Where can I find some basic, printable, prepping materials (check lists, resources, etc) I've been getting prepping things together but need to get much more systematic and organized. Also looking for like-minded group in the Manteca area to network with and/or join THANKS

UNITED WE STAND!

I'm just starting to do like food prep... I dehydrate a lot of things onions ECT....my question is (other than the obvious WATER) what is the most important things to start with I have a TON of rice and beans 1lb packs

Hey new prepper here based in SLO county, slowly starting to build by bug out gear, etc. is there anyone actually still on this thread who is actively getting ready for that SHTF moment ?? Its just cool to chat with others who have the same mentality I guess lol

Data:

• https://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/map/

• https://www.weather.gov/srh/tropical?office=lox

  • click "Threats and Impacts" > "Flooding Rain Threat"

Maps overlaid:

• https://i.imgur.com/mvtZATu.png

Why there hasn't been a major San Andreas fault quake in 300 years:

• https://newscenter.sdsu.edu/sdsu_newscenter/news_story.aspx?sid=79250
  • TLDR: It's too dry for the plates to slip.

So, being that there's predicted "extreme" flooding on top of the fault and the zone of the old dried up lake, now called the Salton Sea, I predict The Big One will happen tomorrow in the PM (Pacific Time Zone).

Dear fellow community,

As we face increasing uncertainty and potential threats in our world, it is more important than ever to be prepared for anything that may come our way. That is why I am writing to you today to propose the formation of a prepper group - a group of like-minded individuals who are committed to preparing for emergencies, natural disasters, or any other unexpected events.

Whether it is a major power outage, a pandemic, or a terrorist attack, the reality is that we never know what might happen in the future. But by working together and pooling our resources, we can be better equipped to handle any situation that comes our way. Here are just a few reasons why it is important to form a prepper group:

1. Safety in numbers: In any emergency, there is safety in numbers. By working together, we can supply mutual support and aid when needed.
2. Shared resources: By pooling our resources, we can ensure that we have enough supplies, equipment, and knowledge to handle any situation that arises.
3. Specialized skills: Each member of our group has unique skills and knowledge that can be invaluable in an emergency. By working together, we can tap into each other's ability and learn from one another.
4. Community building: In addition to preparing for emergencies, forming a prepper group is also a wonderful way to build community and get to know our neighbors better.

If you are interested in joining our prepper group, here is what we have in mind:

• Regular meetings to discuss and plan for various emergency scenarios.
• Training sessions to learn new skills (such as first aid, self-defense, and wilderness survival)
• Group purchases of emergency supplies (such as food, water, medical supplies, and communication equipment)
• Social events to get to know each other better and build camaraderie.

If you are passionate about being prepared for emergencies and want to work together with like-minded individuals to ensure the safety and well-being of yourself and your loved ones, then please consider joining our prepper group. We welcome anyone who shares our values and commitment to preparedness.

To express your interest or learn more feel free to message me, I look forward to hearing from you and working together to build a stronger and more prepared community.

I'm located in the Covina/ West Covina area and am looking for people to network and brainstorm with about preps along with strategies when things get interesting. I'm originally a resident of Oklahoma where I grew up so I'm a little ahead of the game on how to react because of tornadoes and freezes. Anyway, DM me if anyone is interested.

I have vacant parcels in a highly regulated part of the country (CA) and fall in to the "coastal commission". I'm trying to prepare the land to have bees but I need water.

I want to use a DIY drill kit. Has anyone had luck with these in the mountainous areas of California?

Alternatively, I'm looking at water cistern kits but we have limited rain and no existing structures to capture rain from. If anyone else has suggestions on that, I'd appreciate your suggestions/tips

There are a few challenges when it comes to shelter in an emergency. If you’re away from home, you should be trying to find or make “indoors” unless you already have planned for being outdoors with a tent or tarp. It’s not likely to rain or snow in most parts of California, but it might be very hot and you’ll want good shade. If it’s very cold, you’ll need to stay warm, and that means layers of insulation to retain body heat. For easy ways to stay warm, look to r/backpacking for all your lightweight insulation needs. r/ultralight and r/hammock can also help, as they’re filled with users who spend days or weeks outside in all kinds of weather, including snow. Keeping a blanket or two in your vehicle isn’t a terrible idea, as your car can help retain heat and the blankets can layer to keep you toasty no matter where you are.

If you’re home, and an emergency occurs, your priority is to assess if your shelter is safe. If there’s an earthquake, this means looking for major cracks, walls bowing in or bent, and that your gas isn’t leaking. Any concerns here and you should get a home inspection. Assuming your home is okay, you’ll be taking shelter inside. Now it’s just a matter of staying in the temperate zone for human life. If the house gets too warm or too cold, that’s dangerous, which means it needs addressing.

1. Too warm – fans plus blocks of ice can work to rapidly cool a room (this is the predecessor to modern AC). If the air coming into the house is warm, you can use wet towels over the windows to make a “swamp cooler” effect. Shade is key here, and will likely pay dividends in your regular life as well. Shade can keep an area 20 degrees cooler, and if you shade the air coming in you can leverage that to cool your home/body. Plan for your water consumption to increase dramatically when it’s hot, as your body will compensate for being hot by sweating to cause evaporative cooling. Having electrolyte powders (Nuun, Gatorade, that IV stuff at Costco) on hand to mix with the water is helpful because your body needs electrolytes to keep the sweat going. Also prepare to do most of your “heavy labor” in the hours right after daybreak, and sometimes even earlier. During the day, you’re going to hide from the sun, which brings us back to shade. Watch your pets carefully for water consumption, and plan for their water consumption to increase as well because we can at least sweat, they can only pant and have trouble cooling off with a fur coat on.

2. Too cold – this one is easy, but as Texas shows, wild weather swings can be their own emergencies. You should layer clothes, obviously, but if it gets really cold (to the point where you can see your breath inside), concentrate body heat in one room, and if you’re really prepared put up a tent in that room and lay a blanket over it, then everybody can sleep in the tent and share warmth. As I’ve said in a previous post, sharing body heat with pets is a great way for everybody to stay alive in even the most freezing of days. If you’re able, grab a down or down alternative blanket from Costco, as they trap heat very nicely, especially in combination with a sleeping bag.

This one is relatively short because it’s essentially “stay home” and have camping gear. Heat kills but is hard to prepare for outside of shade and water. Heat is easy to prepare for and you likely already have the stuff you need to stay alive. Add some blankets to your car, and maybe a tarp, and you’ll be basically set for inclement weather. As always, ask questions, and I can get more specific or try to answer them.

I’m back again with another post on basics. So let’s dive into food. I’m going to start with the easiest of preparedness and branch out from there.

1. Start with adding a bit extra to your grocery shopping. If you are going to the store daily, try to stretch that to three days by stocking up a bit on common things with long shelf-lives. Bags of rice, beans, and pasta store well, and only require water and heat (and if I’m making it, some salt). You should have some water (see this post if you need a refresher) on hand for cooking with, and that side burner on your BBQ is perfectly good at boiling water and cooking up some rice/beans/pasta. A serving of rice and beans contains all the amino acids your body can’t make daily, as well as a good amount of fiber and protein. Having some canned potatoes, tomatoes, and corn will keep hunger at bay as well as providing a welcome break from rice and beans. But, and it’s a big but, spices are what will take your meal from fair to great. Salt is cheap (have at least some iodized for daily usage, it’s essential for thyroid function IIRC). Bulk spices are cheap (check out your local ethnic market), and they really let you mix up the flavors so you’re not bored. You likely cook with canola or vegetable oil now. Keep an extra bottle and that will be a nice addition to your cooking in terms of calories and flavor. Some baking powder, baking soda, sugar and flour and you can add bread/rolls to the list of foods you can make quickly, and it’s hard to imagine something that stores better than those items. Start with a week’s worth of non-perishables, and then try to stretch from there. Textured Vegetable Protein (TVP) and soy curls (carne de soya at some markets) are a great shelf-stable way to add protein and not be dependent on Spam in a can (no shame if you like Spam). You will need water and spices to make this enjoyable to eat.

2. After getting your “bulk calories” taken care of, now it’s time to talk other food options. There’s the “emergency foods” which I’ll cover soon, and then there are non-traditional foods which can be very handy in an emergency situation away from your main food storage. One thing I think a lot of people sleep on, especially for car Get Home Bags (GHBs) and Bug Out Bags (BOBs) are meal replacement bars like the MetRX ones. Let’s say you’re walking 15 miles to get home because the 405 is a parking lot and home is where you’re planning to bug in. Would you rather try to find a spot to boil some water and cook a meal, or unwrap a Cookie Dough bar that’s 400 calories, and keep moving? Downside to these, especially when we’re talking stuff in a car, is chocolate melts in heat. They’ll likely be messy, but I’m not too proud to eat some melted chocolate, and I hope you won’t be either. Plan to rotate your car kit food every 3-6 months, more frequently if your car sits outside in the heat. Cold doesn’t ruin things like heat, but it's still worth noting because you'll need more calories when cold. Similarly, granola bars and energy bars might be worth a look, especially if you already eat them. They’re relatively light and require no preparation, which is truly great if you must abandon your vehicle or cover some distance without a vehicle to carry pounds of food. No matter which of these you choose, you will be thirsty afterward, so plan for water consumption.

3. EMERGENCY FOOD talk incoming. You’ve been warned. If it says PATRIOT on food or emergency packaging, you want nothing to do with it. On tactical gear, it's hit or miss, but for food, it's a rule. It’s not that all food with that in the name is terrible, it’s that it’s overpriced, and might also be terrible. If you own a company with that name and want to send out samples and a price list to change my mind, let me know, but for now…overpriced at best. Now to the major emergency food options:

a. Meals Ready to Eat (MREs) – these usually come with chemical heaters which are started by adding water. They’re…okay. They’re usually priced between $7-12, and some flavors are much less tasty than others. There are a few brands out there, and the shelf life is often 3-5 years from production, but they typically have everything you need for half a day’s calories, often with an electrolyte drink mix (think knockoff Gatorade) and sometimes with instant coffee (in the breakfast ones). If you’ve never tried one before, I can recommend, as with all “premade” meals designed for preparation outside a regular kitchen, Chili Mac. I further recommend that you do not make MREs the center of your food prepping (due to cost primarily), and that you try MREs ahead of time to see what kind of gastrointestinal issues you’ll encounter. If you want to hear reviews of individual meals, there’s a guy on YouTube that has tried MREs dating to the Korean War and he’s reportedly still alive, so there’s that. Heat is the enemy of MRE longevity, but because I work from home and my car is garage-kept, I have MREs in my GHB. I plan for two meal replacement bars and one MRE per day, which will put me at roughly 2,000 calories and drop about 1.5 pounds a day from my pack weight.

b. Freeze dried meals – often found in a pouch, and also in 10# cans if you're really stocking up, these can be handy for GHBs and BOBs but require boiling water and the cans don’t last long once opened. Mountain House is good, ReadyWise buckets from Costco are filled with soups and things you might not like. For Mountain House, they will last 25+ years in cool, dark areas, which makes them ideal for a week or two of food out of a backpack, with the main limiting factor being water. Seriously, water is an issue for everything. To prepare the pouches, you add boiling water, so you’ll need water and a heat source, but the food is edible and even, dare I say, tasty. I will say Mountain House chili mac is better than MRE chili mac with some confidence.

c. Lifeboat rations – made by brands like SOS, these are low-moisture bars filled with empty calories designed to keep you alive. They’re lemon or coconut flavored, high in sugar, and crumbly. They also last for years in all sorts of conditions, so having a pack or two in your car might not be the worst thing ever, but you certainly won’t be reaching for it as a snack. I’m going to add a lesser-known product to this category, Pilot Bread. Bush pilots in Alaska carry pilot bread and some condiments in their jump bags, and they’re good enough with jam/honey/peanut butter to keep you alive. Pilot bread and a plastic container of honey can handle heat with little difficulty (perfect for a car GHB or BOB), but it will be high in carbs and missing almost everything else.

Okay, so there are likely some things I left out, but I’d imagine most things fall in the above categories. Think about keeping some extra stuff in your pantry, and start adding a few supplies to your car. Let me know any thoughts or questions.

This is not an exhaustive description of prepping water, but more a summary of sources and basic treatment to make it drinkable. This mostly applies to the coast and deserts below SF, so if you happen to live by a big lake or near the Sacramento River, congratulations, you have it better than most of us. You can skip to the purification section.

Cool, now that it’s those of us in drought country, let’s talk water. Water is life, which means a lack of water is DEATH. That’s right, if you don’t have water, You Will Perish. Thirst is no joke. There are exceptions, but water sources in coastal California boil down to (pun intended) seawater, reservoirs, and water pumped from Northern California and other places that get actual rainfall. If you’re in the last group, you are going to need significantly more water reserves than people who get rain, and more even than the group that is close to the ocean and can afford to desalinate it. Water is cheap now, but storage is a challenge. You’ll want drinkable (potable) water of at least 1 gallon per person per day. That’s a minimum, and if you’re working hard you’re going to want more water. Unfortunately, it doesn’t grow on trees.

I’ll break down the water sources and how to filter/desalinate/distill them:

1. Seawater – you may have noticed that California has an ocean on one side. That’s great news if you can reach it easily (both in distance and avoiding roadblocks/detours), and you can desalinate it. You don’t need a $25k yacht desalination unit, but you’ll need to use boiling water and a catchment system to capture the distilled water if you don’t have a desalination system. Put simply, get seawater hot enough and catch the water vapor that is emitted as steam. When it cools, purify it. Easier said than done, but not impossible, and the upside is the amount of water you can draw from. Extra benefit, it kills bacteria, viruses, and other microorganisms. A system that runs off solar heating is ideal in terms of energy consumption (you just put it in sun and give it time), but not a surefire way to get drinkable water, especially when it’s cloudy. Don’t be the person caught with a solar powered system when it’s foggy or cloudy because you’ll be mighty thirsty. Have multiple methods of getting water vapor.

2. Pumped municipal water – You turn on the tap, water comes out. Simple, right? What happens when the line breaks or the pumps aren’t powered? You’re going to be stuck. It would be very helpful to know where your closest reservoir is, but if it’s not exceptionally close, and even if it is, things are going to be very dry. Another source is water that’s sitting in apartment and office buildings. A silcock key will help you access the water that spigots have left in the pipes. Look around for local creeks as well, but be advised if there are any farms nearby as they often have chemical leakage into creeks and rivers that make the water unhealthy to consume.

We’ve laid out the challenges, but that still only assures you have physical water, not that it’s clean enough to drink. You’ll need a filter (like a Sawyer), and some bleach or iodine, to filter out the nasty microorganisms that might be hiding in local water sources. You know what makes a disaster 100 times worse? The Runs. You really, truly, don’t want some nasty bug that has you running to a makeshift toilet every five minutes, and in between you’re rapidly dehydrating from vomiting. I say again, you don’t want diarrhea.

That means killing nasty bugs. You can boil the water, and that absolutely works, but it won’t give you cold water, and you really don’t to be drinking hot water on a hot day. It also requires a heat source, which outside of solar means wood, propane, etc. That’s where bleach/iodine come in, then you run it through an inline filter like a Sawyer/MSR to be sure. Berkey filters don’t test amazingly, but they reportedly are good for filtering out chlorine taste. A Brita would probably do the same, but I’ll defer here to other opinions. Go look up water filtration online and you’ll see roughly two billion opinions. I won’t vouch for anything in this regard, as what works for me might not work for everybody, and this is why I recommend camping as a good first prep test. You’ll get more experience in a weekend “off grid” than reading 10k words I throw down.

Now, let’s talk universal preps:

Having a few water barrels and/or an IBC are great because they store weeks’ worth of water in one place. Their biggest downside is you need to cycle the water occasionally, and you need to keep it generally in shade and have room to do so. If you’re in an apartment, you’re more limited on space, but you can still have some 5- or 7-gallon containers filled up and ready.

Rainwater can be captured and used, but you’ll need to purify it chemically and then filter it. You do not want to drink rainwater that has been sitting for a year without chemicals. Try to cycle this water through to water your garden. It doesn’t rain often, but if you hook it up to your gutters, next time it does rain, you can capture quite a bit of water from a house roof.

If you can figure out a way to capture the moisture in the air (dew) in the morning, you might be able to get a cup or two a day that way. You’ll likely need to be close to the ocean, but moisture capture from the air is a “passive” method of bolstering your supply. That means you’re not hauling it, which frees you up to do the myriad other things you’ll need to do to stay alive. Don’t count on it for your primary source of water.

I’m not an expert on water, but I’ll be happy to try and answer basic questions, as well as direct you to better sources.

Let me start by saying I’ll have some controversial parts later in the post, but the first scenario is very basic. I’ll be breaking it into two main scenarios, evacuation (bugging out) and staying safe at home (bugging in). There are many other cases for prepping, but we’re going to start with an overview.

First scenario - There’s been an earthquake, or there’s a fire and it’s on the way. Here’s what you need to have ready, whether you’re going to a local emergency shelter, a hotel, a relative’s house, wherever. Pretend you’re going to Disneyland for a few days and pack accordingly:

· Clothes for three days, including an extra pair of socks and underwear. Update this every time you change for Daylight Saving Time to account for the major seasons.

· Pajamas

· Some backpacker meals (Mountain House meals let you just add boiling water to the pouch and also generally taste good)

· A charger for every phone, and a battery bank for every two phones in the household. I like Anker’s slim products for the batteries.

· A basic hygiene kit:

• Toothbrush
• Toothpaste
• Deodorant
• Female sanitary products if applicable (you know what, even if you are a dude living alone, stash some pads just in case)
• Hairbrush
• Tweezers (they’re super handy for splinters)
• Small bar of soap
• Small mouthwash
• Earplugs (get the 33 dB ones, you’ll sleep so much better)
• Good walking shoes
• A backpack to carry it all (Skip right past 5.11 Tactical or similar, get an Osprey/Gregory/REI)
• A few meal replacement bars (MetRX are 400-500 calories, three will get you through the day)
• Extra face masks and a hat
• A reliable flashlight (a Coast HX5 is what I’d consider reliable and easy to store with a Lithium battery)

There are other things you should take but you’ll need to grab them “last minute” because you’re using them daily, like your laptop and cell phone.

Now to the bigger, somewhat less likely scenario, where something big happened and you need to stay home for a while. Maybe it was an earthquake, maybe they shut off the power due to high winds, maybe you need to stay home because H5N6 finally made its way to our shores. No matter what the cause, you’re home and you’ll need to be there for a while. For this we’re going to follow the rule of threes:

· Air – if you can’t breathe, you die. Get some good KF94 masks for your first line, then start looking to P100 filters on half- and full-face masks. You almost certainly won’t need a true gas mask, but if you want recommendations on those, ask in the comments and I’ll provide some.

· Water – Three days without water is certain death. Think that through, then ask yourself, do you have a gallon per person/animal per day? If not, this is where you need to focus. If you’re a homeowner, congratulations, you almost certainly have a hot water tank with 40-80 gallons of fresh water. Here’s the thing, you must be able to access the drainage spout, and you should have a drinking water safe hose if you want that water anywhere else in the house. It also will need boiling if there’s a boil water notice. That means you need to have a big pot and a way to heat it. Camping stove running on propane? Good stuff. BBQ with a side burner that runs from propane? You’re sitting pretty as long as you have an extra 5-gallon tank or two. If you can’t boil the water, getting clean water is significantly harder. Water in a nutshell.

· Food – You can survive three weeks without food. Don’t plan for this to be you, plan to eat a little less than normal and take multivitamins to ensure you’re not deficient. The easiest way to build up a supply of food is just to buy a little extra of what you already eat. You don’t need those Readywise buckets at Costco (trust me, you don’t want them), you need a couple extra cans of potatoes and corn each trip that you eat as part of your regular meal planning. 10 extra pounds of flour can fit in your cupboard, along with some extra sugar, a bag of oatmeal, etc. Pasta, beans, rice, all good to have extra of. I’m not going to disclose exactly how much extra I have, but let’s just say I could stay home for more than a month with just my pantry. If you have pets, keep an extra bag of food and rotate the bags of food. When you finish the food bag you’re working on, go buy another. Food prepping broken down.

· Shelter – If you’re staying at your home, you’ve got this. But…what if the power/gas is off and it’s winter? Yes, it does get below freezing even here in the Golden State, and as Texas proved quite well, people can die from a sudden freeze. Have some extra blankets and a sleeping bag or two, and if it gets chilly inside, pick one room and everybody sleeps there. Shared body heat works well to keep warm. This is a great time to get cozy with your dogs and cats, they love to share beds and they’re adorable little space heaters. More details on preparing for shelter.

· Sanitation – if the water doesn’t run you’d better have a plan to handle things like hand washing and bodily functions. They make seats that fit right on a Home Depot bucket. At this point I sincerely hope I don’t need to tell you to have extra TP, but this is a great use case for a case of Costco baby wipes. You’ll want a bunch of extra trash bags on hand as well. Don’t cheap out here, spring for the contractor grade ones. You'll be much happier if you have kitty litter on hand to put in the bag before you make a deposit. Unless you’re a certain North Korean leader, you’re going to need to poop, might as well plan for it. Yes, it’s gross, but the alternatives are far worse. You can discreetly water a tree but please, for the love of all that is good in this world, have a plan for taking the Browns to the Super Bowl that isn’t dependent on municipal water. I’ll post more on sanitation in a later post and link it here.

· Safety – Here’s where we get controversial. I don’t care who you are, you should be able and ready to defend yourself from harm. If you’re a convicted felon, have suicidal ideation, or are otherwise prohibited from owning a firearm, you should go old school. Think clubs (baseball or cricket bats) and pole arms (spears). I’m very sorry to report that if you don't already bowfish or hunt with a bow, you’re not Katniss Everdeen; please abandon your fantasy of defending yourself with a bow. For those of you who can own a firearm, you’ll be finding out what many already have realized, California makes it painful to legally purchase a firearm and ammunition. r/CAguns is the spot for getting a taste of the steps required and what’s actually available because many modern handguns aren’t. More on this later.

· Medical – You can’t talk about emergency preparedness without talking about medical preparations. You should have a month’s worth of all medications in reserve, more of commonly available OTC items like NSAIDs (Aleve, Advil, Tylenol), antihistamines (Claritin, Benadryl), antifungals (Lotrimazole), anti-diarrheals (Immodium). Throw a few boxes of bandaids in there (I have first aid kits with bandages and antibacterial ointments in every backpack in the house). For nastier wounds, I keep a skin stapler and 3M Tegaderms to cover them. It’s helpful to take a first aid/CPR class to know the basics. While you're at it, get some extra sunscreen and stash it somewhere. The sun is not forgiving. Then there are trauma kits, which are separate from “first aid” specifically. I recommend taking a Stop the Bleed class at minimum, and picking up a kit on sale from North American Rescue. Sign up for the newsletter and next time they have a good sale get something like the Roo with Hemostatic. Look up how to stage your tourniquet on YouTube. I’ll write a much longer post on medical, and I’ll link that when it’s ready.

Whew, if you read this whole way, congratulations, you’re already better prepared than most people. For additional listening immediately, I highly recommend the excellent NPR Podcast The Big One: Your Survival Guide. While I disagree with a couple of parts, it’s generally apolitical and presents a “getting started” that added to my knowledge base.

TL;DR Start getting prepared because I promise there will be an emergency in your life. My favorite survival riddle: A plane crashes right on the border of Italy and Switzerland. Where do they bury the survivors?

Ask any questions you have and I will do my best to answer them and link you to a good site if it’s something to buy. This doesn’t have to be expensive, but there are ways that you can spend a little more and get much more out of it.

It would be interesting to hear how other Californian preppers are doing right now.

My house uses 10kwh at most, a day, with everything blasting.

Would this quiet propane generator https://www.homedepot.com/p/Champion-Power-Equipment-4650-Watt-Electric-Start-Portable-Gas-and-Propane-Dual-Fuel-Inverter-Generator-with-Ultra-Quiet-Technology-200994/316409966

Be enough to power lights, a fridge, some electronics and maybe a toaster?

Its appealing because it is so quiet, and I love propane.

Thx

I added some 3M 8210V masks to a DigiKey order yesterday. They are $1.65 a mask, about $1.50 if you order 10+ (volume discount). Wherever you decide to get them, buy them now before the peak wildfire season starts, then people will be scrambling to get theirs again.

You might even want to get a few more, in case a new COVID strain appears that the vaccines won't protect against (the pandemic is far from over in most of the world, so there is plenty of opportunity for new mutations to appear), but that is a personal decision (I honestly did not think of it until now). Remember, the only reason we started wearing those cloth masks is to save the N95s for healthcare workers, not because they are as good or better!

I may move to somewhere in Central California in the near future and therefore am thinking of how I would bug out if S really HTF (at this point I am not really thinking anymore about how I would bug out to somewhere faraway from my current location as I am assuming that such a situation requiring it will not occur before I move), like if a huge earthquake hit and it resulted in extreme supply chain disruptions/food & water shortages, there were massive waves of refugees fleeing the metro areas and the rule of law (partially) collapsed or if civil war broke out. In such a scenario I would bug out either to the east or leave the country entirely (am not a US citizen and am a citizen of a stable developed country), which would I think would also require bugging out east first because I do not see driving through the PNW to Canada or through the LA metro area to Mexico (and then through cartel territory) as viable options and I have no idea how I would bug out by boat/ship, honestly.

Now, my question to people more knowledgeable than me is, what would be the biggest challenges bugging out east across the Sierra Nevada and the foothills, what would be the best strategy, what items would be particularly important to have and what can I reasonably expect? I am not familiar with the Sierras at all other than Tahoe (that is in the Sierra Nevada, right?), with neither the terrain nor the people. What major roads, backroads and trails are there? What is the attitude of the people living there likely to be when probably a lot of people are fleeing east? Will they at least allow people to pass through or will they just block off all roads leading to the Sierras and turn California to the west of them into a huge version of the Gaza Strip?

This is u/maan978, the mod, founder and no 1 submitter to r/PrepperIntel2. I also live in California and as a result there is a submission bias towards the West Coast (and wider West to some degree) and CA in particular (although other members are welcome to post more articles relevant to their region/city). Therefore, I thought some members may be interested in r/PrepperIntel2 Stay safe during wildfire season!

You hear a lot about sustainability these days and it’s usually more of a buzz word.

What should you really be looking for?

How about farmers and ranchers that are developing the genetics of their herds to require less and less inputs to produce. Whether it be chemicals or human assistance in general.

I am in the Sacramento area and have beef pork and poultry available and my livestock are raised with future uncertainties in mind. Many farms require heavy use of inputs that may or may not be available 5, 10 or 20 years down the road.

If you’d like to learn more find my phone number in the Craigslist ad and feel free to call or text. The ad is sale of live steers, but ask about already processed beef or pork either by the cut or a whole animal to fill your freezer.

Craigslist Ad

Hi,

Any Preppers in LA ? I am looking for info and tips.

Gary

I don’t know weather this information is helpful to any of you but this wealthy guy I know knew about the San Francisco lockdown a couple days beforehand so he had a flight there and canceled. He just notified us.

https://newrepublic.com/article/136311/shop-till-drop

What are some of the traps we should avoid regarding the intrusion of corporate interests in the prepping community?? Do you feel prepping has become that mainstream?

Yeah makes sense to me.