STFU about SHTF if you're FAT

**tao.jonez** · Posted On: 5/24/2011 3:39pm

I can hardly imagine anything short of the apocalypse where Les Stroud type survival skills are needed.

Katrina, Haiti, Myanmar were all in the news, but I don't recall much about people making fire from batteries and steel wool. Far from Thunderdome, people went someplace else for water, food, and to bathe and brush their teeth.

**KO'd N DOA** · Posted On: 5/24/2011 4:06pm

I dabble in emergency preparedness, usually forest fires, floods or contaminated water. People are mostly sheep who just need to be told what to do. The danger after a major problem is the bad shephards telling those sheep to keep throwing S into the fan.

In North America I hypothesis that if this stuff happens in big cities, those with the closest cultural cohesion will be better prepared to survive. Having fled countries of anarchy some ethnic sub groups have more useful experience than those with legacy where rule of law has exisited for some time. People may rally along religious or cultural divides. (Gangs of New York style)

The Koreans defending their families and stores with shotguns during the race riots back in the Rodney King days would be closest to what I think the norm would be.

**hungryjoe** · Posted On: 5/24/2011 4:33pm

Good topic. It's been a hobby for decades, but having wife and kids adds many challenges over what it would take to keep a single person alive and relatively well.

Water - the potable type. Better know how to filter and purify once you can no longer turn on a tap. How to get it when it's scarce.

Food - For now and later. What you can gather, plant, trap, spear, shoot, etc. What's good and what will kill you. What time of year and which part is edible.

Shelter - Gotta stay warm in the winter and not broil in the summer. Can you build your own?

Protection - both from the critters and especially the two legged varmints.

First Aid - Days of $20 copay are no more. Can you treat injuries and alleviate sickness?

What skills can benefit not only yours, but those around you? Can you fix, fabricate and scavenge what you or others need?

The list of possibilities, probabilities and problems are endless. You now have until October to prepare (-:

Tornadoes are now on the way. Computer is in the safe room. Someone come dig me out if need be.

**Cullion** · Posted On: 5/24/2011 4:36pm

Originally Posted by Phrost

Going back to this, my interest in the subject is mainly just a "Hurricane Katrina" sort of scenario. Likely candidates for my area range from the recent tornado which just plowed through a town two hours south of me, killing 90 people, and the collapse of the New Madrid fault line, which would wipe out most of the infrastructure of my state.

I'm not really factoring in terrorist attack because, really? So it's mostly natural disasters that are on my radar as concerns.

If you're trapped under something without food for days waiting for rescue, fat reserves are useful.

Otherwise, I can't think of many natural hazards that a human needs to out-steady run for a mile but you might well want to be able to climb out of danger. Being lean is certainly a help there.

It might help to be a strong swimmer too.

I don't know if the long term survival skills people like Ray Mears (or whoever Les Stroud is) teach would be totally useless. You might spend a night or two without proper shelter and need to dress wounds, find clean water, light a fire etc..

**Sri Hanuman** · Posted On: 5/24/2011 4:38pm

Actually, hurricane season is probably the only time it pays to be the fat guy in a trailer park.

**hungryjoe** · Posted On: 5/24/2011 4:39pm

to add

I must stand twice to cast a shadow. Very handy for presenting smallest target possible.

**Sri Hanuman** · Posted On: 5/24/2011 5:09pm

Originally Posted by hungryjoe

to add

I must stand twice to cast a shadow. Very handy for presenting smallest target possible.

Don't be too modest. Your evil Judo will always come in handy.

**omoplatypus** · Posted On: 5/24/2011 5:13pm

i was in katrina (north of the hardcore disaster area, but we still got hit fucking hard)

you know what skills best served me in that SHTF week? i could safely operate a chainsaw, sledge ax, and wedge.

the fact that my dad and grandfather took me out on a million wood chopping trips is the one skill that everybody wanted from me when SHTF. you know what else helped me? the fact that i was a waiter when it happened.

i only had time to go to my bank about once a week or so. i was making 350-500 a week in cash through tips. when katrina hit, i had about 700 bucks in cash in a lock box in my closet. i also had a 9mm in that same box.

while ATMs were down everywhere, and looting was rampant for about 18 hours, i didn't go without ****. i had a gun, 300 rounds of ammo, and enough cash money to buy anything i needed to buy at a fair price while everybody else was going ape **** because they couldn't use visa as a life boat anymore.

survivalists are typically dumbtards who have never been in a real SHTF situation.

**judoka_uk** · Posted On: 5/24/2011 5:30pm

In like a total apocalypse situation I'd get myself a couple of guns and a solid, working Landie defnder. Fill it with as many supplies, jerry cans of fuel and books on how to make stuff as I could and then **** off to an island in Scotland with a whisky distillery on it.

Then live out my days as drunken lord of the isle.