Where is the best place to go to get the 'short list' of bare essentials? Especially food, and how to store it. It seems that this is a good and logical time to panic!

-- preppy (poor@prepper.com), December 21, 1999

Answers

How-To Survival Library

This is one good source of info on a variety of subjects.

-- Prep Scout (Y2K_is_close@hand.com), December 21, 1999.

Go to my website at www.y2ksurvive.com and read the intro and the food and water pages. There are links there you can click on and order stuff online. Whatever you do, do it fast.

-- cody (cody@y2ksurvive.com), December 21, 1999.

Don't panic. Take a deep breath, get out your checkbook, and get moving.

-- preparing (preparing@home.com), December 21, 1999.

If you are poor get a good amount of rice. It is cheap and you can live on it. 1 billion Chinese can't be wrong.

-- Hawk (flyin@high.again), December 21, 1999.

Here is another good resource. Lots of good info you can print out now and use later. Forgive me, I'm link impaired.

http://www.justpeace.org/nuggetsindex.htm

Take a very deep breath, and start. You may have till the end of January if we're lucky.

-- mommacarestx (nospam@thanks.com), December 21, 1999.

preppy (love that):

There is no "good and logical time to panic" but there is still time to think, if you're up to it.

Check Stan's "14 days of prep".

-- Carlos (riffraff1@cybertime.net), December 22, 1999.

It's too late. No time to store water and no time to store enough food. Your too late preppy bubb, start packing your bugout bag to go to the refugee shelters. YOUR TOO LATE!!!

-- too late jake (toolate jake@toolatejakeee.xcom), December 22, 1999.

You have 4 days on the herd. I just came from a local 24 store and guess what; they were busy with last minute Christmas shoppers. Got a couple of Hhhhmmmm looks what with cans and the big roll of toilet paper but the shelves are full. Those looks might have been a sligh chuckle a month or two ago but now, the media is starting to increase coverage. Remember the essentials, Water, Heat (if north), and Food. Too late to do much about heat except maybe warm clothes. Water, you might consider a 5 or 8 gallon containers and fill with tap. Food think of the basics rice, beans, and canned fruits and vegetables.

Set your priorities and fill from top first. Believe you me there is no way to get everything now. Focus on essentials and best of luck. When the sheeple start for the essentials, then move down your list to the non essentials why they stock up on water and frozen pizza's.

-- Squid (ItsDark@down.here), December 22, 1999.

Just came in from the big (really big like a super store big) store and found the water aisle (one gallon) empty. Two days ago it was full. In its place are the expensive little designer water (special happy little flavors) bottles.

TIP ... go to the camping section of said super store. There you will find a six gallon lite blue/green water container. Heavy plastic. Narrow in design. Here in Texas they are priced at $5.96. They are easy to store and your water cost is less than a dollar a gallon. I have had both one gallon jugs and these containers. I found the one gallon jugs leaked (we lost several gallons of water).

-- zeaal (zeaal@wondering.com), December 22, 1999.

Aside:

I expect we will continue to see individuals start creeping in or start coming off the fence. This doesn't mean the herd has bolted, only that a few Sheeple with sharp senses are picking up the approaching storm. The stampede will not occur until after Christmas and most won't even have a clue even as they watch the panic rush on grocery stores. Next Wednseday should be very interesting and I wouldn't be suprised to see a break in the famous Nasdaq Tuesday or Monday.

Let's help where we can and could the sysops repost the best of the prep discussions as well as the always repeating Stan's 14 days.

If your North, Got NyQuil?

-- Squid (ItsDark@down.here), December 22, 1999.

Preppy,

Water, as you know, is critical. You might want to get started on that asap. We're starting to see the first signs of water container shortages in Los Angeles. www.watertanks.com appears to have many storage alternatives, like a waterbags from 3 gallons to 1000 gallons, and everything in between.

I hope you take the time to read about safe storage of fuels, like propane, if you are planning on having any. Time is short, so it's easy, but unwise, to overlook safety issues.

My very best wishes to you, and your family. Be quick. Be focused. Be well.

-- (resolved@this.point), December 22, 1999.

Look in yellow pages under containers. I did and found a football sized field where they specilized in 55 gal drums. Got five for 12 dollars each. Caution should be used to get food safe drums.

-- Notforlong (Fsur439@aol.com), December 22, 1999.

Water. You cannot have enough, and remember that even if it keeps flowing, the stuff that comes out of the tap after rollover may not be something you'd want to drink a lot of.

Rice. Pasta. Anything in a tin that doesn't need cooking. Buy, buy, buy. If you buy five weeks worth today, you're paying about 1% interest on the extra, even at credit card rates. Don't buy anything you won't eat if it's a BITR.

Stop reading, get moving.

-- Servant (public_service@yahoo.com), December 22, 1999.

Just for starters,

Sam's has 50-lb bags of rice for $10-$11.

And buy rolls of 4 mil or 6 mil plastic at Home Depot for rain water catchment.

Good luck,

-- eve (123@4567.com), December 22, 1999.

Food: Aldi's, Costco, Sam's, Wal-Mart, Dollar General (or other "Dollar" stores), Big/Odd Lots, etc...

Other supplies: Wal-Mart, Sam's, hiking/camping stores, local hardware stores, Quality Farm & Fleet and flea markets.

I wouldn't order on-line though, U.S. Priority mail is running well past 2-3 days (I tried to order through REI last night, only 2nd Day Air available) because of Christmas & Y2K. Stay local.

Go for at least two weeks supplies. Don't panic though, just prepare rationally and use common sense. We'll make it through this.

Good luck!

-- Deb M. (vmcclell@columbus.rr.com), December 22, 1999.

hawk is right. Rice...then buy a bunch of bullion cubes! My advice is to determine how many days of food you wish to have and sit down and calculate how much that will be. If you wander through the isles it's easy to be impressed with you cart load and lose sight of the fact that a year's supply of food for a small family is measured by the ton. Essentials: food, water, heat, and birth control. (I guess I could skip the heat if I had to.)

-- Dave (aaa@aaa.com), December 22, 1999.

Focus on water and heat. You can pick up a kerosene heater for about $100 at SAMs, then get a bunch of K-1 kerosene. Get lots of matches. Get lots of water, and make a plan for how you will get more when you need it. Until you cover those two bases, don't try to focus on anything else.

-- Amy Leone (leoneamy@aol.com), December 22, 1999.

Buy garbage cans if you can't find water containers. Fast and simpliest way to store water in a pinch. Can't find garbage cans though at WalMart, guess everyone has the same idea.

-- ~~~~~ (~~~@~~~.xcom), December 22, 1999.

Put Metamucil on your list, rice alone is a constipator. You've got to have fiber in your diet, so lots of canned fruits and vegetables. Get refried beans in the can, you won't have to waste water, fuel and time cooking them. Saw sprouters at WalMart with 6 packages of seeds for sprouting, Orchard Hardware has them too. Your really too late in preparing, but you aren't alone, there's millions right behind you.

-- ready eddy (readyeddy@readyeddyy.xcom), December 22, 1999.

Don't forget powdered drink mixes (citrus-type) that provide 100% Vitamin C per serving.

Dried Milk, unless you're fairly close to a dairy, and mucho chocolate mix to get it down.

Velveeta, to complement the rice/beans if you wind up having to eat it.

Good Luck.

Oh, and baking soda plus mint extract to fabricate 'toothpaste'.

-- lisa (lisa@work.now), December 22, 1999.