Something to consider: A truly realistic SHTF scenario...

Well I don't claim to be any expert on the subject, but I have seen some articles and TV shows which discuss this very possability. Sadly in this nation our entire infrastructure is in a serious state of disrepair. This includes the power grid as well. Much of it is outdated and in a pretty sad state. Then consider how many more electrical/electronic devices have been added to the average home or business in just the last ten years or so. The entire system is already overloaded.
In theory, a couple of good sized power outages could lead to a cascade effect that could shut down large parts of the country for a considerable length of time.
Heck, people go nuts if their cable goes out for an hour or two. Think about what would happen if large areas were without power for weeks, maybe months.
Scary ain't it? :eek:
 
Back around '77, NYC was hit with a blackout and a considerable amount of predators took to the streets and engaged in various types of mayhem and criminality. The great Brown Out of 2003 saw a much more peaceful NYC, but an extended period of no power/services in a large metro area would degenerate very quickly.

As far as living off the grid, my hero remains Richard Proenneke. His skills were second to none, and he created an amazing, albeit modest, homestead for himself.
 
Some of us are old enough to remember being off the grid totally or in part. My Grandparents had an 800 acre farm on a country road not far from a town or old Route 66. They used Oil lanterns, pot bellied wood stoves and a wood cook stove in the kitchen. The REA installed an electric line in 1955.

A few years prior to '55 water was about 150 yards away at the bottom of a ravine. Grandpa dug in to a natural spring, put in sand and buried a 2"steel pipe. When I was 7 or 8 I was sent to the spring with a 5 gallon bucket to get water for Grandma.

Just before electricity came Grandpa had a well drilled out the back door by the kitchen. It had a rope and pulley with the long skinny metal water pick up thing what ever it was called.

At night the oil lanterns were lit to finish up any business for a short while and shortly after dark it was bed time.

The outhouse was about 100' from the house. A Long cold walk in the winter. It was stocked with Sears & Roebuck, JC Penny's and Monkey Wards catalogs. All had slick finish paper. One had to crumple them a bit.

He butchered chickens, beef, hogs and they had a garden. He had a smoke house and salted pork. Fish and squirrels were also part of the diet. Grandma canned. There was a hand dug root cellar under the kitchen. It was always full of canned goods.

He lived off the grid and never realized it.

Electricity ruined it all, he wired the house, put an electric pump on the well and water in the house. He bought a TV and stayed up to watch professional wrestling after dark.

They still heated with wood and the oil lanterns still hung on the walls with the metal match box holder next to it. They could have reverted at the strike of a match.
 
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Nico Testosteros said:
A power outage is now a SHTF scenario? It's only the last century we've been dependent on mass power. Our ancestors survived for hundreds of thousands of years without electricity, gas, Internet, TV, etc,
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With all due respect, have you thought about what a massive, widespread power outage would do to our society?

This isn't 1914, and while previous generations did indeed survive without the Internet, electricity, gas, etc., our modern society is built on the use of electricity to power many aspects of our daily lives.

Imagine not being to communicate with anyone outside your home; not being able to send or receive news reports; not being able to call for help in an emergency; police and fire departments not being able to dispatch calls; police and firefighters on the street not being able to communicate with each other; water pumping stations not operating; sewage treatment plants shut down; no refrigeration; no food in grocery stores; no traffic signals anywhere; no street lights; no cooking in most homes; no commerce; no way to get cash with banks closed and ATMs out of service; no gasoline pumps; no heat or air conditioning in homes; hospitals shut down; hospital patients dying en masse almost immediately; no rail or ship commerce; no industrial production; no mass transit; no air travel; no elevators in high-rise buildings...the list goes on and on and on...

And then there are the other things to consider, the sociopaths and psychopaths who would be free to commit whatever crimes come to mind; the total breakdown of civil society; the collapse of government and societal institutions...

Yes, your bet your sweet bippy a power outage is a SHTF scenario, maybe the worst one of all. I hope I never live to see such a thing happen...
 
We've lived in our current house for just over 20 years. Every couple years we loose electricity for 3 to 10 days due to either a wind storm or ice storm. So far every time this happens the neighbors within a 1/2 mile radius, all 6 of us, wander around for about an hour talking to each other saying "Man, here we go again".

What we're really doing is making sure everyone in our "community" is accounted for and is OK. After all, it would be insulting to straight out ask a man if he needed help in these situations. It would imply they didn't make reasonable preparations on their own for an event we all know will happen eventually.
 
I bet he read Mother Earth News a lot when he was a younger. I think I've seen this scenario on TV. The show is called Revolution. The new season should start soon. Another one that is similar is The Dome. Maybe someone is preparing us for what is coming.
 
Maddog 521 said:
I bet he read Mother Earth News a lot when he was a younger. I think I've seen this scenario on TV. The show is called Revolution. The new season should start soon. Another one that is similar is The Dome. Maybe someone is preparing us for what is coming.
Click to expand...

I actually read Mother Earth News some, too. I always wonder what the check out clerks think when they scan Mother Earth News right after American Handgunner... 'round here, maybe nothing. :D

A really good book about the same is One Second After. EMP hits and chaos ensues. It will give you something to think about.

ETA- Beemerguy53 put it much better than I did.
 
nawilson said:
...A really good book about the same is One Second After. EMP hits and chaos ensues. It will give you something to think about...
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I think some folks don't understand that an EMP event isn't as simple as a power outage, like something most of us have experienced from time to time. (I think the longest I've ever gone without power is about 6 days, after a mid-Atlantic hurricane some years ago.) Here's an article that should give all of us pause...

EMP Attack Would Send America into a Dark Age
 
rcnixon said:
That is the one resource that Texas will never run out of. Also, if the wind does stop blowing, Texans could be directed to talk at the wind turbines and spin them up that way.

Russ
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And those wind turbines would produce no electricity at all, because their circuits would have been fried.
 
Beemerguy53 said:
I think some folks don't understand that an EMP event isn't as simple as a power outage, like something most of us have experienced from time to time. (I think the longest I've ever gone without power is about 6 days, after a mid-Atlantic hurricane some years ago.) Here's an article that should give all of us pause...

EMP Attack Would Send America into a Dark Age
Click to expand...

As this article is 3-1/2 years old, I'd be interested to know if any progress has been made in that time. The costs quoted are a pittance compared to the sums the govt. fritters away ... it would be encouraging to see a bean-counting bureaucrat step up and close the financial faucet for aid to foreign countries, thereby freeing up $ to support our own EMP security measures.
 
mc5aw said:
As this article is 3-1/2 years old, I'd be interested to know if any progress has been made in that time. The costs quoted are a pittance compared to the sums the govt. fritters away ... it would be encouraging to see a bean-counting bureaucrat step up and close the financial faucet for aid to foreign countries, thereby freeing up $ to support our own EMP security measures.
Click to expand...

I'm certain preventing an EMP attack is a huge government priority. If a bunch of ordinary folks on a gun website understand the implications of such an event, you can bet the bigwigs in Washington 'get it' even more acutely.

It's really interesting to consider that an enemy could destroy our society, our way of life, without ever having to kill Americans directly. Modern life is certainly a lot more complex than many of us think about from day to day...
 
Beemerguy53 said:
I'm certain preventing an EMP attack is a huge government priority. If a bunch of ordinary folks on a gun website understand the implications of such an event, you can bet the bigwigs in Washington 'get it' even more acutely.

It's really interesting to consider that an enemy could destroy our society, our way of life, without ever having to kill Americans directly. Modern life is certainly a lot more complex than many of us think about from day to day...
Click to expand...

This is a great thread, if for no other reason than to awaken us (individually and collectively) as to how reliant we are on electricity, and subsequently how vulnerable we are.
 
Hack said:
Another reason to move to Texas: They have their own power grid.
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My girlfriend says we're moving to Texas or we're not getting married. She's not political or pro gun or anti gun, she just loves Texas.

As a truck driver, I've seen many places and Texas is my favorite state. So I'll get out there eventually

the original point and click interface, by Smith and Wesson
 
For those who may not be aware, we are currently just about in the middle of the solar flare cycle which occurs every 12 years. Some scientist believe this may be the biggest flare cycle to occur in over 100 years.
Just somethin' to think about.
 
I'm not sure there is anything we can really prepare for completely apart from making our peace with God and putting our trust in Him. That's why I'm not entirely on the "prepper" bandwagon.

On the one hand, I do think that moderate preparations like a several weeks worth of food, water, and extra toilet paper might make the dawn of the end of the world a tad more tolerable. On the other hand, I read the end of the Book and while we aren't necessarily in there, the good guys win. It's the part in-between that sounds pretty uncomfortable.

I'm in my thirties. I was raised to think that people tended to be moral and ethical. Having seen quite the opposite in action though, I have become skeptical.

I've come to believe that there has been a change in the ethics of many people in America from moral to amoral between my grandparents' generation (WWI/Depression/WWII) and the post-Y generations. There are cultural and class resentments and entitlements that are hyped up in various media. The drug culture and rampant disregard for moral/ethical/social restraint is very popular right now in the younger generations. Religion plays a far smaller role in many people's lives so the ethical and moral attitudes it instills often go by the wayside.

Many people in my generation and the ones that follow are buying into the ideas that they should be able to do whatever they want, whenever they want, however they want, and they turn a blind eye to the consequences of their actions. It's a convenient lie that opens the doors to societal collapse.

In these end-of-the-world scenarios that keep floating across the web, I really wouldn't be shocked to see bad/criminal behavior happen on a large scale because of it.

After watching what happened up in NYC after the hurricane took out the electricity, I sure don't want to live anywhere very near a major urban center if I can possibly help it.

I see all this societal change stuff happening and I can't help but wonder, who dropped the ball?
 
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