Disaster event(s) that made you say "Hhhhmmm ....."

[CountryGent]

Has there ever been a disaster event — be it seen in the news, read in a history book, experienced/survived personally, or near miss — that made you think, rethink, otherwise produced real world preparedness actions on your part? If so:

• What was/were the event(s)?
• What preparations did you engage in the change up?
• Any preparations you abandoned?
• Were the changes temporary, simply incorporated moved forward, or were almost life changing?
• Did any have a more profound impact on your outlook, be it intellectual, cultural, philosophical, theological, et al.?

Thanks for sharing!

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[ATCclears]

Mid 90's, snow storm in greater Seattle, power out, infant daughter, no real plan, barely got to the MIL's in the snow, stayed there for four days in the same clothes. It made me think - in general, and as a Father.

Bought a house in 97 and the first upgrade was to have the house wired for a generator with a GenTran panel. The generator has saved us many times over the years.

It's been a journey since then into other areas of preparedness...

There has been nothing that I've abandoned in terms of thinking, approach, supplies.

 

[The Heretic]

Yeah - you betcha:



Four months ago ^^

Fire started about 1000' from my property. Had the winds been normal that day, instead of opposite normal (blowing away from my property), the results would have been quite different.

I had about 5 minutes notice and I was evacuated in 15 minutes.

Most of my preps were abandoned - I took what I could grab in about 10 minutes and left.

Previously I had not planned on abandoning my BOL (where I live). While I knew wildfire was possible and a real threat, that I prepared for a little, I was totally unprepared for the actual event.

Main impact is:

1) Get better organized and think about a plan.

2) Think more about where I am going to live next and how I would prep for a wildfire there - e.g., try to find property with less chance of fire, better prep of the land to reduce fire danger, preferably have buildings be a lot more fire resistant, have preps for fighting a fire.

 

[Dr Prepper]

Mid 90's, snow storm in greater Seattle, power out, infant daughter, no real plan, barely got to the MIL's in the snow, stayed there for four days in the same clothes. It made me think - in general, and as a Father

Pretty certian i remember that one... So many tree limbs down i can still hear them cracking under the weight.
Was stupid enough to be playing in the backyard (was probably about 13 at the time) and my mom caught a chunk of ice falling off a branch about the size of a softball.

Now lets see.
There was the clinton inauguration,
And then there was the storm that also happened that day here in Seattle. We had 14 trees down in our yard and our yard was probably only about a couple acres and these werent all small trees some were almost 3' dia. Most probably 1.5' dia.

Made me learn to respect the forest a hulluva lot more. And in regards to what Heretic said theres that too, wich always scared the squirt out of me.

try to find property with less chance of fire, better prep of the land to reduce fire danger, preferably have buildings be a lot more fire resistant, have preps for fighting a fire.

I dont really ever care to spend days and nights waiting in my basement again waiting to get crushed or burned alive. Tress are great i love em. Just not within ash fall of my house.

My personal dread will be the day another Carrington event happens. That one WILL thin the heard quite a bit.
People just dont have the mental fortitude to realize whats going on and accept the requirements to fix it and live slow again for a while. Once they get a taste for over night deliveries and being spoon fed by their gov. Its somewhat game over for the majority of the populous.
I mean can you imagine with what weve seen recently what people would do without even the news or social media lol. Part of me REALLY wants to see that just to laugh, just like the great TP panic of 2020.

So long story short i basically prep for TCOWC try and learn something every day. Be crafty. You need to know a bit of everything.
In all honestly if something like a another Carrington happens with how prevalent electronics and wire are now a days the majority of the world will probably burn and bring on another ice age. I HIGHLY doubt there would be any stopping the fires once out of hand.

And really do you even want to survive that?

 

[P7M13]

Instance 1:
One year out of college, working sixty hours per week for one mean S.O.B get T-boned by a K5 Blazer, right in front of a fire station. Would have died from internal bleeding had it not been there. Two surgeries, two days on a respirator, one week in the ICU, jaw wired shut - had to eat through a straw for a month. Insurance company was refusing to pay for lost wages, went back to work two weeks after getting out of the hospital, still eating from a straw. Deep depression followed, contemplated suicide, went so far as to put the gun in my mouth. Thought it would be an inconsiderate mess for my GF to clean up, so put it away. Sold all my guns later that month. No one was interested in my reloading gear, so tossed it.
Lesson:

• pay attention to where your head's at
• don't let people fu*k with you

Instance 2:
2002 - I'm up working late at night. Someone breaks into the house, alarm starts blaring. Only implement I have to defend wife and kids is a fire extinguisher. That week start researching into defense firearms. Shortly after, against wife's wishes, bought a pistol. Then another, then another. Trained extensively.
Lesson:

• Secure your surroundings
• Have a plan
• Don't over-do it
• Get your partner's buy-in rather than "under the radar." But, do not hesitate to overrule in the right circumstances.

 

[Dr Prepper]

Also, drug-resistant bacteria is definitely on my radar. Especially after this wu flu.
Im basically mindful of history constantly repeating itself. You want to tell the future. Study the past.
Study the bible too. Try not to be ignorant.
"These things too will come to pass" and then they will probably come and pass again and again!
As surely as atoms vibrate.

 

[Catfishmoon]

The eruption of Mt. Saint Helens in 1980. I was in 20's and lived in a rural area near Moses Lake that was in the path of the ash cloud... That altered my thinking from the possibility of some sort of disaster to the probability that I would witness another event sometime in my life and to prepare as best I could.

Here is a link to a newspaper story and some pictures from the eruption.

40 years later, Mount St. Helens eruption remains an indelible memory

MOSES LAKE — Until the spring of 1980, Mount St. Helens was part of a lesson in geography class, the one when kids had to learn the highest mountains in the Cascades. For most people, unless they lived close to the mountain, that was it.

columbiabasinherald.com

 

[No_Regerts]

A few years back, I woke up to some really bad chest pain radiating from my sternum to my back. I was really disoriented. My shoulder and upper arm hurt real bad. I realized, since I dealt with all of the banking, that my wife would need our account information because I was thinking I might not make it. She was working graveyard at the time and wasn't home. I wrote all the information and passwords and a brief note to the wife.

I was too stubborn to call an ambulance, so I drove myself to the ER. As soon as they saw me, I was rushed in and it was pure chaos as they got to work on me.

It was quickly apparent that nothing was wrong with my heart. They gave me a GI cocktail and diagnosed me with heartburn (never had it before). They said the arm pain was from an impingement from sleeping funny.

Moral of the story, have all your accounts, insurance policies, and updated beneficiaries just in case something bad really does happen!

 

[gmerkt]

Let's see, real life disasters as experienced.

1. Pregnant girl friend when I was 18, 1969.

2. Youngest daughter got 3rd degree burns on 18% of her body at age 2, 1987

3. Older daughter diagnosed with leukemia at age 13, 1995.

So it would seem disasters in my life have been mostly of a personal nature. Now that I'm 70 years old, my health has been taking some bad turns so I guess that might be next up on my list as number 4.

I've wasted some time, effort and money by trying to be ready for more general disasters. I was buying 20 year shelf stable ("survivalist") food in the 1970's that never got used for its intended purpose. Which I'm now glad to say. Old habits die hard; I still keep some emergency food supplies on hand. And Mrs. Merkt still thinks I'm nuts.

I've been ready for urban race wars since the Watts Riot of 1965, they're still going on but fortunately for me, I've had no involvement.

I bought an extended warranty on the one new car I've ever bought, never used it.

have all your accounts, insurance policies, and updated beneficiaries

I'm working on this one for real.

Now that we are old people, Mrs. Merkt and I have a saying we share. Which we adopted from watching NYPD Blue, "Don't worry about nuthin'."

 

[Flymph]

A few years back, I woke up to some really bad chest pain radiating from my sternum to my back. I was really disoriented. My shoulder and upper arm hurt real bad. I realized, since I dealt with all of the banking, that my wife would need our account information because I was thinking I might not make it. She was working graveyard at the time and wasn't home. I wrote all the information and passwords and a brief note to the wife.

I was too stubborn to call an ambulance, so I drove myself to the ER. As soon as they saw me, I was rushed in and it was pure chaos as they got to work on me.

It was quickly apparent that nothing was wrong with my heart. They gave me a GI cocktail and diagnosed me with heartburn (never had it before). They said the arm pain was from an impingement from sleeping funny.

Moral of the story, have all your accounts, insurance policies, and updated beneficiaries just in case something bad really does happen!

I'm glad your "heart attack" was just acid reflux, quite the positive turn of events.

There has not been any specific incident that has made me preparedness minded. I mostly consider camping and outdoor recreation and have a "what if" mindset about things that encourages me to buy "prep" items. I suppose my greatest influence would be my boomer father who grew up a dirt poor catholic in Kansas City, and I assume a lot of those customs learned come from the depression and rationing during WW2.

@The Heretic I need to get to where you're at in regards to wild fires.
Flooding is also a major issue where I live now, but I have fuel, food, and water for a month. I just need more entertainment that doesn't require power.

 

[No_Regerts]

I'm glad your "heart attack" was just acid reflux, quite the positive turn of events.

Before I knew what it was, I was pretty much like this:

 

[E4mafia]

Yeah - you betcha:

View attachment 805219

Four months ago ^^

Fire started about 1000' from my property. Had the winds been normal that day, instead of opposite normal (blowing away from my property), the results would have been quite different.

I had about 5 minutes notice and I was evacuated in 15 minutes.

Most of my preps were abandoned - I took what I could grab in about 10 minutes and left.

Previously I had not planned on abandoning my BOL (where I live). While I knew wildfire was possible and a real threat, that I prepared for a little, I was totally unprepared for the actual event.

Main impact is:

1) Get better organized and think about a plan.

2) Think more about where I am going to live next and how I would prep for a wildfire there - e.g., try to find property with less chance of fire, better prep of the land to reduce fire danger, preferably have buildings be a lot more fire resistant, have preps for fighting a fire.

Just the other night in a thread I was mentioning how I would only take arguments from the folks who had literally minutes to get all their lifes work together to flee the fires. Here you are, fortunately things turned out for the better.
My main line was about how folks caught in the fires, while prep'd, would only have minutes to grab near and dear then flee with their lives for safety. Basically no amount of prep could really prepare you for when it arrives, you can just have an idea and not panic.

A few years back, I woke up to some really bad chest pain radiating from my sternum to my back. I was really disoriented. My shoulder and upper arm hurt real bad. I realized, since I dealt with all of the banking, that my wife would need our account information because I was thinking I might not make it. She was working graveyard at the time and wasn't home. I wrote all the information and passwords and a brief note to the wife.

I was too stubborn to call an ambulance, so I drove myself to the ER. As soon as they saw me, I was rushed in and it was pure chaos as they got to work on me.

It was quickly apparent that nothing was wrong with my heart. They gave me a GI cocktail and diagnosed me with heartburn (never had it before). They said the arm pain was from an impingement from sleeping funny.

Moral of the story, have all your accounts, insurance policies, and updated beneficiaries just in case something bad really does happen!

Its amazing what trapped gas/heart burn/pinched nerve can simulate. I couldn't sleep one night because what felt like my heart rate was fluctuating *rapid skip rapid* like I just shot gunned a redbull was actually gas. Felt like a weird flutter sensation. Other times trapped gas has put on pressure that made it feel pretty close. Scary either way. The trick I found was to make yourself burp either by taking some soda (pepsi/coke etc) or some pickles.

 

[P7M13]

Also, drug-resistant bacteria is definitely on my radar. Especially after this wu flu.

Cellulitis is on the rise, and when there is no apparent external wound, is often mistaken for something else.

 

[The Heretic]

@The Heretic I need to get to where you're at in regards to wild fires.
Flooding is also a major issue where I live now, but I have fuel, food, and water for a month. I just need more entertainment that doesn't require power.

I am nowhere NEAR where I need to be.

I was almost totally unprepared - the only thing I did right last year for preparation against fire was to mow brush and grass. The barest of wildfire consideration.

Also some years before I had the forest around the house thinned and a LOT of understory brush removed - so that is good.

In 2018 I clear cut the west ten acres of my property - not sure it that is good or bad; no real trees to speak of, but LOTs of grass/etc. and some low brush now. Just a bit of a spark would touch all that off and it would move towards the house and the trees around the house, fairly quickly. Brush and grass are a LOT drier than mature conifers which are basically columns of water compared to dry grass in July to October.

As for flooding - not a concern for me at all; while I got 6 inches of rain here last week, and I get twice the rain the valley gets, it almost all turns into runoff that drains down to the lowlands. Because of the trees and grasses and brush/etc., no erosion except where there are logging roads.

So far no landslides (that I know of) on this side of the mountain as it is much less steep than the south side which has had many landslides in its geographical past. Can't guarantee that an earthquake won't cause a landslide though.

 

[PiratePast40]

Extrapolating the future after a Carrington event is frightening. I suspect that many would believe it to be the second coming.

 

[The Heretic]

I dont really ever care to spend days and nights waiting in my basement again waiting to get crushed or burned alive. Tress are great i love em. Just not within ash fall of my house.

When I thinned, I took down about half the trees nearer the house. Some could still fall on the house. The totality of trees on my property are worth more than the house, but they could both go up in a fire. A metal roof is much better than other roofs in this regard.

 

[Andy54Hawken]

Not sure if they qualify as "Disaster Events"...but my four combat tours , still do influence my thoughts and actions , in certain situations.

With that said...
My 50 something self , thinks on the actions of my 20 something self , at those times and places...
And I am both "proud" of what I did and , if to be honest...
"Just WTH were you thinking" , also comes to mind...
Andy

 

[OldTengu]

Just about every major event that has garnered national attention since 9/11 has had me second guess it for at least a year. This last thing at the capitol, I don't buy for a second that it's not staged. What kind of group storms a capitol with no plan? No real demands? With no apparent intent of siege?
Natural disasters are a whole other thing, especially in areas where they happen with any frequency. City/county planners and officials who don't appear to have any foresight in that regard should be ousted and replaced by a local with experience in the matters.

Also sometimes I have gas pains that make me wonder whether my innards are going to explode, and when it exits, I'm worried about spraining my butthole.

 

[The Heretic]

Also sometimes I have gas pains that make me wonder whether my innards are going to explode, and when it exits, I'm worried about spraining my butthole.

Lactose intolerance?

 

[OldTengu]

Lactose intolerance?

Maybe. I tend not to eat much dairy, but my diet is high in both protein and fiber, so that's likely a factor.
Also, I do have an occasional weakness for gas station food. Doesn't really matter what it is. Get me near a deli case, and all bets are off. When we drive to the coast, my wife knows which gas stations to shy away from, or she's gotta have the windows down on the drive home.