NO: Food, water, power, gas, economy collapsed, no open stores, what will you do?

your scenario is flawed for me. I wouldn't wait around in a city for it to get that bad. I'd have a garden set up, with plenty of game coming in way out in the bush, and I don't think I'll be running out of water anytime soon living in the land of 10k lakes.

originally posted by: bigpatato
Here's what happened....

Over the course of one year, all hell broke lose.

This is what happened:

1) The economy and stock market collapsed

2) All the stores slowly closed

3) All the banks closed, even cash became worthless

4) All the food ran out and dried up, no place to get any

5) All the utilities stopped working, no power, no water, to gas, nothing

6) Radio, tv, internet, phones, all communications went down, except for the odd ham pirate radio station.

7) all emergency services are gone. No hospitals or clinics, no cops, no fire department, nothing.

All the while you got by and you, like many others were waiting for the turn around. Waiting for the lights to come back on, and everything to be okay. Eventually you realized that nothing is going to return to normal.

Your stuck in a major city. Gangs roam the streets. The people that are left are too afraid to go outside, most of the time.

Now you have no food, no water, nothing left. What do you do??? Please explain it to us in detail. Thank you.

Nice post. S+F
What I would do listed by item number:
1. I guess I'm now debt free. No huge loss here.
2. I do have some spare food and supplies stored away. Not enough for long term survival but enough for maybe a month or so to figure out a longer term plan.
3. I have other supplies and things to barter with, and I'm fairly handy, so I can barter my labor too.
4. See #2.
5. I have a gas grill usually with a few extra tanks. I have a wood burning fireplace and usually some wood always on hand. I live in a suburb north of Atlanta, so even in the middle of winter, the climate isn't too bad.
6. I guess I'll have to get used to reading again!
7. I can protect myself.

I see that your scenario says that you're in a major city. I suppose I'm close enough, but my mid-term survival plan would be the North Georgia mountains. Plenty of open space, clean running water and hunting/fishing areas.

stock up on canned foods, and ammunition, just like every other day.

Indoor growing of food, simple rainwater filtration, I would only need some nettle, wood and water (and ofcourse utensils like pots but I expect those to still be around). I could make nettle soup, all these things are in abundance around where I live, there's lots of nutritious food which is considered useless weeds by many. Out of work and no obligations I would have all day so I don't worry too much except about the unprepared people.

a reply to: bigpatato

Pretty simple, either start eating people or die within a few days. Wouldn't matter much anyway though, in the scenario you describe, Earth is basically dead, so it's just a matter of time. Unless there's some timetable where water returns to Earth.

a reply to: bigpatato

grab my guns and body armor. meet up with other Marines in area. go to mountains and set up a protected compound with sentries and fortified fighting positions. live a good life involving the sustainable harvest of elk and mule deer, and killing would-be bandits. eventually my camp will need to grow so we will set up a solar powered saw mill to build more structures and fortifications. this is not the end of world scenario that would do me in. could be a breath of fresh air.

Thats tough to answer, most of the people that I know that prep...step one in every serious situation is get away from the major cities since most folks there only have a couple days food.

a reply to: bigpatato

First things first, before the food, water and so on have run out, put together a small ration pack, per member of an intended convoy or moving party. One pack, to one person. Make it something that could be fit into a larger backpack easily. You have all the people you want to come with you, to do the very same thing.

You gather your party, and any tools, knives, axes, hammers, and anything else you might need to build rudimentary shelter, or alternatively, defend yourself with, and you get organised.

You take a map, figure out how far it is to the nearest forest, woodland, or other wild place. You go there. You use the tools you bought to build shelter, to build traps to snag small mammals, and to gather firewood. You use the terrain and the bounty of nature to live off, gather water from streams, devise purification techniques using anything you have to hand. After a time, you might send a party into suburbs to gather supplies and materials, since many of the people living there will have died, leaving the cities a wasteland, populated only by scavengers and gangs. Kill any gangsters you see, trade with any scavengers you meet. Reclaim good steels, useful wood, fuels, and other things that will make your rustic life somewhat easier.

Raid offices for coffee filters, paper for drawing and template making. Raid workshops for tools and batteries, screws, nails, and other fixings. Break into any pharmacy not already swarming with bastards, and take as many painkillers and anti inflammatory drugs as you can carry away. Also, if you come across abandoned care facilities, raid their drug cabinets too. Basic first aid supplies are always an important target. In addition, raid the library and carry away as many medical books as you can. These, if deployed carefully amongst your party, will allow the smartest in the group to perform basic medical procedures, like splinting broken limbs, cleaning and suturing wounds, and so on.

Over time, make modifications to your shelter site, perhaps fortify it, or elect to blend it more completely with the woodland surroundings. In addition to this, during the autumn, when the trees begin to throw their seed to the ground, take up some of the trees seedlings, and place them OUTSIDE the current footprint of the woodland. Tend to them, water them, ensure they survive and become trees themselves over time. Do this every year, not just one or two trees a year, but many. This will have two important effects.

First, the territory covered by the woodland will increase, which will mean that your encampment or settlement will take up less of a percentage of the total whole, meaning it is less likely to be spotted by nefarious persons. Also, more trees will mean more wildlife, since the larger the forest, the more attractive to populations of bugs, which, in turn, bring birds and small mammals and so on. This promotes the continuity of your food source.

If you live near the sea, you can fashion a boat, or steal one and fix it up, and go to sea and fish. With all the food and petroleum gone, people will pay good money for fish to eat, so catch some, and maybe eat it yourself, or trade it for materials and supplies.

This is your life now. You lucky bastard.

a reply to: bigpatato

Simple,I would head out for my bug-out place.

a reply to: bigpatato

I'd order out.

What else but hunt like I was raised to do along with all of my generations before me. Plenty of woods and lakes around me and a near endless supply of wildlife.

Boil water for drinking
Hunt deer, ducks, geese, wild pigs, birds, catch fish for food


But since I'm in a big city as your scenario says, I'd simply go back home to the place I know. I can live off the land there. If not for some reason, I can just go to the nearest wooded area and start fresh.

a reply to: 727Sky

In a lot of those big cities, it won't hold for a few weeks, let alone months.

If you are trying to stick it out in a city, you might as well be dead unless you have a largish, well-organized and tight group able to hold territory that can grow its own food.

But your best bet would be to bug out. Metros will be slaughter zones.

a reply to: bigpatato

hmmm....let's rephrase your question a lil bit,k?
OMG.How did people survive the 1800"s!!!!!?????

originally posted by: bigpatato
a reply to: Mianeye

you'll eventually get sick eating that.

Not if it is overcooked.

Join up with the nearest Comstitutionalist faction.
Hire on as an extra trigger and whatever else.
I am skilled in analogue equipment repair.

originally posted by: blkcwbyhat
a reply to: bigpatato

hmmm....let's rephrase your question a lil bit,k?
OMG.How did people survive the 1800"s!!!!!?????

Most of them only had to live to 50, so as long as you could farm for that long, or enough of your children survived to support you, everything was great!

originally posted by: Oldtimer2
a reply to: bigpatato

Here is when the youngster's training thru school system comes in handy stand erect put hands in air and give up!

Sounds like a failure by the older generation, since you're the ones who raised us, wrote & approved the school curriculum, write & publish the school books, control the local and State agencies that affect each school system, and constantly slash school budgets (which is somehow supposed to improve schooling LOL).

As for the OP: I think "The Colony" needs more actual survivalists and people from resource-starved regions. Those are the ones I'd expect to make it out of a doomsday scenario like this. There are many places in the world right now that survive without stable power grids & "modern" amenities, like food markets w/no refrigeration, roads without light poles (or being paved), no A/C, no modern medical technology, etc. I think people from those regions could adapt much faster than people who are used to getting all of their food from stores and can't function without their cornucopia of recreational and prescription drugs.

Go to all the people that bragged about stockpiling food and equipment. They should be easy to find. The ones that will evidently light up their homes at night by generators or stored energy obtained by solar panels.

I stockpiled up on bullets. They take up less space and have better shelf life. I've been told they work great with firearms.......

I do hate the, "I will live of the land." If food production is shutdown, it's probably from drought. If nothing is growing, nothing is eating.

Also, especially for the east coast and midwest, you might find the population greatly outnumbers the deer population.

a reply to: enlightenedservant

I happen to know ,PERSONALLY,ANYONE can adapt and survive if they don't fold first,ABSOLUTELY anyone who has conviction and will.