How Much Can You Count On Your Community...

...in any kind of emergency? Where I live, if you run out of f gas you can stop at the nearest house and ask for help. When the roads are snowed over the farmers pull out their tractors and clear the roads better than the county could. There is in situation I can imagine that I couldn't count on my neighbors for help.

 

My community is small and we help each other out. We all banned together after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, and helped one another out. It was amazing to see the whole community come together. However I am not sure how it would be if there were anything more serious or more long term. You think you know people, but when TSHTF, you'll never know.

 

On normal days, you can't count on them, is it in emergency situations they would help? Hell no, I would find my own ways, thanks to them anyways for helping to build my self independence.

 

Where I am when someone is in need they are helped out

 

Being prepared means not expecting outside help.
Most likely survivalists are also preppers.
Those that aren't survivalist aren't preppers.
One wonders how quickly we prepper/survivalist would run out of
precious supplies by giving away goods to every needy person(s) that
come along?
Tough situation isn't it?
A tough situation demands hard decisions.
I don't have all the answers.
I keep my prepping to myself and advertise what I do to no one.
Not even my family.
When and if the shtf I'll help who I choose to help.
Most likely my loved ones that live close enough for me to assist them.
I suspect in a worldwide shtf, when no or precious little help is
coming from any place the unprepared will be thinned out in 3 months
or less.
In the U.S. the Government, in the form of the National Guard, will
do what it can to help people survive.
It all depends upon the scope of the crises.
If an economic collapse local governments will try to maintain order
and assist it's people.
During our great depression city workers including emergency services
worked for city script.
Money printed by the city and redeemable for currency when the situation
improved.
This worked back then.

 

I would expect that same thing here in the U.S. if a shtf caused panic.
Particularly in areas of high ethnic populations.
Entitled people will riot and take everything available.
When that's gone they will steal from one another.
How many times as the world seen that happen?
In the U.S. ethnics rioting is a way of getting more free goods.
Even when rioters are caught on news video not one was prosecuted.
Of course that would prompt more rioting, looting and burning.
The aftermath would be our government would replace everything
rioters destroyed with new homes and businesses at taxpayer
expense.
In my city we had very poor white neighborhoods also and mixed race poor
areas.
Not once was there a riot in a poor white or mixed race neighborhood.
Go figger.

 

What a shame people become dependent on the dole.
You are quite correct.
Race has nothing to do with being lazy beggars.
Some of the worse of the worse were white garbage.
Filthy, lazy, scum, who raised filthy, lazy, scum.
I remember a girl named........................................ready?
Cookie Butts.
Honest, her real name.
Pretty blond young woman. A cheap prostitute, a real $2 dollar whore.
A fantastic bl........................................huh, so I was told.
I was in a home on a police call where the toilets were stopped up
so they cut a hole in the basement floor and crapped into the basement.
White trash they were.
Garbage of no value what so ever.
The filthiest, most rotten, scum I ever came across were white trash.

My dad had a 2 bedroom cottage in the hills of Pa. on a ridge over looking the
foothills.
When dad died my mom decided to rent it against my advice.
Too far away to keep an eye on it.
Well she rented it, never got a dime in rent.
So I went there to start eviction but there was no need.
They already moved taking........................
bath tube
toilet
sinks
plumbing...all of it
ripped wiring out of the walls
took well casing out of the well and the pump
ripped stone from the face of the cabin and stole that
basically destroyed the place.
She sold it for a fraction of what it was worth.
Trash comes in all races.

 

Personal responsibility and nobility of character have faded away; indeed, such are the object of ridicule.

What I'm going to say is a gross simplification, but I think that to the degree people are self-sufficient and mentally prepared for overcoming stresses / riding out life's storms determines the degree to which they will retain their civilized behavioral set during a mega-stressor, such as a SHTF event(s). I believe the differentiation becomes pronounced when we compare urban dwellers vs. those living in more rural areas.

If one is out in the boonies, well gosh, the amenities are not there and you'll do much more yourself, else you'll not be getting much done at all. And the boonies are the center of agriculture and even the factories locate away from major urban areas of late -- indeed the older industries have collapsed in the once-thriving industrial sectors. In my wife's youth, the factories were churning and now they are utterly absent back in her home town / big city. New manufacturers in the USA locate where they have access to labor who is actually willing to work -- hint-hint, that's not the big cities anymore. In sum, a rural setting provides impetus to physical production of material goods and food products. Rural people know where their food comes from and they are very likely to grow food and flowers themselves. They work on their own cars, trucks, and machines. They live not far from their water sources -- may even go fishing there.

Urban areas are vastly too crowded. Therein, one physically hasn't the physical space to become self-sufficient. Urban residents are dependent on shipping. Their food comes from somewhere else as does their fuel, clothing, water, ..., and when something needs to be fixed, they call a repairman. Is not the urbanite separated from his or her own planet. Why do urbanites readily think of colonies in space?! I put it to you that they are living there now.

Given the above recipe ingredients to a fine cake or catastrophe, we seem to have put rural ingredients in one pan and urban ingredients in another pan. What comes next? Yes the oven of chaos! Silly me, even before these begin to bake, I'm just going to go ahead and pick the rural cake mix turning out to be the better dessert. I'm thinking the ingredients (and the lack of ingredients) in the urban pan will burn or boil over. Of great concern to me is the boiling over that will likely occur in the other pan. I don't want it spoiling my dessert and will do whatever I need to do to isolate it.


.

 

Why I live in the country on 15 acres, 14 is woods and no close neighbors.
I have a well, and a wood burner and a large outside grill that cooks with
wood or charcoal.
I've used it even in the dead of winter. Cooks foods just fine.
I even let groundhogs burrow and raise litters just for shtf purposes.
IF they stay out of the garden. If not.......bang, flop!
Just one neighbor across the road and we can't even see each other's houses.
That neighbor isn't even close to being a prepper or survivalist minded
person but they are decent and I'd try to help them in a shtf.
They'd come around pretty quickly I think.
If not...........................oh well. So it goes.

 

Precisely.

 

Had I survival store, I'd have survival equipment. However, I'd have one stack of non-survival items, which would be adult diapers. Why?

Should some smart alec come in a start calling me a nut, telling me that hard times were never going to return, that systems developed by mankind were going to hold ad infinitum, I'd tell him to take a pack of diapers with him at no charge. This because when the inevitable does come, he'll likely be sh###ing his pants.

 

Yes indeed.
It is insurance and quite important.
I hope shtf never happens but in our crazy world today one can't count
on it being stable.
Change is inevitable.
I recall reading about gas and food rationing in Allied countries
during WWII.
The U.S. and allies had "victory gardens". People with even a bit of property were
encouraged to plant gardens to free up resources for military people.
Gardens were even planted in public parks.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victory_garden

 

potato clamp???????

moors????

Wassat?

We in American don't speak English.
We speak mer'can.
Unless south of the Mason Dixon line where people speak really butchered
'Mercan.
The say "all" for oil.

I thought "moor" meant greater than very little.

We "Mer' cans are cousins of the Brits separated by an ocean and a
"common" language.
General Montgomery to General Eisenhower:
Eisenhower pronounced schedule "SCKedule " with a hard K sound.
General Montgomery asked where Ike learned to pronounce Schedule a shhhh
sound like that.
Ike said " I learned it in shoool."
Monty was quite ticked that Eisenhower was made Supreme Allied
Commander.
You see Ike never saw combat. Not once.
Ike was however, a master at logistics.
He knew where and when to send men and material.
All allies got caught flatfooted when the Germans made an unexpected
thrust from through Ardennes forest.
Thus the Battle of the Bulge. A huge bulge thrust into the allied lines.
My dad was there and trapped behind German lines.
When his light tank ran out of fuel they dropped a thermite grenade
down the barrel and crawled back to allied lines.
American light tank was useless against German armor with it's
small bore 37 MM cannon.
It was great for infantry support and against "soft" targets.
Dad wounded 5 X.
But I digress.

 

An embarrassing story on me!
This is a "duh"!
I had a basement flood and about 500 rounds of steel cased ammo
got wet.
Never mind just drying them with a towel I put them in the OVEN
set at 150 degrees F.
Not near enough to detonate anything.
Except ONE round fell on the red hot electric element and it blew up
knocking more rounds on the hot element.
Bottom line is HUNDREDS of rounds blew up and sent fragments
THROUGH the oven and blowing out the glass in the door.
I opened the oven door (duh!) and got cut by flying steel frags.

That cost me a NEW STOVE.
Don't do that!

 

Thank you.
We have an area a bit similar in Ohio of very dark rich soil know locally
as the "swamps".
I've read it's where soil was dropped out of retreating glaciers but I
wasn't around for that. :>)
The area is notable for hiring migrant workers at harvest time.
Being not far from where our city was where I was a copper w
had to deal with drunken migrant workers who "no oblo English".
They understood "wanna go to jail?" just fine.

 

Gulp! Swallow a pony?
I'd be very careful there I'd think.

 

Good story. I'll put this to memory.

Those who deny are those who won't, who can't, deal with any of the unpleasantries attending to life.

There walks a man straight towards an open pit. "Hey fellow, watch out! Walk no farther!"
"Why?"
"There's a deep dang hole in the ground right in front of you!"
"No there isn't."
"Look down and in front of you, idiot!"
"Why should I?! You are a crazy alarmist!"

If I do not come to his rescue after his fall, do not call me callous. I must look after my own and when I chose to help others, they are deserving. Taxation / redistribution of wealth, the resentment on the part of the citizenry is born of their witnessing the poor selling their subsidized canned hams to buy money for malt liquor. "Hey you, you old geezer, how can you be so callous!" My heart once easily bled, but then I grew up.

We should take care of impoverished children and let their parents live off the money we paid them to have their sterilization procedures. Yes, if someone won't take care of his kids, my tax dollars going towards him getting clipped are dollars well spent.

 

Better to plant 'taters in the moor than to try growing them in the red clay of America's southeast. The beating down sun turns the clay into a form of concrete. Diggin' 'taters with a garden fork ain't no fun. One has to til-in dried horse hockey, peat moss, and some sand to allow the roots some life and allow you to dig the puppies when time. Your post made me see rows of potato plants sticking out of long red mounds -- red, here in the South.

How to overcome: Thoroughly wash out car/truck tires, scrub them good. Stack them up three or four tall. Fill'em full of loamy dirt. Plant your 'taters therein. When come time to harvest, kick over the tires. This is lazy-man gardening, i.e. my kind of gardening.

My dad was super well treated there in England during WWII. He was stationed there before the invasion. Only thing he didn't learn to like were the Brussels sprouts.

 

I've read about the tire thing.
It's a great idea and re-purposes other wise junk.
Used tires are a real environmental problem.
Burning the things is a bad idea.
Lots of toxic smoke and real hard to extinguish.
I gathered up some used tires from a tire shop and they were only too
happy to give me some.
I stacked them and as I did so I filled them with sand as I went.
5 high they make a great bullet back stop at my back yard range.
I doubt any common rifle cartridge would go all the way through them.
I've been shooting behind my country home for decades and no one
has ever called the cops.
Where I live everyone shoots.
Farmers and country people ya know.

 

Garbage is garbage regardless of the color of the garbage bag.

 

That’s really awesome that everyone helps eachother out. Unfortunately I’ve never experienced that the neighbors I have are just nosey about what’s wrong in your life. I feel like people helping eachother just because it’s the right thing to do is hard to find so it’s awesome that you have.

 

The idea of community in this day & age has been mixed up in many ways.
Helping others because you wish to is charity. Giving to those who are in need without the expectation of any return other than the personal gratification. You have the right to discriminate where you will apply your efforts to those who are worthy.
Giving or working with the expectation of a return is trade. Clearly stated & mutually agreed upon conditions are essential for successful trade.

Establishing healthy boundaries is a key factor. They let people know what you are willing do put up with & not. Without boundaries & a respect for those boundaries, expectations & resentment will arise.

Anyone who expresses an unjust entitlement to the efforts of others will be the cancerous seed that will devour any community.

 

We're fortunate to have a similar situation here; knowing nearly everyone close by, we usually step up to help without being asked. In low grade situations (power outages from storms, blizzards, etc), that doesn't change. In a more dire situation I think we would still respond in a like-wise fashion but I would be more cautious at the same time. The biggest downside to my situation is the knowledge that there are no other preppers immediately around me, and there's no way possible that my supply of food would feed them for more than a week......then we'd all be hungry.

A boss once gave me some good words to live and work by: take care of yourself first.......if you are weak or injured, you can't help yourself or others. Second, take care of your family.....if you are stressed about them, you aren't helping yourself or others. If the first and second conditions are safe, then you can help others.

 

LOL, I live in Central Florida close to I4. Dhimmirat territory. I can't trust any of them for anything.

 

I do not trust any of those who live nearby.

First, I guess I'll bug in. However, I'll be biding my time for the time of bugging out. Back to me roots, back to the mountains and the gaps between them, back to walk the ground in which my ancestors rest, and there eventually to lie with them beneath the meadows. Perchance a red-tailed hawk will land on the stone above that eternal corporeal bed. And the next road ... not mine to determine; I do not remember having chosen this one. It has been said that God is the All-Merciful. We'll see.

 

The folks who lived at that nearest house moved out a few years ago. Think of Tara Plantation of "Gone With The Wind". The news residents - about 10 newly-arrived families - have too many other problems to help the stranded.

The counties have poor performance in road maintenance because the major budget allocation is for the farmers and their subsidy programs. US sugar costs over twice the world market rate. Former President Carter had been a peanut farmer. The more accurate description of his labor category is "welfare recipient".

 

I am a prepper /survivalist . Therfore I don't expect my neighbors or government to come to my rescue . Quite the opposite, my problem is more likely they will want me to rescue them .

 

Keith: I agree with this 100%. We have been fortunate. When help was needed our community very much pulled together. Nothing was expected. Nothing was asked; just neighbors helping neighbors. We were well prepared, and we pitched in. The bigger question, maybe, is how long would that last? You can help for a while, but eventually you are going to have to take care of yourself. You can't help forever.

The more severe the SHTF event, and the more widespread the event, the less likely you would be able to get help. When you have a disaster like Katrina or Harvey EVERYBODY is in bad shape. You have to go a long way to find help. Being able to fend for yourself is by far the best plan.

 

My next door neighbour and the one across the street have both offered assistance on their own volition when they thought I might need it. The neighbourhood kids are respectful and well mannered which indicates good parents. I would like to be further from people but as neighbourhoods go I could have done far worse. Yes, I think the neighbourhood would hang together. Not all but most.

 

These situations are dynamic; changing.

The next door neighbor took in a boarder to help with the yard work in exchange for a room over the garage.

A couple of others also stopped at this same neighbor's house when you did.

The boarder just arrived from DR Congo. This was the former Zaire now in news because of new Ebola outbreak.

The couple of others were fleeing the heavy flooding they just walked through.

The next door neighbor actually needs your help.

These situations are dynamic; changing.

 

The rural people will help each other . Not so much for city dwellers . Suburb dwellers fit in between . But even for a community that will help each other this will go only so for . A hurricane or flood disaster in some communities will pull together , but they know this situation is temporary . In a more permanent disaster they may help each other but will not be generous in giving away items such as food . A nuclear war , Emp natural or man made and such disasters will see a different reaction . Those thinking about a community garden can forget about it . They tried that in America in James Town the first year they were there . Greedy members started grabbing up the garden produce before it was harvest time , to beat their neigbors to it . The result the greedy neighbors not ready food rotted and the entire colony starved . There is some reports that they resorted to cannabilism .