Are we talking local disaster? Or ‘comet-hitting-the-earth-obliterating-the-dinosaurs-style’ Armageddon?
Ahhhhh. I read a book a few years ago called “Life as we Knew it”. A large asteroid hits the moon and puts it slightly out of whack. Slightly, but enough to cause lots of trouble!
Don’t read this book! You will become temporarily obsessed with creating a cache of food and water.
Probably about 6-8 months, although in the last month we’d be eating a lot of things like canned pumpkin, cocktail sauce, and those icky freeze-dried “meals” from our camping supplies. I guess we’d probably be able to scrounge up another week or two of only marginal food such as the bolted lettuce in our garden or the decorator icing in the baking supplies. We have a generator that would take us through a short-term disaster.
In the event of a long-term disruption, if we could we’d pack all that food up and head to our second home the next state over where we have a house with an old-fashioned hand-pump linked to a spring-fed well, an orchard, a very efficient wood stove with a year’s supply of wood, a ton of tools, and lots of land to work and hunt.
N.b., in the event of a disaster you can turn off the water supply to your water heater (so it doesn’t become corrupted) and drink the water in your heater. If you have the large capacity style it’ll last a family at least a week.
LOL, we are new empty nesters, but my husband (who grew up in a blended family where there were 6 teenaged boys at once) seems to be having difficulty with the concept that we are NOT the parents of a football team. He loves grocery shopping and cooking. And he loves Costco.
I believe we might be eating some very weird meals but could probably survive for six months on the Mini-Costco of supplies that is our basement.
I dream of a day when I stare at empty shelves in the pantry and say, “There is literally nothing to eat in this house.”
I have given this thought on several occasions. It isn’t so much about the food , but how to prepare the food in the event of a catastrophe. Having gone thru Sandy a few years ago, I think about living without power for an extended period of time. I am not sure I would stockpile food if the situation was a national disaster on a large scale…also not sure I would want to if things were that dire
I could survive on my wine for quite a long time. We’re eating our supplies right now to get ready to move.
I’d say usually we have food for 6 months and enough water for 2. We also have a whole house generator and a big garden. I jar or freeze the veggies from my garden and make all kinds of things going from my fruit trees.
I don’t think zombies are coming and if a nuclear explosion happens I hope I’m in the first wave. I have low thyroid, without medicine I probably wouldn’t make it long term.
I own a business and there have been times when we haven’t paid ourselves for months. I never want to worry about having enough to feed the family.
I don’t buy gigantic sizes of things just extra of what we use. By using coupons and watching sales we end up saving money.
We also belong to a restaurant supply store and with hubby bring a butcher in college we freeze a lot of meat.
That’s a good marriage! If there’s an apocalypse, he can bring down the wild boar and carve it up.
When you live in southern Florida you do tend to worry about hurricanes knocking out power for days or weeks at a time. It is a real pain. And there’s nothing like a pre-hurricane rush on the grocery store to quickly spot the deficiencies in your food and water supplies.
I wish I had learned some of the skills that my mom and grandma knew, like canning. And my dad always had (and still has) a beautiful garden that would produce more tomatoes and cucumbers than we could eat. We used to give away paper bags full of them. I wouldn’t know the first thing about starting or maintaining a garden. And my dad did all that while he was (and still is) in top management and an executive at his company, so it wasn’t like he had tons of time on his hands. He just grew up in a generation that worked, and knew how to do stuff.
So many of these practical skills are lost to my generation and the next (Gen X and millenials) though there does seem to be a bit of a turn back to it.
When the zombie apocalypse comes our problem will be that we have a lot of resources (see post #62) but not a lot of skills. Luckily we have a relative who knows how to slaughter animals and do metal work, another who knows plant science, some teenagers who’ve already researched how they’ll protect us all and a couple of others with various skills. We’re starting a family commune and inviting the farmer down the hill. Those zombies won’t stand a chance. 
Earthquake zone:
For water, we have hiker filter bottles that will supply several thousand liters of clean water, as long as we can get dirty water (neighbors with pools, etc.). We also have about ten gallons of clean water. We have a lot of wine and several pounds of nuts at all times. Most of the year, there is something edible in the vegetable garden, starting with lettuce in February, moving into fruit tree and tomato season, and finishing with potatoes around November. There’s always extra dog food in the garage, as well as “hiker food” (protein bars, etc.) (we buy several boxes at a time). There are closed dry containers of toilet paper, wipes, and plastic bags. The gas grill has an extra canister. The tent, sleeping bags, sleeping pads, and extra dog crates are stored in a small shed, not in the house. Cars get filled at 1/2 empty. Each car has a first aid kit. I keep extra clothing and rain gear in my car, including extra shoes.
My favorite genre of books is Post-Apocalyptic fiction. The only thing I know for certain about the apocalypse is that I don’t want to live through it. Such a depressing world!
It seems easiest to just go with that first wave. Let the young ones fight it out.
@SouthFloridaMom9 - here’s a link to your local cooperative extension. Every state has one! They usually have free or cheap classes in canning, veggie growing, etc. Feed yourself, not the zombies…
I worry most about the water and fuel. I felt better when I had a 15,000 gallon pool. Mom is within walking distance and has enough home-canned food for months and a full-freezer (maybe last a week before going bad?). We have 10 acres of woods (fire for food prep/heating in emergency), a large garden, livestock, ammo, know how to butcher, 100 acres of field corn.
Water table is 15’ my house, 9’ at my mom’s. Our electricity almost never goes out, but I do fill the tub during blizzards. We got very good at LP gas conservation during the shortage/winter of 2014. We would also have plenty of toilet paper, 1st aid, and medicine on hand.
Both! Every day is “Anything Can Happen Day.” If you make an effort to just have a little bit of extra food on hand, say some canned goods, some rice, beans, an extra bag of sugar and flour, and an extra bottle of cooking oil, you are “preparing” for a disaster. Of course, the more food you have, the better.
A “disaster” could be three days, three weeks, three months, or several years. One could “prepare” for anything, but I’ve chosen to try to try to have two or three months worth of food on hand. In a long-term disaster some outside food is likely to be available, so a three-month supply of food is likely to last five or six months.
Everyone makes a big production about the need to “cook” the food. Has no one ever been camping? Doesn’t no one have a grill, or Sterno, etc.?
I mentioned that I actually save money by buying non-perishable items on sale, so “preparing” costs me nothing. But there is a tendency to fail to factor in “black swan” events, including things like a disaster that would require plenty of food in the pantry. These events happen very rarely, but when the do the results can be catastrophic.
I have a camping Coleman stove and fuel (but only one can). And a water filter. I do have a small bag of various types of vegetable seeds in a dry, cool place, too.
I have 500 packet of seeds. I’ll bet I get unlimited squashes.
I have been meaning to stock up on cans of food, but have never gotten around to it. The supply chain is very fragilel depends almost entirely on trucks. It is very easy to imagine a natural or manmade disaster that disrupts this supply chain and supermarket shelves would go empty immediately. Heck, that happens when they forecast a snow storm around here. I think it’s a good idea to have a few weeks worth of food and water. I just haven’t done it yet.
I think how well you can weather a disaster also depends on where you live, how connected you are to the people around you, and what resources they have available to them. During Hurricane Katrina one of the reasons some people didn’t evacuate was that they simply didn’t have the resources to do it. There were pockets of the 9th Ward where few people had cars or the ability to borrow them.
I live in a resource-rich area, with grocery stores, pharmacies, hardware stores, gas stations and farms all within an easy walk. I also have friends, neighbors and relatives willing to pool resources. I have a generator. and camping supplies. My neighbor across the street has chickens, next door has an extensive garden and my brother a few blocks away has a pool and lots of firewood. Put us all together and we could be comfortable for quite a while.
We could go many months on the food I have put up. I enjoy gardening, canning and dehydrating foods. We have a gas stove, a generator and lots of camping supplies. In addition to having bottled water we are within walking distance of 2 lakes.
Come hurricanes or zombies we will be ok for longer than most. 