What have you been through? SHTF in real life

Jobless right now. Have been since January. I have still made all payment so far. I may be missing a little meat in my meals, but not missing it much.

 

Been through house fires, unemployment and got caught up in helping a battered woman get away from an abusive felon she was with which had a couple months of being hunted then as things calmed down she ran back to him. My farm didn't have running water for the first year or so we were there and it still goes out a lot but we keep a couple barrels with spouts full of water and a barrel stand in the kitchen.

A LOT of the stuff I live with and have been through others might think was shtf but since was prepaired for most of it or figured out how to deal was no big deal to us. Power out along with heat for 10 days in the middle of winter....no bother with a small generator to run the fridge and freezer a few hours a day, camp stove with flower pot on burner for heat and some oil lamps with 5 gallons of kerosene, batteries in radios and watch some tv when generator was on for freezer and fridge and barely noticed while neighbors were freezing and freaking out.

Shtf tends to only hit home when you are not equipped to deal with it. If you aren't stocked up and have heat then winter is shtf if you are ready for it it's just hunting season.

 

Thanks.

 

I am a rural monkey...
I was offshore when we got word Katrina was coming but made it home before the rush...
the wife was 7 months pregenant and we had a 4 year old autistic son at home to ...
the strom came and went we had some basic supplies and what we didnt have we got the next few days...
but we wated in long lines and went threw alot of preventable bullshit ...

The wife decided we needed a generator so she waited pregnant for 8 hours in homedepot while i wathcd the kid and kept the beer cold ...

All in all Katrina and Gustav were good to me but it has me well prepaired now ....buying things ahead of time is definatly the way to go and can be alot cheaper....

Katrina was kinda a blessing for me it created so much work and me and alot people i no made a hole messload of money from it ...
On the same note it took everything some of my friends had....


Anway...
My biggest shtf situation happend to me last year Offshore in Mexico ...
I had a diver get his hose cought in a propellar...
You never realize how fucked up things are untill you have a dead guy in your arms and 20 people around you speaking 5 different launguages...
CPR is one of the most physicaly demanding task i have ever been threw...

 

Sorry to hear that @KAS, he didn't make it? And you are right, CPR is very demanding, though it is easier with someone to switch off with. I learned it in the Boy Scouts many years ago. i have only had to use it a couple of times, over the years, but i was glad i knew what to do.

 

The short version is this: I was on a ship at sea that burned to the water line one night then sunk. We tried but couldnt save her. 5 of us escaped to the one raft left. one of us was wounded pretty bad and bled all the first night in the raft. much of the blood we washed into the sea. Of course that attracted my nemisis the shark. (I hate them I curse them to this day I kill all that I can) We had a difficult time with them until we made it to the island. No one lived on it nor did they ever as far as we could tell but the island and the sea kept us alive for the 43 days until we were able to signal a passing cruise ship that had viered off course close enough to see our night signal. Does this qualify as a SHTF event?

 

yes, i think that would qualify. glad you made it. Do you wear a ring in your ear? it is an old custom to signify surviving a sinking ship.

 

no but my sun does! ha ha. that was the second one I went down on. the first one piled up on the rocks. (Rooky on the wheel) the interesting part of the story is we had the same engineer on both boats. a year apart. and the kicker is he was supposed to be on the Edmund Fitsjarald (spelling off) the night it went down with all hands. but his plane was late and he got to the dock just after it sailed. Always wondered what happened to him. never saw him again after we were rescued.

 

Taking care of your own people is what it is about Brokor! You are the man. Of course the mission has top priority also, but everything fails if you do not take care of your people.

 

You mean to tell us you were not prepared? Shame shame ...... lol. Shall I tell my sad stupid tale of woe where I bought a 8kw diesel generator just days prior to Y2K. Even built a highly insulated nearly soundproof building around it. Hardwired it to barn power panel via a manual power transfer switch. This would give me water from my well as long a I had fuel. Y2K was an obvious non-event. Moved on to other projects. Never bothered to finish the generator install and start up and periodic test runs. 4 years later, here come the hurricanes. With first one, lost power for 10 days. I could not get the generator to run. Has fuel, coolant, oil, good battery, cranks over fine, won't start. (^^(&^%*( damn good big boat anchor! 5 days after we get power restored, a friend listens to my sad tale of woe, and laughs. He says, I'll bet you a case of beer I can start it in less than 1/2 hour. He comes over and check several things I already had checked, then breaks out a wrench and loosens fuel supply line at point where it gets to engine. Tightens everything back down. Wipes everything off, and fires that bad boy up on the first try.
.
Tells me, when every you get a brand new diesel generator or run one completely out of fuel, you might have to bleed the fuel line before you can get it to start, because you may have air in the fuel line that causes a fuel blockage. Sorta like a vapor lock on a gas vehicle. Since then it has started each and every time I have tested it. Even after ignoring it for 3 years plus it started on the first attempt.

 

One thing i have learned from the monkey tree...
If it involves diesel fuel,coms or electricty BT has got the facts...
Thanks my friend

 

My Dad used to tell me stories about having to trade and "borrow" supplies to keep his troops going in WWII, I always took them with a grain of salt.

When I was deployed to Haiti, we needed some MOGAS and went to the supply folks with the 10th Mountain Division to get what we needed. Even though they had multiple tank trucks full of the stuff and we only needed a few gallons. The little pecker of a 2lt, said we couldn't have any and refused to call CTU to get an approval.

I ended up having to trade some VCR tapes (with questionable moral content) with some guy off one of the Navy ships for a case of good humor strawberry shortcake bars that somehow disappeared from their wardroom. I then went back to the fuel farm and asked for the 1SG and presented the ice cream to him with a request for the gas. An hour latter a guy with a 7000 gallon truck showed up asking "where do you want me to put it".

Since then, I have had more faith in my Dads stories.