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That's assuming the local governments would even let you in. Some of our southern neighbors might not cotton to boatloads of American sanctuary seekers.
Well, during the first month, you'd take advantage of the chaos. The problem for most refugees is that they'd have to travel by air, that might be well nigh impossible, since the governmental control will be tightest at the airports. Meanwhile, there are long stretches of coastline with non-existent government. Find a dozen other boats and you have some collective security.
Anyone who has ever tried to live off the grid for even a small period of time knows that what people are talking about here is horribly difficult. Most of the scenarios that I've heard have so many holes in them, that its clear that the person has only read a few books.
In this end of the world as we know it scenario, civilization will return to something akin to 1765, but without the infra-structure of 1765. Everything that you need from clothing to food to replacement parts for stuff that breaks down will be gone. Billions of people will die and their dead bodies will cause plagues to spread on the wind. A few people will survive, but really only the very very very lucky. Unless you have millions of bucks to put in an underground shelter fully stocked for two years with every possible need, and in a remote area where no one will go, you will need to live like a Shoshoni Indian of 1300. But remember that not much of the fauna that was available to eat in 1300 will survive either. There will be lots of dead humans though.
And you will have to be able to get to the shelter, which means you need to live there now, because if you are more than 50 miles from it, you may not be able to get there at all.
Well, during the first month, you'd take advantage of the chaos. The problem for most refugees is that they'd have to travel by air, that might be well nigh impossible, since the governmental control will be tightest at the airports. Meanwhile, there are long stretches of coastline with non-existent government. Find a dozen other boats and you have some collective security.
Have you people forgotten? When the volcano blew in Iceland - Britain's air traffic came to nearly a screeching haul as did Austrian Airlines (about 1,700 miles apart) - and that one was not this presumed super volcano that some think will trigger the Ring of Fire in epic proportions.
Hmm. Well my motto is hope for the best, plan for the worst, and most of the time what happens kind of rolls back and forth between them in the middle.
I think that regardless of what might happen, just be prepared. Have food and fresh drinking water put away and ways to filter or sanitise water you're dubious about, first aid kits, extra medicine if you're on prescriptions you can't do without, wind up flashlights/torches, candles, matches, extra clothes, towels and blankets, rolls of thick plastic sheeting, toilet paper......
When I lived in Louisville, my mom always had emergency kits like the above stocked. Our likely emergency was a tornado, but really the kits would have been handy for pretty much anything. Everything was kept in sealed boxes and crates in the closet space under our basement steps--which admittedly would have been useless in a flood, but we lived on a higher elevation area.
My sister and I, children who didn't fully understand the potential for devastation, lived for tornado warnings! It meant that we'd all go to the basement (having packed up our most prized toys and taking them down there with us!); up went the plastic sheeting over the basement windows (I guess in case of wind blowing the glass in) and out would come the spare mattresses and sleeping bags; for us it was very exciting.......she'd let us use blankets to make tents over the armchairs, so it was kind of like camping out, but in the basement. Our nervous mother would sit there watching the news updates assembling fresh batteries into flashlights and the radio, and making sure the candles and matches were within her reach.
Now that I'm an adult, I have always done the same thing. I'd rather be safe than sorry, prepared as much as possible and hopefully never have to access any of it.
I found your post very refreshing. It's nice knowing that there are still some people who are connected to reality.
Quote:
Originally Posted by cpg35223
If that happened, I would turn off the newscast, drive to the Gulf coast, 200 miles from my house, get my family on our sailboat, and head south until I hit one of the Dutch West Indies. It would be about a three day reach to Mexico and, depending on winds, another two weeks to Aruba. Or maybe Panama. That would get me access to the Southern Hemisphere, including Australia and New Zealand.
The social upheaval and chaos in the United States would be unbelievable.
Well-organized evacuations of two hundred miles are nightmares. In a complete breakdown, only blind luck would get you through. If you did get through, why would you expect the boat to be there rather than stolen or burned?
Quote:
Originally Posted by vaughanwilliams
That's assuming the local governments would even let you in. Some of our southern neighbors might not cotton to boatloads of American sanctuary seekers.
The island "paradises" are not what so many think. They will run out of supplies very quickly. However, they will certainly welcome refugees on a well-stocked boat. The trouble is that they will consider the refugees themselves to be an addition to the food supply.
You people sound like you will just pop into a safe little place when the bad boom goes pop
GET SERIOUS - where would you go?
on another volcanically influenced earthquake fault line?
How would you get there?
volcanic ash is VERY ABRASIVE - moving parts on a motor will break down quickly.
Have you go a horse? IF YOU DID - what do you feed it? Ash covered vegetation?
.
Best thing you could do is batten down the hatches and stay put until the ash has cleared for at lease a few days. Better yet until it rains a few times to paste down the airborne ash.
Make sure your vehicle has been covered by a tarp inside of a garage. The ash will permeate small openings and crevasses and coat interior surfaces
My ideas on winter are 10 day or more trips above tree line, between New Years Eve and Presidents week, in -40 below or colder. Thar's no bugs then. I have better than 40 such trips now, and will continue so long as my legs do. Tents are something of a sin at these times and it can't rain... much.
In fact the last time I packed a tent in winter it almost killed me. I got buried in deep snow and didn't know it. Not a bad way to die, but I would prefer to put that off a little while longer.
The YS thing: My take is the most extreme take. That is a 5 year long solid winter, where growing much in the Northen Hemisphere would tend to be a problem.
I don't plan to go anywhere else, and do plan to stay put in NH. Depending on things the woods may provide foods as it does now for me, or it may not. I am not sure what would happen in a 5 year long winter. No doubt I can cut wood and stay warm, but eatting remains the mystery.
If all the trees die too, then nothing will be left for foods. I can in fact eat parts of many trees, and do. I also can eat a good number of weeds.
I do garden a 60x100 patch which feeds 3 harvest to harvest in fruits and veggies, but much of that is finicky man made plants like corn and taters.
A 5 years long wnter would wipe out the honey bee, and we 'all' would be out painting pollins with a paint brush fer sartin'.
'IF' it is not going to be a 5 years winter, then it's cake, other than 'IF' the bees make it.
For so long as trees grow I can eat. In fact it's the Govt that threatens more than winter does if you ask me. Seems to me they regulate anything that worked well enough as it WAS.
One example is K-1 keroscene, which now has a dry powder pink pigment to prove it's for off road use. Well my Alladin Lamps don't run on the road anytime, but the dye pigment sure is HELL on the wicks.
I wonder how the GOVT expects to plow snow with a silly little city dweller electric car? It takes a little more power to move snow than it does to move a smaller vehical, and these vehicals are a tad light compared to a 9 foot snow plow. I don't belive these little vehicals will even lift such thang.
Just maybe a 5 years winter will fix what's wrong with Govt eh? OR them boys will need to change their diets to something that can digest papaer and green ink.
Best thing you could do is batten down the hatches and stay put until the ash has cleared for at lease a few days. Better yet until it rains a few times to paste down the airborne ash.
I generally agree but want to add that the truly "killer ash" will be the stuff that gets into the stratosphere. It will block out much of the sun's rays, and the earth's temperature will begin falling fairly rapidly.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Digital_Duck
Make sure your vehicle has been covered by a tarp inside of a garage. The ash will permeate small openings and crevasses and coat interior surfaces
Ash from the brushfires here in Southern California will do that. Many years back, one got to within a mile of our house, and we were directly downwind. In spite of keeping things as battened-down as we could, we still had ash all over and in everything. Even our blonde German Shepherd was gray...
In spite of our clean-up/wash-up efforts, everything we had smelled like old, stale ashes for a month or so.
Well there should be pretty good sun sets...... There might be pretty good sun rises too, but I try to avoid that time of day....
Yup. Until recently I didn't know that 4 o'clock came twice in one day...
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