Surviving After Apocalypse
November 30, 2011, Submitted by: Ken Tweet
Guest post: by ‘Be informed’
Doomsday, Judgement Day, The Apocalypse by any name, probably means the same, the end of human civilization as we know it. You as a survivalist, a dedicated prepper, or just someone that made it through the devastation phase are now faced with the stark reality of the aftermath. Whether it is a global war, eruption of a super volcano, worldwide anarchy, highly fatal pandemic, whatever, there are some essential basics someone must know and follow through to continue to stay alive and be all right for the future.
First and foremost a person must determine where they will be safe. Do you stay where you are, and if so for how long? Can you get to where you need to if you choose another location? Is it too dangerous to safely travel, would you even make it there? Do you risk staying too long where you are at, like from the up coming freezing winter? Is it better to continually move around to try to avoid detection by those that would be violent towards you? All of these and many other unique circumstances have to be taken into careful account.
One of the most important issues with human survival is food and water. Where you decide to “start over” with your life has to provide a reliable clean source of water and food almost, or all of the days of the year. Fresh, safe, all year water sources for irrigation of crops needs to be considered. This probably means finding or staying in an area that is primarily hard-freeze-free most of the year unless you are quite good at PRIMITIVE long term food storage and or be willing to depend on hunting, fishing, or gathering skills.
Whatever you call “shelter” is a definite concern. Your primary pre-apocalyptic home is very unlikely to never be the same. If you stay in your home, go to a second home type retreat, find a new refuge, the shelter must be able to keep the harsh elements of the weather out. The shelter must be out of contamination zones; radiation, disease, chemicals, etc. Even short-term havens (temporary makeshifts) have to be constructed safely so they won’t collapse on you. This is something to give much thought to after a mega disaster that has weakened many structures everywhere. The shelter needs to be safe from future natural disasters; fires, floods, avalanches, wind, so on. You also may have to construct or repair a shelter, and having building materials where you are going to live is important to consider.
Fuel is an item many people forget about as modern life has provided us with all our heating and cooking needs. After the disintegration of the modern world, you are going to need some form of energy. This could be solar, wind, or other renewable energy sources. If you are lucky it could be abandoned natural gas supplies to run generators and heating units. Most people though are going to have to burn wood, charcoal, coal, or other safe combustible to stay warm and cook. There are many areas that lack even wood to make a fire and this must be taken into account.
Lawlessness and predation is going to run amok after the end times and self defense will be paramount. Deserted sporting goods stores are good places to pick up firearms and ammunition, but even better would be unoccupied national guard and army base armories. Amongst chaos, you want to have the best weapons, and this is going to come from the armed forces of your country. Don’t hesitate to grab whatever you can carry, push, or pull. Even so called “heavy” weapons can provide a true defense for you, your family, your group. Someone else will take it and possibly use them against you one day. Aside from the 2 legged threats, there are going to be enormous packs of very hungry animals that want to literally eat anything, including you. Rabies will run rampant. You will need firearms for protection.
Movement and viable transportation to safety, including an almost nomadic approach might be a necessity. Even after an EMP event, there are still a few older vehicles that will still operate. Bicycles and boats should also be considered as a means of getting somewhere. Many animals, including the horse, cows, oxes, can pull your supplies packed in trailers. Don’t forget good weather proof pairs of shoes for everyone for when travel by foot becomes necessary.
The absolute most essential point to remember after an apocalypse or even after a near or total breakdown of society, is that whatever is left and not claimed by someone, is yours for the taking to use for survival. Survival motto is “use what is available to survive”. We are taught and conditioned to not take what is not ours. After a mega catastrophe however most owners of property, supplies, merchandize will no longer be around. In all fairness these become survival items for those still alive who are first to claim them. If you don’t take what is left, someone else will, or it will go unused, something that you, someone in your group may need to live.
Your shopping list of high priority items from abandoned places should be food, seeds, clothing, means of self defense, toilet paper, bleach and other disinfectants, every hand tool, containers, blankets, canvas tents, everything with a camping focus to it. One essential stop should be wherever medicine is stored, especially antibiotics, in pharmacies, hospitals, physician’s and dental offices. Medical supplies are going to be needed and used someday, making scavenging for these a top task. No one should ever feel bad about moving into someone’s home who will never return. In other words, you don’t have to steal or take from someone else who is a survivor because there will be plenty of supplies to go around for the taking from those who did not, which is one real positive note to all of this.
People don’t like to even think about a worldwide cataclysm, but with any survival minded person that plans and prepares for disaster they need to also take a worst case scenario into their plans, even if it never happens. It really does not have to be hopeless for those that do survive a nightmare as many aspects of technology will still exist and may function well to make life more bearable. It could be the end times for 99% of humankind, but for those 1% that do make it, they can continue to live a long life afterwards if they are fully willing to take advantage of all the still workable survival supplies that are left and waiting to be used to its fullest.
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Greetings, BUSY ‘BEE’, You have somehow, once again found time to “Guest Post”… Great work…for survivalism, ( it’s the gamble: I am so glad to hear, even between the lines, that someone-”Owns” the knowledge & vision to go that direction. ) That, “Energy”… ( “Continues…”) “Life Is”. “Consciousness Is”. It’s an aspect rarely voiced. O.K.-T.S.H.T.F…. It’s rhetoric and Yes preparation is a must but, the Number of Deadly domino actions that negate the Hollywood movie, best seller “Post Industrial World” will be void. “They” start flipping Nukes around. No power, reaching the cooling system and Fukushima. Each and every trigger factory, storage depot, bio. & chem. site. The Plants are going to fail, and many bombs are of the same vintage. Who’s going to stay to work the 1957 Chevy when the systems are down and family is at home dependent on you!? You are out of there… hopefully with a plan that keeps humanity going into the future. Let That which is, Look over All.. Survive… And if you don’t ,well you really don’t have a choice… Life goes on… Dia Dhuit…
@ Otter. 72,000 BC the Toba supervolcano 2800 cubic km of magma erupted and caused what scientist say is a bottleneck of the sole human survivors at the time. Yelowstone will be similar in the future. They say only a few tens of thousands of humans made it through this and they say that all humans can trace their roots to these sole survivors, the bottleneck of humanity. If a bunch of very primitive bunch of stone age people can made it through a global catastrophe like this, then modern “well prepared” people now can make it through a doomsday type disaster, and the aftermath.
Yes, you can survive World War 3. Yes, you can survive an asteroid or comet impact. Yes, you survive a mass solar flare. Yes, you can survive many terrible events that others consider the end of the planet. The hardest part of surviving will be the event itself, the aftermath because of the remaining supplies left will be easier. Many people say that global disaster will throw us back into the 18th. century, but what someone from the 18th. century would not give to have the remaining techonolgy left to work with. It is not as dire as people think. If you are not in an area totally annihilated, if you have prepared you have a chance of making it through the event. Then even better chances of surviving for a long, long time. I sure hope that many people that come to this site are those survivors that make it if there is some type of global apocalypse.
I kind of think that if there is a global doomsday that the name of one those that still is around afterwards will be named Otter.
Remember possession is 9/10ths of the law? This not only applies here but is the law of the land in this scenario. I’m not saying to kill others for their possessions, just not to hesitate if the opportunity presents itself. If anything, make alliances and forge new friends in finding what you are looking for. This is a time where security is found in numbers.
I do understand we are talking about a post apocalyptic period but I can’t advise anyone to just take something because no one’s around. First of all you don’t know if they are hiding or protecting from a snipers nest. Taking someone’s stuff is sure to piss them off. Secondly the objective should be to lie low, don’t call attention to yourself so what are you doing out looking for “stuff”. Now you may indeed have to be “out and about” for reasons beyond your control but you should be avoiding “bait” or tempting targets because that’s probably where the bad huys will be.
@CountryGirl, I do agree with you that one would be risking one’s life by stealing someone else’s ‘stuff’ after an apocalyptic event – even if the place is abandoned, it’s still somewhat risky while not knowing who may be watching. If someone is desperate, they will certainly resort to this though. If it were my place, the perpetrator would likely end up in a horizontal position. A key to survival during a post-Armageddon world would definitely be to lie low and to not attract attention. Good reason to prepare now
@Ken & CG; Yes, I agree. There is a fine line between “requisitioning” and “looting” and early on in SHTF sits. it may be a tough call if you have not prepped well. If something seems too good to be true……….!!! You should be VERY careful when coming upon someone else’ “stuff”. Just theoretically, you should go around it a few times and then watch it for “a while”. When you have out-waited the normal folks, tread lightly and watch for the trip wires. If I was “out” and came back to find someone pilfering my “stuff”, I would watch them and when the time was right…well, what Ken said….they would be horizontal, that’s what the backhoe is for on the tractor. It sounds barbaric but you can’t take the chance that they are “okay” if you don’t have enough assets to cover your ass. They are going to assume (yes, yes we know) that you are not returning and they will take all your preps…remember your preps are the diff. between life and death, easy survival and hard survival. I can assure you that if you go into my prep building and I have not invited you there, you will expire, soon! There are several pepper bombs that will go off (sequentially when tripped) and if you drink anything enticing (Crown anyone?) in there, you will regret it. However, having said all that, if you need more resources, you have to do what you have to do, just be careful doing it. Watch out for booby traps and don’t drink anything unsealed, especially anything that seems extra extravagant and out of place. Even if the owner is dead….he/she may still kill you from the grave. Enjoy.
@ Ken, “horizontal” Love it!, man that one made me laugh… @ “Bee” Thanks for the positivity: Ditto… You know that this system of communication is lacking in so much of what can be communicated; Ugh! written language. What a line to Talk the Walk and expect All to hear. Early on I had to retract and apologize for posting comments which I thought said one thing and in fact were my perceptual misnomers.( French-Mesnomer? ) Most of what my very rushed rant was about came after fasting and vision quest. Family was pushing me to move earthly and tell of visions… So, the written may have been easily misconstrued. Not my intent, I was barely present, and those that care for an old dancer like me thought I was wasting “Medicine” on a laptop: devices are a drain on my visions. I back you in almost all of you efforts, and it does astound me that you can post and respond as quickly as you do. ( I was speaking in a combination of generic and “In the proverbial sense”. ) Doubt, You could post that I wouldn’t learn or at least light up with a smile. Oh…, Positivity/Progressive movement/The inertia is truly changing/Minions will “Awaken”… Pieces of healing from beyond the veil… Survive-All… Spirit Awareness/Creative Preparedness…
@ “BEE”, I should also refer to the fact that the title of your post is “Surviving After Apocalypse”, After being the given I read over… Sorry… Survival…
@ CountryGirl and Ken. I to would not steal from anyone alive to survive myself, it just is not the right thing to do. I though would not hesitate to take what I need from a corpse in a post-society ending survival situation. After awhile most people’s survival supplies are going to run out and everyone is probably going to have to use what is left and available. I would be one of the first to ransack the pharmacies for antibiotics because this is something that is going to be needed by everyone to literally live in case of infection. The pharmacies are owned by huge corporations and the owners are probably in the areas that would be obilerated in a global catastrophe.
I truly wrote about taking what is available because sadly people do not want to use what is considered not theirs, and after a worldwide disaster the most pragmatic course of action is to use what is there for the using. I would so much hate to see our friends out there have a mean of survival right in front of them and fail to use it because someone MIGHT still own it. Or have someone afraid to move into someone’s house in which the owner died a long time ago and freeze to death from the elements. When opportunity knocks, be careful whose knocking, then take full advantage of what you will definitely and eventually need.
I do agree with CountryGirl over extreme caution about taking items, and bait being used to get someone. In the same token I personally would be on the look out for all sorts of valuable items that I could use to further my chances of survival after an apocalyptic event. To me the more pre-doomsday supplies the better you have the better and the longer you can lay low the better, but someday you will need to scavenge around because someone can only last so long with what they have. The no man is island philopshy.
Understand I am not trying to claim some moral high ground, if that’s what it sounded like that isn’t what was intended. The point I am making is about self preservation. For self preservation reasons don’t go on someone else’s property and and take their stuff even if you think they are dead, gone for good or have too much or whatever. If they are still around or if a nieghbor takes offense or if there is still someone who thinks they represent law and order you might find yourself at the wrong end of a gun in a situation where the “good guy” thinks you are the “bad guy” and he would be doing the world a favor to simply kill you. When the SHTF lie low. Important things need to be repeated; lie low!!!
@ CountryGirl. Your advice is excellent, you have to be extremely CAREFUL. Eventually though almost everyone’s supplies are going to run low or out and then everyone is going to have to look for what is left, and in most cases it should be plenty in at least some areas. Self preservation will surely take to where people will have to find what is left to use. You can only lay low for so long until necessities drive someone to find what they need. In the “aftermath” of total SHTF, there are going to be a lot of places that are totally abandoned with no one for miles around with all sorts of supplies ready to make the survivor and their family’s lives much easier and more survivable in the future. Taking advantage of this can make the difference, again IF you are very CAREFUL.
It would be wonderful to have enough supplies of everything to sit still for practical forever, like that movie “Blast From The Past” in which Christopher Walken had a self substained safe house that could last as long as someone lived there. Unfortunately a few of any of us would ever have the multi-millions of dollars necessary for such a place to be constructed. We can all wish though.
There is safety in numbers and to have a group that go with you to areas of supplies would be best, but still it will become necessary to take the risk, even alone, to attempt to get what you need. After a doomsday scenario the one item that many people in any group are going to need is medication. Before the discovery of antibiotics one of the number one killers of people was infection. This is why I recommend a five finger shopping trip to the pharmacies after the apocalypse. I suppose you could grow your own penicillin to treat infection, but I am clueless how to do this.
I do agree with Ken over commenting, you, me, and the others that that their time to share their ideas and thoughts with others add so much to everyone’s knowledge and their chances on survival. When I personally see many people spending their free time trying to put over a point it shows that people out there are trying to help others, including you, me, Ken, and everyone that visits this site. I tell you, there are so many times when I see a comment or a guest post that shows me something new and helps me personally learn something. “Your thoughts as everyone else’s are so valuable, always remember this”!
I just wish more people would jump in. There is someone out there just waiting to give us a totally brilliant idea that will shock us all, and then we will say, NOW WHY DIDN’T I THINK OF THAT?.
@BI; You are absolutely correct about the meds, especially the antibiotics. In June I fell asleep in my chair one evening, woke up drooling and got up to put the blind cat out of the room and go to bed. In my stupor I tripped and fell on the blind cat and he bit the crap out of me. Bit all the way through my pinkie finger. This was at 11 PM and by 1030 PM the next night I was admitted to the hospital for 4 days and went through 11 bags of IV antibiotics. I really almost died. That, would have been embarrassing! In my case even the strongest oral antibiotics would have probably not worked…I would have died in any other situation. In a survival sit. EVERY wound should be cleaned with warm soapy water and either hydrogen peroxide or alcohol and antiseptic gel applied regularly until well healed. Band-aids should be part of your preps. It’s nice to have a trauma/surgery kit, but the mundane is where you have to keep up with your health. Also, there is a site, the name of which escapes me, that gives the names of veterinary meds. that can be safely used on humans. As mentioned earlier a vet. may be a good friend and medical savior in SHTF sits. Enjoy.
@ TripodXL. What you got was cat scratch fever, nasty stuff. Knew someone that has a similar experience and was on antibiotics for a month. Cats have some of the worst bacteria in their saliva that there is, as you can get it from a bite or a scratch, hence the name. Not as bad as a Komado Dragon bite, but close sometimes. This is why after a large scale disaster it is so essential to have so sort of stored up antibiotics for all sorts of infections. A pharmacy should be high on the list of obtaining available goods if society goes to the wolves.
@BI; You are dead on about obtaining the antibiotics. This was not actually cat scratch fever, which is actually a Bartonella infection and they are usually not life threatening. They cultured it and got nothing back but the doc said it was probably a virulent staph infection due to the rapidity and virulence of the infection process. Talked to the vet and she said that a lot of vets, if they get bitten in a knuckle, will lose the finger from there down in spite of antibiotics. The bone will get infected and due to the low blood supply in bone the infection will spread faster than the antibiotics work and cause necrosis to set in and rot the bone. Lesson…leave the f…ing cats alone. Their bite is considered VERY unclean. Oh, well, I live to see another day. I would recommend anyone that can get the training, in the equivalent to the Combat Lifesaver training that we get before we go in country, get it. You learn IV insertion, sucking chest wounds etc. Find a CLS manual and see if you can get a vet, nurse, PA etc. to help you learn it….very valuable. Something simple that would take you 10 minutes to do for someone might just save their life…..or yours!! Enjoy
It’s hard to predict what SHTF will look like but lets agree that looting and other forms of acquiring needed supplies will empty the shelves and “liberate” all unguarded supplies in the first few days to weeks. This is exactly the time when we should be lying low. If there were to be a “die off” as most predict where the unprepared and unlucky die from violence, starvation or disease it will happen in the first couple of months (perhaps over a longer period too). After this happens, after the situation stabilizes (didn’t say gets better) maybe then you might need to get out and find a way to resupply yourself but I don’t think you are going to find any “prizes” out there. And there will be a risk!!