# Pandemic Scenario



## trikey (Nov 8, 2012)

For this scenario lets say its winter and there is a lot of snow on the roads. Its been two months since you decided to bug in. The only communication you have heard on the radio is a emergency broadcast that is the same message you have heard for two weeks. You know that there was reports of many people in your area and other areas near by that were infected. You had enough food and water for the family in your home for 6 months but had other relatives come to your house in the beginning when they started quarantining cities in your state. So you are almost completely out of food and water. You need to do something soon. The roads make driving very difficult and if you were to get stuck you would lose your only transportation. there is two local grocery stores within 8 miles and three gas stations. The area is rural and isolated from any large cities. You are armed with whatever your preps include except food and water because you have a week of food and water left. What would you do?


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## kejmack (May 17, 2011)

If the only message I'm getting on the radio is the Emergency Broadcast System message playing over and over again, then I'm not leaving the house. WHY do you think there is any food left at the store? Don't you think it was cleaned out weeks ago? Look at the way people act when snow is predicted...they converge on the stores. Even if you run out of food completely, it takes a long time to starve. You can melt snow for water, duh!

Secondly, the main part of my prepping involves being self-sufficient. I have a garden and livestock to sustain me. I never get below a full year's worth of preps AND I include preps for extra people in my planning. 

Lastly, I live in a part of Texas where it doesn't snow. If it did snow, I would know that hell has literally frozen over! LOL


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## trikey (Nov 8, 2012)

I know the stores would be out of food. I put that into the mix just to make this scenario a little more detailed. Wouldn't you rather leave now in search of food while you still had some instead of starving and then looking and possibly never find any?? Texas still gets to cold to farm in the winter correct? So, even if spring came around right away it still takes weeks to get any food to eat. I am up north so we get plenty of snow ha. How many extra people do you prep for? Your entire family? kids brothers sisters cousins mom dad? How about when your best friend starts knocking on the door or when the people you prep for bring more people? Would you tell them no leave? What if they don't leave?


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## kejmack (May 17, 2011)

This part of Texas does not get too cold. I'm currently eating lettuce, carrots, broccoli, spinach, etc that I planted in the fall. I have chickens for eggs and meat. My garden produces year round here. That is one of the reasons I chose to live here. Isn't being self-sufficient the Holy Grail of prepping? So, food is not an issue for me. 

And as for extra people, I prep for the ones that MIGHT be able to get here...about 10 people. Most of my family lives 2000 miles away. PLUS, all four of my sisters and my parents are preppers. They would not need to depend on me because they have their own preps. AND, I have gotten several families on my road "converted" to prepping so they will not be a burden. My best friend already has her preps stored in my garage because this is her BOL. 

I don't know why you got so offended over my answer. YOU posted a scenario and I answered it. Geez.

The answer to your question is as I said, I'm not leaving the house.


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## trikey (Nov 8, 2012)

I didnt get offended its just some people dont think of these things. Plus I am a little jealous hah. not everyone here is as fortunate as you.


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## Padre (Oct 7, 2011)

Two months into a pandemic and isolated by snow its likely that the bug had died out.

Unless you are set up to produce food, running out of food in the middle of the winter leaves you two options get some or die. 

To be safe I would secure and wear a respirator of some kind. I have some old Israeli masks from the late 90s, which I am not sure still work, but even if you just go to your local hardware store to find the most fine face mask filter you can find, whatever you can do will help, this includes gloves and aprons if available. I would also develop a procedure for decon, and possibly isolation, after I return.

I would then check the stores keeping in mind that there always could be some stores left stocked because of the quickness of the die out. 

Then restaurants, nursing home, hospitals, and the like. Finally I would check out unoccupied homes.


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## farright (Mar 25, 2010)

if its a pandemic no one is getting in in the first place but wife and kids. If we needed food i would jump in truck and go shoot a deer or mabe a cow if thats what was what i found wouldnt go to town thats 15miles away if phone available would have fuel brought in if possable if not i would get tools and brass fittings together go to the elevator and try to get propane out of that tank theres got to be a way anything is possable and when i was there stock up on grain also check on the older people in town to make sure they didnt need anything i assume my town of 150 people is safe just stay out of the big towns/citys.


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## trikey (Nov 8, 2012)

I have a new U.S. military gas mask a friend gave me and it has several filters. I would imagine if you didn't come across any bodies that you would have a low chance of becoming infected, Traveling into homes would be the highest chance of infection I would think. But if it is your last choice then that's what it has to be. Bleach would be a good friend in the case of a pandemic. Would you travel alone or bring someone? Would you set up a second place nearby to have a decontamination procedure for you and the food containers? I have plans to avoid running out of food in the winter but you have to think about the unexpected before they happen.


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## OHprepper (Feb 21, 2012)

Wintertime huh? Well, the chickens get lazy in the winter so i suppose i would have to use preps and shoot squirrels. I would probably also have to eat some of the tasty checkered giants...and if i stayed on top of breeding i would soon be floating in rabbits.


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## cowboyhermit (Nov 10, 2012)

I have a very different situation, except the snow, lots of that.
If I had a limited supply of food and water and I took people in they would not be sitting on their backsides. Immediately if things are bad enough to bug in and have people showing up on our door I would start gathering extra resources. In a rural area as mentioned there are all kinds of animals and foods available, trapping is MUCH better in the snow/winter. Gathering and preparing firewood, snaring small game, butchering animals, melting snow, there is a lot to do.


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## lazydaisy67 (Nov 24, 2011)

I wouldn't be opening my door to anybody who wanted to squat at my pad, sorry. I have food for my immediate family only. We have horses for transportation so going to the neighbor's pasture to shoot a cow would be on the list for sure. If there's a very quick and very massive die off, the animals would be starving pretty quickly so l'd think you'd want to spend as much time as you possibly could butchering the hogs in the confinement houses and the cows in the pastures or feed lots. Winter up here where it's cold would be a pretty good time for butchering too. I'd also try to figure out how to keep a breeding pair of each. Now, anybody else surviving the pandemic would probably be thinking the same things so you'd have to either get along with them and cooperate or be prepared to battle it out.


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## CrackbottomLouis (May 20, 2012)

Fill spray bottle with strong bleach solution. Cover one room with outdoor window with trashbags and tape including door and vents. Get into my mop suit and mask. Go hunting and search homes for those that died of plague before they ate food. Check food supply warehouses. Use big red three wheeler with small trailer for travel. Reenter into quarantined room through window after generous application of bleach solution to all surfaces including me. Quarantine myself and new goods until the food is absolutely needed. One week depending on received info on pathogen. Incubation period info would likely have been passed on in alerts. Rinse and repeat as needed.


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## Woody (Nov 11, 2008)

As soon as I knew the situation was that dire I would have started the greenhouse. Be it the first day or a week after I lost communications. It would be different than the one I plan on for a situation, this one would have to be attached to the house so I could heat it. The first plan calls for just extending the season, not creating a year round greenhouse. Two months is long enough to get some greens, radishes and the like, enough to get by. Yes, I KNOW how much of the rabbit food you have to eat to feel full!!! But, it would have supplemented my stores and help stretch them. I would also be ready to start transplants for as early as possible. I have more plastic to cover rows with.

Not the ideal location, SW side of the house but that is the room I would have blocked off to heat, let the others all go cold. Leave the big window open and put the small 12V fan there to circulate. I could even have a second one on the NE side of the house and move some of the plants between them. Heck it is winter and that would give me something to do besides sit around and worry.

As far as the stores, I would not venture out, I’m staying put. I can make do with all I have, planned it that way. Sure, I could always use more but what I don’t have I can find or make something to work instead. You would be surprised at how multi-functional many things are. I would have to think really hard about letting in anyone, seeing as it is a pandemic situation. I would not want to infect my home. I would most likely pretend to have signs of whatever it is so they would go away. I would also ask them if they knew anywhere where I could get food and water. I have not had anything to eat except cardboard for a week now.


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## cowboyhermit (Nov 10, 2012)

I suppose there might be a herd somewhere that the entire family that owned them was dead, but they would still belong to someone and that is stealing their food.
Moreover if you look at societies around the world from Africa to Europe to Asia killing or stealing cattle was invariable one of the worst offenses and the *easiest way to get killed*.
Farmers would very quickly, if they haven't already, realize just how valuable they are and they all have guns. All they would have to say is it was an accident or a million other excuses and they would get off, using history as a guide. Even today we are exempt from pretty much every hunting law when defending our livestock.
Most farmers have plenty of feed on hand for their livestock so that is not a justification for looting.
There will certainly be many farmers with meat for sale/barter/charity and they would probably welcome the extra labour in exchange.
I can gaurantee though, many farmers will be watching their livestock with guns, and a trail is easy to follow in the snow too


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