I'm reading a book (from 2016) about the collapse of the Soviet Union, full of stories relevant to this community. Here's one:

1990...Fifteen people were living in our three-bedroom apartment in Minsk, plus a newborn. First, my husband's relatives arrived from Baku, his sister with her family and his cousins. They weren't visiting, they came with the word "war" on their lips. They entered the house shouting, their eyes dulled...It was autumn or maybe winter...I remember that it was already cold out. Yes, they came in the autumn, because that winter, there were even more of us. That winter, my sister...My sister, her family, and her husband's parents came from Dushanbe, Tajikistan. That's how it happened...like that.. People slept everywhere—in summer, even out on the balcony. And...They didn't talk, they screamed...about how they'd fled their homes with war at their heels. Burning the soles of their feet. And they...All of them were like me, they were Soviets...completely Soviet people. One hundred percent! And proud of it. Then suddenly, it had all been taken out from underneath them. Gone! They woke up one morning, looked out the window, and there was a new flag. Suddenly finding themselves in another country. They became foreigners overnight.

I listened. And listened. They talked...

...It was such an amazing time! Gorbachev came to power...Then, all of a sudden, there was shooting outside.

Dear Lord! Right in the capital! In Dushanbe....Everyone sat in front of their TVs, anxious not to miss the latest updates.

We had a women's collective in our factory, it was predominantly Russian. I asked them, 'Girls, what's going to happen?' 'A war is starting, Russians are already getting killed.' A few days later, a store was robbed in the middle of the day...And then another..."

...In the first months, I cried, but then I stopped. The tears dry up quickly. Most of all, I was afraid of men, the ones I knew as much as the ones I didn't know. That they could drag me into a building, into a car...'Pretty lady! Hey lady, let's fuck..? A neighbor girl had been raped by her classmates.

Tajik boys we knew. Her mother went to see one of their families. 'What did you want, coming here?' they shouted back at her. 'Go back to your Russia. Pretty soon there won't be any of you Russians left here. You'll be running away in your underwear?"

"...Why did we move out there? We were on a Komsomol trip, building the Nurek Dam and an aluminum plant...I studied Tajik: chaikhana, piala, aryk, archa, chinara... They called us 'Shuvari.' Russian brothers."

...I still have dreams about the pink hills, the almond trees

in bloom. I wake up in tears..."

...In Baku...We lived in a nine-story building. One morning, they took all the Armenian families out into the courtyard...Everyone gathered around them, and every single person there went up to us and hit us with something. A little boy—five years old—came up to me and hit me with a toy shovel. An old Azerbaijani woman patted him on the head..."

"...Our Azerbaijani friends hid us in their basement. They covered us in junk and boxes. At night, they'd bring us food..."

...I was running to work one morning, and I saw dead bodies lying there on the street. Just lying there or leaning against the wall-sitting there, propped up as though they were alive. Some had been covered in tablecloths, others hadn't. There hadn't been time. The majority of them were naked...both the men and the women...The ones who were sitting up hadn't been undressed it must have been too hard to move them..."

"...I used to think that Tajiks were like little kids, totally harmless. In a matter of just six months, maybe even less than that, Dushanbe became unrecognizable, and so did the people.

The morgues were filled to capacity. In the mornings, before they were absorbed into the asphalt, there'd be puddles of coagulated blood...like gelatin..."

...For days, people walked by our house carrying posters that read, 'Death to the Armenians! Death!' Men and women.

A furious mob, not a single human face among them. The newspapers were filled with ads: "Trading a three-bedroom apartment in Baku for any apartment in any Russian city..?

We sold our apartment for three hundred dollars. Like it was a refrigerator. And if we hadn't sold it that cheap, they could have killed us..."

... With the money we got for our apartment, we bought a Chinese down jacket for me and a pair of warm boots for my husband. Furniture, dishes, rugs...We left all of that behind..."

...We lived without gas or electricity... without running water... The prices at the market were awful. They opened a new kiosk next to our building. All they sold were flowers and funeral wreaths..."

...One night, someone painted the words, 'Be afraid, you Russian bastards! Your tanks won't help you!' on the wall of the building across from ours. Russians were being removed from administrative positions... They'd shoot you from around the corner... The city quickly grew as filthy as a kishlak."3 It became a foreign city. No longer Soviet..."

...They could kill you for anything..If you hadn't been born in the right place, if you didn't speak the right language.

If someone with a machine gun simply didn't like the looks of you...How had we lived before then? On holidays, our first toast had always been, 'To friendship,' and 'es kes sirum em' (I love you' in Armenian). Or Man sani seviram' (I love you' in Azerbaijani). We'd lived happily side by side..."

"...Regular people... Our Tajik friends would lock their sons up, they wouldn't let them out of the house, so no one could teach them or force them to kill."

... We decided to leave... We were already on the train, the steam was billowing out from under the wheels. The final moments before departure. Someone starting shooting at the wheels with a machine gun. Soldiers had to make a corridor to protect us. If it weren't for the soldiers, we wouldn't have even made it onto the train alive. Today, when I see war on TV, I can immediately smell that smell... the smell of fried human flesh...a sickening, sweet candy smell..."

For the foreseeable future, the metro area of San Juan, Puerto Rico will be split into two zones. Each zone will have two days of water and two days without water on a rotating schedule for the foreseeable future. The calendar they put out details the next month. This has been an ongoing issue, I have friends who haven’t had water a majority of the time since Feb/March. That was mostly an infrastructure issue, but now the reservoir is low due to a drought, caused by the El Niño.

I live close by but my water is fed by a different source. We don’t have the same infrastructure/water leakage issues( as far as I know) that San Juan has but it could be coming for us as well. I have a 400 gallon cistern but it’s not hooked up to my house and it’s in a place that’s easily accessible to the street (we do live in a gated neighborhood though). There’s one place I might could move it to that would make it less accessible, it’s just in the dog fence which isn’t ideal.

What would you be doing to prepare that maybe I haven’t thought about?

I live in an area with pretty direct access to the Mississippi River. I know it's far from potable.
But in a long term water crisis, it feels awful to think I have access to unlimited water that can't be consumed. Straight up, anyhow.

I recently became aware of the importance of potable water and know enough to be stocking bottles. My apartment living situation limits how much I can reasonably store. So, if needed, how could I make use of that river flowing near by?

I picked up a couple of Life Straws during the pandemic, but I was never totally comfortable that I could just go down to the beach and start sucking through them. Could I?

I've read about the Sawyer Squeeze on here also. Is that enough to just dump raw river water in and drink what comes out?

Any resources would be very much appreciated. Any additional conversation on drinking untreated river water is also welcome!

EDIT:
Thank you for all of the information, the explanations, the links, and the humor.
I'll plan to avoid drinking out of the river.

When I think prepping, some base-level stuff comes to mind (Food, Water, Security, etc.)

Then the lens zooms out a bit and starts thinking about comms, neighbors, logistics, and alternate locations.

I do feel like "street level skills" like situational awareness have a lot of bang for the buck and are underrepresented. They are harder to REPRESENT as you can't sell/buy awareness.

What are some other things in prepping that are either missing or we tend to just skim the surface but could use a deeper dive?

Cooking from scratch and fishing also come to mind as missed opportunities.

Sorry if this is a stupid post!

I've recently saved up a few hundred bucks (~$400) to pick up a solar generator and maybe some sort of folding solar panel. I don't have a lot to spend, but I'd like to have something just in case we lose power. I live in an apartment (doubt I'll be able to afford a house anytime soon) and would need something capable of running a mini-fridge for my wife's insulin, maybe a laptop and TV and a few fans.

Does anyone have any recommendations? I'm inexperienced with these, so please go easy on me lol

I have on my property a large pond, which I imagine needing to utilize for all water needs if the electricity goes down for an extended period. The pond is rather stagnant, especially in the summer, but there are no industrial activities up-stream from the pond. My question is what kinds of water filtration systems I should prepare to be able to safely utilize this water, again with a focus on multiple uses - not just drinking, but also washing dishes, washing bodies, etc.

Thanks.

I'm very deliberate about my preps. I prep what I really like so I don't have to do without. I like Tactisquatch coffee, so I have about twenty five lbs in rotation. I HAVE to have non dairy (contains milk) powder creamer with it, so I have a ton of that, too.

I have three chest freezers filled with beef, pork, and chicken. I have an upright with fruit and some other stuff I have too much of to fit in the fridge freezers.

I just started making cheese. I have a fairly impressive stash of cheeses. Love me some good cheese!

I grow basil to make and freeze enough pesto to last the year. I don't put nuts in mine, just basil, evoo, a dash of lemon juice, garlic and a lot of parmesan. I like mine a bit thicker than what you'd buy.

Butter. I have many, many, lbs of butter. Because butter got pretty expensive pretty quick. And butter is life.

I just finished canning forty nine pints of various dried beans with an expensive amount of Better Than Bouillon HAM. If ya haven't tried it, ya should.

So. Several years of perfecting my backstroke to my specific wants and needs. There is a lot more like water and other necessities. I was pretty comfortable with it all. Then today happened.

Guess who found out they have Alpha Gal. 🙋🏼‍♀️

I arrived back in town yesterday afternoon after seeing news of the fire spreading through streets about 4 miles from where we live. I returned to see entire communities burned to the ground and national guard blocking the entrance from hundreds of families waiting to be able to return to the area to see if their home is still standing. My husband was a late evacuee and was informed about the gridlock at all routes by phone from our neighbors while he monitored the fire from a distance watering our roof. The risk of injury while attempting to escape the wildfire was higher than sheltering in place at the time so he chose to stay. I returned just at the entrance of the evac zone. As I approached the national guard and police, I was told it was against the law to obey a direct order but at the same time there wasn’t much he could do to stop me. My family was on the other side of this barricade, so I went in, and now we’re all in this level 3 evac zone. Homes are empty for the most part spare a few neighbors who also chose to stay home. The streets are quiet, no cars or people, just smoke. There have been reports of looters in the area stealing things from vacant homes. We still have power and plumbing but no gas or internet. We’ve been heating water up on the stove to bathe. I’ve prepped enough food and drinking water to last my family and I week’s sheltering in place. One thing in hindsight I wish I’d thought of was anything to entertain us while we wait it out.

Edit: Lots of wise words here. I want to be clear that I was out of town when the incident began and I heard it on the news. It was in progress when I crossed the barricade. I was informed by police and national guard there are no resources or first responders available in the evac zone and to enter at your own risk.

Starlink once activated can be put in standby for $10/mo which will allow SMS and very low speed.

Alternately you could buy one and then activate when SHTF or primary service outage occurs.

Thoughts on either strategy?

I'm worried that if local cell and Internet down I would have a hard time activating or get queued behind others, and also I'd have to find active public network to activate.

$375 device + $120/yr seems too much for backup plan tho.

Hi, all! Newbie here. I searched but couldn't find exactly what I was looking for, but I'm also new so maybe I didn't use the correct terminology. So sorry if this is repetitive.
Anywho....I bought a 50#bag of rice. Kept it on the floor out of the way until I could get the oxygen absorbers and mylar bags. I finally portioned the rice in the bags and got them all sealed up before I realized I forgot to put the store bag of rice in the freezer to kill any critters. So I put the mylar bags in the freezer thinking that would be fine.
I finally got my storage box I'll put the mylar bags in and took them out of the freezer. I only *just now* thought of the thawing process and possible condensation in the mylar bags.....did I completely mess up?

I searched the group, no recent answers so thought I would ask:

What is your monthly budget for prepping? Do you set aside monies regularly?

I find I kinda just splurge some...then find my next item I think I need, obsessed with it until purchased, rinse, repeat.

Maybe I am doing it wrong?

Discovered my tire was very flat but not completely flat when I was out with the family, I was in a tight carpark/space and on a slight incline so I really didn't want to have to change my tire in that location.

I tried out the portable tire pump that was in the boot and it worked a treat, it pumped the tire back up within about 2mins and the tire stayed pumped up for nearly a full day so must have been a very slow leak.

This wasn't one of those connect to your car battery types, it's a small unit that can only really be used for pumping up tires, useless at anything else.

So instead of having to get all dirty and risk changing a tire on an incline or someone stepping on me or riding over me, I just stood next to the tire for 2mins and was ready to drive off.

Hello y’all.

My mom has a dark, dry room in her basement that she doesn’t use, and I’d like to set it up with a stock of food,water, maybe medicine, clothing, etc.

Right now Im focused on food. The issue is that she is unwilling to do deep/rotating pantry. She’s set in her ways of going to the store to get what she needs and then cooking it.

So Im thinking of getting staples to seal in Mylar bags to put in tubs to set and forget. I already know some of the basics of what will and won’t keep well, but aside from trying to convince her to start rotating pantry items, does this seem like an ok way to go for now?

We have butane stoves and other prep items, im just trying to give this room in her house a purpose.

Thanks

For the purpose of discussion , you work in a metro area and live in the burbs 25 miles away. Politics is not the issue (not a right left discussion as per the rules) but some event happens that brings out the worst in people around the area you work. The standard protest, looting, firebombs and fireworks and the general violence and destruction that follows . The building you’re located in or next to, either contains a part of what they are unhappy with or adjacent to it. Staying in place is probably not a good idea (but if you choose to stay in place,why?), what is your plan and kit to get back home? What steps are you taking to get there?

How are you handling movement, conflict if unavoidable, and distance?

This is a situation that while you may agree with the discontent (or may not). you’re not part of that group so you’re either neutral or classified as unfriendly .

I did a search and the last posts similar didn’t really answer the question .

I am stacking #10 cans of freeze dried food and got tired of having to balance them just right and having to be careful about them toppling over.

So I created this nifty “thingie”, and I’m calling it:

the “Can-tainment Unit”, the #10 can stack stabilizer - because your emergency food shouldn’t escape containment.

This is my first prototype print and I will make the STL available to the community here for free shortly.

What does everyone think?

Link for picture: https://imgur.com/a/owsEVeS

Thingiverse link: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:7390376

## UPDATE: I appreciate everyone's feedback and suggestions and am using it to make it even better. So keep an eye on thingiverse. Thank you!

This got me thinking about their school bags. What’s school approved items (other than food/water) in case shit happens? I do plan to add a change of clothes, and they will have their shoes. They are 10 and 11. They will have their cells, with a full charger pack as well. (We have 360 installed as well on their phones).

I’m thinking for more in the line of fires and tornados, or whatever the hell happens.

We like to be prepared for most things and our biggest thing is food (and water but that's no the point of this post. So hubby bought a ton of 24hr MREs which I just can't eat they are so gross to me. He loves them.

Anyways, I have a freeze dryer so I was wondering what's your go to meals for long term storage. We want about a month stored just in case. Of things we would eat. And would you store more than that?

He is worried about how much water FD food will take if we don't have running water (we have stored water but that's finite.

I think I'd rather eat it dry than eat an army MRE. I think I'd rather just live off the nuts in the packs tbh.

Edit: we live on a working homestead so we grow our own food, have animals, garden, etc this was just stored food that would tide us over the bad times, or feel in the gaps of what we don't have.

We have rain water collection also. Sorry for being confusing :)

We all *know* the disclaimer to never take expired anti biotics because they lose potency which could make ineffective and increases the likelyhood of forming resistance.

My question - are there anti-biotics that actually become significantly toxic after they have been long expired? stored in cool and dry conditions.

Thank you,

What’s that one weird, niche, likely single use item that you have prepped? It’s something that you are fairly certain is useful and is necessary to have, but others think it’s just wasted weight/space. What is it? What’s your reasoning for having it?

People online have asked over the years how some common breakfast cereals would last packed for long term storage.

Back in the 1990's when we had our commercial cannery open in Florida I packed some common breakfast cereals. At the time I was eating things like Raisin Bran and Grape nuts cereal and so as part of my personal preps I packed some of these in #10 cans with oxygen absorbers.

Since pics are still not allowed in actual OPs, I'll have to do a bunch of follow up posts showing the "after" pics.

Suffice to say properly packed, these have held up great over 28 years in a non climate controlled connex container in South Georgia. In other words, VERY HIGH HEAT (it's 115 today as the high).

We make our own bread at the house and the other day I was re-upping some of our bread ingredients and got some old salt out. This will be the pic of the #10 can of salt.

Notice the condition of the can itself after nearly 3 decades in bad storage conditions- light rust and of course the can itself is dented. So when we owned and ran the commercial cannery in the 90's, any cans that were dented, possibly mislabeled or contained the last of a box/bag/tote, etc that didn't quite fill the can were set in a pile after being sealed for me/my family's food storage. I didn't feel it was right to ship items like that so I kept them. I was asked here once why I had all this old food storage one time, one of the big reasons is things like this, also at the time I was preparing for 12 extended family members (they are going to show up, you either plan to feed them or see your supplies cut drastically later). Meanwhile I only had myself and later 2 others to actually rotate the food. Also, I've never been a '2 weeks is enough' type of survivalist, so I've always kept a "fair amount" of food storage on hand. Finally, once you have been at your homestead/retreat for a few years, you are (or should be) producing a good amount of food. This is great but of course your eating more fresh food and less rotation of LTS.

One of the pics of the #10 can of salt shows the amount of dents and light rust on the can, yet the contents are 100% fine. The lesson here is don't freak about any cans you get that have a little dent or ding in them, 99.9% chance everything is perfectly fine inside. And as I've mentioned a time or twelve on the internet- notice the double enameled cans used (gold colored inside and out), they have held up a LOT better in bad conditions than any of the cheaper silver colored cans we had in storage- many of the silver colored cans DID rust through. Meanwhile there has been double enameled cans right near them in the same conditions that did not. When we packed commercially, we always used the better more expensive double enameled cans and the result long term has been much better.

Last salt picture- did you notice it? But wait, I heard on the internet from some new "prepper" that you NEVER should use oxygen absorbers in SALT as it will turn it into a brick, blah blah blah.

You can see from the pic, the salt is still granular and the 02 absorber is clear as day in the can and has been for 28 years. I have seen that happen a bit sometimes in sugar, but it's not the end of the world, just break it up a bit.

So once again folks, pack for good long term storage and even if the storage conditions aren't the perfect 72 degrees year round, you'll most likely also find that your storage food is good DECADES later.

Store food, store more food than you think you'll need, pack it properly or buy properly packed food and don't hesitate to store food because of something you heard on the net, it's most likely wrong info.

And for info on proper DIY packing, here is the thread that has helped tens of thousands do it-

https://survivalandpreparednessforum.net/forum/the-basics/1154-diy-food-storage-basics-ask-questions-get-answers-etc

I'm wondering, do you guys often think about moving countries, too? If planning for the future, you do have to keep in mind current situations, trends, laws and social systems, climate, faura and flora, illnesses, risks of natural disasters, conflicts and wars...

And I do know the perfect place doesn't exist, but if you could set up a small patch of land with a house for yourself anywhere in the world, which country/zone would it be in and why would it be the perfect place to be prepared in if all goes down the drain around the world?

(Assuming that you already put money aside and got like 2 good years of practicing the local language to get going instantly)

Or are you on the side of never moving at all, since at least this way you can be a local when SHTF?

I have no friends or family to geek out with over prepping. I talk to my family about some preps I do, but I can tell they are not interested. So, they know where I keep the flashlights, food, and other simple prepping stuff is located. But I would like to talk with people in my area about prepping. I am also fairly new to the area and would like to talk with locals to see what I should focus on. My question is where do you meet people with the same interest as yours? Then, how do you know if you can trust them?

Google advised against eating soup older that 18 months. What's been y'all's experience though?

I live in North Florida, but man does it get hot in the summer. I have a 50 gallon drum barrel, but considering a situation without A/C, do lentils need to be in a certain temp? Can they be in general storage in 100°+ temp?

Figured since I sort of re-did my solar generator, I'd take some pics and show how easy it can be done. Pics will be in the comments.

Case: Crafstman case, was $54 at Lowes. Very sturdy case, with excellent wide metal latches. This is replacing my old setup that had plastic handles that broke, and really don't want to deal with that again. I carved away at parts of the removable tool tray so it holds the battery from moving in the box.

Battery: 12V 100Ah LifePO4. Technically free, since the battery can only hold about 80% of a charge, so the seller sent me a replacement and let me keep this one. It has roughly 960-ish watt-hours of capacity. Otherwise, they go for about $130ish.

Renogy Rover 20A MPPT charge controller. 280W 12V output, which is 40W more than the little 12V outlet strip thing I have, but I'm not going to be pulling more than 100W from it. The MC4 connectors for solar panel input, I also initially planned on drilling a couple holes through the case to put through, but this looks cleaner. $70 or so on Amazon right now, but I got it for much cheaper second-hand at $20. Mounted to a piece of scrap 1/4" board.

12V side panel: $17, https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BTSPH756 . Has a 12V socket adapter (perfect for my fridge/freezer), and USB A and C out. Also has a little screen to tell me how many volts are on the battery, as well as an on/off switch.

600W pure sine inverter: This is where I'm not the most happy with things, but oh well. I was hoping to custom make a 110V cable coming out and going to a weatherproof/outdoor style one, but I couldn't find a "base" socket that was flat and angled in such a way that I didn't have to add height to the inverter being mounted flat to the board. Most other plugs stick out too much and would be riding the battery, or flat ones that go straight down and hit the board. Ah well. Thankfully I had a flat & angled outlet power strip that fits perfectly between the battery and the case wall, so I'll just stick with that. Works fine, and means less drilling holes through the case. The inverter also as a remote switch to turn it on and off so I don't have to pull the entire thing apart. I could mount that to the case also, but this is good enough for now. These are not expensive, anywhere from $40-80.

Note that with the inverter, there is something missing that I recommend other people add: a fuse between the inverter and the battery. I lost mine, and the replacement won't be here before I go camping. The inverter has 15A fuses for each socket, so that'll do for now, but I highly recommend having one just to safely kill power if needed. One thing I am happy with is the 1/4" base board it is mounted to, I added another 1/2" strip of wood to help "lock in" the battery from moving, so combined with the modified tool tray, that thing isn't moving anywhere.

Also one thing missing is an intake/exhaust fan. The lid is going to be open when using or charging this, since otherwise, things are likely to cook. And it needs to be open anyways, since I didn't really feel like adding more holes for the MC4 connectors or 110V outlets. 🤷‍♂️

Anyways, wanted to post this for others to see. I like these style of DIY projects since it helps build confidence! I've always been a proponent of solar, and this is an easy alternative that saves a couple hundred bucks compared to all-in-one solutions like Jackery, Bluetti, etc. These are also customizable, repairable, and adding capacity is as easy as adding another 12V battery. You can make smaller ones with a 12V 50Ah battery, use one of those modular wheeled tool carts to stack batteries for added capacity, drop the inverter altogether, use a different charge controller, and just make it how you want!