TEOTWAWKI Looting

[Lupinus]

I am not talking a Katrina situation or the type of looting we all saw there. I am talking the end of the world as we know it. No place to really go. The government can't possibly help you. Use your choice of disaster from nuke's, disease, natural world changing disaster, little green men invade and take most of the population as slaves back to the planet Rignok.....whatever flavor you like use your imagination.

Now given that situation you decide to hunker down because leaving just isn't going to help anything and may likely make you worse off so you decide that while you still can before others do it you go and get whatever supplies you can. Where is the first place you go or if you could only choose one type of store what would you pick?

[KaceCoyote]

Walmart:Ammo, medical supplies
Nearest gunstore:ammo, magazines

Assuming police stations are no longer manned, I'll go whole hog for a few thousand rounds.

[Lupinus]

Wal-mart sounds like a good place but I would avoid it and other similar one stop shop megamarts like the plague for one simple reason- everyone and their mother will be there with some passed on family members tagging along. It will be a zoo and a madhouse and likely not a safe place to be if you are after anything that is highly desirable...which may not be saying much cause most people with a lick of sense will not consider a TV a highly prized item at this time. Though depending on just how bad it is and how many people have died it may be on my to do list.

Personally I would narrow it to two stores the first being a drug store. Most every medical supply you need you will be able to find at a well stocked drug store such as a CVS or agrees just as much if not more medical supplies as any Wally world. They also normally have some canned food and the like though that is actually low on my list of things to get. I can hunt or forage for food, I can't grow my own medical supplies. Medical supplies are on the top of my list most anything else I can get myself elsewhere or isn't absolutely necessary.

Second would be a gun shop. I'd try and pick a smaller crappy one then a big attractive one for the same reason I would avoid Wal-mart. What I'd grab there should be obvious and not need a whole lot of explanation. I'd get all the cleaning supplies I could, and all the ammo I could. As for guns I would be selective and take only what would be useful. Fifty guns might be nice but isn't necessary. Few each of handguns rifles and shotguns any more then that is unneeded extra.

[Lupinus]

extra note on ammo

I was thinking that I would grab ammo for what I have but then I got to thinking and here is what the hampster while resulted in.

Prioratize for the guns I have or am taking. But also grab as much ammo outside of that as I could as well and maybe even some more of the guns then origionaly planned. First for the ammo because down the line you never know what you might come on. If you come along a nice 40 S&W but grabbed no S&W ammo its only a club. And also for ammo and now the guns as well....even if I have no use for them my having them gives me supply for trade and out of the hands of others. If they are in my hands they cant be used agianst me.

[Justin]

Blockbuster video, to pick up a copy of The Omega Man. (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0067525/)

[Thin Black Line]

I'd get seeds and farming tools and let the idiots kill each other at Walmart
and the gun store.

[Krenn]

I agree. A garden shop or naturalist food store.

And the library/bookstore

everything else will either eventually run out, or eventually have the neccessary industry retooled and ready.

Knowledge and seeds are the only things that a single citizen can effeciently reproduce by himself. everything else requires groups cooperating.

although the books I already plan on having, and I'll probably help my parents with their garden enough to make sure they have the basic seed stockpiles... whether or not they know why they need it.

[svtruth]

Isn't it a little contradictory to say what you would loot? If you seriously think about being prepared, wouldn't you have the ammo already?

[Preacherman]

I think a little reality needs to enter the debate.

- It's no good trying to loot basic necessities when several million other survivors will all be trying to do the same. Massive mob violence is the only possible result. Even if you get some stuff, you've still got to get to a safe place with it - and I'm betting that there will be all sorts of unofficial "road blocks" to tax your passage...

- If a genuine TEOTWAWKI situation arises, most of those involved are likely to die. This includes you! Unless you've already got your basic survival needs filled, and enough food, ammo, fuel, etc. to get to a safer place, you're simply not going to make it. Period.

- If the situation extends to the whole country, you won't have the chance to grow crops, etc. For example, radiation will poison the surface soil in the event of a nuclear attack; a biological or chemical attack will do the same; any crops that you can grow will be targeted by those few still surviving; etc. Your survival needs for at least the first year will have to be met by what you have available and/or can "obtain" by one means or another. My personal plan involves enough supplies to live on for up to 30 days. More than that, I couldn't carry with me, in my vehicle or travel trailer. If you have your own (secure!) bug-out location, or a secure place to "bug-in", you can easily enough accumulate enough supplies to see you through a year - the Mormons do this as a matter of routine (good for them! The rest of us need to learn from their example).

- In a TEOTWAWKI situation, if you're trying to "fly solo", or cope with only a limited number of people (e.g. wife and kids), you're probably screwed. Safety lies in numbers. You'll need competent people to stand guard, gather supplies, protect and guide the children, prepare food, etc. This means a team which can divide up these tasks: a couple on guard, a couple with the kids, a couple preparing food/cleaning/whatever, a couple foraging for supplies, etc. Build a network of competent friends, and you have a much better chance of making it. Without such a network, you're toast.

- You'll do much better in such a situation if you have extra supplies on hand that will be needed by others, and/or skills that can be traded for supplies. A blacksmith will be in huge demand for any metal work; extra food/ammo/medical supplies will be very desirable trade items ("Sure, I can let you have a tankful of gas, but you're going to have to buy it with a month's worth of rice for my family"); and so on. Note the need for armed security in your team to prevent the "trade" becoming a "loot" scenario.

Hope this helps.

[CAnnoneer]

+1 Preacherman

Most of the looting and violence will be in the first month or two after the initial disaster because 95% of the population are unprepared, so the collapse of infrastructure will hit them very hard very fast. The casualty number will explode especially in big urban centers.

The next phase will be armed gangs of raiders collecting whatever remains of the stockpiled supplies and killing or enslaving survivors. When the stockpiles start running out, the raider gangs will turn upon one another. Eventually, a few raiders or armed citizens may start forming new local governments and actually trying to reestablish some economy for long-term sustenance.

The third phase is when the now few vaultdwellers emerge from the hideouts and meet the other survivors to establish new small communities at the technological level someplace between late Middle Ages and early industrial revolution.

Along this roadmap, I give highest chances of survival to those who organize themselves in small groups, have an effective hideout someplace out of the way, and have the discipline and forethought to stockpile enough resources to hibernate over the first and second phase, and enough special materials and knowhow to rebuild after emerging in phase three.

This analysis also shows that looting is most likely a death sentence.

Finally, historical parallels can already be found and studied. Some are as close as Katrina, while others are as old (but valid) as the collapse of central authority in Rome and the ensuing Dark Ages.

[Hobie]

Blockbuster video, to pick up a copy of The Omega Man. (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0067525/):D

You might want to see that now. You'll have a much lower level of expectation for life after TEOTWAWKI.;)

[Rezin]

I'd think a gun store would be mega defended. I know if I had one, I wouldn't be leaving it for you folks to pilfer... ;)

[Lupinus]

you would if you were one of the many dead guys

And yes I agree that we should be prepared to survive and not have to loot. But most of us prepare for what? Few months at best? Not years and even so I'd think finding extra supplies couldn't hurt.

[cracked butt]

Library- grab the set 'Foxfire' books before one of the few others who have heard of them get there first.

Find a woodburning stove- Wher I live, they are prohibited by local ordinances, but since the law is now no longer meaningful, a woodburning stove would be on top of my list. Better yet- for less than a $100 one could obtain a kit to turn a 55 gal drum into a wood burning stove.

hardware store- need a hand brace drill. nails could come in very handy too.

[Borachon]

Your house while you are at Wal-Mart and the local gun shop.:)



Just kidding...I'd never rob you when my life and the lives of everyone around me had been drastically altered...and for all time. :evil:


On the other hand...what do you know about your neighbors? More importantly..what do THEY know about YOU?:uhoh:

[Navy joe]

It's unethical, but if it looks like TEOTW is coming then I am going corporate looting. I plan to already have what I need to live, but will run right out and buy augment supplies if I see something coming. How? By maxing every form of credit I have. Extra supplies will work for extra people or trade. If the world ends my credit rating doesn't matter. If it doesn't I do what I always do, work my ass off and pay my bills. Due to my location I hope that people I know would come to me as a base. I have a very rural setting with excellent, and I do mean excellent fields of fire. :evil: Just kidding mainly, hopefully wouldn't need to shoot anyone. I think I have the first step of avoiding looting covered, I am far from the city.

[Lupinus]

what do THEY know about YOU?
That i am a hermit night owl that raises his voice often enough to think I am a nutball likly on high doses of medication and that I have guns..... Idon't think looters from my neighboorhood will knock on my door :evil:

[DelayedReaction]

Find a woodburning stove- Wher I live, they are prohibited by local ordinances, but since the law is now no longer meaningful, a woodburning stove would be on top of my list. Better yet- for less than a $100 one could obtain a kit to turn a 55 gal drum into a wood burning stove.

Couldn't you turn a 55 gallon drum into a wood burning stove by just drilling some holes into the bottom for air circulation and putting a grill grate on top?

Or you could just cook over a camp fire.

[beerslurpy]

My garage? I wont need to loot because I keep stockpiles of everything I might need in the event that a disaster happens (like it did multiple times last year) and Wal-Mart ceases functioning.

If people decide to loot my garage, I will partially expend my store of ammunition to prevent this.

[Lupinus]

hey Im down the road how bout if I come bearing gifts? :evil:

[Thin Black Line]

Find a woodburning stove- Wher I live, they are prohibited by local ordinances, but since the law is now no longer meaningful, a woodburning stove would be on top of my list. Better yet- for less than a $100 one could obtain a kit to turn a 55 gal drum into a wood burning stove.

It's better to have the woodstove or drum/kit now rather than try to
find one after a collapse when they would be worth their weight in
gold. This would also include the stove pipe and adapters. I know
some ppl who have stoves stored for teotwawki and only 6 feet of
pipe, if any at all. Just so you city dwellers with modern gas furnaces
start off right: Substituting PVC pipe will not work, use actual
black metal stove pipe! :D

I picked up a used Jotul 602 as a back-up for my garage (already have
a woodstove in the house) for $40 last year. Good luck finding that
this year with fuel fears. Many new stoves are on back-order and we
go into winter the situation doesn't get any better. You'll find the
left-overs on clearance in April......

[Lupinus]

and pellet stoves don't could a lot of them I have seen will not function anywhere near properly if you arn't spacificly using pellets.

I'd reccomend a woodstove or even a coal stove if you get yourself a stove that can handle coal and fill up a six by eight or so section with coal itll last a mightly long time depending just how much you're trying to heat.

One house I lived in we had a coal stove....that combined with wood and occasional use of the oil furnace didn't even take half the coal.

Of course you could always just get fireplaces in your house the chiminy radiates heat quite nicly through rooms it runs through.

[cracked butt]

It's better to have the woodstove or drum/kit now rather than try to
find one after a collapse when they would be worth their weight in
gold. This would also include the stove pipe and adapters. I know
some ppl who have stoves stored for teotwawki and only 6 feet of
pipe, if any at all. Just so you city dwellers with modern gas furnaces
start off right: Substituting PVC pipe will not work, use actual
black metal stove pipe!

I agree with that. having the parts on hand is the most important part. My grandfather went a little further and actually installed one of the drum stoves before the dreaded Y2K:evil:

[Thin Black Line]

Of course you could always just get fireplaces in your house the chiminy radiates heat quite nicly through rooms it runs through.

Definitely a no-go on pellet stoves.

Having lived in houses with both fireplaces and free-standing woodstoves,
the stoves are much better.

[Dragun]

i'm one of the guys that will wind up on planet Rignok, so i'm not worried about looting.... :neener:

[Lupinus]

Definitely a no-go on pellet stoves.

Having lived in houses with both fireplaces and free-standing woodstoves,
the stoves are much better.
I personaly detest the things. If you run out of pellets you are screwed. Getting it set right is a complete pain in the rear end. And when they are properly burning they don't hardly heat the area up enough to worry about.

Give me a good old wood or even better coal stove anyday.

Course you could always get a biodiesel reactor and when the SHTF you could go loot the greese from all the fast food joints in town :neener:

[mitchshrader]

built from scratch a proper masonry stove. not the fastest job, but lasts for generations.. and burns whatever fuel you can get in it with minor adaptation.

that's not a brag, just getting one of my creds on the table in case i come to visit during interesting times..

far as 'getting supplies' i'd get a foraging vehicle first. Fuel and tires same time. Armored car first choice, either Brinks type or military.

next shot i'd get luxuries/compact real wealth. booze, drugs (medicines and recreational both), sweets, brewing supplies. (yeasts, tubing, plastic & copper, valves, pots, glass bottles) jellies, syrups, dried fruit, malt syrup & dried malt, .. etc. any canning or bottling supplies that were in the flow i'd grab.

3rd vitamins & supplements, feedstore mineral blocks & salt blocks, calf formula, horse supplements. vet supplies, including all drugs/antibiotics/wound dressings, TOOLS.
hemostats, sutures, thermometers, stethoscopes, blood pressure cuffs, scalpels. autoclave or pressure cooker if portable.

anyway. ammo is loooooow on my list. first off, i'm not hunting war and if needed i planned it wrong. 2nd, i have some. 3rd, as stated, everybody will be there. i won't be there. bet a good bit of that ammo will get used around the gun stores.

back to scrounging. Leather. every scrap i could find, & tools to work it, and oils (neatsfoot, lanolin) to maintain it. leather is washers/gaskets. machine tools, small. Grinders, drills, sanders, abrasives of every type.

LIGHT BULBS. PAMPERS. KOTEX. disposable/irreplaceable items. Hardware. screws, bolts, nails, etc. stuff that won't be available and WILL get used up..

Categories of scrounge: Tools to survive, luxuries to make it enjoyable, disposables to trade, tools & supplies to make MORE luxuries.. and it'd be a fairly random glom type of scrounge, don't skip anything you see thats useful, and grab it while you have the chance, no second chances.

[Lupinus]

So let me get a basic some up of your end of the world shopping list

Supplies booze and stuff to make beer out of food you could otherwise be eating. Producing alcohol which will in turn dehydrate you and increase your water needs? Ontop of the water for making the beer.

Drugs....just well that one should be self explanitory and I shouldn't have to comment on.

Candy...I suppose you need to have the sweets for them munchies after use of your recreational drugs after the world as we know it ends

Ammo is way low on your list because you don't plan on hunting or defending yourself and you have "some"

Oh and of course and autoclave and lightbulbs....where you getting the power to run these from? You pet hampsters exporcise wheel?

Have fun at your end of the world beer and drug party....I will hunker down in my hoval with my essentials and swing by your place when you end up dead for your remaining usful supplies.

[LightningJoe]

TEOTWAWKI would have to be global or the obvious solution would be to emigrate to a place where rhe world as we know it had not ended. For once, there'd be illegal immigration from America.


To create a global catastrophe, you could have:


1] Large-scale nuclear exchange. The results would almost certainly be 1% as bad as people think (for the parts of the world not directly hit), but if developed countries (US, Japan, Europe) were destroyed, the economic winter would be serious. What kind of civilzation would climb out of the ruins of what we've got now is hard to guess. A large-scale nuclear exchange would be an attempt by one side to preempt and by the other side to retaliate and render the aggressor non-aggressive in the aftermath, so military targets would be obliterated. Probability: Very nearly inconceivable at present.


2] Major asteroid impact. The asteroid would hit somewhere. It would probably hit an ocean, since ocean covers most of Earth's surface area. Giant tsumanis would result and would wipe out coastal areas adjacent to the ocean. Both the Atlantic and Pacific are adjacent to America. If the asteroid hit land, it would directly destroy the vicinity. Particles would get up into the atmosphere like after a major volcanic eruption, reducing sunlight. Probability: Low for TEOTWAWKI.


3] Pandemic disease kills off most humans in a short time (<20 years). Disease would disproportionately affect areas with poor sanitation, little purchasing power, and inadequate health care. Sub-Saharan Africa and some parts of Asia would be the hardest hit. Younger children and the elderly would probably be high-mortality groups. For TEOTWAWKI, America, Europe, Japan, Korea, China, and India would have to be greatly affected.
Probability: Hard to evaluate, maybe the highest of the three.


Can't think of anything else foreseeable that could cause a genuine TEOTWAWKI scenario.

For #1, don't live near a military base or military resources of any kind. Learn another language, because if America is economically destroyed, you'll need to relocate your whole bloodline to another continent. Getting out of North America while the mushroom clouds light up the night is the crux. Get together with as many undamaged, armed Americans as you can and invade Mexico. Don't take no for an answer. As for looting, you'll have to forage liberally like Sherman's bummers did. Don't kill or hurt anybody; take what you need and keep moving South.


For #2a (ocean hit), don't live in any state that is adjacent to an ocean. For TEOTWAWKI, the East Coast would probably have to be wiped out, destroying the national government, so live in a state that's well-governed (i.e. not Louisiana), because that'll be the highest level of goverment for a long time. If you do the first two things, looting probably won't be necessary. Stand in the right lines, fill out the right forms, and so forth.


For #2b (land hit or maybe a really big ocean hit), if it's half as bad as people say, winter will last for years. Agricultural civilzation would be put on hold for years. Areas of the world where life is pretty precarious right now would experience a mass die off. America would institute martial law to ration food and other resources and to keep out the hordes from Central and South America. If I saw anyone looting, I would shoot him (I'd have gotten a job with the anti-looting enforcement agency and it would be legal for me).


For #3, looting and squatting would eventually be just an informal way of redistributing goods that no longer had an owner. Your duty would be to stay alive by whatever means did not kill somebody else. Learn subsistence hunting and trapping, animal husbandry, and low-tech crop cultivation. Buy a stainless steel, muzzle-loading flintlock rifle. There'll more arable land than there will be people to make use of it without modern equipment.

[wingnutx]

Have fun at your end of the world beer and drug party....

A bottle of whisky would make great trade-goods.

A few years after the event, someone who can brew beer will be a popular guy in whatever small civilization pops back up.

[Lupinus]

yeah sure.

But when booze and stuff to make more booze along with specified recreational drugs are near the top of your list and stuff like supplies and ammo are near the bottom that is a little backwards in priority lol

[Moondoggie]

These scenarios always make me scratch my head.

Our town of 5K has one grocery, one small box store, 2 pharmacies, 2 hardware stores, 2 gun stores (1 has the crotchety owner living upstairs, the other owner lives in another town 35 mi away, but his store is across the street from the cty courthouse/sheriff's office), 3 gas/convenience stores, and numerous mom & pop speciality stores...Yeah, this town is a yawner all right! Small hospital with 4 local docs. We're the biggest town in a 50 mile radius, so there's not much point in looking elsewhere for loot. If the local population is mostly intact, I don't see much potential for looting/social breakdown locally. If it came to that it would be a bloodbath as nearly everybody in town owns guns and most folks are familiar with hunting. The biggest reason I don't see folks going on a rampage is that there's a grain elevator full of food and zillions of head of livestock in the vicinity...nobody would be faced with starvation immediately. Probably for years. Huge coal trains run past the south edge of town several times a day. If the local authorities scored one those we'd also have years worth of fuel.

Heading for the hills would probably include my 18 wheeler with whatever stuff I had time to pack. 1000 miles of range, and it has a 5.5kw genset. Also provides adequate shelter wherever we set the brakes.

Hunkering down at home...I've got plenty of food for minimum 6 months plus lots of other preps. The only goods I'd be interested in would be antibiotics and maybe some extra truck batteries to set up my own elec storage ala' "Soylent Green". Already got 2 spare 130 amp alternators for my truck and 2 large inverters. Bicycle power would get us by if the genset failed for some reason.

Maybe I've got a bit of a Polyanna thing going, but I think we'd transition nicely to a local political subdivision after TEOTW.

[Podster]

Am curious...how many of you have actually read TEOTWAWKI?

[LightningJoe]

Am curious...how many of you have actually read TEOTWAWKI?


There's a TEOTWAWKI that you can read? Well, that would simplify things...

[Thin Black Line]

These scenarios always make me scratch my head.
<snip>
The biggest reason I don't see folks going on a rampage is that there's a grain elevator full of food and zillions of head of livestock in the vicinity...nobody would be faced with starvation immediately. Probably for years. Huge coal trains run past the south edge of town several times a day. If the local authorities scored one those we'd also have years worth of fuel.
<snip>
Hunkering down at home...I've got plenty of food for minimum 6 months plus lots of other preps. The only goods I'd be interested in would be antibiotics and maybe some extra truck batteries to set up my own elec storage ala' "Soylent Green".
<snip>
Maybe I've got a bit of a Polyanna thing going, but I think we'd transition nicely to a local political subdivision after TEOTW.

Is the grain silo owned by a large company like ADM? What kind of "food"
is in it? Feed corn, soy, wheat? Is it always full year round or does a train
pull up and empty it? Is it empty right now as we go into winter? Do you
think the coal trains are still going to come by if there is TEOTW?

However, as long as your community has the local means to take care of
itself and plant for the following year without outside assistance, then yes
all of you should do quite nicely.

[wingnutx]

Most stores will be a bad scene. COSTCO has bulk food, a pharmacy, and generators, but I think that it would be too late to get them.

Now, barricading yourself inside the COSTCO might be a neat idea. Move a pallet of cans in front of each door and you'd be all set.

[Lupinus]

walmart might be better

less doors and ammo lol

[wingnutx]

Walmarts here have glass fronts. COSTCO (and Sam's Club) is just a block warehouse with a few rolling shutter doors and a few fire doors, and would be easy to block off.

No ammo, though.

Avoiding stores and going right to the warehouses that supply them might let you largely avoid crowds.

I think that mostly if you don't already have it when the SHTF, then you ain't getting it afterwards.

[Lupinus]

true large companys like walmart have hude distribution centers. Problem is exactly that, they are huge. A few people can defend a home five ot six could probably even defend a walmart or cosco or sams club or anything else that didn't have a lot of entrances and exits. Now a distribution center is much larger and has many, many mroe entrances and exits through all the loading bays and stuff.

[junyo]

Three stores get hit:
1. Computer store - Grabbing networking equiment, storage devices, and laptops. The Internet is very robust, and as long as I can maintain power and a connection I'm gonna back up every knowledge site I can find; online encyclopedias, recipes, practical howtos. A lot more efficient than hitting the library, and once the regular PSTN network collapses, the handful of people with satellite links and power become the backbone of global telecom. Access to that should trade for a few pounds of rice.
2. Hardware store - Stock up on tubing, fasteners, threaded rod, etc. machined parts that are useful for maintenance and construction of equipment, but may be hard to get for a while. Plus, while you're stocking up on liquor, I'm building a still. That should trade for a couple more pounds of rice.
3. Fabric store - Strip it to the walls. Concentrate on the heavy use fabrics like canvas and denim, but what you can't use you can trade. Zippers, buttons, thread, patterns. It'll be awhile before you can just pop down to Wallyworld for a new pair of jeans, and there won't be enough people (especially in the US) with a loom handy. Being able to mend and create clothing would seem to be very handy.

I'm with Moondoggie, I think even in a TEOTWAWKI scenerio, the survivors would coalesce into village/community groups fairly quickly, and where you'd want to position yourself is as someone capable of delivering real and tangible benefit to the group almost immediately. Having guns and ammo woudn't mean much past the initial few days; if you didn't have enough on hand you wouldn't survive, and if you survived you had enough and made more, one way or another.

[ctdonath]

Looting at the onset of TEOTWAWKI?
Better to get out of the way - fast. You wouldn't be the only one hitting it (see New Orleans recently), and their scruples would be much lower than yours.

The more I read & ponder these TEOTWAKI, SHTF, bug-out, etc. scenarios, the more I realize ONE MUST LIVE SURVIVAL MODE - ALWAYS. My father's reaction to the looming Y2K TEOTWAKI scenario was "so I'll throw another log on the fire and go back to my book" - he lives survival, very comfortably, all the time. Our advertising-oriented culture has tragically weaned us off self-sufficiency.

The best reaction to the indicated scenario is "loot what? I've got everything I need - and more - already!"