When Would Best Time Of Year For You To Deal With A Massive Shtf, Like Emp Or Cme Or Grid Down Hard.

Now this is something that I have thought about for decades, and it has been part of my planning. Early on I had thought that late spring or early summer, would be easiest for me, and while that is still true, I now think mid January or early February would be the safest.

A little harder for me, but at the first snow storm, and no DOT to plow the roads, that would hugely lock the city people far way till mid to late April and maybe even early May. The other nice thing about snow is it leaves tracks........which is why I have to be very careful and never go near any of my caches in winter.

 

I think Mid Spring because most preppers will have already at least tilled or prepared their space for the garden, and a lot of us will have planted a partial garden. It will be the time for the livestock to start having babies and you will be able to start preparing for their trade, barter, and/or how and where you store them once you have packaged, smoked, cure, etc.

 

At the top also, I would say summer, so the children will not be in school. They can be at home with their families and helping with all the chores.

 

I am not sure there is an optimum time to deal with SHTF situations, but one thing is for sure we are very unlikely to be able to choose the time. On that basis it is best to prepare for it happening at the worst time for food availability etc. In Europe that would be December to early February.

 

The best time for me would be spring so I could make use of the summer to stock up on produce, fish, etc during the summer. The worst time would be late fall after the growing season and the salmon runs are over. Jan/Feb would be fine as the winter would weed out the unprepared pretty quickly.

 

Autumn, gives me six months to get a veggie garden organized

 

Late fall would probably be best if it was a world ending sort of disaster. Our winters are pretty easy but a few cold spells would kill off a lot of the people too stupid to live. Those of us that are prepared will be able to ride it out until spring on stored supplies and then can get our gardens up and running. In the spring and summer you will have to deal more with the refugees and mobs of panicked people trying to run and get out of the cities.

In the North if you are prepared by the time spring and summer get there you will not have a lot of competition for resources because most will freeze to death or die in the fires started by people trying to stay warm.

In places like Arizona summer will thin out the people really fast. If you have food and a dependable water supply you should be able to just stay out of sight and let nature take its course.

In the major metropolitan area there is no good time. Too many people with not enough food and no clean water makes them a death trap no matter what time of year it is.

Basically if you are prepared you can take advantage of the situation regardless of the time of year.

 

True........but I would much prefer the natural selection process happened two hundred miles away, and not in my yard.

 

"Basically if you are prepared you can take advantage of the situation regardless of the time of year" (TexDanm)
This says it all as far as I'm concerned.
While there is no good time for a SHTF mass die off I would prefer winter, it might help prevent mass movement and the spread of disease.

 

If the grid goes down there won't be any school regardless of the time of year.
It will be easiest for most people any time the temperatures aren't too extreme in either direction.

 

Not winter.

 

Early spring so that I can put in my garden. By that time the food storage will be down awaiting the canning of fresh garden vegetables. Still spring turkeys are nice, along with fishing, should do it for me.

 

Interesting responses. It seems that most leaned towards the time of year that would be best for themselves, which is understandable, and prudent.

Still there is a strong case for choosing the most horrific weather, to expedite the reduction of future combatants.

 

For most, the weather won't affect the number of "combatants" to a large degree. It just makes things harder on everyone.

They also answered that way because that is what the OP asked:

 

Count us in the few it would affect, and since we're better prepared than most to deal with it Winter gets my vote for the best time. We live in bugout country and Winter should limit the number of people evacuating to our area significantly if the grid went down. In nicer weather we get an influx of tent campers, motor home campers, and second home/vacation cottage visitors to the area which can triple, or more, our population density. Below freezing temps and snow covered roads will make most think twice before bugging out near us, where if the SHTF in May or June I imagine we'd have a population explosion of sorts. The only drawback being it might be harder for the few people we've invited to make it here. Still, I'd have to hope for the SHTF to occur in January, followed by a snow storm that drops a foot or so of snow within 48 hours after.

 

If I have to choose one I guess it would be Winter. IMHO that is the best time to Bug In which is our Plan A. Fewer people would be out causing trouble, and it would be easier to see them coming from an Op Sec standpoint. We are prepared, and wouldn't have to go anywhere for anything, so we could hunker down. We could keep the house warm, and limit the areas we use to conserve heat.

 

Good point. However, I'm old and hauling wood makes my bones ache.

Were I to be living in a dry area, Winter would be best.

For survival reasons however, I'd always want to live where fresh water was plentiful and a garden easily grown. Live where the weather is severe and you make life hard for yourself. I live where one could rip out all of the plant life and in five years, the land would be lush with growth without any human intervention. Where I live, were all humans wiped out, within 100 years there would be little sign that humans ever existed. If any crack appears in concrete or asphalt, a plant begins to grow within. Only 90 degree rock faces are not totally covered in some form of life -- one decent crack and a tree starts growing out of the crack.

Look also for the people climate. What? If the culture of folk living anywhere near you is savage or unfriendly, avoid such a place. If you live super far away from civilization, never break a bone (especially never get a compound fracture) and never get very sick. Primitive folk rarely lived past age 50; this is why elders were so respected, few lived to be old, had to be superhuman tough.

 

for me very early spring, so that i can start tomatoes, and other stuff indoors so that i can plant when spring does come.

 

For me mid winter would be to my advantage , I go into each winter prepared ,fire wood for cooking and heating , available food supply , water access The worst the weather the better for me , which is also the most likely time for grid to go down whether intentional or accidental With cold , rainy or snow this will put a real damper on those planning to steal from others , most will simply hunker down and die in place . The prepared should do fine , the unprepared will be in a bind .

 

It's still Winter here.

Today the temps were in the 60's and in the next few days they will rise to the mid 70's.

Much of the country is getting hit with snow and ice.
It rained a little here.

 

I have mild winters here compared to some,if not most here.but yet i still choose winter.on account around here.at least 90% to 99% of the people aint prepared for a short term to long term outages much less a grid down situation. Folks around here depend on doc prescribed drugs cpap machines insulin etc etc.there won't be going to grocery stores and drug stores gas stations n all.because of all of that.i figure there will be. A die off from the like of medical assistance, starvation, thurst, to freezing to death.another thing came to mind.ppl will get to the point where they'll do anything for a bite to eat to drink and for some heat. The ole saying comes to mind.desperate people will do desperate things during desperate times.

 

Recognizing the obvious that there is no ideal time, I am torn. There are some real advantages to winter, particularly keeping this community more isolated from the world at large. That would be best in a pandemic type situation.

On the other hand early spring gives a lot more time for things like expanding gardens etc. Summer and fall would be the easiest time of year for the hordes to migrate and or pandemics to spread.

In an ideal world,I will have spent time, money and effort prepping and never really have to need it. However I think that is pretty unlikely. Even without a TEOTWAWKI event, there are always localized and ndividual disasters.