During last year's "unpleasantness", was a period of time that MRE's were about all some folks had...they aren't bad (except for the vegetarian version)...lots of suposition about the gum.
Of course it's all dependant on a sourse of clean drinking water. Plan ahead on that one. tennis ball jammed in teh tolit keeps back-up out...beating in a rubber stopper in a clean tub is a good large water container....even after the water pressure fails, there is still 30 to 50gal. in a sotarge type hot water heater (and I'll never go to an on-demand heater just because of this lesson). Rain water if youve got a larg enough collection system.
(DO NOT DRINK RAIN WATER FROM A MODERN ROOF!!! besides the odd chemicals in today's roofing, have taken x-rays of two people, terminal, from some weird bird-viral thing, passed on by bird-poop-contaminated water.)
Didn't plan on stock piling MRE's at tax payer's expense, but the way the system worked was odd. Once you scrounged up enough gas to run a car, would get in line at a distribution point with the trunk open, as you drove past, would slow down and a guradsman would toss in a case of MRE''s and a flat of bottled water (some times it was beer cans..of water, not beer). Never even stopped, just rolled by at a walking pace.
So..there is a stash of four cases (and we ate 5 other cases)...don't know the life expectancy, but these were not old-stock when they were handed out.
Some things I'd not have though of before Katrina, but keep at hand now.
1. Those crappy solar garden lights...not real bright...but can set them out during the day and bring them in at night. Beats sitting in the dark with dead flashlight batteries.
2. Geologist's hammer. With no real law and street gangs about, don't want to stand around with a rubber hose getting gas from a flooded/destroyed car. Plastic tub..geologist hammer...easy-open-can. Yeah...it's looting, even on flood totaled cars, upside down, washed up on higher ground....so both the gangs and the toops just might shoot you.
3. Generator to be used more sparingly than you'd think. Only lights on for miles kind of draws people to you...some you don't want drawn...so it has less use than one would think in a real SHTF situation.
(Didn't have it then, but even a bottom of the line 1st generation night vision monocular would have been a big help.)
4. GOOD radio. In the world before GPS, AM direction finding radios were common with boaters (you'd triangulate two radio stations to find your aproximate location)...good sensitive radios, and with the dircetion finding antenna, can align it for specific directions. Large radios, pre- "chip" technology, so the ld transister borads take up a good bit of space...can make them run on 12v DC. Ebay item.
