As a parent of young kids in an urban environment in a house that has no storage space in a neighborhood that's just getting by and unlikely to have the emotional or physical energy to legitimately consider this threat possibility, preparation feels daunting. It seems like a to go bag might be best but I don't have the money or community to buy a property to then bug out to. People think I'm crazy as it is for buying a week's worth of food and a small electric generator. Not to mention that I'm not exact rolling in money.
I appreciate all of the well sourced info. If you have any ideas for folks in my specific ajoes, I'd be all ears.
Absolutely understand and thanks for the question. In this context, I would probably recommend a combination of:
1. A go bag, as you suggested; and
2. If you can afford it, and if you have close family living elsewhere in the same city, you can buy a couple of medium range two way radios (like these Midland units; the term for the general thing you want is a "GMRS" https://www.amazon.com/Midland-Headsets-50-Channel-Rechargeable-Flashlight/dp/B0D9CCFZBK). You can keep one of these yourself, and give the other to a parent/sibling/other family living in the same city. The range is tens of miles, so it should cover you across most urban areas. The reason this is useful is that it lets you coordinate with others even if general communications are down, which means (again, assuming you do have family in the same city) that you can arrange to meet at the most-prepared-person's location for added safety. This may help shift the burden off any single household in the event of a crisis - which is especially valuable if you have young kids, as both the authors also do :)
For what it's worth, we definitely empathize with your general situation. We were both quite surprised by how much work and expense it takes to prepare, and have certainly had our share of challenges convincing neighbors and such to take it seriously. It also doesn't help that there is no such thing as a true expert in this topic, given a large scale / long term grid-down event has not really occurred in the modern era.
Separately, we are continuing to build more tools to help folks navigate this situation. We just added food, water, and energy advice/plans to the https://prepare.aiendgame.com/ website (scroll down to "Plan your supplies). The idea is that you can fill in your living situation and budget, and get back advice on what to get subject to those constraints. The advice is intended to help people avoid the major mistakes we ourselves made. But again no one is an expert, and we are constantly trying to improve it. If you use this and encounter any issues with it, please reach out and we will fix them.
For what it's worth, one of our goals with all of this is that the more people prepare, the more resilient the country as a whole is if and when a major bad event happens. Even the increased buying activity is good, because it induces national supply chains to pivot more towards preparedness. And that's good for everyone, even the vast majority of people who don't necessarily have the time or money to do or buy everything themselves.
Don't underestimate what you can do with a well-outfitted but fairly inexpensive RV. Many of the above items are far cheaper if you're trying to make it possible to live for a month off grid in a mid-sized trailer than to keep a whole house running.
This is an excellent point and you're quite right. So much of this is situational to one's own living conditions. The intent of this post is just to go through the reasoning behind major categories; we're working on guides for individual cases also and will include the RV path in there too.
As a parent of young kids in an urban environment in a house that has no storage space in a neighborhood that's just getting by and unlikely to have the emotional or physical energy to legitimately consider this threat possibility, preparation feels daunting. It seems like a to go bag might be best but I don't have the money or community to buy a property to then bug out to. People think I'm crazy as it is for buying a week's worth of food and a small electric generator. Not to mention that I'm not exact rolling in money.
I appreciate all of the well sourced info. If you have any ideas for folks in my specific ajoes, I'd be all ears.
Absolutely understand and thanks for the question. In this context, I would probably recommend a combination of:
1. A go bag, as you suggested; and
2. If you can afford it, and if you have close family living elsewhere in the same city, you can buy a couple of medium range two way radios (like these Midland units; the term for the general thing you want is a "GMRS" https://www.amazon.com/Midland-Headsets-50-Channel-Rechargeable-Flashlight/dp/B0D9CCFZBK). You can keep one of these yourself, and give the other to a parent/sibling/other family living in the same city. The range is tens of miles, so it should cover you across most urban areas. The reason this is useful is that it lets you coordinate with others even if general communications are down, which means (again, assuming you do have family in the same city) that you can arrange to meet at the most-prepared-person's location for added safety. This may help shift the burden off any single household in the event of a crisis - which is especially valuable if you have young kids, as both the authors also do :)
For what it's worth, we definitely empathize with your general situation. We were both quite surprised by how much work and expense it takes to prepare, and have certainly had our share of challenges convincing neighbors and such to take it seriously. It also doesn't help that there is no such thing as a true expert in this topic, given a large scale / long term grid-down event has not really occurred in the modern era.
Separately, we are continuing to build more tools to help folks navigate this situation. We just added food, water, and energy advice/plans to the https://prepare.aiendgame.com/ website (scroll down to "Plan your supplies). The idea is that you can fill in your living situation and budget, and get back advice on what to get subject to those constraints. The advice is intended to help people avoid the major mistakes we ourselves made. But again no one is an expert, and we are constantly trying to improve it. If you use this and encounter any issues with it, please reach out and we will fix them.
For what it's worth, one of our goals with all of this is that the more people prepare, the more resilient the country as a whole is if and when a major bad event happens. Even the increased buying activity is good, because it induces national supply chains to pivot more towards preparedness. And that's good for everyone, even the vast majority of people who don't necessarily have the time or money to do or buy everything themselves.
Don't underestimate what you can do with a well-outfitted but fairly inexpensive RV. Many of the above items are far cheaper if you're trying to make it possible to live for a month off grid in a mid-sized trailer than to keep a whole house running.
This is an excellent point and you're quite right. So much of this is situational to one's own living conditions. The intent of this post is just to go through the reasoning behind major categories; we're working on guides for individual cases also and will include the RV path in there too.