HI. Im the FNG

Ive looked into preparedness. Its really overwhelming on where to start. I was looking around at wally-world today and I sort of decided on what I want to start with. I have a Pelican 1650 that Id like to dump all the spare gear and start with a disaster kit. Ive looked around my house and Im putting together all the spare stuff Ive got (which isnt much). Ive identified a small two burner propane stove and a small emergency kit that has a couple of mini burners for cooking to take care of food prep. Ive had a small two person tent that im gonna keep for a while. Im looking at getting a little larger one ( Me, Wife and two dags) to keep as emergency shelter. We have plenty of candles (wimmenz) for light and warmth. Im looking at getting a couple five gallon colapsable water bags. I need advice on water purification beyond boiling.

Ok thats a start. Sorry if its a wall of text. Just wanted to say hi.

Welcome. Keep an eye out for the stickies here. They contain a lot of info. There are extensive how-to's roaming around, and lots of folks willing to help. Remember, think about what you could encounter first, prep for that and move outward. HERE is a blog post I made a while back that goes over water purification and where I found what I talked about.

Hope these things help.

jim

Welcome to the SF

Welcome stoner01, if you search me and "Welcome to the SF " in the archives, then you should find where I posted my long welcome post.

Getting into this can be overwhelming if you try to get it all at once. Think of it like this...I drink 700 gallons of water...in a year...2 quarts a day...one sip at a time.

Do not try to swallow the whole 700 gallons at once. Just take the sips and let the effect add up.

Baby steps.

IMO, prepare for what is most likely to happen first. Then branch out into less likely scenarios.

Around here, that's power outages from tornadoes and ice storms. I don't have plywood for my windows for a hurricane because we don't get hurricanes around here. If you're concerned about EMPs, buy a vehicle with points and a carburetor. If you're concerned about financial collapse, hoard gold and silver. If you live in a flood-prone area, a sump pump and generator backup might be important to you.

Your idea of SHTF might be different from mine. Rest assured, I think we have every type of SHTF mindset and prep level represented here. Some folks are ready to restart civilization while others are concerned about keeping warm during a blizzard when the power goes out for 24 hours. Some have bunkers and tremendous stores of food while others have some Power Bars and an EU2000i.

Of course, start with the basics. Do you have a basic first aid kit? Batteries? Flashlights? A few cases of water? Food for a week? If your current pantry consists of some Hamburger Helper and a can of kidney beans, your first priority probably isn't building a chicken coop or hog pen.

If you buy prepackaged food, look at calories per servings. 900 servings doesn't necessarily mean 900 meals, or that there's enough calories in 3 servings for an active adult male.



Welcome!

Welcome to SF! Read read read!

It looks like you are on the right track. Welcome aboard. You probably have some common food put back, too. We tend to keep the pantry full of common convenient food that is easy to prepare in case of a power out condition. Good luck and ax questions. There are a lot of good people here.

Bleach or chlorine is good way to make water drinkable. There are several good threads on filtering and treating water.

Small steps.

Candles are not efficient so don't spend money on them as a survival prep. Chech out dietz lanterns for light with heat. LED lanterns for light without heat. Both are important.

No need to apologize here brother. We welcome you! To answer your question on water purification; I believe for simplicity, dependability and yes, even cost, it's hard to beat the 'Sawyer' line of water purification products. Check out their website for all their products. We also use their sunscreen, 'Stay-Put' that really works and...stays put.

Welcome to the SF All your questions will be answered Eventually. There is a huge pool of knowledge here

Stoner,

Welcome aboard. Water, Water, Water, Water,Water, Wasser, Agua.

The lesson I have learned from this site is water purification is a great first step (along with pistol, rifle and ammo). The first step to dealing with your prepping problem is to admit that you have a prepping problem

Defensor Fortis!

Tex

Welcome Stoner
Lots to learn and enjoy.






12

Huge amounts of information to be had here. Whereabouts in CO are you? I'm in Longmont so feel free to drop me an IM or email if you want to compare notes and such. And if you're looking for storage, I'd recommend checking out Colorado Tank and Barrel Company. The guy's located in Longmont as well and has 55-gal, closed-top plastic drums for $15. All preused for human food or drink syrups and 15-gal containers (when in stock) for $20. Seems a bit dyslexic to me but still way cheaper than what's sold at Sportsman's Warehouse.

Welcome, don't panic , one step at a time.

I like the SODIS method as a backup. Basically put clear, but not safe to drink (viruses, bacteria, parasites) water into 2 liter soda bottles and set in the sun for 6 hours and it is safe to drink.

Benefits:
No moving parts to break
No filters to clog
Requires no pumping or other continuous physical action
Kills things many filters don't
Free

5.4 mb pdf on SODIS

Welcome.

Let me be the first to say if you store your water long term in a collapsible plastic anything long term, you'll wake up with a mess in your floor one day.

They just puncture too easy. It doesn't mean you have to go nuts. My immediate grab water containers are just those green water cans at Walmart which I've stored water for over decade now banging them around etc. with no issues.

Thinking ahead makes storing easier. You don't need treated water to flush a toilet. You will be surprised how little water we use daily to actually drink or cook. Camping is a very good way to get a handle on all this, because come no utilities, camping in our houses is all we're really doing. The usual is shock the water when stored with some, no additive, bleach, 4 drops per gallon, and give the jug a shake every six months or so to get the dissolved oxygen level up. You can get you a small filter, plenty of threads on that here, for filtering drinking water.

Personally, I've loved every candle my wife ever bought comes some utility outage. Simply put, you just don't need a crap load of light to do your normal things, candles are cheap, and when its cold, you appreciate that little bit of heat. A neat idea, is to get things that utilize those candles better. For example, we have a number of candle lanterns which not only makes them a lot easier to carry in a wind, but directs the light. Its a good starting point and you can go up from there, fuel lanterns, battery lights, etc.

If I can give anyone advice its learn the rules of 3 and do all your planning around that. Compare the rules of 3 to your most likely scenarios. What you'll find is a good auxiliary heater in winter can be more important than even stored water. Things like that. Most of us have enough drinks around our house to last a couple days but on a cold winter night, our heat goes out, we won't want to be there day two and we won't have to worry about water because our pipes are all broken.

Tj

Prepare for the most likely thing first. This will be a local item, flood, eathquake, nuclear plant meltdown/disaster, chemical spill, tornadoes, blizzards... That sort of thing.

Not to be a dick, but I believe your math is off a bit. You'd need to drink just almost 2 gallons of water a day to reach 700 gallons a year. Multiply 365 days by .5 gallons (2 quarts = 1/2 gallon) and it's only 182.5 gallons. 365 x 2 whole gallons = 730 gallons a year.

It was late.

Take my incorrect math for the idea...
How do you drink a quart of water? One sip at a time. Don't try to guzzle the fire hose

First, welcome to the board..

OK, before you do anything else, you need a PLAN. a;ready mentioned, but it bears repeating.

What are the threats you face? Here, we get winter storms (most winters anyway) and that results in:
Power outages - need heat and light
Impassable roads - snow shoes? etc
Stores running out of inventory - store water, non perishable food, and propane for the stove
Missed time from work - can either of you work from home?

Do this for each threat. I'm sure it snows in CO as well. I don't know what specifics you face, you may have a busy rail line nearby which can create a Haz-Mat incident requiring you to bug out. Oil refineries, Chemical plants, etc can all produce a bugout situation for you. Where do you go? What happens when you are at work? Who meets who where? How do you communicate? Cell phones will indeed cease operation, altho texting may get through.

Once you make response plans, wargame them out with the spouse. Is the wife on board? If so, great. If not, you have a major hurdle to overcome.

Welcome to the board! There are a number of folks in CO, you guys need to do a campout/meet&greet/training day one of these days. Camping season is all but upon use..

Ops

Roger that. I drink over a gallon of water myself in a day. I don't think I could store enough water for me and the fam in a SHTF scenario. But...I'm looking into buy some 30 or 55 gallon drums and building a cabinet around it in the garage. I'll use it as a workbench with shelves. Gonna be a while before I can do this, but it sounds like a great idea.

http://www.ar15.com/forums/t_8_13/480389_What_kind_of_natural_disasters_in_Phoenix_AZ_.html&page=3#i5217579

I posted this a couple of weeks ago. We don't get too many long lasting national disasters in Phoenix, but Palo Verde nuke plant isn't too far way from me. Wife fears running out of water in the summer or being without electricity. Apparently, I just found out 2 weeks ago she has a grandpa in Oregon who is a 'prepper'. We've been together for almost 11 years and this is the first I heard about that. I know she's on board with some preps now though.

Welcome.

I'm relatively new myself, compared to most here. I can't fully express my gratitude towards the many in here who've been so helpful.

Keep us informed regarding your successes and failures, if any.

Lord knows there's thousands of lurkers who've not yet decided to join, but have made an important decision regarding their "self sufficiency."

You've definately found a corner of the internet where the adults (for the most part) can have a reasonable conversation.

Welcome! Beans , Bullets and Bandaids! Cover those and you are good to go.....

Maybe watch man,woman vs wild since it's the two of you and then talk about how
much discomfort you want to endure if xyz happens then go from there. And welcome to bedlam.

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