Scenario Game

[izzyscout21]

These are always fun to me.

Here's the setup:

http://i764.photobucket.com/albums/xx288/2crgrunt/supervolcano-yellowstone.jpg

Scenario; 9:27 AM February 13th 2012. Yellowstone blows her top and 50 miles of land are cleansed in hot ash and rock instantly. The next 20 minutes dictate if you live or die ; depending on your location you have at most a few hours.


What is in your SHTF Bag?
24 hours later all of the western United States as far east as Texas will be carpeted in 6 feet of fine silt and ash. The sun blocked from atmospheric pollution within 48 hours.


Discuss..

[Fatty]

Spend every penny I have saved up on canned goods while the rest of the population is still in shock and awe, then bug TF out. Not a whole lot else you can do. Maybe make a 2nd trip for more "comfort living" if theres time before the roads get grid locked. Thats my 45 second prognosis.

[Sniper-T]

Empty accounts, but all the food/water I could.
Stop at the local CT, buy all the dust masks, and water filter cartidges I could.
Buy several replacement airfilters for my truck/quad/snomobiles.
Buy all the cheesecloth I could.

Head home, drop everything off.

Grab any empty jerrycans, some home cash and head into the local small town(s), and repeat the above.

Also, canning jars, frozen veggies, dog food, vitamins, etc.

I wouldn't expect it to get 'bad' where I am for a couple few days soonest. But the media would instill the fear of the rapture into the sheeple, and by day 3, I would imagine that shelves would be getting empty, and pandemonium would be the word of the day. I would batten down the hatches at that point, and ride it out.

I'd have my dehydrator running overtime, drying everything from outside freezers.

I'd use the cheesecloth and make filters to cover all incoming vents into my home (on the inside)

I'd cover all my garden boxes and planters with tarps.

All the while... listening to the radio/tv.

[Sparrow]

Volcanic winter for how many years?

[Stg1swret]

They cannot predict how long the volcanic winter would last, but they have determined global temperatures would drop approximately 20 degrees F, on average. Because of the nature of the ash particles, and the height to which the massive Yellow Stone caldera could throw particulate matter, it is possible that sever winter conditions could exist for a period of years, without abating in the Northern Hemisphere. Wind patterns, would surely change as ocean and land temperatures dropped further aggravating the conditions.

[mitunnelrat]

I did a quick read on some aspects of this before I lost internet yesterday, so I apologize for not having the links to my info, but I'm gambling I won't be getting blanketed in a multi-foot layer of ash (this eruption would need to be double the magnitude of the most severe of the three that have already occurred, and, prevailing winds will push most of what I could get to the SE, from all indications. Sorry, Stig, its heading right for you.)

With that in mind, my local time would be 11:27. There's a lot of day's I'm not even awake by then, so there's going to be a lag between the eruption and my learning of it, and it'll most likely be a phone call I get first. Depending on who it is, I could be wasting more time dressing down the caller for waking me up and throwing such nonsense at me. Call it, 11:40 before I'm fully awake and on board. The panicked phone calls from close friends and family members looking for advice should be rolling in by then.

All I'll be able to do, at present, is advise them to throw their food, blankets, and their winter clothes into their cars; then go buy tape, plastic sheeting, fuel, and food while enroute to my mom's house, which is the only one with a generator. It also has enough indoor parking to accommodate everyone's vehicles.

I think the temperature drop and power loss will be bigger threats over the long run here than the ash itself will be, but I'll push for them to do that as quickly as possible so they can still seal the doors and windows before a few hours is up. They'll also need to figure out how to protect the generator's intake, provide for its defense against theft, and figure out safe refueling. There's enough PPE there they should be able to handle all that. I'll tell them to sit tight for 17 days, by which point they should see me, and I'll have a backup plan in place by then.

Meanwhile, I'll be doing something similar with my dad here, and will prepare to ride things out. I should mention he'll have excellent input on home protection I can relay to my mom's, and between the two of us there's a good chance of the two locations surviving the initial event.

The back-up plan is contingent upon things totally falling apart. Its a better defensible, more secure location with maintenance facilities, SCBA gear, ample room, and a ready supply of fresh water. There's also a ton of game in the surrounding area, and many other amenities besides. I'll check it while enroute to my mom's house after a self-imposed two week lockdown, and assuming it isn't compromised, I'll move everyone to the one location and begin working against the coming, bitter cold.

This basic premise is at least adjustable according to the circumstances at the time and their severity.

[The Stig]

(this eruption would need to be double the magnitude of the most severe of the three that have already occurred, and, prevailing winds will push most of what I could get to the SE, from all indications. Sorry, Stig, its heading right for you.)
.

Sweet!

I wonder if being on the coast would push that ash off to the east before it gets to us. Most of our air is coming up from Texas and sort of loops along the coast, or comes mostly directly in from the gulf.

Plan 1:

My original thought reading this was to break out the heavy plastic and start covering all the windows, and grab some of the wife's extra fabric to use a filters on the underside of the soffets up in the attic, or over the exhaust stack of the toilet.

I'd then fill the emergency water cans along with bringing the prepared emergency water inside to secure it. Generators would be moved into position on the back porch and locked & chained down. Emergency radios pulled from their tubs and batteries refreshed if it's been over a year.

I'd send the Mrs to top off any of the emergency gas cans that aren't already full, and hit the bank to take out a big wad of cash. Not all of it, because if things go sideways in the short term I don't want to have life savings in the bedroom. If they are going to go tits up for a long period of time then I do want a big wad of cash to work with (because power grid is likely to fail). I'd also have her pick up the inlaws because they are elderly and might as well hold up with us.

Because of our isolation, and being in a subdivision, I don't think we'd have to worry about bands of ruffians roving about. That said, if the power goes out for more than a few days, or I see odd faces walking around, the firepower would go from my daily carry to an AR without a second thought. It also doesn't help that we're the first house inside the subdivision so anybody who walks into it looking for help/trouble is going to come to our house first.

Plan 2:

If Mitunnel is right and the ash is just going to keep blowing down here until we're under 20' of it, we load up both vehicles, all the gear and head east. I could head to Birmingham, or press on to Tennessee if conditions allow. On the other hand, I have a brother in Ft Lauderdale and relatives in Tallahassee. With the downgrade in warmth, getting to a warmer location makes sense.

I just hate the idea of "bugging out" however because you lose so many options. You lose your base of operations. You lose most of your supplies. You lose most of your contact with incoming news. You lose your ability to react quickly (ie being in a traffic jam on the highway). D

[Jerry D Young]

Being west of the event, I'd simply use my available cash to add a few items to storage that you can never have too many of, fuel up the truck and the cans, load the game cart and other supplies in the truck and head to Winnemucca and help my brother get things ready for long range food production.

[Stormfeather]

I wanted to add a little bit of input here as well. Back in 1991, I was on a WestPac deployment coming back from Desert Storm when Mount Pinatubo erupted in the Philippines. We had just left there not more than 4 days earlier on our way home, when we got recalled and the ship turned around. Heres some quick observations that still stick with me.

1 - Ash is heavy, accumulation will collapse most buildings, roofs especially. It will get into every nook and cranny, and if its wet, plan on it being worse than snow. It will tear up engines, and anything mechanical.

2 - People will get desperate quickly. I saw people fighting over the minimal basics, rice, water, umbrellas, t-shirts to make makeshift masks to stop breathing the ash. All sorts of crazy things people were doing was almost surrealistic.

3 - Along with the deviation of normal behavior of people, be prepared to witness some pretty crazy stuff with the behavior of animals. I watched a pack of monkeys run down the middle of the street and literally tear a live dog to pieces for something to eat. Watching this same pack of monkeys then proceed to attempt to attack a child, myself and a few other Marines intervened. These animals were literally running around like rabid beasts attacking anything they could for food. I saw similar behavior in dogs and cats there as well.

[The Stig]

Ash is heavy, accumulation will collapse most buildings, roofs especially. It will get into every nook and cranny, and if its wet, plan on it being worse than snow. It will tear up engines, and anything mechanical.
.

This is why I love this place. That's something I never thought about. Excellent point.

[bacpacker]

I watched a pack of monkeys run down the middle of the street and literally tear a live dog to pieces for something to eat. Watching this same pack of monkeys then proceed to attempt to attack a child, myself and a few other Marines intervened. These animals were literally running around like rabid beasts attacking anything they could for food. I saw similar behavior in dogs and cats there as well.

Same with this. Typically I give very little thought to animal behaviour. Sounds like something we do need to plan for.

[eagle326]

Same with this. Typically I give very little thought to animal behaviour. Sounds like something we do need to plan for.

Correct Backpacker. We worry more about what humans will do when faced with starvation ; When in reality animals will revert first since their instincts as they are; are closer to their wild side.
But make no mistake man will not be far behind. For all that man is he's still just a beast with a higher level of thought. The shame is that man for all his intellect has not learned anything from his past.

Man thru all his trials and tribulations over time has exceeded all mammals to date. But his flaw is he has forgotten those skills that got him to where he is today. We rely on technology to keep us comfortable against the forces of the natural world. Plus the fact that he wishes to own and control that is before him instead of being happy with what he has. Man's days of me;me;me will be our downfall and a tasty meal to those true animals who know survival.

May we all here have the knowledge to survive as our ancestors did and still retain our humanity.

[Gunfixr]

Sorry, haven't been here in awhile, so posting in an older thread.
Since I live on the East Coast, and it's headed west, I have time.
Surely there will be ash here eventually, although probably somewhat less. The "winter" will get here as well.
So, make the preps for ash buildup, constant colder weather, and the hordes of refugees from the west.
The cold and food because of the lack of food in the west and more people in the east due to the refugees. The ash would probably be somewhat secondary.
It normally doesn't get that cold here, or when it does, not for very long. Therefore, cold weather gear, really cold weather gear, is rather rare around here.

You know, the west would likely see large scale destruction of the infrastructure, especially what's above ground. I'm talking about torn down and shorted out electrical and phone lines. If there were 6ft of ash, repairs would be long in coming. Since the entire US electrical grid is connected, an event like this that happened quickly enough would not allow disconnections to happen. Thus, the east grid would try to fill the west grid when it went down, overloading the east grid. So most, if not all of the country could end up in the dark, meaning no heat. Once the grid areas could be disconnected, some could be brought back, outside the heavy ash areas, but the "everywhere at once" load would still mean it would take awhile. Look how long it takes when 1 or 2 states has a hurricane, and crews are sent from everywhere. Those crews couldn't leave, as they'd have their own problems to deal with.
So don't think you get out of it because you live far away, in the other direction. All you get is more time, and different circumstances.

[mongoose]

buy all the filter masks I can lay my hands on.
The ash from what I have read will be high in glass content and will be abrasive to lungs, the body's immune system will produce mucus to expel it and you literally drown in it.

[realist]

Okay with an eruption like that there would be the potential of a nuclear winter for at least one year or longer. So that being the case I would plan on two. Since I live on the left coast the prevailing winds would carry the ash to the east. The nice thing, about our location, is most people would be watching the news and not be able to comprehend the ramifications of what was actually happening. The race it on to get what is needed.

I would put out a call to my kid down south and have him rocket north. We would be looking at least 7 hours at minimum. He is prepped and ready to go so I would trust he could make it home on his own in a day or two. Phone calls would go out to the rest of the extended family to make sure that they were squared away. One thing that I have not thought about in my plans is for an alternative comm. and get together, most three out of four of the families are not preppers. We do not have a central rally point and that hopefully will be resolved this summer but if this happened now it would be too late, got to do things on the fly.

Sniper I’m with you I would pick up as much supplies as possible. One other thing that I would add is filters for the generator. We already have plastic and duct tape in stock but picking up more would not hurt. Tarps over the garden would be a good idea, easier to clear it off. However if we have a nuclear winter then it might not get planted for a year or more. The more important thing would be getting as much food as possible. I have several fruit trees that are currently in pots, these would be brought inside eventually to protect them. Our pool would be able to take care of our water needs for a long time. I would top it off also. I would make sure all vehicles and gas cans are topped off. I would go to the local hardware store that exchanges propane tanks for empty ones. I would buy them all for reserves.

[Grumpy Old Man]

Being west of the event, I'd simply use my available cash to add a few items to storage that you can never have too many of, fuel up the truck and the cans, load the game cart and other supplies in the truck and head to Winnemucca and help my brother get things ready for long range food production.

Jerry, I'm with you regarding Yellowstone. But a far more credible threat to you, Realist and I are the Long Valley Caldera, McDermott Caldera and the Crater Lake Caldera. McDermott doesn't get a lot of press but it has many rare hydrothermally deposited minerals and active hot springs in the area, which is one indication of a seismically active area.

I would be loading up the horses and heading back into a buddy's place in the hills.

[Fatty]

So since this is the scenario game thread, whens the next round?:p Or do we just take turns whenever there's the lul?

[izzyscout21]

So since this is the scenario game thread, whens the next round?:p Or do we just take turns whenever there's the lul?

By all means, if you have another scenario, go ahead and post it right here.

[Fatty]

Alrighty, I've got one. Although its not nearly as catastrophic in scope as the previous lol.

Yourself and your family (wife and 2 kids) are at home when all of a sudden you hear a series of large bang's 100 feet from your house where the train tracks are. Everything in your house is shaking like an earthquake. All the while you keep hearing more and more metal smashing itself apart. Your senses are clouded by the debris outside and the nasty smell of what could be chemicals. You don't see any flames rising yet but you know it might already be too late to vacate with whatever is it is thats all over the ground. With how nasty the wreckage might be, emergency personnel may not be able to get to you for a while.


Scenario setting-

Clear sky
mid afternoon about 3p.m.
a frontage road runs along the tracks and your house is on a road perpendicular to it, the 2nd house down.
the road your house is on is still open if you drive in the opposite direction of the tracks but the chemicals are spreading fast.
The speed of the train wouldn't have been more than 35 mph.


Would you try to bug out or bug in?
What would you have prepped prior to the situation?

[Sniper-T]

wind?

[Fatty]

wind?

10mph north east

the house sits west of the tracks which run north and south

[Stg1swret]

I would be leaving. Round up the PPG and make sure everyone has their masks on and hit the road. Once I'm sure I'm out of the danger zone, check to see if anyone is suffering any ill effects from exposure to whatever the chemicals were. If so its off to the doctor/hospital. then contact a good lawyer.

[bacpacker]

Bug out yesterday! Seriously go right now. Something that quick, that close, you don't have time to gather anything that is not packed and on your way to your vehicle. In my case most all I would have is my GHB, some water, gloves, and boots.

We had a train derailment about 2 to 2.5 miles away. It derailed and leaked some chemical ( i don't remember it now but it was a ground hugging cloud and spread across the river and on to our side. The authorities evacuated folks to with in 1/2 mile of us.

Chemical clouds spread quickly depending on the wind, but I would consider anything within 1 mile to be a evacuation point. It may not get to you, but better safe than part of the body count.

I have a story about the crash I would tell if anyone is interested. I don't want to derail the thread.

[Fatty]

Derail it by all means(pun intended:)). It sounds like it could pertain to the topic at hand regardless.

[The Stig]

I'm with backpacker. GTFO of there without delay.

Grab the kids and haul ass. Forget stopping for bugout bags, finding the cat that hid under a bed or running to the back for fido. Get in the car, carseats be dammed and get as far from the spill site as possible. If you have someone with you, the second you get in the car have them placing fabric over the mouths of young ones.

Chemicals are not to be messed with. Don't stop to think "were did I stash the gas masks again?". Just get the hell out of there. Worse case you look like an idiot and can laugh at yourself as you tell the story at the next family gathering. But with how quickly chemical clouds can propagate and so many are orderless/tasteless/fast acting you don't have time to waste farting around.

[bacpacker]

The same applies to tanker truck crashes. I went thru some EMA training that went thru some chemical spill senario's . In every case the recommendation was to scram ASAP. They said your best bet was to get away and have trained folks observe from a distance with Binoculars to try and read the placard to detirmine what the chem was. DOT has a substantial book that has placard description for most every chemical there is. I'm pretty sure they are updated yearly. if you can find one even if it's a few years old they are worth having.

[bacpacker]

I'll make the story as short as I can about the derailment near the house.

The wife and I were working a bike ride with the EmComm group I used to lead. It was a late September day, good weather and light to no winds. The ride we were working was a 2 day 150 mile fund raiser for the MS socitey and we were on the last 15 miles of the ride and down to about the last 20 riders, out of nearly 400, on the course when we got a report on the ham frequency we were using that there had been a train derailment in a residential area about 2-3 miles from the portion of the course most of the last riders were on. Right away the authorities called for an immediate evacuation with in a 3 mile radius of the crash. We were in that area, so all of our SAG trucks (Support and Gear) and a supply truck that had been closing down the rest stops. took off to the last rest stop to start loading all the riders up to get them out of the area. We sent one SAg up the course to help clear the course, the other SAGS went backwards on the course until we hit our trail vehicle and knew we had cleared the course. We ended up getting everyone off the course and back to the start/finish line within 20 minutes.

Our group had 7 folks working the ride that day and went straight from public service mode to emergency mode right away. We came up with a quick workable plan and was able to get the riders off the route before anyone got hurt. Before we were done I had someone make a call to our county EMA (we were not in our home county) to see what their plan was. As soon as we were finished with the ride I learned that the EMA was concerned that the cloud of gas could drift across the river into our county and had called for a evacuation of about 1/2 mile on our side of the river and were setting up 2 Red Cross shelters. So we left and headed home to wait on the call to set up comms at the shelter if needed. Within 2 hours the call came, so i took off and had comms at my shelter within 30 minutes. We had both voice and digital ccomms and had made contact with our second shelter, as well as, with the shelter in the county we had been doing the bike ride in. We stayed all night, but only had 2 familes show up. By 7:30 the nest morning the ARC closed the shelter.

All in all a memorable 24 hours.

[realist]

The problem with train wrecks is they are compounded by the mixing of potential incompatibles when all the cars come to a screeching halt. We have had mile long trains compacted in to 100 yards when it got done stopping. Rail cars carry thousands of gallons of material, it you were to bug in initially the concentration may be small but as it builds it can smother an area. Remember most PPE will not work if there is no oxygen present, then you need and SCBA. You do not want to stay around one of these incidents. I would be out of there RTFN. In cases like this it is important to have preplanned you routes so that there is no delay.

[Stg1swret]

here is one near and dear to my heart. It is mid july at about 7PM central time when the New Madrid fault finally lets go. The quake measures 7.6 on the Richter scale. What do you do?

[Sniper-T]

I do nothing. I wouldn't feel it, nor even know it happened unless I got it from the news. In fact I had to google it to even know where it was.

[Fatty]

Assuming you mean THE WHOLE FAULT going at once...


I'd get outside asap with family, once it stopped, I would be going bug out mode for fear of gas lines, etc being screwed. From that point on, I would assume whole bodies of water have possibly been rerouted so Caution would be the word of the day.

Just my quick 45 sec analysis.