As I was turning off the main road into the back ones, making my way home, I passed a fire truck, followed by a Fire Department F250. Not all that uncommon out here in the sticks, as our local VFD are also the EMS first responders.

Well, one back road, to another, to another and as I'm approaching the gate I see several Forrestry service truck, towing bull dozers park in the field across the way.

I do a sky scan and a smell test and that doesn't set off any alarms, so I pulled in to talk with the crew.

There has been a small brush fire up the road earlier and they were in stand by in case it flared up.

Asked if they wanted some coffee or something to eat, needed to use a restroom, that kinda thing.

Our fire plan has been checked over by the local VFD captains and I know we are ok in anything less than a true firestorm.

Be safe out there you guys. If it's been as dry around you place as it has been around mine, check and test your fire plans and equipment. Recheck your escape plans and bug out gear as well.

Thinking about getting an AED, we have a good set of trauma kits and general medical and first aid things, a medic bag in both vehicles and one at home, lots of other things. We don't have an AED but our EMS response time is also under 5 minutes (we are under a mile from the police station, fire station, and hospital) so I have a hard time thinking we need our own AED.

Looking for suggestions on how to spend the money

Thanks to this subreddit, I’ve started “prepping for Tuesday.” Partner and I live in a small apartment but I’ve been slowly building up my pantry and taking advantages of weekly sales, scouring flyers for deals, etc. Next steps include prepping the car with socks, blankets, and other emergency items! Keep on rocking and let’s keep our fingers crossed we never have to use our preps in the first place 😊✌️

We have spent two days and 50 contractor bags and multiple trailer loads and have cleaned about 3% of my wife’s grandfather’s prepper stash. Garbage, the entire lot of it. Multiple freezers (six so far) of food that went bad decades ago and nobody noticed. Canned goods by the hundreds that are so old the print is entirely gone (and the smell inside some of the cabinets has been enough to induce vomiting). The dry goods were eaten by rats - so many rats - long ago. Remember that someone else has to clean your crap if the world doesn’t end. Label your stuff and cycle your stash. Don’t leave a superfund site for your children.

I'm looking for advice due to Minnesota's poor air quality during the past summer. Planning ahead for 2024, I'm in a rental house built in the 1800s and unable to make significant home improvements. My top priority is ensuring the safety of my immune-compromised husband. Any advice or suggestions you can offer would be immensely valuable.

I currently have one air purifier (that was sufficient for my previous studio apartment). How many more of these do I need?

I do not have a HVAC system.

Thank you.

I'm on the west coast of Canada and reading (and experiencing) that we're seeing a lot less rain on average, but likely far more during extreme weather events.

Where I live, I have a front door that is below the street level (a few steps, no more than 3' down). We have a little plant/shrubby plot of land (6x6'?) adjacent to it that usually soaks up all the water from rainfall that spills off the concrete pathway from the stairs to my door.

I didn't care before, but I realized that if we had some pretty heavy nonstop rain, eventually the soil would be saturated with water and may spill onto the concrete—and right into my front door. There's no drainage because there never needed to be.

It's a townhouse, so I typically don't keep supplies nor prep for upkeep of the exterior of my place—it's not my responsibility. However, flooding into my place... well that becomes my problem.

I did google for ways to address flooding, but a lot of them assume you have a house like "install a sump pump or change your paved surfaces" which aren't options for me. Is there a way for me to block water that approaches, when I really only need to block maybe 4' across?

Shouldn’t everyone in the US who is trying to prepare for disruptions, and who also has a decent amount of freezer space, buy and freeze several turkeys during Thanksgiving week when they are pretty cheap compared to normal price of protein sources?

It quickly becomes a huge block of ice in your freezer which:

1. Will help delay your other frozen items from thawing if power is disrupted for a few days and you can’t get ice.

2. Will be something you can eat after your other frozen foods are gone if the disruption is longer. A completely frozen turkey in an unpowered, closed freezer could probably go up to a week before it needs to be cooked and eaten.

I have eaten a turkey that was frozen for about a year and it was still fine, so you could just cook one every couple of months and then just stock up with new ones next Thanksgiving.

Would insulation work only short term?

I haven’t ever seen anyone post about it in about a year so now I am telling you about R/prepperfileshare It has abunch of files to download for prepping if you gave any files please post them to the subreddit

Are Preppers interested in investing on military grade personal CBRN suits that is produces under NATO standards ?

Hey folks,

For quite some time it never occurred to me that seeds expire. Silly, I know. But I've always purchased new seeds immediately prior to planting whenever I've grown a garden.

Recently I've thought that keeping some on hand might be a nice idea, so I began researching which seeds might best meet my needs. That's when I found out that many seeds have an advertised shelf life of three years or so. Some can have longer shelf lives, such as melons, cucumbers, and tomatoes all averaging five to ten years with good storage practices. However, even that seems like an undesirable shelf life.

I remember hearing anecdotes about grain found in the pyramids of Giza being sprouted thousands of years after storage. Obviously being cool and dry during that time would play a large role in that.

My questions is whether the expiration date is significant, or do seeds tend to remain viable with good storage practices.

In my experience gardening, I've found that a portion of fresh seeds are unviable when planted, so I've always accounted for purchasing more than I need. But if I buy a thousand seeds now, and store them for twenty years in a moisture free, airtight container in a cool and dry place, will they likely mostly be duds because none of them have a twenty year shelf life, or would a practical amount be viable?

There's a number 10 can of assorted seeds that I've been eyeing, but none of the documentation suggests whether there's any sort of viability after expiration.

Thanks for your time.

Writing down various planned routes to multiple getaways to make navigating to them faster - good or bad idea?

Edit: is it best to keep info based preps like this digitally, on paper or both?

During a absolute shtf and rebuilding of society are there any plans by the world's leaders should a world level catastrophic event happen like Oh I don't know like 2012 movie from 2009 something of that magnitude would a new type of government be created? I'm assuming that not many government officials and officials who help there economy continue working would survive and I believe we are very much selfish creatures. I see it highly improbable that some leaders to invite other country leaders to bunk up with them for the apocalypse. Third world countries and countries without that type of resources and preparedness would surely perish and lose a lot of people as well as there government officials. With the remaining officials with supposed qualities of governmental authority would those countries who have no government be appointed to a neighboring country to be governed until its people set an official/officials of there choice or would those countries be placed forever more be under the rule of that countries infrastructure. Would other the countries leaders who survived establish a permanent rule over countries who have no one to run there countries example could be say it happened and Mexico has zero government officials to begin establishing the rebuilding of the country and America swoops in to rebuild and establishes an official USA appointed government and Incorporates Mexico as part of the USA hence now Mexico belongs to the USA. Ps. Please be respectful I know that there is a lot of diversity of people in this form with different views 🙏

6. Always consistently practice with your gear and equipment. It's a perishable skill, if you don't use it, you will lose it. It doesn't matter how much you paid for something, if you've never trained with it or barely used it. A SHTF situation is not a good time to learn how to use a tourniquet, shoot accurately, or use things that you just got out of a brand new box. If the grid is down you won't be able to use YouTube or Google to learn how to operate/use it.

7. We often hear about preppers talking about bartering and trading with things like gold, silver, comfort items like alcohol, cigarettes etc. Bartering by definition is taking something that you have excess of and trading it to someone for something that you are lacking. By very definition, you are showing up to a meeting and letting everyone there know that you have extra of that thing/item. If you're going to trade, maybe starve yourself for a couple of days, dirty your clothes up and make yourself look kind of rough before you go out. If you show up and you look relatively fed, somewhat clean/smelling like soap and look decently healthy, people will notice that, become suspicious, and possibly follow you back to your secure location. I remember reading Selco Bogovic's personal book about trading during SHTF in Bosnia. Check it out if you haven't, - Dark Secrets of SHTF Survival. He said If you have to trade, don't carry a lot of valuable items at once or large amounts of that particular item and don't always trade the same thing. You don't want to trade with that same thing several times and become known as "the food guy" or "the guy with a lot of alcohol" etc.

8. In a true SHTF situation, like war, famine, deadly disease or other high casualty event, dead bodies cause and spread disease and contaminate water sources, food sources and obviously the land that their on. In an event like that, you will no longer have modern necessities like running sewage, water treatment, trash pickup etc. Dead bodies will pose a serious threat to your health and safety. I'm not just talking about the raiders or bad people you manage to take down near your location either. I'm also talking about the people who died of starvation, disease etc. If you live in an urban environment or even in a relatively rural area, dead bodies are still going to be everywhere. Have a plan to take care of things like that. The whole area will smell terrible, and you might have to walk over or through piles of bodies, make sure to carry gloves, masks, disinfectant etc. If you try and "viking funeral" AKA burn the bodies, be mindful that people will see the smoke and come to where it is. Another thing that people don't think of that there will be plenty of is destroyed/ inoperable vehicles which overtime can leak oil, radiator fluid and other poisonous liquids into the ground and water sources nearby. Just something to be mindful of.

9. Not only have enough food for your human family members, stock up on pet food for your animal family members too. I vacuum seal my dogs food in mylar bags with oxygen absorbers. Whether you want to believe this or not: your family pets may be looked at by other people and possibly by you as a food source if things gets bad enough In a SHTF event. There have been several instances throughout history in really bad times of famine, war etc. that people ate their pets: dogs, cats, rabbits, horses etc. Keep your pets safe.

10. If things get extremely bad, like true SHTF bad, morality is going to become very flexible. You'll be given a choice: You can either quite literally "die on your hill" with your incorruptible morals like to never steal, lie, kill etc, or you can adapt and bend your morals to whatever the new normal standard is after a true SHTF event. I don't care which one you pick, but just know that you're going to have to pick one.

This is all I have at the moment, just some things to think on. Like I said, no one knows everything, myself included and everyone sees things differently. If you have anything that you'd like to share that you think a lot of people don't think about or talk about enough in the preparedness community, by all means mention it, I like to learn and get different perspectives. I hope this helped you strengthen your preps and added some things in your prepper toolbox.

First post on here ever. I mainly just lurk, study and take notes. Whether you have been prepping for years or are just starting out, I feel like some of this information could apply and be helpful to everybody, regardless of what you're prepping for. However this post mostly applies to people that are preparing for a serious shtf/grid down scenario (government/societal/economic collapse, civil war, large scale riots, EMP attack etc.) Please understand, because I want to be as clear and concise as possible:

I'm not stating all this to sound arrogant etc, I just feel everyone sees and observes things differently, and no one knows/thinks of everything. These are just things I feel no one really talks about or mentions, at least not that I've seen on any posts or channels. Either because they don't think that it's cool like some of the more popular subjects like weapons, gear etc. or because they just never thought of it, or maybe they just don't want to because it's unsettling to think about. Most importantly, I'm not saying all this to make people MAD, I'm writing all this to make you THINK.

I feel every prepper that I can help, is one less potential threat, problem, or enemy that we as a community have to face tomorrow. I've had a lot of time to think and write down some thoughts and fallacies or inconsistencies with people's preps and plans. If you've been in the prepping community long enough, I'm sure a lot of you are well aware of the romanization of a shtf scenario. So here's a list of things I think people in the prepared community often overlook, overestimate or don't think about.

1. A lot of people talk about body armor. They say, "I got my expensive level IV plates by this company, I'm good" and they feel very secure. It's great that you have body armor, but that also means that you have to potentially fight someone that's competent/trained enough to just shoot the armor, but not so competent/trained that they shoot you in the face, neck, stomach, crotch, arm, thigh, foot etc. Don't get me wrong, body armor is great, it helps keep you in the fight, but if you get hit it's going to break ribs, break sternum cartilage and fuck you up to no end when that bullet hits your plate and it's going to hurt, I don't care how nice or expensive your plates are, it's not the movies. Your plates are pretty much useless after that. The reason body armor is so great and works so well today is because we have an awesome medical system in place, hospitals etc. that can treat you after you get shot, the plates buy you time. If a true SHTF scenerio happens, take that medical system away, and unless you have a doctor and medical equipment/supplies nearby you can die just as easily from an infection from a non critical/flesh wound, as you can from a shot to your vital organs. People die all the time from infections, sometimes even really basic and treatable ones from around the world.

2. No one ever talks about fires during shtf. Do you have fire extinguishers, fire blankets, reserve water and other firefighting equipment in case of a fire? Even if your house/bugout location isn't on fire, what if somewhere close by is? In a true SHTF scenario, emergency services and running water may not be available, so you'll only have what's at your disposal. I'm sure there will be people deliberately starting fires to distract/tie up emergency services in the beginning of a collapse, riot etc. If your secured location, or somewhere close to it goes up in flames, so do all your preps and supplies.

3. Just because you buy something once, doesn't mean that it's over. What I mean by that is that all of that expensive prepping equipment, gear and tools you bought eventually break down and stops working or gets damaged. What if it's a scenario that goes on for months or years? Do you have the knowledge, equipment and supplies necessary to maintain and fix those things? Do you have building materials in case you get a hole in your roof, wall or window from something or someone? Do you have spare parts for all your weapons in case they break or get damaged? Do you have gun cleaner, lubricating oil, cleaning cloths In order to maintain them? Your $2000 rifle isn't going to help you if something essential on it breaks, gets lost etc. because you didn't think to buy an extra firing pin or spring. Do you have replacement batteries or panels for your solar power if this goes on for a long time? Do you have tools to repair and maintain your other tools? What happens if that axe you bought to cut firewood breaks, can you rehang it? Just because you have something now doesn't mean that it's going to last for the next 2 or 3 years into a really bad situation.

4. I don't care how many guns, how much ammunition, or how awesome your body armor is, you are not going to get into a fight with a superior force and it's just you and your three friends and come out unscathed. People are going to get hurt and killed, possibly yourself Included. The best way to win a gunfight? Don't get into one. You win every.single.gunfight you manage to avoid. The other side of that is if you start shooting, that's loud, people hear it and they'll come to where you are and now you have new problems that you originally didn't intend to deal with. So the idea that you think you can just patrol around your area with your rifle and think you're good to go to take on anything isn't real. Not only that but it's also a heavy taxation of your resources/ammunition by getting into long, protracted unnecessary gun battles.

5. We hear this one a lot in the community: "I'm just gonna bug out to the woods/rural areas/national forest and hunt and live off the land." Where are you going exactly??? Do you think you're the only person that had that idea???? People will flock to those areas and it's going to be very interesting to watch thousands of people try and survive in a 1000 acre plot of land. This is why I believe that bugging in is the best option and bugging out is a last resort. It's also why I don't heavily rely on hunting or fishing preps/gear. Even if you managed to kill a deer in the woods, there's a good chance other people will hear it. Not only that, but how are you doing to drag that heavy animal all the way back to your camp? All of this is assuming your even lucky enough to find wild animals. You won't be the only one who tries to go out and hunt for food. During the Great Depression, deer populations in rural areas almost went extinct because of over hunting.

I am going to start traveling a lot more for work on a plane out of state, and trying to think of what would be the most important items to have a bag if something were to happen. These trips are for a couple of days so clothing would not be a problem, but more of trying to survive in an unknown environment with out the ability to get home anytime soon. I will be checking a bag as I have tools that I will have to travel with. What would be the top 20 things I should consider for this situation?

I want to get a propane tank for emergencies to power a camping stove and buddy heater. The disposable propane tanks are too small and expensive. I know barbecue grills are illegal on apartment patios here, but what about propane tanks?

Edit to add: my bigger question is, would this be safe? And obviously, this would ONLY be for SHTF scenarios, I wouldn’t be using the propane devices regularly.

https://lifehacker.com/how-to-prepare-for-a-solar-flare-hitting-earth-because-1848076402

Great stuff hear to keep in mind about solar flares. Yes, they will hit during our lifetime. No, they won’t end the world. That said, we will have warnings so make sure to unplug things, get water ready, have food available. I’m thinking of adding a bike to my plans too. I have a 100 mile work commute, so walking that far home would absolutely suck.

If you have medical experience or want the tools available for your children or others. Here is a link to some gear. GAFS rules, but if you’re interested it’s a great deal.

https://www.reddit.com/r/GunAccessoriesForSale/s/quwgiPgXn5

So, I've got a few things I want to transfer into mylar bags (rice & oats), and I grabbed resealable mylar bags, but with my vacuum sealer, they are being a massive PITA to vacuum and heat seal. The problem is that the internal little zipper on the bags are being compressed to seal when I go to vacuum seal them, so no air can be pulled out.

I like the resealable bags, especially for things like rice. I can fit about 2lbs of oats in a single bag, and rice can hold about the same. I doubt I would use an entire bag in a single meal or even day (or couple of days), so being able to zip them closed to protect the contents is nice. If I'm putting the appropriate amount of O2 absorbers in the bags, manually squeezing out as much air as I can, and heat sealing them, would that be sufficient to keep them preserved?

Please use this thread to discuss whatever preps you worked on this week. Even the small things count, so please don't hesitate to comment. Others might get inspired to work on their preps by reading about yours!

I noticed that the latest 1 gallon bottle of Crystal Geyser springwater had a particular smell to it, something like the "forest floor" is the closest description I can think of, but maybe it's also a bit of an algae smell, I'm not sure. I usually drink this as my everyday water, since although we have an RO filter under the sink, I just like how springwater tastes. However I'm not liking this slightly funky experience I'm getting with the latest bottles.

So the questions are:

1. Does anybody else use bottled water like Crystal Geyser, and notice this smell?
2. Do you know if Crystal Geyser actually filters the water before bottling it? They say "bottled at the source", but what about filtering?
3. Does anybody filter such bottled water through your own countertop filter? I'm thinking about maybe breaking out the Katadyn Gravidyn gravity filter, since it has activated carbon that should improve the taste, but not sure if that would just be silly, or what.
4. Are there any dangers of microplastics and other contaminants in these bottled springwaters? Should I be filtering it anyway, just on general principle, or are these generally seen as being pretty "pure" due to the source?

Hello r/preppers! I bought a 25 lb bag of oat groats yesterday from the local granary, and I'll be going through it in about six to nine months.

I want to make sure I don't get weevils—my plan is to throw it into a 5-gallon food grade bucket and mix in some food grade diatomaceous earth. Will this be sufficient to prevent bugs on that timescale?

Thanks in advance! Hope everyone is having a great November.

Hey! Give me a sanity check on this.

TL;DR: If i can carry only one larger tool in my car/BOB/GHB/INCH bag to cover the most bases, it seems that a Cold Steel shovel might be my best bet in a (VERY) tightly regulated country. Sent it could also be used as a decent last-resort self defense weapon that's still non-threatening when strapped to a belt or pack in public.

I live in Northern Europe with really strict laws on not only firearms but also all weapons. Knife and weapon laws here are deliberately unspecific without many "legal safe harbours" such as blade length. Carrying anything that could easily be used as a weapon in public places (e.g. a knife or hatchet) without a rock solid justification (e.g. a carpenter on his way home from work) could potentially land you in major legal trouble if you're involved in an altercation, even involuntarily so.

I'm planning for multiple Bug out or get home scenarios, potentially from my car. Situation could either be mundane or really bleak. The gear needs to work for non-SHTF scenario, but even in an INCH scenario I'm thinking "what would I want on my person if my family and i end up on foot?". Environment is likely to be urban at first, rural woodland second. My needs would be survival until we reach shelter, but also some last-ditch self defense or deterrence if absolutely necessary.

Seems to me that something like the smaller Cold steel shovel might be the best fit. Here's my reasoning:

• I can realistically only carry one or two "larger" tools. Carrying capacity is severely limited if I'm bugging out with family and we end up on foot.
• It Digs, chops, and bashes decently. Firewood, tent pegs in hard ground, catholes, and snow all manageable if not quite ideally so. Could still do serious damage as a weapon.
• I want to invest in gear that's useful even in non-prepper applications.
• Firearms are completely off the table. Axes, knives and even most multitools are only available if I originate from home, for legal reasons.
• I don't currently have a shovel in my car, and we get snow here, giving a solid justification and covering multiple likely use cases.
• Non-threatening even when carried openly (sheathed to not show edges) and might not be considered a weapon by law enforcement (provided it's not used as one) since it would be pretty unorthodox to do so.
• If swung or thrusted with enough speed and aggression, it could suddenly become far more threatening, especially if landing even a minor hit.
• Has some reach advantage over knives but also works in very tight quarters. May be faster if facing someone with a bat. I'm considering fashioning a slightly longer handle as the larger trench shovel doesn't come with a sheath.
• Against a single opponent, I'd rather have longer reach and keep distance, but against more than one I figure surprise, aggression and quick incapacitation/deterrence followed by attempted escape is best.

Thoughts or suggestions?

Edit: https://www.coldsteel.com/special-forces-shovel/

Edit 2: I'm in scandinavia. Any object used as a weapon is likely to land you with aggravated assault, even in self defense. My concern is primarily with possession in case of open carry or search (even bystanders or victims of a crime can get searched and possibly charged).

Edit 3: Large tools would of course be less prioritized than basic necessities of food, water, and shelter. 😉

The Delta 2 with an extra battery is $400 less on Amazon right now and the packages have the same capacity. Is there any reason why I shouldn’t buy the cheaper of the two?

“There was no currency. The Yugoslav dinar had collapsed. 75 percent of the workforce was unemployed, [and] those who worked were unpaid. In Sarajevo, the only factories that operated throughout the war were the brewery and the cigarette factory. There was no malt, so the [brewery] produced an anemic brew from rice and served as a water collection point. It was the Drina cigarette company that was a mainstay of the tottering economy. Drina cigarettes quickly became the basic unit of currency. The shortage of paper was so critical that cigarette packages were wrapped in the pages of discarded books, often printed in the disfavored Cyrillic alphabet. With no money to pay salaries, the Bosnian government distributed cigarettes instead.”

“Prices fluctuated wildly, depending on the grip of the siege. By the second winter of the war, one egg cost the equivalent of $3. Almost all food products for sale were humanitarian aid products flown in on the UN airlift. A can of herring in tomato sauce was labeled ‘Gift of the Federal Republic of Germany.’ The store that the United Nations ran for its own staff was a source of smuggled goods. Sarajevans [stared] with sad eyes at the box of chocolate chip cookies offered for $11 at the market when the same cookies were sold for just $2 at the UN store. The trade conducted at the public market was technically illegal. Police swept through several times per day, and vendors would simply tuck their wares under their winter coats. [One woman] tried to sell her single can of margarine for $35.”

“[During the ceasefire, one family] started working in their garden [for the first time in two years. The husband] ripped out some of the rosebushes to plant lettuce. He also removed the cobblestoned driveway that led to the garage out back. It seemed unlikely that they would be able to afford gasoline to take out their Volkswagen Jetta anytime soon, so they figured the precious space could be used to grow carrots, squash, cabbage, beans, and spinach. ‘There is no other way we’ll ever get to eat a green vegetable,’ he explained.”

“[One of the residents of Logavina Street] demonstrated the system she had developed for keeping things clean. If one of her boys didn’t finish a glass of water, she would pour the remains onto a sponge to wipe off the kitchen table or a counter. She washed the dishes over a bucket, instead of the sink, so that the rinse water wasn’t wasted. She saved the dirty water in a bucket to flush the toilet.”

“Bathing was challenging. [One woman] would warm water in a big spaghetti pot over the wood burning stove. She and her husband took turns pouring the water over one another for an improvised shower. The laundry, too, was boiled in the same big pot on the stove, the only way to be sure of getting it clean. She also ironed, despite the lack of electricity. She simply heated her electric iron on top of the stove.”3w

“All along Logavina Street makeshift aluminum stoves were devouring people’s possessions. [One resident] burned her summer sandals, the slipcover of an armchair, the clothing her teenage children had outgrown, and their old schoolbooks. [Another] had chopped down a cherry tree from his garden and was resisting pleas from his son and wife to tear up the parquet floors. [A married couple] were among the few families on Logavina who had real firewood to burn. Their son had carried it home from the front lines. But he had contracted hepatitis and couldn’t provide more wood, so [his father] was eyeing the toolshed in the backyard. The household items that were easiest to burn - the bookcases and cupboards - had gone up in smoke long ago. The temperature in the average Sarajevo home was 40 degrees - about the same as a refrigerator - and people worried that they would die of hypothermia.”

“[A man who had once been one of the wealthiest in town] was rising at 5 am to scour the dumps for burnable garbage. He had to go early because the competition for the best pickings was fierce. [One day] he scored big: a broken plastic garbage pail. ‘See how it burns. So fast, like gasoline,’ he boasted. ‘It’s so cold I have to sleep with a hat on,’ [his daughter] whispered, not wanting to offend her father.”

“The neighbors on Logavina quarreled more frequently. Jealousy was rife, especially when it came to utilities. One family was using enough stolen electricity to illuminate a 25 watt lamp. Each time they heard steps in the hallway, they guiltily unscrewed the pathetic little light bulb, lest anyone discover their secret. ‘A lot has changed,’ [a resident] said. ‘People have changed. They’ve withdrawn into themselves. They are not as social as they were. They are just surviving.’ They were less inclined to invite neighbors for coffee [because] it took twenty minutes’ worth of precious firewood to boil the water. People were stressed and nervous. Some admitted they were taking tranquilizers. Eccentric characters were spotted on the street. ‘I think there are a lot of people who went insane out of fear,’ [a resident] said. ‘You can tell, they’ll burst out laughing at strange times, or else start crying.’”

“The randomness of the violence made people obsessed with fate and destiny. Superstition raged out of control. The old women read fortunes in the muddy grounds at the bottom of coffee cups. A popular telephone psychic rendered predictions about which days were better to stay inside and when the electricity might pop on. Everybody had an amulet against danger.”

“[On Christmas Day 1993 at 9 am, fourteen year old Mirza Kapic] gave the cease fire its first road test. He wanted to surprise his parents and bring home some firewood. They were tired of burning garbage. Mirza borrowed two sleds and took a saw from his garage. He was joined by his friend. Proceeding straight uphill from Logavina, the boys hiked about two miles [to the front line], but there weren’t any trees left. The boys disregarded the Bosnian soldiers, who were yelling at them to watch out for land mines. They ran to the biggest tree they thought they could handle. It was almost down when the bullets started dancing through the trees, showering the boys with pine needles. ‘I was so scared, I left the sleds and the saw. I rolled all the way down the mountain,” Mirza admitted later with embarrassment.”

These excerpts are from Logavina Street: Life and Death in a Sarajevo Neighborhood by Barbara Demick, if you want to read more. It's a very good read for fans of Selco or Ferfal, well written and insightful, and focuses on the personal lives of the residents of a single street during the war. If you've ever wondered how you and your neighbors would fare in an economic collapse or urban/ethnic war situation, this book is a great place to start.

Hello Everyone, Not sure if this has been posted already, but this is a link to some very useful medical guides:

​

https://hesperian.org/books-and-resources/

So we just bought a house in a rural area. We are on well water for the first time, preliminary water tests came back with coliform bacteria. We have toddlers. I just need some advice on a countertop system to give my family some peace of mind while we get a better permanent whole home filter installed.

I know the type of filter depends on what’s in your water, lets just say i’m most worried about bacteria and virus contamination (the well is also questionably close to a septic system which we are also having fixed).

I went down the rabbit hole of RO but then read that it makes water so pure that it’s bad for you? Wondering if something like zero-water pitcher or this Aquatru system with the re-mineralization filter would work? I don’t see anything on their site about removing bacteria.

Is there any similar UV type with prefilters in a “keurig” style dispenser?

HAM, DRM, GRMS - which of type radio.. They all seem to have some or alot of front to use and understand.

Likely the wrong community to ask, but I’m a disaster response civil engineer, so I travel a lot in a truck to respond to domestic natural disasters. I always keep and abundance of water with me, but I have 6 nalgene liter water bottles with me as well as an extra reserve in case I get stuck in an environment. I filled my nalgenes up in July, and have not refilled them since. The bottles stay in my truck 24/7. Is the water still good to drink or is there a time limit to how long it will stay good.