Resolve to be Ready...Make a Plan NOW!

Practice

  Habbits take a few weeks to form so practice pandemic preps.

 Carry a few flyers. One with Pandemicflu.gov, OSHA workforce rules and Depart of Education

 Carry another flyer with WHO graph adn current case

 GetReady.org adn other websites like Newfluwiki2.com

Kobie

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by: Kobie @ Sat Dec 13, 2008 at 02:08:01 AM UTC

Testing, testing, testing 1...2...3....4..

  Being prepred - make a plan.

 Many have - now test.

 Test your plan as a few here have.

 If you have tested your plan, test it again to keep your skills up.

 From tying simple knots, to making home made bread to driving an escape route and alternate escape route. Living by flash light.

KObie

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by: Kobie @ Sun Dec 14, 2008 at 13:08:39 PM UTC

Real Life Test

Due to a serious illness in my family I had to live off my preps for over a month.  One thing I learned is I do not have enough food.  I was surprised how much food we really go through in a month.  I have upped my lists as to how much I really need to have on hand and am planning on getting my ducks in a row to order more long term food.

My advice folks is if you think you have enough food purchase double what you think you need and you may have enough to get you through your time frame.

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by: FluMom @ Mon Dec 15, 2008 at 06:19:19 AM UTC

Food Supplies

I'm attending a class sponsored by the military dealing with emergency situations.  

We had a round robin discussion today about food storage and available supplies.  

(1) Increase your calorie count to a minimum of 2500 per day per person

Did you know:  That our society (USA) has a 3 day on-hand  supplies of food and meds.  

Did you know:  That in the 1950's 60 + percent of families had food storage of over 3 months with home canning being the number one storage solution. Today it is about 3 percent.

Did you know:  That after the water fails. People have always moved within day; away from stricken areas to those areas with ready supplies.

Did you know:  That if this pandemic starts as predicted most of our world population will move away from the cities, into the open country, thus causing those areas to fail also.  

Did you know:  The numbers of dead; have been adjusted by the Government to keep you from panicking.  Panic buying will close stores within a day or so!  

Just look at the stores once a major hurricane happens here in Florida.

  No warning - no way to fight - no way to win!  
We need help in our local communities to survive. Remember that quote:    "...No man is an island..."

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by: RICHARD-FL @ Mon Dec 15, 2008 at 21:10:32 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Of meds and water

Richard-FL,

  The 30 day supply of food in the 1960's - did not know. I grew up with a full pantry. I'm sad the lessons of the 1930's seem to be lost.

 The moving of people within one day suprises me.

 Just 3 days of supplies on hand - hmm, less than I thought.

 The rest is no suprise.

  I hope others know it, take head and prepare.

  Thank you for sharing.

Kobie

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by: Kobie @ Tue Dec 16, 2008 at 03:04:07 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

Fall-out shelters were stocked

Not a lot of folks remember the "fall-out shelters" of the early sixties...those holes in the ground, covered with dirt, that were going to save mankind in the event of a nuclear exchange with another country.
Well, in Southern California, many people had them installed in their backyards, much the same way as many mid-westerners had tornado shelters installed underground. I had an aunt and uncle in Los Angeles with a fall-out shelter. It was stocked with what they said was a weeks' worth of dried food...and as a kid I used to use it as my "fort" when we visited them.
I remember that it was stocked with not only food, but kerosene, a stove, canned goods, blankets, all the things that we now talk about to survive a pandemic.
Whatever happened to that 'survival' mentality? I believe it became a victim of our JIT system...if you need something nowadays, all you have to do is drive your SUV to the mega-grocer and if they don't have what you want, they can have it tomorrow. No worries about 'stocking up' anymore...

Bad thinking.

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by: Bronco Bill @ Tue Dec 16, 2008 at 03:14:30 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

'I feel your pain"

Bronco Bill,

 Sigh, Only by soaring so high could we fall so far.

 With all the plagues, cold war, Y2K, and technology and 9/11 and Katrina I expect us to be much further along.

 I just do not understand. It is not just survivability but resiliance to "Take a licking and keep on ticking"

 To run like a Swiss watch through the mud and rough times.

 I no longer totalay falt JIT - that is just a public point of failure. Why? so many have prepped at home because of JIT system.

 To all the 300,000 or so suffering in the cold in the North East who wish they where prepared band together.

 To the 300 million who just may suffer during the pandemic: this posts for you. I've told you, I spread the word. It is not secret: its up to them to head it.

 Still there is not even a quantum of solace.

Kobie

 

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by: Kobie @ Tue Dec 16, 2008 at 13:50:39 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Fallout shelters in the early '60s: Blast from the Past film has a beauty!

Wealthy businessman Christopher Walken had food for 35 years!  It's funny and inspiring (if envy-inducing).  I don't remember how he produced electricity, though.

"The truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it."  Flannery O'Connor

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by: Jane @ Tue Dec 16, 2008 at 16:35:30 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

How did he keep the lights on

Hydro  (water power) an underground river.....

Still watch that movie once a year!

RICH-FL

  No warning - no way to fight - no way to win!  
We need help in our local communities to survive. Remember that quote:    "...No man is an island..."

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by: RICHARD-FL @ Wed Dec 17, 2008 at 00:10:29 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

Fallout Shelters

Do you remember that in the 1980's all food goods were removed from those shelters to feed the poor!  It started in NY City.

Now all a fall out shelter SIGN is pointing to the basement of most buildings with no supplies. Take a look at your county owned building see if I'm not right.  They will become death traps. So stay away from them.

To build one ON YOUR LAND:

(1) you need permission from the local county.

(2) They will keep your plans on file.

(3) Anyone can view those plans for $$$.

(4) It will cost you a lot of money in todays world.

RICH-FL  

  No warning - no way to fight - no way to win!  
We need help in our local communities to survive. Remember that quote:    "...No man is an island..."

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by: RICHARD-FL @ Mon Dec 22, 2008 at 23:24:35 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Fallout Shelters

Would always have been death traps.

(At least they would have saved a lot of bodies having to be buried - they would have buried themselves pre-event.)

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by: Clawdia @ Tue Dec 23, 2008 at 05:31:41 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

Supermarket stocks

I work at a large supermarket in suburban Detroit.  We have semis arriving every day but Christmas Day.  We have a very small stock room, what arrived today will be put out before the sun rises tomorrow.  If you don't believe how thin stocks are at a grocery store, go to your local store about an hour before closing on Sunday night.

Yesterday we had no white bread and very little of the "better" varieties, and our bread aisle is 50 feet long and the shelf are six feet high and two feet deep and had been filled by the overnight shift Sat/Sun.  Yogurt and chips were equally devastated.  And this was a normal week and these were just the things I noticed while going after a gallon of skim milk, which we were also out of.  I had to get 1% as we were also out of 1/2%.  I asked the dairy manager if this was normal, and he said that we cannot keep the coolers filled on Sunday, even though we get a semi of milk on Sat.  And this is during a run of the mill Sunday, without a snowstorm or panicked parents trying to buy 2+ weeks of food for their families.

About a fifth of our customers come into the store on a daily basis to buy what they need for that day.  There is a Sam's and a Costco withing 2 blocks of our store and 3 competing traditional grocery stores within a mile and a Super Walmart within 5 miles, so it's not like we are the only food store nearby.  And we still can't keep bread and milk in stock.  Just imagine...

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by: Dragonlady @ Tue Dec 16, 2008 at 03:27:43 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

There are options in plane sight

DragonLady,

 Thanks for you post. "There is a Sam's and a Costco withing 2 blocks of our store" its not like there are not options.

 Prepping is cost effective.

 I just do not understand.

Kobie

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by: Kobie @ Tue Dec 16, 2008 at 13:52:24 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Kobie -- I believe Dargonlady's point...

...is that, even with what you term "other options", the stores cannot keep supplies on hand. All stores use the JIT system...it's less expensive both in warehousing goods and real estate lease costs. So, if one store runs out, the next store will run out shortly after, and so on and so on...down the line.
As items are scanned at the checkout lines for multiple customers, those beeps you hear are letting the computer know that inventory is down by that particular item. At a preset point, that item is then ordered online by the computer and shipped "Just In Time" to restock the shelves before they're emptied.
This goes on not just at the Piggly-Wiggly down the street, but also at Wal-Mart, Sam's Club, Costco, PayLess, Safeway, Albertson's, Farm Fresh, UKrop's, etc. Every day all day.  

Hundreds of thousands of orders are placed every day with no human intervention.  So,  

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by: Bronco Bill @ Tue Dec 16, 2008 at 18:20:37 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

I completely agree with dragon lady

You may recall I told you-all about this a few years back and I still hold with that. - Dragon lady is right on.  I'd be surprised if it took a whole day to clean out every store and I predict it will be very very ugly.

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by: cinda @ Tue Dec 16, 2008 at 19:00:29 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Missed the point

BroncoBill,

 Hmm, Sams with empty shelves - shudder!!

 Yea I missed the point. I read it as there where wharehouse stores to buy food in bulk v.s. "single serve entre'" isle.

 I wanted to make the point that even with JIT delivery people can stock up. We did decades before CostCo, PriceClub or Sams.

 Hundreds of orders being placed, So who delivers them?

 (delivers from the producer not just the wharehouse)

 If the farmer or producer is not pandemic prepped and running then there is nothing to ship.

 Thanks.

Kobie

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by: Kobie @ Tue Dec 16, 2008 at 21:58:23 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Warehousing of goods

Within 5 miles pf where I type is the major warehousing site for a major food chain here in the south.  "Owner also owns the Jags football team."  

They have continue shipments via ship, trucks, and trains 24 hours a day.  They do not hold many items more then a day or two before shipping it out to the stores.

The only ones who have a supply of goods would be the producers.

Another problem brought up in my training; The ability of people to produce food (baking and cooking) from basic food items.  

When was the last time you made mustard or ketchup?  

I have the recipe for Ketchup it anyone wants it.

RICH-FL

  No warning - no way to fight - no way to win!  
We need help in our local communities to survive. Remember that quote:    "...No man is an island..."

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by: RICHARD-FL @ Wed Dec 17, 2008 at 00:19:47 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

If you missed that point . . .

It's a great example of how many people are missing the whole concept.  It's not just that the small stores don't have lots of inventory - it's that NOBODY has lots of inventory.  It doesn't exist.  After the goods are created, they are sent somewhere, sold, and then there is no more until another shipment arrives.  Even the places where the shipments originate aren't full of inventory - they're waystations on the pathway from being made to being sold.

The whole point all along has been that with the JIT delivery system, there really would be nothing to ship in the event of pandemic.  That's what is so difficult to deal with - there's no solution to the problem anywhere to be seen, either, other than for individuals to store as much of what they might need as possible.

Nobody is going to do it for them.  The way the system exists, nobody can do it for them - or for you.

It has nothing to do with whether you go to the corner rip-off market or to the mega-store.  That's never been any part of the problem.  The problem is that there will be nowhere to go to get what you need.

You either have it already, or you do without.

Why else do you think people like me have been talking about storing not days worth of things, not weeks worth, but months and, if possible, years worth of stuff?

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by: Clawdia @ Wed Dec 17, 2008 at 00:34:53 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

Exactly! The time to stock up is BEFORE trouble hits

Not when it hits. Better to do it now while you can do it easily than to wait until you see a problem arriving.

I agree that the interesting thing is that it ends up costing less, because prices tend to go up. That can of beans you bought 6 months ago probably cost you less than a can you might buy today, so you actually spend less by keeping ahead on food. We have found it really helpful when we get tight on money to have a supply around. We can coast for a while if we need to do so.

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by: mountainlady @ Tue Dec 23, 2008 at 07:23:21 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

When passing out pandemic information include a contact email or number

  Something I'm always fogetting to do is put an email address or contact number on the pandemic information I hand out.

 Make as easy as possible for people to get started and see this is a labor of love not profit.

 It is them that is important.

 Just a few thoughts.

Kobie

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by: Kobie @ Tue Dec 16, 2008 at 03:06:49 AM UTC

Start walking

  Ok, we still have New year's party but after that when all the cookies and chese cake is gone from the plate it will still be with us ;-)

 Start walking.

 During and after a pandemic the use of feet and bikes to get around may be more prevelent. Yes I heard that oil may hit $25 a barrallel in 2009 but what happens when the oil producing countries cut production because 30% of their workforce is sick and another 30% is too scareed or busy to come to work.

 Besides it will get you in shape.

 Start walking.

Kobie
"No calories where harmed during the filming of this PSA"

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by: Kobie @ Fri Dec 26, 2008 at 20:59:49 PM UTC