Friends, I realize Im new and perhaps posting alot and if I annoy then please forgive me but Im like a sponge and just so interested in this subject matter.

I remember my brother asking me what got me interested in prepping? I couldnt remember a defining moment at all. Perhaps world news and current events around the country got me realizing USA is going down a slipperey slope away from normality and the bill of rights. I also think AMC's The Walking Dead had a role in my awareness to prep as well.

Seems now I dont look at the world around me like a normal person would. I see the traffic and people around me in their daily mundane rituals all the while my brain is processing what if scenarios of social break down, martial law and just hell breaking loose. A constant barrage of how would I react if....?

Am I crazy or is my mind sharpening itself and my response options? Also, please share what got you to get with the program and did it alter your old lifestyle?

Faith & Friendship
Pooly

First, it should be clear that being a prepper should not mean one does not enjoy life same as, if not more, than others. Actually, since you have taken a few wise steps and precautions, should mean you enjoy life deeper.

I run what-if scenarios thru my head all the time, anytime, but it should not mean living in a non-real world. Take for example when I went to a wedding ceremony ... We have large halls for such occasions. I strated looking around for emergency exits ( without telling anyone what I am doing off course ) and looking if there were emergency lights. You know a fire can start or power failure and we end up with a stampede or whatever. Once I saw what I was looking for , I joined the fun and enjoyed the occasion.

It is like that and not, for example, hiding in a bunker waiting for zombies.

Starting in preps came gradually and naturally, but was defined around the y2k issue. Before that I didn't know it was called prepping but I always did things "the smart way". Like when I went with a few colleagues to a remote area for work, I brought with me a bag of few things (first aid kit ..etc. ) They laughed and pointed we were going for a few hours only , not a few weeks. I just laughed with them ... and guess what ! None of us was injured during the trip but we found someone who was bleeding and we used gauze and other stuff from my FAK.

Again, welcome aboard.

Not having a comb. I went with a guy when he was auditioning for a commercial. He did not have a comb. Neither did I since I was active duty at the time and my hair never needed one. Subsequent to that, the Ben Franklin actor for the play 1776 (which I was in) had a huge asthma attack. Since my son used inhalers, I wished I had one of his spares for just such an occasion. It was awful. I was on stage with him about 6 feet away and could barely hear him. Good thing the theater only sat 100 people.

My initial, and still primary, interest is with the wilderness aspects of preparedness ... how to be sufficiently prepared in areas where there are no safety nets readily available and self reliance is much more key.

That said, reading here and elsewhere has led me to be more prepared than some in my day-to-day life (though I'd wager much less prepared than many here). However, many of these basic principles are things I also learned from my Dad's example (food stores, basic emergency gear, etc.). What I find though is that I live in a relatively low-risk area and that implementing potential contingency plans often does not rate as a priority for me.

First, I think my Dad when I was a child in the 1950's. Hurricane? Loss of power and stove out (electric stove)? No problem! Kerosene lamps and a sterno stove were pulled out and we got by just fine. (I still have the same kerosene lamps.)

So he set the example.

Later, when I was out on the own, I got caught short several times, and realized that I needed to think ahead and prepare.

It took the invention of the internet and being in bed for two (boring) weeks with a bad back for me to find this forum. I've learned a lot since then.

like Izzy, kind of grew up with it... moved to Florida in 1955 and first hurricane was Donna in 1962 (we had maybe two days warning)serious fresh water flooding and water line break...spent a couple of years in the Far East as a Radio Traffic Analyst where I had access to intelligence summaries around the world... foreshadowing the war on terror, and saw firsthand evidence of the terrorist threat in the Philippines... the Philippines and Thailand were pretty much third world at the time, and living down town usually included no electricity at random times..when I started teaching I used a "get out of Dodge" scenario to work with student's decision making skills...one of my fellow teachers was LDS and she introduced me to the 72 hour "go bucket", and that became my focus for a hurricane related scenario, and on several occasions a real storm...became a practical shooter about the time I started teaching to improve my skill set...came to this forum after I retired a couple of years ago, and by then I had refined my thoughts on hurricane preparedness after the 04/05 season, when we were over run... have enjoyed the courtesy and information sharing...

A week of ice storms and rolling blackouts (January, 1994).

That ignited an interest in prepping, though I wasn't conscious of a label for being prepared for emergencies.

September 11, 2001 moved my prepping interest up several notches (I live and work in Washington, D.C.).

My interest in wilderness survival (which is/was the ETS emphasis) began with an intensive series of hikes in the Blue Ridge mountains to help a friend get in shape for a Himalayan trek.

Back to prepping: the more I consider the various disaster threats (especially TEOTWAWKI scenarios like a massive EMP), the more I'm inclined to believe that our survival, as individuals and as a society, cannot be ensured by even the most well-equipped solo silo.

So I'm back to preparing for the most plausible - power outages brought on by storms, earthquakes and occasional local or regional power grid failures.

Being in DC, terrorism is a concern but does not seem so imminent as it did in the first couple years after 9/11 and the anthrax attacks on the Senate.

I can't for the life of me figure out when I started as a prepper, but it was by the age of eight for sure. I don't recall any specific incident or incidents that led to it, but my username is no accident. If something is going to happen, it seems like it's going to always happen to me.

I'm not really a 'Prepper' but the normalcy bias began to wear off around 10-15 years ago. Normalcy bias seems to becoming ever more entrenched as I have found, even when dealing with many many business people. People in general seam to becoming ever more stupid and moronic. Being around and having to deal with stupid people is highly stressful. There are folks out there who will call a Sparky to change a light bulb, folks who don't know that eggs comes hens and that chips (french fries) are made from potatoes and that you can heat up microwave food without a microwave oven.

For example I was discussing a problem with the IT manager of a well known London Investment Bank called Lehman Brothers, which famously initiated the Global Wide Banking crisis of 2008 when it became bankrupt. This would have a been a few years earlier. Her Internet connection wasn't working due to her router not having the correct login information for her PPPoA connection. I explained this to her and asked her to login in to her router via the Routers IP address and enter the correct login information Username and Password, to which she responded 'What's an IP address?'

This has happened many many times from even Company directors of large Multinational communications companies, such as 'You should be able to connect if you turn your router on' to then get a response that it was my fault that no-one had told her previously to turn on the router box.

Nepotism, greed, laziness, incompetence, dulled reasoning, criminality, arrogance and stupidity by those in positions of authority i.e. such as the leaders of the corporate, business and governmental world are much, much, more dangerous than poor inclement windy weather or wobbly ground, simply because they generally will trade societal resilience and safety (whether Technically or Economically) to external natural perturbations to climb their own greasy pole. Basically the bean counters have taken hold.

Population normalcy bias is particularly insidious as it dulls the individuals senses for the potential of dangerous events (even dangerous events driven as Government/Business Policy) in which in events are highly predictable and makes folks belittle risks and the consequences of inaction.

For example when you explain to some one that a Commercial Nuclear reactor could become a national disaster due to a local rodent problem and to invest in an on site cat would be prudent, folks generally regard you as a nutter..

Yes I know, just about as crazy as building 6 Nuclear Reactors (with designs that were inherently unsafe) on a major earthquake fault line on the coast of a country with a known history of Tsunami's.

Pointing out normalcy bias will usually just get you a verbiage of abuse and derision and over time I have decided to just prepare. Of course if they know what the meaning of the acronym PPPPPP is, a meaningful discussion can usually be had.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normalcy_bias
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Somebody_Else's_Problem

Black Swan events are probably rarer than the Main Stream Media would have you believe.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Swan_Theory

probably due to wide acceptance of Normalcy bias.

I come to ETS from a wilderness perspective which I began to explore as I attended college in Arizona and began longer and longer excursions into wild country. My senior year I was drawn into my first SAR operation, which was rather wild and woolly, but really rather informative. After a thankfully brief hitch in the Army, I began a career in the National Park Service, working for the first ten years or so in isolated areas, where the neighborhood supermarket was fifty miles away, and stocking up on provisions, etc., was an obvious priority. There were occasions when our living room became a dormitory during storm events.

And then I wound up in earthquake country - California. Of course I prep.