Preparedness for when

Angel_Jenny

If there is some catastrophe I have no plan and no food store and no idea where I would go.

The bit that really scares me is what happens to disabled people and those that can't take care of themselves.

GreyQueen

Angel_Jenny wrote: »

If there is some catastrophe I have no plan and no food store and no idea where I would go.

The bit that really scares me is what happens to disabled people and those that can't take care of themselves.

Jenny, I have been kept alive for the past 15 years by medication. And I do mean kept alive, not kept-healthier-than-I-would-otherwise-be.

No meds for GQ several times a day = collapse, coma and death. I really like to be very close to a major teaching hospital and am gravely concerned about the medical situation for all of us. My younger brother has to take 2 kinds of medication to control his epilepsy, and I know people who dialyse.

It would be best to make plans to hunker down in situ and hope that civil society holds and that the sick and disabled will receive priority over the able-bodied and well.

Keep stocked up on essential medications, lay in some food and water and hope that the worst never happens.

Popperwell

Angel_Jenny wrote: »

If there is some catastrophe I have no plan and no food store and no idea where I would go.

The bit that really scares me is what happens to disabled people and those that can't take care of themselves.

That worries me as I get older but try not to think of it...I can manage but I do everything in my own time and if left to do it my way I can cope. As far as having the gadgets I need and a food store that is all taken care of, the worry is more can I afford the utility bills and pay what everyone has to such as the rent, ct and BT etc...

Otherwise I think I am as thrifty as anyone on these boards and I love to read what everyone else is doing and their tips for coping/saving the little bit of money we have.

But it is a worry about the people you mention AJ.

mardatha

Yep we have some serious medical probs in this house too Jenny, but we all have working brains and do what we can Always always wherever possible, get your repeat prescriptions every 3 weeks so you can build up a wee stock of them.

prepareathome

Just read about people taking when hungry. I just posted on Make do thread about how people round here think because I grew vegetable in side garden, which thanks to conservation status for the areas means we can only have 3ft fences or walls, they think if its on view its for everyone not just me. Had people turn up at the door demanding vegetables out of what I must have and not being very happy when told I didn't get much due to weather, slugs etc. To most who only ever have bought prepackaged ready to cook you throw a seed in the ground and hey pesto in a few months that one seed will give you enough of that plant to feed you all year. I asked a few just how many cabbages I would expect to get from one seedling and general answer was 100 maybe more. To them the few vegetables I grew and they could see should feed everyone and I was just being greedy and nasty not sharing. These are locals who all have bigger back gardens than me , I am on a corner and so share area for back garden with house round corner so we both have a very small one as area was small to start with, but ask them to grow their own its oh no can't be bothered, you enjoy it so will have yours, or they need the garden for the kids,the dog etc.

I have planted hedges but they will not be of any use for quite a few years so I only did 4 small beds this year 3ft by6ft and covered them with flowers but a cabbage tends to stand out so now will not grow anything out there till hedges grow and just stick to a things in containers in back, not many as not only is it small its almost vertical so things including soil tends to slide down. I will do my best to let it be known I have given up and never intend to grow anything again.

Things have been taken past few days, went out yesterday to get last of the celery and it had been clearly cut with a knife and just stump left in ground.

I don't do many home deliveries of food for similar reason as that lets people know I have a lot of food coming in.

I tell anyone who knows I believe in keeping a store cupboard that I can unfortunately never afford to have more than 2 weeks food in, even woman from HA who came to discuss me teaching that to other tenants. They get told how I dream to have more but its just that a dream.

If things got bad and it looked as if there were groups going out searching for food then a lot of mine would be disappearing from the store cupboard to some different places - slice mattress open and put things inside the middle, not the edges that might be leaned on by searchers. Also dogs have very convienantly dug a big massive hole under old bath in garden that I was going to fill in but instead I want to get a plastic liner and put it in there and would store tins in it cover it over with tarp and then soil and put old bath back in place. Even bath itself could have tins inside with the pots over them. Then if searchers found it they are unlikely to look further. Makes for hard work to get the food when needed but hopefully it would still be there.

We live on one of the main roads out of the city so if people started to leave they would go right past my front door so my outside would need to look as dilapidated as possible to try and stop them coming in. Trying to think up ways I could do this quickly and successfully.

We have large country park literally 5mins away ( no water though, river is 10miles away in two directions as it snakes round the land and if had to leave would hope we could try there to live among the trees and fields but even though its goes on about 9miles it is now totally surrounded by houses so many might have the idea so real true countryside now is many, many miles away and now I think beyond me so all I can do is hope I have to Bug in as someone said and try and prepare to live here even if all utilities were off.

prepareathome

I am far luckier than some in that my health problems without meds might make me wish I was dead will not actually kill me although I make sure no one round here knows I am on Oxyconin, as like morphine it has a good street value even now. Once I went to collect them only to find they had given them to someone else. Had to be reported to the police and pharmacy tried to say it was me who took them but video showed otherwise. A woman younger than me had turned up saying he had come for my meds saying she was my daughter.

Police told us not unknown, people hang round at pharmacies pretending to be shoppers to see if they can hear names of people and addresses and the meds they get and if things like mine, then go back in about a month in the hope that prescription due in the hope of getting them. They are worth the risk for what they can get for them.

Now they have mine, sons and hubby's photos they can compare to if not sure who is collecting them and agreement if no of us can get there then I can call and they will deliver, but don't want that if I can help it. My prepayment card is used as identifying paper if its someone new on counter which is given to hubby or son but they have to show their own identification as well.

Its something I worry about those who could not leave their homes or are like GQ on life giving meds but with our strict rules I am not sure how to get round it. My Oxycontin cannot be given out less than 4 weeks I have been told so been putting up with pain lately to try and build up a stock but if you have to have the meds to stay alive that is impossible.

I know if things went belly up then first thing druggies would do is break into pharmacies to get things like my pain meds so they would be hard to come by and most likely they would destroy the others while looking.

GreyQueen

PAH, some people are unbelievably ignorant, as well as rude and dishonest. You'd need quite a bit of land to feed a family and would have to make tending it one of your main priorities.

My lottie is a 15 minute cycle ride and is in an estate which rates very highly on indices of deprivation. It also harbours a lot of people who can't keep their thieving hands to themselves. I've always been aware that there is the potential for theft of my food crops in a crisis as well as the more normal corrosive thefts and vandalisms to which we are prone.

A couple of years ago, a lottie pal had 2 rows of potatoes (very long rows I might add) dug up and removed overnight. They'd long since had their tops cut off and were just waiting until he had time to get around to digging them. Some burger had them away and they would have required a sack or two and either a barrow or a car to move them.

There are other thefts, too, as well as petty vandalisms. We used to be plagued by some !!!!!! with a particular unusual pattern on his shoe or boot who used to trample over peoples' lotties jumping onto newly-transplanted crops. He deliberately stomped all over the edged bed where I'd labourously transplanted 77 leek seedlings. Only 2 survived. And he jumped on other peoples' fruit bushes.

I have my strawberry beds high on the plot and hidden and don't grow inviting crops down near the access trackway. Some lottie holders have put up high chainlink and locked gates and turned theirs into Fort Knox, but that seems to be a red rag to a bull to the thieves.

If it was a SHTF situation, I accept that the lotties would be looted of everything edible and that, short of us having a 24/7 armed guard, ther would be nothing much we could do about it.

craigywv

GreyQueen wrote: »

PAH, some people are unbelievably ignorant, as well as rude and dishonest. You'd need quite a bit of land to feed a family and would have to make tending it one of your main priorities.

My lottie is a 15 minute cycle ride and is in an estate which rates very highly on indices of deprivation. It also harbours a lot of people who can't keep their thieving hands to themselves. I've always been aware that there is the potential for theft of my food crops in a crisis as well as the more normal corrosive thefts and vandalisms to which we are prone.

A couple of years ago, a lottie pal had 2 rows of potatoes (very long rows I might add) dug up and removed overnight. They'd long since had their tops cut off and were just waiting until he had time to get around to digging them. Some burger had them away and they would have required a sack or two and either a barrow or a car to move them.

There are other thefts, too, as well as petty vandalisms. We used to be plagued by some !!!!!! with a particular unusual pattern on his shoe or boot who used to trample over peoples' lotties jumping onto newly-transplanted crops. He deliberately stomped all over the edged bed where I'd labourously transplanted 77 leek seedlings. Only 2 survived. And he jumped on other peoples' fruit bushes.

I have my strawberry beds high on the plot and hidden and don't grow inviting crops down near the access trackway. Some lottie holders have put up high chainlink and locked gates and turned theirs into Fort Knox, but that seems to be a red rag to a bull to the thieves.

If it was a SHTF situation, I accept that the lotties would be looted of everything edible and that, short of us having a 24/7 armed guard, ther would be nothing much we could do about it.

Hi i am shocked that your allotments have been "burgaled" dont people know the whole idea of a lottie is its for people who dont have gardens and either want /need to grow out of nesscessity i feel sickened to the stomach that folk could do that. I myself only grow in pots and growbags and a tiny bit out the back garden the thought of anyone taking my stuff is awful i would prob hurt them if i seen them in action disgusting. also PAH same again cant believe about the way someone tried to get your meds ....what is the world coming to? I live in N.IRELAND and we too are blessed to have lovely countryside, mountains , loughs (we spell it differently) and surrounded by sea so if tshtf we could hopefully survive someway. I myself have a good stockpile which nobody but us knows about and thats how its staying, also been buying seeds on ebay and know how to chit my spuds have had 2 bumper seasons now through this mum has apple trees and cherry trees etc and sister lives on a farm which supplies eggs for her area , so we very much covered LUCKILY! but that could change at a moments notice ...i live 15 miles from mum and sis so if something happenned and petrol was low we would be relying on our pushbikes to get there, this month have gotten extra puncture kits and bits and bobs for this scenario. Also bought over the summer 3 great bikes at different car boot sales didnt cost a lot but its back up, actually got ds aged 9 a bigger bike incase he outgrows his present one. I do believe tshtf scenarios whatever they come as will come maybe not in my lifetime but i want my son to be prepared. sorry for the ramble:)

GreyQueen

Yeah, it's pretty nauseating. I mean, we're all just regular working people often from the same estate as the lottie is on. Not me, obviously, as I live bang in the centre of the old city and there aren't any lotties inside the walls.

Some of the thefts seem to be caused by people who see others using a petrol stimmer, f'rinstance, and then putting it away in a shed. Which then gets broken into. They're not after hand tools, just powered things which are quick and easy to sell on. Could be passers-by as there are roads all around the site, but some of them could be other lottie holders (it happens).

I don't use power tools at all and if anyone sees me trimming my grass path with the shears and comments that it would be easier using a strimmer, as has happened several times, I just remark I don't have enough money for one of those.

Excellent SHFT planning btw and smart to think ahead regarding growing into bikes. You can get brilliant bikes secondhand these days, a difference over my childhood in the 60s/70s when secondhand bikes were few and far between and a load of carp, frankly.

It sensible, in my view, to have considered these things ahead of time, so that you won't be in a complete flapdoodle if things go wrong. I remember reading about what happened in the 7/7 bombings in London; the mobile telecoms networks became overwhelmed by people calling all over to check on their loved ones, and shut down. And a Happy New Year text can actually come in at 4 am, in my experience..........:rotfl:So, if things went wrong, the telecoms could be down, either due to technological overwhelm or deliberately done to try to forestall panic.

I've read a lot about the conflicts between the native peoples of the American south-west and the whites and one of the reasons the Army had such a time trying to catch the Apaches was that they were used to fighting guerilla warfare and if a village or camp was overrun by the enemy, they would scatter in small groups and reassemble at a previously-agreed rendezvous. Leaving the Army's trackers with two dozen tiny trails going in different directions and no clue which one to follow.

All this was set up ahead of time so if TSHF, there would be no delay and everyone, even older children, would know where they were going. Mightn't be a bad idea to have an agreement within a family that if you can't get home, we will meet at Grandma's home, or somewhere else known, safe and accessible, rather than wondering where to start looking for your relatives, and rushing about madly and perhaps just missing each other by minutes.

[Deleted User]

We have also had thefts from our allotments and they are totally surrounded by houses and gardens, we lost strawberries along with many other plotholders a couple of years ago. People lost Broad Beans this year and runner beans last year. The most blatant theft though was two christmases ago when a lorry drove in in broad daylight and completely stripped the holly tree that is on the track in to the lotties. That isn't even on the plot but in someones back garden backing on to them. We also are opposite the village shop and now all have to put chairs etc. away in sheds and lock them in as the teens used to steal from the shop and use the allotments to consume their ill gotten gains, usually alcoholic and then delight us all by smashing any windows they could see. (This was done under cover of darkness) . The police can do very little other than the odd patrol round randomly but really, if the wotnames want to steal and damage they will. It's a reflection on the age we live in isn't it? Cheers Lyn.