FWIW, I understand the exercise.

It is, I suppose, marginally possible to lead a long life in which nothing particularly challenging happens. At the other extreme, when we experience the next asteroid or other "extinction event", it's likely that everyone is going to have a VERY bad day, and it may not matter a bit what one has stored in the cellar, or how easily one can build a fire.

In between, though, there is an infinite range of events that are more or less likely, and that are survivable with some degree of human effort. Most of us will experience some of them, sometime, but we have no way of knowing which, or when.

So- the value of any such scenario doesn't much depend on how likely it is or isn't. The event being contemplated is just a stand-in for the almost-inevitable challenging events in our futures that we do NOT forsee. If we could forsee what was coming, it wouldn't be much of a challenge. :-)

Specifics aside, just the fact that you're contemplating such things prepares you much better than most. Knowledge and skills take up no extra space, are no extra weight to carry, and usually cost little to acquire. In your situation, I'd worry less about what gear you should acquire, than about which skills you feel you should have and don't... and there's almost no telling what skills might be important in a crisis. Only you can identify the gaps in your overall competence, and remedy them. Almost any competence enhances all your others, so it's a great positive-feedback loop in your favor.

One of my favorite Heinlein quotes (and a lot of other people's):

"A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects."

It may be true that those interested in survival tend to be generalists, but I'll be it's even more true that generalists tend to be survivors.