I have to say....

I am SOOOOO glad I found this forum. I have been preparing and getting my family ready for emergencies for about a year.

Then I start seeing Jericho (of course) and I am telling my wife to watch it. Then I realize how much I am not prepared.

Well anyway I have been doing research, taking notes, creating a manual for home, etc.

Anyways. For a while I was wondering if I was going crazy or just getting paranoid about stuff. I mean these issues are NEVER talked about anywhere.

It is very scarey to think about. It is really funny, but I hope I never have to use any of this stuff, but if we do I will feel better knowing I at least did something for my family!

I look forward to learning and contributing to the forum!

DeathtoToasters

Welcome!
I don't know if you're going crazy, or we all are on this forum. Ever since I found this forum in November I've been like you, preparing and wondering why there isn't more awareness. But, at least I'm prepared (and my girlfriend a bit as well). I think you've got the right idea: do something good for the family! If you need it, great, if not, you've got some crummy food for a few days

Welcome and enjoy!

This isn't a survivalist site. It's a survival site. So it's aimed at surviving a plane crash or being lost say, not suriving a nuclear war.
Jericho is a cracking series (and why did they have Hawkins daughter kill that really gorgeous girl I want to know!).
But a realistic series it aint.

Nor is a lot of the advice on this forum.

The best thing about Jericho is that it deals with ordinary people reacting as they most likely would. The 'every man for himself' situation some people seem to expect wouldn't happen. People will react as, well; people. Treating a few days power cut like you are among starving end of the world survivors is going to get you into trouble.
But then again everyone might not be as saintly as the population of Jericho usually are.
Sift the views and decide for yourself.....
Simon

Welcome to the fire, love your name!

Have you made a potential threat list for your area? Is it prone to high crime, hurricanes, wild fires, etc? We have members in every threat zone and should be able to give you useful tips.

-Blast (experience in wilderness survival, hurricanes, flooding, world travel, and that "OH, S**T!"-moment when the fuse burns quicker than expected...)

Ok, let me describe what I came here looking for. It seems that everyone who has chimed in has been seeing people cominghere wondering what to do once the earth falls off it's axis and becomes the 2nd or 4th planet in the solar system.

Well I am always of the belief that "Only the Paranoid Survive" (great business book by Andrew Grove, one of the founders of Intel)

I lived in New York (20 miles from NYC) for 20 years, then Southern California for many years, then moved up to rural Utah for another 10, then back to the Palm Springs are of Southern California.

I lived through the 7 quake in the early 90's and it scared the crap out of me. Of course there were TONS of small ones in SC. There is not much to keep worring about there. If I do't want small quakes, I need to move

Well when I moved the Utah after I got married, the worries of earthquakes left my mind...until I learned that I lived 5 miles from the Wasatch Mountains...an active fault!!
The worries returned, not just for me, now I have a wife.

I am not a stranger to being prepared, at least with food storage. I am a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (a Mormon) so I have known that having a year of food storage is a good thing.

Now let me clarify something. I am a religious man, and so is all of my family, but I am also of the VERY true belief that the best set of helping hands God can give me are attached to the ends of my two wrists.

If God wants to save me from something, he will, but I cannot see him saying,

"Hey you were really stuck and you didn't do anything, or prepare at all, so here I am to help you!"

I think it is more like:

"Hey you did everything you could, and even more. You prepared, persevered, you failed a bit, and succeeded a bit,but you kept on trying. Now I will help you, when you have nothing left in you!"


So that is the last time I will mention religion, but I wanted to make that clear.

Anyway, so my concerns right now are earthquake situations.

We just bought a new house in the Cochella Valley. Two story. So I have obvious concerns about the second floor coming down on top of us. I don't know what I can reasonably do about that concern right now though. My evacuation plan for our home consists of utilizing the large entry way where the is a 25 foot ceiling, so there is not second floor about that area, just the roof.

My brother in law is in construction in the desert area for the past 25 years, and he says that they build them up to much better specs then they use to. He believes that we should be able to live through a 8 without any really big damage to the home, but who knows.

About my concerns that I mentioned in the realm of Jericho.

Do I think it could happen, YES. Do I think certain people in the US Government are going to be behind it, who the heck knows.

Do I think terrorists are actively planning on hurting all of us, YES.

With a nuclear or chemical weapon, YES.

That is their goal, to destroy America, and Americans.

I am not going to get into politics, but I think it is pretty obvious that is their goal.

Anyway. I am equally concerned about natural disasters as I am terrorists.

So I just figure I will prepare as best I can or both.

I have looked into getting land somewhere and digging a big hole and building a large self contained shelter. I actually still have plans for that. It just has to all come in time.
The bank has not approved my 10 million dollar loan yet

I think in another thread I will post my current inventory and thoughts on what else I need, and get advise from there.

BTW there are now 3 1/2 children added to the family (she is 4 months pregnant) so the paranoia jumped 1 million fold!

But I am also a realest.....I have to admit spending $3000 on food storage is VERY HARD when I see that my 55 inch Plasma TV just went on sale for $3195 at Best Buy!

So that is where I am coming from...just wanted to make that clear

Thanks for the introduction! You'll find a number of LDS members here and your attitude about the best helping hands are found on your wrists is very true.

Earthquakes and big booms, yes those are worth considering and it sounds like you are making a good start. One thing I'll throw to you is remember to include your entire family in the planning. Make sure they now where things are, how to operate them and also make sure they CAN operate them. For instance, my DW (dear wife) couldn't pull-start a generator or move a five-gallon container of water even if it'd win her a $10,000 shopping spree... We had to make allowences and modify plans to take that into account.

Oh, and congratulations on the soon to be new child! We are big into kids here.

-Blast

Well a least people know what LDS means here Other forums just start asking me how I am going to feed more then one wife

Anyway. Thanks for the advice. When it comes to food, I plan on 1800-2000 calories per adult and about 1400-1500 calories per child. Also going through the appropriate protein, sugar, and fat contents.

The very hard thing these days is trying to find food storage that is not 20% filler and TONS of Sodium!!!

Any advice on that?

Good idea on the adapting of the functions to the wife. I had thought of it, but have not changed anything yet. I plan on it though.

The forth kid was not planned, but who am I to say no.. lol. At least the food for the first few months will come from the wife, and not the wallet :P

Any advice on food storage suppliers that don't specialize in Sodium?

Thanks
DTT

Don't forget how a major change in diet can lead to all sorts of stomach issues. To much/to little er, poop, can make a bad situation worse.

As Nighthiker said, one of the mantras of this site is "Store what you eat, eat what you store". That's a mighty good way of having food on hand.

-Blast

I totally agree with you. That is part of the situation I am running into. I am trying to find food storage supplies that are normal food we are used to.

Lasagnas, Pasta dishes, chicken, good chunky soups, muffin mixes, etc.

Not the regular MRE's. Although I have some of them. We don't have the canning abilities we had up in Utah. So it is much harder to figure out.

Any suggestions?

Anyone seen or heard of this company? I spoke to them and it sounds very good.

This description of their products looks great also:

http://1stopfoodstorage.com/guarantee.html

Thoughts?

Don't know anything about that company but a quick check of their site revealed this:
Food items are packaged in #10-1 gallon cans, except for "Soups & Sauces" which are packaged #5-1/2 gallon cans.

Those are big cans and the ability to store leftovers will probably be comprimised if you had to start eating from these. Perhaps you should buy a few 1-gallon cans of stuff and see if your family can eat it all in one sitting. If so, the large size won't be a problem.

Don't forget to add seasonings and spices to you stash. EVERYTHING tastes better with some cajun seasonings!

Should we start this over in a new thread with a more appropriate title?

-Blast

Welcome aboard, D2T!

It seems like LDS members would have a few sources in the realm of foods for storage. Shouldn't we be asking you who has the best deals? J/K

I've never dealt with the company you posted a link to. They say that their packages are 2200 calories a day worth of food so it doesn't seem too expensive at about $2.73 per meal, 3 meals a day, for 365 days (Premiere Pak).

As deals go, that doesn't seem too bad at all, but I can't comment on the quality.

Their proteins are listed as VegMeat, which I assume is TVP (textured vegetable protein) with flavor additives. A lot of companies do this, but others such as Mountain House include real meat in their packs.

With that said, if you get a year's supply Mountain House Main Entree Pak, you only get one cup of food per meal and it'll cost you about $800.00. On the other hand, the Mountain House Ultimate Pak, which offers the main entree plus sides and extras cost around $3400.00. Please note that I'm recalling the prices from memory, so I could be off.

I can at least say that I have had a number of Mountain House products and that a good portion of them were tasty.

Are there are ways to reseal or get a temp lid on top of the #10 cans until we reuse them?

They do make plastic lids that will fit those cans. I used to collect such things when I was going through cans of folgers once a week back in the day. They aren't tight at all, but they do keep the bugs outta the food, more or less. One of those lids and some duct tape is a lot better, but still only temporary. Better still is to have another container to transfer the contents into that is more suitable for opening and closing with a more positive seal. I used to collect Plastic jars from Costco that they sold various nuts and snacks in. The lids were screw on, and fairly watertight. I would take bulk foods, including stuff in #10 cans, and load them into those jars and they would keep pretty darned good. If I went on camping trips, I would transfer most all of my dry goods into jars like that, or sometimes just use ziplocs if it wasn't too rough and tumble and I was gonna use the contents quicker.

I've seen some cans that are more like paint cans with compression lids that can be pounded on/pryed off with fairly watertight integrity. They do wear out quicker than the plastic jars, but it is an alternative.

The only other thing I can think of is to caulk the lid back in place, if you are careful and have the time to let it cure.