Anyone Else Prepping?

[Tortoise]

I don't think baby wipes or Dude Wipes are flushable. Even if they claim to be flushable on the packaging. I mean, you can flush them, but it can eventually muck up the sewer or septic system since they don't disintegrate in water like TP does.

[vnatale]

I just got a mass text saying a local grocery store is out of toilet paper. WTF is it with toilet paper and coronavirus?

That's all I was hearing about on the local sports talk radio station.

Vinny

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[vnatale]

I don't think baby wipes or Dude Wipes are flushable. Even if they claim to be flushable on the packaging. I mean, you can flush them, but it can eventually muck up the sewer or septic system since they don't disintegrate in water like TP does.

One of the sports talk radio hosts said that you could. Then a few minutes later another host said that they received a call from a plumber that stated that they cause problems. And, that's he available to fix your problem if you decide to flush them.

VInny

[dualstow]

I have heard (repeatedly) that they cause troubles in the — what’s the technical term? — main sewery pipe stuff beyond your home. Just like the “fatbergs” of England created by people washing their cooking oil down the drain instead of putting it in the trash.

[vnatale]

Just part of my normal style to stock up when it's on sale. As I was listening to those sports talk radio hosts talk about how many people were lined up in certain stores and what was being bought I thought that I could go quite awhile with all those cans of beans and tomatoes I have plus all the jars of peanut butter. And, of course, have stashes of other types of food stockpiled.

For the pets....just yesterday bought 50 pounds of rodent food so they all set for at least three months. Also, yesterday bought about 150 cans of cat food to add to my already good sized inventory. And, have bags and bags of kitty litter. None of this was in response to what is going on in the world; just my normal pattern of buying.

I had been planning on ordering toilet paper from Amazon until I heard on the sports talk radio that all Amazon employees worldwide had been sent home. I still have 11+ rolls left so I think as a single person I'm fine in that area. It's been on my list to resupply toilet paper for about a month. I never like running out of anything, will NEVER make a special trip (will go without), and when I run out, I heavily restock.

Vinny

[dualstow]

I had been planning on ordering toilet paper from Amazon until I heard on the sports talk radio that all Amazon employees worldwide had been sent home.

Wow, that i had not heard.
I see the articles now.

[vnatale]

I had been planning on ordering toilet paper from Amazon until I heard on the sports talk radio that all Amazon employees worldwide had been sent home.

Wow, that i had not heard.
I see the articles now.

Is there anyone here old enough to cite anything in our past history where events are moving with the incredible speed that they currently are? This is a fairly well-informed group but I sense even we are struggling to stay on top of all these new developments.

Vinny

[Tortoise]

Is there anyone here old enough to cite anything in our past history where events are moving with the incredible speed that they currently are? This is a fairly well-informed group but I sense even we are struggling to stay on top of all these new developments.

In my lifetime (I'm only 40), the only other incident I can recall where there was so much uncertainty and so many rapid developments was the first week after 9/11.

I remember that during that week, the uncertainty about whether more terrorist attacks were coming made it feel like we were entering an alternate reality.

[vnatale]

Is there anyone here old enough to cite anything in our past history where events are moving with the incredible speed that they currently are? This is a fairly well-informed group but I sense even we are struggling to stay on top of all these new developments.

In my lifetime (I'm only 40), the only other incident I can recall where there was so much uncertainty and so many rapid developments was the first week after 9/11.

I remember that during that week, the uncertainty about whether more terrorist attacks were coming made it feel like we were entering an alternate reality.

Exactly. For certain that day. But then nothing else really happened elsewhere. And, within a week life fairly much went back to normal. During the initial week I remember no baseball, planes flying, or financial markets being open. A coworker who was actually there in the middle of it told today told me about another coworker of ours who was living in Minnesota at the time of 9/11 and they just thought it was something happening far away that was not affecting them.

I still remember it somewhat continuing into 2002 when I was again in New York City for Yankees games and having police on the subway carrying heavy duty automatic rifles. Don't think I'd ever seen anything like that before or since. All gone by 2003.

But 9/11 really just hit and affected the lives, for the most part, in New York City, Washington D.C., and the small town in Pennsylvania. Did not really affect just about everyone in the nation. This is. Like I'd written earlier the last time we'd experienced anything close to this was World War II in terms of affecting such a large portion of the populace.

Unfortunately in this "war" we don't have a well-defined enemy and not yet have the means to get it to "unconditionally surrender"!

Vinny

[Kriegsspiel]

I still remember it somewhat continuing into 2002 when I was again in New York City for Yankees games and having police on the subway carrying heavy duty automatic rifles.

Surely you mean semi-automatic?

But 9/11 really just hit and affected the lives, for the most part, in New York City, Washington D.C., and the small town in Pennsylvania. Did not really affect just about everyone in the nation.

To a lesser extent, that's similar to saying that June 28, 1914 only really hit the royal family of Austria.

Unfortunately in this "war" we don't have a well-defined enemy and not yet have the means to get it to "unconditionally surrender"!

Well, the second part of that sentence is right, but we're pretty specific in who the enemy is.

[vnatale]

I still remember it somewhat continuing into 2002 when I was again in New York City for Yankees games and having police on the subway carrying heavy duty automatic rifles.

Surely you mean semi-automatic?

Definitely. I knew I was not properly stating it but could not remember the correct wording. Thanks for the correction. And, I'm sure that you of all people here probably know what they were carrying. As a non-military person it was somewhat unsettling, I tried my best to ignore them, and was probably the only time I'd been in the presence of such weapons.

But 9/11 really just hit and affected the lives, for the most part, in New York City, Washington D.C., and the small town in Pennsylvania. Did not really affect just about everyone in the nation.

To a lesser extent, that's similar to saying that June 28, 1914 only really hit the royal family of Austria.

What you cited precipitated World War I. What 9/11 started was a misguided "War on Terror" and gave an excuse for the country's biggest foreign policy blunder - The Iraq War. But how did all of that affect our daily lives? We have a paid military to pay the prices of the excesses of our politicians. It does not touch the lives of most of the population if you are not connected to the military in some way. Getting back to your example. Our country did not have a paid military at that time so, therefore, many regular Americans were affected.

Unfortunately in this "war" we don't have a well-defined enemy and not yet have the means to get it to "unconditionally surrender"!

Well, the second part of that sentence is right, but we're pretty specific in who the enemy is.

By "well-defined" I meant that phrase to also encompass defined by a territory. We fought against Germany and bombed the civilian population of Germany because Germany was defined. We don't know where this virus is located.

Vinny

[Maddy]

Not such a bad idea to stock up on TP, as well as paper towels, zip loc bags, dish soap, contractor bags, and other non-essentials. Sure, you could do without them, but the way I look at it, an emergency of any kind is likely to be demanding of your time and energy, and if you can spend your precious time addressing that emergency rather than hand-washing rags, so much the better.

I was just reading the headlines of Martin Armstrong's blog, and today's (subscribers only) topic is a possible bank holiday. (I'm not a subscriber, so I can't tell you more.) Not that the Walmart folks stocking up on TP read Armstrong, but it might nevertheless be wise to go get some cash before that occurs to the masses.

[Kriegsspiel]

I still remember it somewhat continuing into 2002 when I was again in New York City for Yankees games and having police on the subway carrying heavy duty automatic rifles.

Surely you mean semi-automatic?

Definitely. I knew I was not properly stating it but could not remember the correct wording. Thanks for the correction. And, I'm sure that you of all people here probably know what they were carrying. As a non-military person it was somewhat unsettling, I tried my best to ignore them, and was probably the only time I'd been in the presence of such weapons.

M4s? I'm not really sure what police carried back then.

But 9/11 really just hit and affected the lives, for the most part, in New York City, Washington D.C., and the small town in Pennsylvania. Did not really affect just about everyone in the nation.

To a lesser extent, that's similar to saying that June 28, 1914 only really hit the royal family of Austria.

What you cited precipitated World War I. What 9/11 started was a misguided "War on Terror" and gave an excuse for the country's biggest foreign policy blunder - The Iraq War. But how did all of that affect our daily lives? We have a paid military to pay the prices of the excesses of our politicians. It does not touch the lives of most of the population if you are not connected to the military in some way.

A lot of people joined the military and fought in wars because of 9/11. It's weird to see that you think it only really affected people in NYC, DC, and Shanksville.

Getting back to your example. Our country did not have a paid military at that time so, therefore, many regular Americans were affected.

In my analogy, the left-unsaid affected people were the European soldiers, not Americans in general.

Unfortunately in this "war" we don't have a well-defined enemy and not yet have the means to get it to "unconditionally surrender"!

Well, the second part of that sentence is right, but we're pretty specific in who the enemy is.

By "well-defined" I meant that phrase to also encompass defined by a territory. We fought against Germany and bombed the civilian population of Germany because Germany was defined. We don't know where this virus is located.

Vinny

Sorry, I thought you were still talking about 9/11

[Libertarian666]

We have made our last trip to Costco for awhile.
We bought canned beans, organic honey crisp applesauce, butter, balsamic vinegar, some Indian packaged foods, bake-at-home bread, pizza kits, nut bard, pasta sauce, mac & cheese, coffee, Sambucol, Afrin, Ubiquinol, a coffee creamer substance, avocado oil, and olive oil.
We already have several tons of rice and beans left over from our Y2K preps, as well as backup power, water, and propane.

If we don't get sick we can stick it out here for months, but we do plan to stock up once in awhile at Walmart by using their "pickup" service where they bring the food out to your car. I'm going to make sure that they can just put it in our trunk without having to speak with them or sign anything. We'll take a cooler for refrigerated foods and leave everything in the car in the garage for a day, hoping that will be too long for the virus to survive.

I may have overlooked something but I'm not taking this lightly.

[vnatale]

If we don't get sick we can stick it out here for months, but we do plan to stock up once in awhile at Walmart by using their "pickup" service where they bring the food out to your car. I'm going to make sure that they can just put it in our trunk without having to speak with them or sign anything. We'll take a cooler for refrigerated foods and leave everything in the car in the garage for a day, hoping that will be too long for the virus to survive.

I may have overlooked something but I'm not taking this lightly.

When they pick the items from the shelves are they going to avoid touching them? How about when they put the bags in your car? Unless they are wearing sterile gloves that they keep changing repeatedly, if some surface in the store is contaminated, you could transfer the virus to your house or yourself. Think about that. You would have to do a 100% quarantine of yourself or there is a risk. Unless the whole world locks itself in the house for 3 weeks, there will still be spreading. And if the people at Netflix stay home and you can't watch tv, how long before people go nuts and leave the house?

As I was just listening to on C-Span a professor from Georgetown who had expertise in all these matters I realized that I'm not totally safe being inside my home. The MAIL is a potential outside source of infection! She stated that if you washed your hands after handling it you should be fine. Then I realized there is also that newspaper! And, here I thought if I remained in the house I'd not have to engage in this vigilant hand washing!

And, I do a fair amount of movie watching via Amazon Prime and Netflix. But I guess that my collection of over 1,000 movie DVDs and equivalent amount of VHS movies will serve as my backups in case both Amazon Prime and Netflix become unavailable.

And, my lack of any sports to watch - NBA, Baseball, College basketball -- leaves now a lot more undistracted time to do book reading.

Vinny

[Xan]

I understand NASCAR is still running this weekend.

[Hal]

We have made our last trip to Costco for awhile.
We bought canned beans, organic honey crisp applesauce, butter, balsamic vinegar, some Indian packaged foods, bake-at-home bread, pizza kits, nut bard, pasta sauce, mac & cheese, coffee, Sambucol, Afrin, Ubiquinol, a coffee creamer substance, avocado oil, and olive oil.
We already have several tons of rice and beans left over from our Y2K preps, as well as backup power, water, and propane.

If we don't get sick we can stick it out here for months, but we do plan to stock up once in awhile at Walmart by using their "pickup" service where they bring the food out to your car. I'm going to make sure that they can just put it in our trunk without having to speak with them or sign anything. We'll take a cooler for refrigerated foods and leave everything in the car in the garage for a day, hoping that will be too long for the virus to survive.

I may have overlooked something but I'm not taking this lightly.

Hello Libertarian666,

You may wish to have a look at this site which is quite comprehensive.

https://survivalblog.com/newbies/

and in my Army life we had field manuals on decontamination if you are really serious. Here's a screenshot from one I found on the web.
(Eg they had shallow disinfectant pits to walk through to decontaminate boots) - sometimes done on farms when there are outbreaks.

In any case, if you want to be certain, just turn off all the services to your house for a weekend and see how you go.
Bushfires down here mean you have to be prepared as a part of life. And have some cash, the fires a month ago knocked out the ATM's and credit card facilities.

But in all honesty, when they had Polio outbreaks in the past, people didn't react like they are now.

Hope this helps,
Hal

PS: Aussie Army used to get ration packs from here

https://www.portionpackfoods.com/products/custom-made/ (and you get Vegemite in a small squeeze tubes )

[Libertarian666]

If we don't get sick we can stick it out here for months, but we do plan to stock up once in awhile at Walmart by using their "pickup" service where they bring the food out to your car. I'm going to make sure that they can just put it in our trunk without having to speak with them or sign anything. We'll take a cooler for refrigerated foods and leave everything in the car in the garage for a day, hoping that will be too long for the virus to survive.

I may have overlooked something but I'm not taking this lightly.

When they pick the items from the shelves are they going to avoid touching them? How about when they put the bags in your car? Unless they are wearing sterile gloves that they keep changing repeatedly, if some surface in the store is contaminated, you could transfer the virus to your house or yourself. Think about that. You would have to do a 100% quarantine of yourself or there is a risk. Unless the whole world locks itself in the house for 3 weeks, there will still be spreading. And if the people at Netflix stay home and you can't watch tv, how long before people go nuts and leave the house?

Yes, I have considered those risks.
I'm not going to touch the trunk for three days after I go to the store.
Hopefully that will be long enough to let the virus die.
We obviously can't buy frozen goods but our cooler should keep fruits and vegetables safe for that long with ice in it.

[Libertarian666]

We have made our last trip to Costco for awhile.
We bought canned beans, organic honey crisp applesauce, butter, balsamic vinegar, some Indian packaged foods, bake-at-home bread, pizza kits, nut bard, pasta sauce, mac & cheese, coffee, Sambucol, Afrin, Ubiquinol, a coffee creamer substance, avocado oil, and olive oil.
We already have several tons of rice and beans left over from our Y2K preps, as well as backup power, water, and propane.

If we don't get sick we can stick it out here for months, but we do plan to stock up once in awhile at Walmart by using their "pickup" service where they bring the food out to your car. I'm going to make sure that they can just put it in our trunk without having to speak with them or sign anything. We'll take a cooler for refrigerated foods and leave everything in the car in the garage for a day, hoping that will be too long for the virus to survive.

I may have overlooked something but I'm not taking this lightly.

Hello Libertarian666,

You may wish to have a look at this site which is quite comprehensive.

https://survivalblog.com/newbies/

and in my Army life we had field manuals on decontamination if you are really serious. Here's a screenshot from one I found on the web.
(Eg they had shallow disinfectant pits to walk through to decontaminate boots) - sometimes done on farms when there are outbreaks.

In any case, if you want to be certain, just turn off all the services to your house for a weekend and see how you go.
Bushfires down here mean you have to be prepared as a part of life. And have some cash, the fires a month ago knocked out the ATM's and credit card facilities.

But in all honesty, when they had Polio outbreaks in the past, people didn't react like they are now.

Hope this helps,
Hal

PS: Aussie Army used to get ration packs from here

https://www.portionpackfoods.com/products/custom-made/ (and you get Vegemite in a small squeeze tubes )

Due to our y2k preps, we have backup 110V power, water (with Berkey filters), and lots of propane, and are on a septic tank. So we can do without external services for quite awhile although it won't be wonderful (no 220V power = no whole house AC, city water outage = having to run pond water through filters).

And polio, although horrible, didn't infect most of the population.

If I were young, I wouldn't worry about this too much. I'm not, and neither is my wife. We're both over 70.

[vnatale]

I understand NASCAR is still running this weekend.

Now I got the clarification via the MLB Network that NASCAR is running but WITHOUT fans / spectators, which makes sense.

But I think I may die without ever having watched it.

The drivers are no doubt highly skilled but the "sport" is of no interest to me.

Vinny

[flyingpylon]

For anyone willing to give auto racing a shot, the IndyCar Grand Prix of St Petersburg will take place (without spectators) on Sunday afternoon at 3:30 pm Eastern.

IndyCar is real racing, while NASCAR is merely racing-themed entertainment.

[Hal]

Might have to check that out. The Melbourne Grand Prix that was to run today has just been cancelled

https://www.heraldsun.com.au/sport/moto ... 716ccf2999

[Maddy]

One of the things I did many years ago was to begin printing out "how to" articles from the internet on various self-sufficiency topics. My library of articles, at this point, consumes two full shelves of 3-inch binders, each organized by subject. They address everything from how to snare small game to tapping a spring, safely composting toilet waste, filtering and purifying water, preserving food, building a rocket stove, rigging up emergency power and lighting, etc. If the internet goes down, I'll have a resource to go to. Think about it: If the internet went dark and the municipal water supply stopped, would you remember how much bleach to add to a gallon of roof water before it is safe to drink?

Two of my three-inch binders are labeled "NBC," meaning "nuclear," "biological," and "chemical." To me, this is one of the most important prep items people ought to think about having.

[Libertarian666]

One of the things I did many years ago was to begin printing out "how to" articles from the internet on various self-sufficiency topics. My library of articles, at this point, consumes two full shelves of 3-inch binders, each organized by subject. They address everything from how to snare small game to tapping a spring, safely composting toilet waste, filtering and purifying water, preserving food, building a rocket stove, rigging up emergency power and lighting, etc. If the internet goes down, I'll have a resource to go to. Think about it: If the internet went dark and the municipal water supply stopped, would you remember how much bleach to add to a gallon of roof water before it is safe to drink?

Two of my three-inch binders are labeled "NBC," meaning "nuclear," "biological," and "chemical." To me, this is one of the most important prep items people ought to think about having.

Yes, we did something similar, although not as comprehensive, for y2k.
However, I think we are in pretty good shape with our water, power, food, and other necessities of life.

[Maddy]

I'm sure everybody here has the basics of prepping down, but I thought I'd share a short list of items that many people don't think about and that are still widely available:

Raisins (last forever)
Fresh apples (late Fujis last many months if kept cool)
Sardines (cheap and super-healthy)
Cabbage & carrots (keep a really long time)
Garden seeds
Sprouting seeds (alfalfa, clover, or broccoli can pinch-hit for a salad)
Pumpkin & evaporated milk (with eggs, spices & a dollop of honey, makes a great custard with a minimum of ingredients)
Eggs frozen in ice cube trays
Canned broth (whatever meat or veggies you have on hand can be thrown into a soup)
Fire bricks (something like 8 will make you a basic rocket stove in less than a minute)
Radio with a HAM band (I love my CCrane 2)
Dried elderberries, willow bark, licorice and EtOH (for tinctures; see the latest on licorice in the treatment of CoVID-19)
Vitamin C & D-3
Guaifenesin (e.g., Mucinex) (useful for treatment and perhaps also for prophylaxis - sticky mucus may create an environment favorable to infection)
Yeast & sourdough starter
Canning jars, with plenty of lids
Sugar & tiny bottles of liquor (top two items for trading)
Berkey water filter
Quinine water (see the latest on hydroxyquinolone in the treatment of CoVID-19)
Pulse oximeter (only $19.95 on Amazon)