Some scenerios to get folks thinking

[protus]

. I thought some brain work would be cause for good debate/conversation. try and be honest with yourself on some of these.


Your a prepper. You have your nice 8x8 closet racked with steel shelf's, full of can goods, and ramen. An event happens that knocks down most if not all infrastructure in your AO. It is day 15. Your can goods are dwindling, you didnt figure that between you and your wife , you'd go through almost 100 cans already. One day, near dusk, you hear a knocking at the door over the hum over your honda 2000 genny . You grab your Mosin and peek out the side of the barricaded window. You see a young child, around 12. Your wife , recognizes it as Dr.Smiths youngest daughter "patty". Your wife yells at her, from behind the second window
" Are you ok...patty..." ahh honey she looks like death warmed over....we should let her in...
Patty goes into a sob, is mumbling something about a fire,,and bad men.....please help...
Your on the fence about letting her in, the wife is trying to open the door...you cant see most of your front yard from your vantage point and its getting dark already........




Your at the BOL. Its been quite now for 2 months. The first weeks were kinda crazy. It was cowboys and Indians trying to bug out and get in place. Luckily, your teammates arrived in short order and tommy was already in place, keeping the place sustainable pre event. But none the less, it hasnt been the mad max type world everyone had figure the PAW would be.Not one major issue or shot fired so far. None the less every one still pulls a guard shift at night and early AM, or when folks are out in the fields working. Its 6am...you had forgot how cold it could be in Feb in south idaho, You reach in grab the sleeping bag from the LP/OP box and settle in for the last 1.5 hours of your shift....Your used to seeing a deer or wild dog, lurk around the fence line, trying for a ear of corn, or one of the free range chickens . Just as the sun was breaking the tree line, and the fog starting thicken..you notice two dark shapes...at 1st you think its your eyes playing tricks on you as you blow hot air into your hands...maybe its a deer.....but one of them just crawled under the fence ,,and the other one is now kneeling....its plain as day what they are and he's covering the other guy............





Its day 45 of your bug out. Luckily, you pre cached some supplies along this route. Your wife is with you,hardley. 12 miles back, she started limping. You removed her boots to see she has some major blisters she didnt tell you about and is wearing those stupid cotton socks she always said felt comfy.
She's got hamburger toes, and now it hurts her to even stand. You decided to lay up. You know it could be 1-2 days before they heal enough for her to walk, and with how dirty everything is , makes for a good infection recipe. You know your caches were set up to cover 20 miles a day to keep you time to get to your in laws 300 acre dairy farm in tofaraway county, idaho. You know at the rate youve gone today alone your 2 days behind what your supplies can handle. You've both lost a ton of weight, and you get tired so much easier than when you 1st started after the "collapse" . While treating your wifes feet, you hear a noise you hadnt heard in along time.....you grab your binoculars from your BOB and make out the shape of a old truck. It looks like only one driver.....
you look down at your wife...she's skin and bones. you havent seen her that thin since highschool in 88' , her face is dirty and streaked with dried tears and she just stares through you as you try and smile at her..you know its gonna be a long and even harder trip.......the truck is coming closer ....




Day 12 of quarantine-
Your 6 yr old started with the "cough". This was your biggest fear...and your wife's.
Things were great before the "ick" came. There was the weekend block parties at the neighbors. Those were great,always a theme and on a rotation. To think, you hosted the last one as a "zombie ball" . You've always felt safe here, with the amount of doctors as neighbors,the to high ranking LEO's a block over to even the retired marine major, 3 doors down that insisted on every 4th of july to shoot off his small blackpowder cannon . But now, this,,sickness, one you cant see or touch is taking them all away one by one, Your wife already had a break down, your stressed as your water stocks are almost gone, and the pantry is almost empty.
Your neighbor Dr. Johnson , has not radioed over the frs/grms you tossed over to him, in 3 days.....it was a great idea, as major already had radio's.....but now just static......Dr.J as everyone called him, always had those free medicine samples to help out everyone. With the new health care reform, he did what he could to help people, he wasnt a DR. for the money and it showed in how he cared for any of the kids in the neighborhood .......
You noticed, your wife looking pale and shivering on day 13...her cough you thought was from smoking all those years............












enjoy :p

[Matt In Oklahoma]

. Its day 45 of your bug out. Luckily, you pre cached some supplies along this route. Your wife is with you,hardley. 12 miles back, she started limping. enjoy :p

Sadly it would be more like 1.2 miles for her

[monkeybird]

Scenario Number 1
After reading a book with this type of scenario (I believe it was Rawles' book) no amount of pity would make me let the child in. In the book a gang was just waiting for the door to open. They attacked, killed the husband, raped and killed the wife and took all the food. So, knowing this is possible, I'd be a fool to open the door. I would however, insist that she go back to the street, I would then throw food of some kind out a window (I would not open a door). She could come and get the food while being covered with a gun.

Scenario Number 2
Sound the alarm and shoot! Anyone stupid enough to approach at that hour unannounced deserves it.

Scenario Number 3
That's a tough one. Seeing someone you love suffer can break your spirit. The approaching truck offers rescue or your moral death. Think about it. Suppose the driver is stupid enough to stop because of your waving, what do you do, beg for him to drive you? What do you offer in return? What if he says NO?

Or. . . you could just use your rifle and shoot the driver through the windshield. The truck might wreck, but would probably still run

Or. . . you would wave, ask and if refused, simply walk away.

Each person has to evaluate just how far they are willing to stretch their moral convictions. I would ask, and if refused walk away. The driver may be trying to reach his own unprotected family. While my spouse has bleeding torn up feet, while both of us may have lost a great deal of weight, I still have resources. Supposedly, a cache to located every 20 miles. My planning was poor. 45 ++++ days is a very great distance to at BOL. What was I thinking? I should have also insisted that my spouse wear proper footwear. If the request was refused, I should have bought the footwear myself and put it a cache.

If I got a ride great, if not I would either rest, or make a carry out of a blanket and try to pull her/him. I'm not desperate enough yet to kill someone in cold blood.

Scenario Number 4
It fairly obvious that you all have the "ick." Is this disease lethal? If so, your family will die. If you are not immune, you will die too. You problem is now solved because you won't need the water, food or the doctor for that matter.

If the disease in not lethal I would try to sneak out of quarantine to the doctor's house. I imagine he has died from the infection, but he may have some of those 'magic pills'. Regardless, I would search for water, food and any thing else that would make my family's death less painful.

In retrospect, I should have followed my instincts and left for my BOL when the 'ick' first showed up in my area. I should have put the BOL on lockdown, refusing to allow anyone to enter the property. But mostly, I should have insisted my family stay in their own home, away from others. Attending a block party allowed the 'ick' to kill my family. If gangs had been roaming the streets of my neighborhood, I would have kept my family isolated and protected my home from invasion. Why did I not take the 'ick' seriously. Why did I count on modern medicine to 'cure' the ick. I've lost my family and probably my own life because I didn't take the 'ick' seriously.

[Lowdown3]

'We hereby commander this here drinking establishment for the greater good of the South Georgia Irregulars! Ahhh, We need your truck too Bubba!" LOL

If the person would stop or you could "get" them to stop, then perhaps an arrangement could be made one way or another. Definitely make it worth their while- "Here is $500. cash" (early on before it's evident that cash has less use). I think it would be basically a question of how far you want to go morally as MB noted. 45 miles out of his way, with the promise of gas and food for his time. No I'm not suggesting a "Manny Olivera" deal like in Patriots wherein they took the guy into the house, gave him the "grand tour" etc.

Quite the contrary, more like get within radio distance of the retreat and if it was possible to radio in, vector into a known area AWAY from the retreat wherein a small team could cover while he dropped you off and got his gas and something for the effort.

This is yet another reason why you should have stuff pre-positioned at the retreat. When "Tommy" that's already in place gets your radio call, he can gather some gas, some food or other materials to "repay" the fellow and head off to a meeting point - again AWAY from the retreat.

[SCinPNW]

Great scenarios, thanks for posting them.

Scenario #1: As much as I would want to open the door I would have to assume it could be a trap, especially with it being nearly dark. As MB did, I would toss out an already prepared bag of supplies for just this occasion. The bag might include a small Ziploc bag of beans and small bag of rice. If she keeps coming back day after day, I am not sure what to think. I know my inclination is to help her and her family, especially since they are neighbors.

Scenario #2: Sound the silent alarm to the group and proceed as planned, assuming the group has trained for such a scenario. The question is do you just shoot them or take them prisoner and determine how many there are or what, I am not sure. I do not have any military or LEO training so to be honest; I am not sure what I would do.

Scenario #3: I like MB’s idea of prepositioning socks and boots if you think your spouse or partner is not going to wear the proper clothing, however, if I have gone to the effort of prepositioning enough supplies to get us all the way to our BOL, then I think I would also have done some training hikes of the same or greater distance so we would have already worked through this, and then I would have insisted on the wearing of proper clothing. However, as I type this, how realistic would that be in a situation where you are scared, panicked and who knows what else to notice what socks and shoes someone is putting on. It would be easy to forget or not even notice something like that until after the fact.

Scenario #4: I would be praying, and doing whatever I could, such as, reading through all of the survival medical books I have to see if I have missed anything. Not sure what else I could do.

Wow, in reading these scenarios and thinking about what I would do I now feel very unprepared.
SC

[Rmplstlskn]

Scenarios are always FUN, but sad as well, 'cuz it brings home in the mind the harsh realities of our fragility, both physically and societal.

SCENARIO #1: Young girl at the door...
First, one has to evaluate context... It is Day 15 of an event that knocked out infrastructure (hurricane/flood/whatever). It is not known if this is a PAW/WROL event or just a Katrina-type disaster. So I will assume it is a Katrina-type disaster and that the rest of the country and world is still normal...
I would tell the girl from safe, ballistic cover to move to the back or side door. This will spoil the ambush plans if there was one. I would watch for any hint of ambush as the girl walked around the house, all the while mentally slamming myself for not buying a PVS14 night-vision setup from that JRH company when they had them on sale.
If all looked clear, wife would take front guard/spotter and I would evaluate side/rear entry for young girl. After debrief, I would then evaluate if there was anything we could do to help, and if such help, if deemed safe and workable, could not wait until morning light.
If this would have been a real national or global PAW event, the criteria would have changed. However, knowing the huge burden such an existence would be for my wife and daughter, an addition of a young, healthy female to our "retreat" might be a good thing if she had lost everything and had nothing left due to the fire and bad men. My wife would have additional help for all her duties and my daughter would have someone to play with. But this would have to be weighed against the amount of food remaining and the prospects of getting more... But yound girls eat less than a grown man and I suspect most of the work burden will be "domestic" in nature (laundry, cooking, cleaning, gardens) that a 12YO would be more than able to handle. Also, cheaper (food cost) additional eyes for security.

But if we are down to bare shelves, we ALL are already screwed...

More scenarios later...

Rmpl

[rockriver]

attention please...
all official members of WI, officers and directors.
we have a new nomination. the proposed inductee, whom most of you know,
has dutifully and thoroughly prepared himself for review and examination.
please carefully and with all due diligence consider this proposal of membership.
the WI organization has a long and proud history.. tried and true..
yes some members have wavered on occasion. but that is part of our proud
traditon.
i present this one for membership into the WI organization. please consider the material evidence and
what you know of this individual and prepare yourselves in a solemn manner
as we take the responsibility of considering the addition of a new member.
i nominate this individual and present his most current portfolio and file for your review simultaneously.

i present to you "PROTUS" for full membership into the highly esteeed SOUTHEAST DIVISION of
the WHAT IF .. Organization.
Protus, "your presentation is excellent"
i feel sure the other members will give your presentation their full consideration, and make the right decision
as they vote. you have my full support.
Congratulations.
rr

may it be the beginning of many such challenges to the organization.

[protus]

attention please...
all official members of WI, officers and directors.
we have a new nomination. the proposed inductee, whom most of you know,
has dutifully and thoroughly prepared himself for review and examination.
please carefully and with all due diligence consider this proposal of membership.
the WI organization has a long and proud history.. tried and true..
yes some members have wavered on occasion. but that is part of our proud
traditon.
i present this one for membership into the WI organization. please consider the material evidence and
what you know of this individual and prepare yourselves in a solemn manner
as we take the responsibility of considering the addition of a new member.
i nominate this individual and present his most current portfolio and file for your review simultaneously.

i present to you "PROTUS" for full membership into the highly esteeed SOUTHEAST DIVISION of
the WHAT IF .. Organization.
Protus, "your presentation is excellent"
i feel sure the other members will give your presentation their full consideration, and make the right decision
as they vote. you have my full support.
Congratulations.
rr

may it be the beginning of many such challenges to the organization.

Ahh i know you like a good what if...

though...i did have some campfire flash backs of some of your good ones from the last few camps LOL.



I know some of these scenerios seem really bad, but they are open ended more or less. There is no right, nor worng.




its day 5 of hurricane pablo..the biggest cat 4 to slam southeast idaho....you finally stumble into a check point at the causeay bridge.. at it is a fema,natl. guard,LEO check point.
At the check point, your are well recived by the fema and red cross volunteers, however as you reach for your ID to prove your residency to the AO, under the watch full eye of full rattle NG troops, your sidearm is see by a deputy sheriff from 3 countys over,when you slap a local LEO on the shoulder and proclaim " man im glad i got outta there alive....." he goes barney fiffe on you.....sending the rest of the check point into condition brown...what do you do.....


:P

[Matt In Oklahoma]

its day 5 of hurricane pablo..the biggest cat 4 to slam southeast idaho....you finally stumble into a check point at the causeay bridge.. at it is a fema,natl. guard,LEO check point.
At the check point, your are well recived by the fema and red cross volunteers, however as you reach for your ID to prove your residency to the AO, under the watch full eye of full rattle NG troops, your sidearm is see by a deputy sheriff from 3 countys over,when you slap a local LEO on the shoulder and proclaim " man im glad i got outta there alive....." he goes barney fiffe on you.....sending the rest of the check point into condition brown...what do you do.....:P

Hope I have my brown shorts on:)
then let it go down and keep cool and work it out after nerves calm. Anything else is suicide by .......

[monkeybird]

I'd have left Idaho well ahead of a cat 4/5 for starters. However, if I should have been foolish enough to hang around, I would remember from NO hurricane Katrina that the NG beat old ladies like me to take their guns. I hope I'd have to good sense to hide it better!

[protus]

good one MB.

[All Talk]

Good stuff. To me, these are interesting thought experiements that lead to:

1) thinking about making better preps (i.e. avoiding pitfalls by considering problems in advance)
2) things to to consider when the SHTF and you haven't prepared/trained for all eventualities.

So some of my thoughts your scenarios engendered:

I think in the 45 day trek with 20-mile caches, this reminds me to think about:

1) what? I've travelled 900 miles and i'm still not at my BOL? if I find myself laying out THAT many caches, somewhere along the way my overall plan would have to change.

2) Bicycles? Either from the git-go, or find some?

3) the truck? I might ask for a lift, taking precautions in the approach. Maybe just to the next cache, wouldn't hurt. Shoot the driver? Not even a consideration given the situation you describe. If my wife's life depended upon that truck? That's where it gets tough...

In the little girl scenario, since apparently i didn't predict such a thing, i wasn't prepared. Now, if I find myself bugged in in such a situation, even if the family hasn't preplanned for this, sounds like we should start discussing procedures and criteria as soon as we hunker down.

In the guard duty scenario, if we're still standing guard, we should still be maintaining an SOP/ROE, and discussing and agreeing to any changes as a group, otherwise, SOP. I don't think I would have spent many a night in that OP/LP without a clear understanding of SOP/ROE before I insisted we adopt some.