What are your SHTF "triggers?"

[Fixer]

Many of us prepare and practice for when the SHTF but when do you know the "first" piece of stink is impacting the rotating blade? What is sufficient information to trigger your response?

Responses will always be situational and I realize some triggers require only simple observation (i.e. get to higher ground during a flood). However, the faster you recognize something is going wrong, the more time you have to think about fixing it, moving out of harms way, or bracing for impact.

With as much visible turmoil as there is in the world and even in our own towns and neighborhoods, I struggle to identify warning signs that I can trust. In reading through this forum and others like it, I am thinking about my own internal states of readiness and, more importantly, what information I need to move from one threat level to the next.

Since so many people are thinking about what they would do when the time came for them to act, I am wondering for what signs or triggers do you listen and observe that would cause you to act and why?

[Klayton]

-police forces go on strike
-national guard activated and martial law announced
-price of bread more than triples in one week
-price of gas doubles in a week
-terrorist strike (depending on proximity to my location) (BTW I think sporting events are a possible next target-and yes I noted how dumb it was having an international airport so close to the white house and pentagon 3 years before the strike)
-assassination of a key political leader
-natural disaster wiping out our offshore drilling rigs (gas prices will go through the roof)
-Iran has fully declared they have nuclear weapons (God help us all-have you ever seen how far fallout can travel with the wind?)

-last but certainly not least, wife finds my stash of candy (i am diabetic) then S will really HTF... =)

[Lowdown3]

The important thing is to lay out in your mind or on paper, your own "lines in the sand."

Doing this makes you make a mental agreement, kinda like "I'll definitely pull the trigger when..." type of thing.

I.e, a nuke goes off anywhere in the world in anger (i.e, not a declared ahead of time test), that would be a trigger for me to work from home for a while (rural location) and start things in motion.

If we don't have these lines in the sand already programmed into our mind, we end up like so many other folks- sitting watching it on TV for a while.

Perfect example- I used to know a guy, very anamated fellow, almost like a "cartoon character." He was always speculating on when something was going to happen, listening to all the doom sayers, etc. Almost would tell me, "man if such and such happens, I'm outta here in FIVE MINUTES!" He lived in Hurricane Alley. Now he knew deep down and she made it obvious that his wife was not at all interested in any kind of preparedness. Honestly I can't blame her and "I" got sick of him railing on about stuff happening that never did, I can only imagine the kind of crap she had to hear regularly!!!

Anyways, so a hurricane is bearing down directly on them. He calls me from work that day "Dude! It's bad, we are so getting the hell out of here, can we come up and stay for a couple days?" Yeah sure that's fine, I'll look for you all late tonight.

I called him about 8pm that night wondering where the heck he was. He was obviously drunk. I got the "dude, I'm watching it on TV, it's not gonna be that bad...." talk. I said to him "So this is how this played out- you came home freaking out as usual, your wife handed you a beer and told you to watch TV and see what they say, one beer turned into six and now your sitting there like an idiot." For a guy that always had a rebuttal, he didn't have one that go around.

The problem was, he didn't have a clear line in the sand nor the leadership of his family to back it up. He got home, sat on his butt watching TV, got COMFORTABLE with the situation and gave up.

They were without power for a week or more IIRC, with a two month old baby.... Then later he would boast to me about how badarse of a survivalist he was- nope, he was a flippin idiot to leave his family in harm's way.

Whether it's leaving a city that's rioting, getting out of the way of a hurricane bearing down on you, or taking a job for less money in the country, survival is all about MITIGATING RISKS not taking them.

We all need to have clear and unwaverable lines in the sand. That's gonna be one of the big ways we avoid inaction and apathy.

Lowdown3

[Klayton]

Perfect example- I used to know a guy, very anamated fellow, almost like a "cartoon character." He was always speculating on when something was going to happen, listening to all the doom sayers, etc. Almost would tell me, "man if such and such happens, I'm outta here in FIVE MINUTES!" He lived in Hurricane Alley. Now he knew deep down and she made it obvious that she was not at all interested in any kind of preparedness. Honestly I can't blame her and "I" got sick of him railing on about stuff happening that never did, I can only imagine the kind of crap she had to hear regularly!!!

The dude had a sex change mid paragraph in hurricane alley. YOUCH that sounds scary.
Or were you talking about a couple and not one guy?

[EX121]

I have a couple of different levels of response. First is final preps and second is hunker down.
First triggers, natural disaster of a level 2 or higher in the area predicted. food & oil prices start a steep climb.
Second triggers are wide spred civil unrest, & martial law etc.
excualation of war in middle east
terrorist attack on USA soil

[Lowdown3]

LOL. His wife. Sorry. I went back and edited it.

FWIW, I've seen several examples of spouses that did not want to leave their McMansions holding a family from bugging out when it should have been done.

[Lowdown3]

LOL. His wife. Sorry. I went back and edited it.

FWIW, I've seen several examples of spouses that did not want to leave their McMansions holding a family from bugging out when it should have been done.

[monkeybird]

Besides a natural disaster, the most important indicator is a sudden collapse of the stock market. Shortly thereafter, banks will close and people can't get their money. This is often the first indicator of a total economic collapse with resulting falling in the value of the dollar. Unable to get money or access an ATM will turn people into angry mobs very quickly. So for me it would be economic.

A major outbreak of a communicable disease would be second. I know just how fragile our bodies can be against virulent viruses and bacteria. Once an outbreak of significant mortality occurs in a major U.S. city, quarantine yourself.

Third would be a terrorist coordinated attack on various targets across the U.S. Particularly if it biological, chemical or nuclear.

I've listed these in the order I believe are likely to occur.

[Klayton]

monkeybird... my biggest terrorist fear is EMP...
there is a youtube video of bootlegged footage of scientists showing how 3 strategically placed EMP could destroy America overnight...
Talk about chaos... WOW... thankfully most terrorists are not that smart...
thus the more probable attack (no idea why the idiots keep trying airplanes) would be enclosed sporting event with a virus or biological attack (viral being better as the occupants will leave without being wiser, and spreading it to their own smaller communities)

**cringes at how easy it really is to wipe out naive public**

[georgiamom]

I think it is possible that the first sign of something catastrophic happening may be a sudden change in media availability. I think in the interest of trying to slow panic. Everything may just go offline for a bit. I have had some thoughts that this may already be happening as a practice sort of thing. I have noted multiple times recently that my cable has gone out. This in and of itself, is not a big deal, however, the frequency of the outages has increased significantly in the past couple months. I almost see it as warming us up to not being overly concerned by the the absence of media access. I know at some level this may sound paranoid, but, I do believe that some people have a clearer understanding of what is about to happen, and that a plan is in place to try to control the masses. If TSHTF, I think they will use the slow down in mass response to position personnel to keep people off the streets. I think movement after this is accomplished will be difficult if not impossible.

[monkeybird]

georgiamom - You are right about media availability. I was watching Fox Business when the stock market suddenly dropped 1000 points due to computer glitch (?). It was amusing to watch he broadcasters. They were obviously baffled. Most were sure it was not really REAL. Had it been REAL, the SHTF would have been reported as a computer glitch.

[LizardKing]

And here I thought it was just my cable that was getting flaky. It's gone and then back, some servers are unavailable for a short time and then back online. Just seems that the frequency has picked up lately.

[Waiting]

My hubby and I were talking about this a few days ago. In 2003 when the big power outage occurred we were so dumb. We just sat around waiting for the lights to come back on just like everyone else. Kind of a party atmosphere everywhere around us. Neighbors talking and getting water from our pool to flush their toilets. Everyone sharing their generators to keep the food in the fridge cold.

Now we would be completely on alert if it happened again. We would not take it for granted that it was just a snafu that would be fixed soon. Mentally we are much more prepared now and will not just sit back and wait like we did then. It was a big wake up call to us.

[rockriver]

waiting,
a close associate called me, to alert me about the n.e. electric going down. i didn't know about it.
as we talked additional areas were reported. soon i got to a tv and the regional director biggity mucky muck
got on tv. he kept saying, " this isn't possible" and "we have safety triggers that will keep this from happening"
and similar sentences. he was sweating. he was nervous. i saw him on tv one time. never again.
and he was the fancy director big dog.

spoke volumes to me. one of two things. we never got the true story, or the system is too fragile.
maybe both.

a second story. my employer uses prudential ins. company for co. sponsored savings. about a year ago
on the news there were a few scattered comments about prudential applying for tarp bail out funds.
that didn't sound good to me.
i called prudential. a real nice csr assured me i was wrong. she was so sweet. she was so sure. i asked for her supervisor and got the same story. and a friendly chuckle assuring me that i was mistaken.
i called my company's specialist in such manners and asked about the tarp story. i got a friendly but confident denial. "rockriver, we talk with them everyday. if they were applying for tarp funds or had anything to do with tarp funds, we would know it. don't worry. whatever you saw was wrong." to a friendly and confident chuckle.
--
i called back to prudential the next day after finding several websites mentioning prudentials efforts to get trarp funds.
first csr was nice and polite and denied everything i said.
second csr (supervisor) was nice and polite but more derogatory as she told me how strong pru was and the re
was no way there was any truth to it.
third lady (manager) wanted to know my specific question and kept putting me on hold for a long time.
she finally came back and was clearly reading prepared statements denying any involvement with tarp and did so with a very condescending (sp? ) attitude.
----
the next day my company's contact with prudential called me. he had confirmed that yes pru was trying to get tarp funds. he was surprised, a little embarassed.

sorry for the long story... bottom line ---
the truth isn't easy to get to. the folks in the financial industry will lie to us.
it was a wake up call for me.

[Bearman202]

Logically, I think this one depends on the type of emergency situation. In an EMP situation, it would be when the cell phone went dead along with the lights. A weather situation usually has a build up, so you can see that coming. An economic situation would probably be a lot of denials on the tube. If you start hearing "Everything is fine." over and over, it's time to clean out the accounts. I think a terrorist strike would hit the news immediately, like 9/11 did, depending on where it happened. I guess I'm saying that the triggers would be situational. Basically, I'd go with my gut on that one. If it started looking iffy, I would go on the alert immediately.