hope it doesn't come to this, but I'm not hopeful. I feel we'll need to move a friendly place.
Over the last week, there have been swatting threats to multiple high schools in MA, NJ, Utah & PA including my daughter's high school. She had her students stack their chairs against the door and hid her students. She kept her sobbing students quiet for nearly an hour. She evacuated her students while reminding them keeping their hand raised above their heads surrounded by swat teams in full military gear with helicopters buzzing overhead. Even if the call was fake, the terror was real.
My family talked about who would have the technology to issue these type of threats. Well, I have no doubt it was Antifa. The terror was no different than the rioters out on the streets, breaking store windows and firebombing police cars. The MA high schools were Algonquin Regional, Framingham, Franklin, Hudson, Medway and Milford high schools - places with $700,000 and over housing prices. These swatting calls were not for poor towns - just wealthier ones. And, the calls came days after that terrible shooting in Nashville.
Good! You're taking steps and planning ahead while most are asleep. It's going to be a sad day when they wake up. But be advised, there are countries in SE Asia and Oceania that have much simpler citizenship rules. Documents are important, but often money talks. And it doesn't take as much money as people might think. A lot, but not beyond reach for someone of retirement age. I like New Zealand and Vanuatu.
Undoubtedly, a nomadic lifestyle has a lot going for it. Hunter-gatherers sustained themselves after their parent culture collapsed (for whatever reason).
Unfortunately, such a lifestyle requires a large amount of territory.
And migration to the South Pacific has romantic allure. But from accounts of full time boaters, the out of the way islands are primitive, and not conducive to a long lifespan. No one to deliver from Amazon...
. . . .
A possible compromise is to find others to pool resources, and establish a cooperative community, preferably within a walled / fortified perimeter... to discourage opportunistic predators.
[I prefer the dual ring village, inspired in part by the Hakka Tulou "earthen fortresses."]
. .. .
A village of 300-400 charter subscribers should be able to ante up $5k ($1.5+ mil), and acquire a chunk of land (large enough to fit a 14-20 acre "round" inside). Build the outer barrier wall from rammed earth (2m / 6 ft thick), to provide disaster resistance to flying debris, high winds, flash floods, mud slides, storm surge, earthquakes, snow drifts, ash fall, gamma rays ("sky shine"?), forest fires, vermin, climate extremes, etc, etc. Then construct the ring buildings inside. End result : outer ring, ring road (main street), inner ring, and central park.
. . . .
The biggest obstacle is finding 299 other people who would share your basic philosophy and goal set.
THAT, and not financing, is the sticking point.
. . . .
The idea of building a cooperative village is not too popular. Even the ultra rich don't bother with such things, today. Ironically, 250 years ago, it was quite different, and folks did invest in building towns (and having the towns named after themselves). Don't know why, but survivalists tend to be loners and too ornery to want neighbors.
. . . .
IMHO, family, friends and neighbors are an essential survival element, when "stuff" hits the fan. Slowly dying, alone and suffering, is too horrible to contemplate.
Those full time boaters aren't survivalists. They're escapists from the rat race, not to say that isn't a noble endeavor. They do have one big advantage though: with a boat they're already positioned to get to one of those out of the way islands quickly and probably invisibly. I'd bet some of them are planning to do just that.
Pooling resources is a moot point when you find a place to live where everything you need is readily available in nature. What you brought with you can fit in a small suitcase. 299 other people would be "competitors" for the resources, if not "cooperative". For me, my wife and kids are all I need or want.
When stuff hits the fan... it depends on what the stuff is. But in some scenarios, death comes anyway for the individual, the family, the friends and the whole community anyway. It's ALL too horrible to contemplate. Suffering alone. Or suffering in a refugee camp. Look at situations in HISTORY around the world... not from Hollywood. "Red Dawn" isn't the way it's going to look if it's a war. "The Walking Dead" never really dealt with real issues in a societal collapse instead of the make-believe abstracted drama they focused on all the time. Me, I'll take my chances with the "Castaway" format. Mostly....
Those full time boaters aren't survivalists. They're escapists from the rat race, not to say that isn't a noble endeavor. They do have one big advantage though: with a boat they're already positioned to get to one of those out of the way islands quickly and probably invisibly. I'd bet some of them are planning to do just that.
Pooling resources is a moot point when you find a place to live where everything you need is readily available in nature. What you brought with you can fit in a small suitcase. 299 other people would be "competitors" for the resources, if not "cooperative". For me, my wife and kids are all I need or want.
When stuff hits the fan... it depends on what the stuff is. But in some scenarios, death comes anyway for the individual, the family, the friends and the whole community anyway. It's ALL too horrible to contemplate. Suffering alone. Or suffering in a refugee camp. Look at situations in HISTORY around the world... not from Hollywood. "Red Dawn" isn't the way it's going to look if it's a war. "The Walking Dead" never really dealt with real issues in a societal collapse instead of the make-believe abstracted drama they focused on all the time. Me, I'll take my chances with the "Castaway" format. Mostly....
dont base your survival of fictional Hollywood movies.
I do not prepare for the event, after all there is nothing much I can do to stop an event happening, I prepare for what comes after the event.
You would not buy or build a house in a place that is known to flood, but I have seen people who did. After the second time they were flooded, the government finally had to order them to stop building there.
You would not buy or build a house in a place that is known to flood, but I have seen people who did. After the second time they were flooded, the government finally had to order them to stop building there.
Weirdly flood plains change. My cousin bought a house beside the local river. The house had been there for several decades and had never had a problem with flooding. Then the 80s hit and we got a LOT of snow in the winter and a lot of rain in the spring. In just a few years it had flooded his house 3 times. The insurance company would not insure the place anymore after the 3rd time. That area has not flooded since.
A year is World War III Aftermath stuff where Red China wins. Not sure I'd want to "survive".
We have a 7kW generator that can run for over a week on propane (we've done 5.5 days) and we have our own on-site water source plus plenty of game. But come to think of it, I'm not sure how long "plenty of game" would last once everyone else in my area had to hunt for food.
I told my sister the same thing.
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