hbic - Member - The Prepared

Reply to: Preparation resources for Asian Americans? Posted September 21, 2020

For the respondents in this thread doubting the need for this type of planning, here’s a news article where a Black woman with a clear plan and friendly location to bug out to is stopped and menaced by armed patrols in rural Oregon. I found this article easily by searching “armed militia Oregon wildfire”. There are dozens of stories on it to choose from, if you don’t like my source. Google is always a good place to start if you need more information about a claim.

Reply to: Where is the hurricane/fire coverage? Posted August 8, 2020

Sure! Off the top of my head, here are some hurricane-related topics I’d love to see covered in depth: Realities of evacuation vs riding out a storm What evacuation shelter living is like and what preparations can be made specific to that scenario How filing insurance claims work and what docs to keep handy/organized and how All aspects of prepping for emergencies with kids (I notice this has been requested in comments, etc a ton) Prepping for elderly family members Prepping for disabled folks How COVID changes hurricane/disaster prep dynamics How to deal with mosquitos & other pests in emergency situations Safely staying cool w/o electricity Some full gear reviews/coverage I’d like to see: window protection, waders, rafts, gas shutoff tools, emergency toilet supplies (I imagine this would be fun to stress test 😈) I’m not sure I fully understand the “general news” caveat — the COVID roundups seem to be entirely general news — but I would think there are prep-relevant lessons that can be extracted from the news as we face disasters this season. For example, looking at how long it’s taking for power to restored post-Isaias would be informative as we figure out how long to stock up for.

Reply to: Increasing your readiness when driving near protests Posted July 28, 2020

The number one thing you can do to be “ready” when driving near protests is *not intentionally drive your car into protestors*, which is what all of these “mob violence” incidents have involved. Somewhat unsurprisingly so, since a certain segment of the public has turned vehicular homicide of protestors into a meme since the horrible death of Heather Heyer. How hard is that to do?

Reply to: Any eyewitnesses on scene in Portland, Louisville, and other hot zones? Posted July 26, 2020

Have there been any credible reports of residences being targeted or damaged? Wondering what the reasoning behind considering this a “prepper” topic is.

Reply to: Key developments for Thursday, July 16, 2020 Posted July 17, 2020

Why is vaccine trial data private/a matter of national security anyway? Wouldn’t sharing the data with Russia/China/whoever be the easiest way to avoid hacking AND the right thing to do from a humanitarian perspective?

Reply to: How to balance community and independence (City vs Rural living) Posted July 14, 2020

“The general consensus is that urban centers are not ideal or potentially even sustainable/viable in a long term or extreme crisis” Could you explain this a little more? Is this a new situation? Obviously there are many cities that have outlasted many severe/long-term crises…

Reply to: To make it through COVID fatigue, get an accountability partner Posted July 13, 2020

Are there a lot of documented cases of COVID transmission via hair salon? There’s the famous counterexample of the two infected Missouri stylists and their 140+ negative clients. Ranking the risk of a haircut as equal to flying on a plane or attending a wedding (both of which have led to thousands of documented cases) seems bonkers to me.

Reply to: Key developments for Tuesday, July 7, 2020 Posted July 8, 2020

Just wanted to clarify that the positivity rate in Houston peaked near 25% about 10 days ago and has sharply declined since (still too high, though) source: https://www.tmc.edu/coronavirus-updates/covid-19-testing-trends/

Reply to: Thinking about school in the fall Posted July 2, 2020

I would like to see discussion of the long-term economic downsides for people (primarily women) dropping out of the workforce to take on full-time childcare. There is quite a bit of data around this in a non-pandemic context already. Deb Perelman’s piece in the NYT today touches on this: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/02/business/covid-economy-parents-kids-career-homeschooling.html

Reply to: Thinking about school in the fall Posted July 1, 2020

Emily Oster has written a excellent piece about decision making around COVID risk: https://slate.com/technology/2020/05/coronavirus-family-choices-grandparents-day-care-summer-camp.html She also has an updated roundup of current findings about kids and COVID risk here: https://explaincovid.org/explainers/kids-and-covid-19 This article about childcare that has been operating the whole time is also encouraging: https://www.npr.org/2020/06/24/882316641/what-parents-can-learn-from-child-care-centers-that-stayed-open-during-lockdowns That kids don’t seem to be as susceptible to catching or spreading the virus is one of the few positive aspects of this whole pandemic. We have chosen to send our toddler back to daycare given the current info available, despite keeping frequent contact with grandparents. His grandparents are all in their early 60s or younger, so at dramatically less risk than people in their 80s. Interestingly, my mom’s oncologist approved this decision, even though she is actively being treated for metastatic cancer. He believes that since she has no lung involvement, with her well-controlled blood counts the mental health benefits outweigh the risks. As for the options available…the huge number of (largely) women who are dropping out of the workforce to handle childcare is going to have long-reaching economic and cultural effects. I feel like I hardly see any discussion of it outside of circles of other working moms.

Reply to: Family planning or avoiding pregnancy in a pandemic Posted June 30, 2020

If you do write an article, definitely worth noting that removing one’s own IUD (or a friend’s, I suppose!) is definitely possible in an emergency situation. It’s even become a bit of a trend and area to study in reproductive healthcare. There are YouTube videos and everything!

Reply to: Family planning or avoiding pregnancy in a pandemic Posted June 30, 2020

That’s unfortunately not how the menstrual cycle works. The length of time between ovulation and menstruation (the end of the cycle) tends to be fairly stable for individual menstruators (though different between them) but the time between start of menstruation and ovulation is easily affected by illness, stress, exercise levels, temperature, and hormonal variation. Once your period begins it’s somewhat plausible to guess when you last ovulated but much less reliable to guess when you next will ovulate. You see the issue there for trying to prevent pregnancy. An additional wrinkle is that there are physical signs that you can use to detect ovulation, including cervical mucus that the Creighton method is based on — but your fertile window begins up to 5 days _before_ ovulation, and those signals can be very faint at that point. The method that you’ve described, using only a calendar to predict fertility, is known as the calendar method or rhythm method, and you’ve probably heard jokes about it for good reason. Even people who do use it suggest tracking for at least 6 months to establish individual ovulation patterns. More sophisticated fertility awareness methods like the Creighton method are more effective and have some great benefits, but SHTF situations are precisely where they’re least likely to be effective. I think the rule of thumb you’re looking for is this: reproductive healthcare needs to be considered as important as wound care when preparing and stocking for disaster situations.

Reply to: Any options for cooking indoors when the power is down? Posted June 28, 2020

Butane burners are used inside all over Asia — should still crack a window but doesn’t create the carbon monoxide dangers using propane inside does

Reply to: Any options for cooking indoors when the power is down? Posted June 28, 2020

Butane burners are used inside all over Asia — should still crack a window but doesn’t create the carbon monoxide dangers using propane inside does

Reply to: Preps with a newborn Posted June 28, 2020

Cloth diapers scare me 😳 but you’ve inspired me to at least pull together an emergency kit. Excellent call on the baby carrier! I really liked a ring sling with my first kid, not in small part because it can be stuffed easily into a bag. Gonna grab another one (the Moby version is durable and affordable) and add it to our go-bag. My husband prefers a structured carrier so I’m going to poke around Craigslist/OfferUp to see if I can find some a bit less bulky than the Lillebaby to try out.

Reply to: Preps with a newborn Posted June 26, 2020

Good call on the wipes. We’ve recently potty trained the toddler and I think we’ve got diaper amnesia 😫

Reply to: Unpacking the logic behind “slow the testing down, please” Posted June 26, 2020

Curious — how do they square this theory with the increased number of hospitalizations, both ICU and medsurg, that we’re seeing in places like Houston? Is the argument that severe cases are fine as long as the patient doesn’t die immediately?

Reply to: Single female prepper resources? Posted June 24, 2020

Mariko — thanks for the rec! I will look into D-Mannose Zabeth — I haven’t had UTIs in a very long time, but in dealing with this one it occurred to me that a lot of those preventative measures might be harder in a disaster situation, particularly around hydration and hygiene. Good to know that sulfa drugs are good enough for UTI treatment. I don’t know why, but the fish antibiotics thing feels like a bridge too far into prepper-land for me….interested to hear how other people feel about it!

Where is the hurricane/fire coverage?

Shelf-stable pantry meals for snobs

Where is the hurricane/fire coverage?

Shelf-stable pantry meals for snobs

Preps with a newborn