Staying At Home

Health, SHTF

It’s not often I get ahead of the rest of the noooz, but I think we covered this ground pretty well last week.

What to Buy For Home Emergency Kits if You’re Quarantined in The Coronavirus Outbreak

  • You should have a 14-day supply of food for everyone in your household. Focus on dry and canned goods that are easy to prepare.
  • Keep at least one gallon of water per day for each person – and pet – in your home, the American Red Cross recommends.  (Not sure about that;  if you’re staying in place, then you only ever need about a liter/quart of drinking water per day per person.)
  • Make sure you have hygienic products like antibacterial soap, hand sanitizer, toilet paper, tissues, feminine care products, and diapers.
  • If possible, get a 30-day supply of your prescription medications.  (We talked about this one.)
  • Maintain a first aid kit with supplies to treat common injuries.
  • Take note of other medical supplies you might need, such as contact lenses or hearing aid batteries. And make sure you have over-the-counter medicines like pain relievers and cough and cold medicines.
  • You may want to get copies of your health records.  (Should be easy under ObamaCare, right?)
  • Don’t forget about your mental health.

The last one is what worries me the most.  What keeps me sane is regular trips to the range, which would be impossible if I was doing my best Typhoid Mary impression requiring home incarceration.  But for some reason, most municipalities — including mine — seem to have a problem with people shooting .22s at squirrels, rabbits and coyotes in the yard, or similar.  Even air guns are frowned upon (which makes me feel batter about having donated mine to the Son&Heir’s old club, the Shooting Stars).  And don’t say the word “Airsoft” to me:  I tried it once, and it sucked, no substitute at all for real shooting, damn it.

Keeping sane when cooped up isn’t easy, especially when most of the TV fare on Netflix/Prime/Hulu etc. all suck large donkey dicks.

At least I have my books…

20 comments

  1. Store water for an in house quarantine? I guess the listmakers think we deplorables don’t have running water in our homes.

    1. It takes a lot of people you never think about to keep the water supply running…People at the water company, people at the electric company to keep the electricity on.

      When about 15% of the population becomes too ill to go to work, those infrastructure services start to break down. Not just water and electricity, but if you’re on a municipal sewer system, that can cause huge problems when it fails. Fire and police services, emergency medical services, the things in ‘society’ that most people actually rely on. Then there are the non-governmental workers: Truck drivers, grocery workers, etc.

      So yeah, storing some water is a good idea…all the time.

      And before someone says that the 15% doesn’t matter, the others just work some overtime, that only works up to a point, they get exhausted, they need to eat (need food for that) they need water and electricity, fuel deliveries, etc.. Plus, they are likely to become ill as well. And don’t forget, they’re not the military, they can go home whenever they want.

  2. Got my emergency supplies this past weekend. Several bottles of Jameson, Crown Royal, several gallons of generic rum (since it’ll be mixed, who cares what brand – get the cheapest), some vodka and schnapps just for variety, and a few 5 gallon jugs from the hardware store to hold tap water.

    All the above was for, ahem, medicinal purposes. Mental health and all that.

    1. I’m in hearty agreement with the spirit [sic] of your emergency supplies, although I have a little problem with any medicinal alcohol which doesn’t contain the words “Scotch” and “Southern Comfort”.
      But that’s just me, all variations on the same theme, one’s man’s meat, etc.
      Bravo.
      I myself have little need to augment my own supplies thereof — if my wife’s perennial question is anything to go by. (“Good God! How much more of this stuff do you NEED?”)
      I haven’t shown her Ye Old Ammoe Locquer yet…

  3. 22lr suppressed shot from inside the house through an open door; while a poor substitute for a range, should help. Please remember to disable all smoke alarms before starting your session.

  4. Kim, one quart a day is not sufficient for sustaining life…especially not if you have to do any work.

    And that 1 gallon a day includes water for cooking food… if you plan on washing up at all, make it two.

    You’re right about the shit on the ‘premium streaming services’.

  5. I would not be surprised to learn that many of Kim’s readers are “preppers” to a greater or lesser degree and have most of this scenario covered already.

    The panic buying has already begun, and a lot of people are starting to realise that modern civilisation only has a paper thin veneer.

    “Be Prepared” is good old fashioned motto.

    1. Make preparation in advance: You never have trouble if you are prepared for it – T. Roosevelt.

  6. Buy a case of 1.75 bottles of your favorite libation, and put it into storage and forget about it, till needed. Meanwhile, continue regular “Bottle” purchases at your liquor store, for ordinary consumption.

    Buy a “Water BOB”, bathtub water storage bladder. Appx. $35, and turns your tub into a safe, anti-contamination water reservoir.

    Invest in Colibri .22 CB caps *and* a quality, .22 LR rated Bullet Trap.

    Set up your indoor range to extend to your longest point-to-point distance available in your apartment. Alternative would be a high-quality, match grade .177 air-pistol.

    Make sure you have either a Coleman “dual fuel” camp stove (runs on either Coleman “white gas”, or on simple pump unleaded gasoline), *or* a charcoal grill with plenty of charcoal on hand. It might end up being your only “stove”, if municipal services die-off. Alternatively, a quality backpacker’s stove would work, but those tend to need bottled propane for operation.

    And yeah. You might get by with drinking only a quart of water per day, but you’ll need 2x/3x that for washing, cleaning cookware, etc.

    Finally, if city services stop, you’ll end up needing to dig a “slit trench” outside, and rigging up a frame and bedsheets for a privacy screen. Wasting good water on flushing a toilet is not a good recipe for rationing a critical resource.

    All of this is pretty bog-standard, Mk I Mod 1 “Hurricane Preparedness” down here on the coast. Ought to work just as well during the Coronapalypse.

    Jim
    Sunk New Dawn
    Galveston, TX

  7. I don’t see cigars on that list, unless we’re counting them under the “mental health” bullet point.

  8. I just opened my last package of bacon this morning, I usually try to keep at least two or three for backup along with several dozen eggs. Time to go to the store and stock up on these essentials.

  9. It’s ominous to me that they keep emphasizing “easy to prepare”. Widespread outages of fuel p, electricity, and water shouldn’t be part of a normal quarantine. Essential staff are generally equipped with PPE and allowed out like in China).

    This sounds more like prep for a carrington event or martial law.

  10. +1 that the gallon per day includes washing and cooking, not just drinking. Something I was always explaining during public presentations when I worked in Emergency Management.

    There’s also the possibility of a water issue unrelated to the Kung Flu, but just because Murphy is a jerk.

    Such as a water main break in your area that causes a shut off of water, and then 48 hours or so of a boil advisory. (Happens around here several times a year).

    Or the tornado that takes out the local water plant (almost happened here last year, and the accompanying power outage did cause water issues in certain areas as having back up generators at all pumping stations is apparently not the no brainer you would think)

    Getting a camping potty chair at Cabela’s or someplace similar and lots of garbage bags is another item for a long term bug-in.

  12. I’ve been stocking up on handgun and rifle ammo

    I think I have a respectable supply

    We have a house with a year’s worth of propane, a well and 60 head of Angus beef cattle

    I probably need to pick up some baking potatoes, corn and chips

    And maybe a few more cases of ammo

  13. The BATFE’S have made suppressor equipped airguns legal, as long as they are an integral part of the barrel, not removable. (don’t want you swapping them onto a real gun, of course)

    I think they are now available retail.
    So, you should now be able to discretely target shoot at home! Except in CA, I suspect.

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