New England B.S. Thread

I think they are going to do drive through testing too once kits come in. That will be pretty cool, don't have to go to the hospital.

 

Note: this isn't aimed directly at this particular 'panic buy' surge, but is a general rule in 'disaster prepping 101' about preparing/planning against an outbreak.
The theory behind 'preppers' maintaining an inventory of essentials is that in an outbreak/pandemic the very first people who're going to be infected are retail workers. Because they interact with pretty much everybody, their odds of being infected are astronomically higher than your average citizen. And if all of the retail workers are down for the count (or dead, if the virus-of-the-moment has a high mortality rate), guess who's not open for you to buy supplies?
And since most diseases are communicable well before you show symptoms (and the average retail grunt unit is basically required to come to work unless they're literally on their deathbed), you've got those same retail workers passing along their illness to everbody that passes through the store. So even if they're still open during the initial phase of an outbreak, guess where you don't want to go?

And nothing against @mach1man001, but after the retail workers have caught a case of the 'virus-of-the-moment' they'd then be passing it along to the truckers who are making the deliveries to their stores, and the truckers then become modern-day Typhoid Mary's and pass it along to everybody else on their route. Some of the line-haul guys out there will go coast-to-coast after they pick up or drop off a load, and the regional guys will hit as many as 20 stores in a day. All other factors aside, just our supply chain for goods is an incredibly efficient means of spreading a pandemic. I know it sounds very , but reading about the 'transmission' aspect of modern germ theory will make anybody paranoid in a hurry.

Edit- on a smaller, more day-to-day scale, prepping means that you don't have to mob the store for 3 day's worth of essentials with all of the other yahoos whenever there's a snowstorm or power outage, or worry about running out of toilet paper after a media-driven freakout, y'know?

 

problem is tomorrow is the weekend it’s gonna be a nut house tomorrow.

 

I did t watch the speech but a coworker said that trump called out target and Walmart by name as drive through testing in the parking lots.

 

Yeah, he honestly could have been more uhhh...smooth in his delivery for this one, but by bringing out the CEO/Top guys at a lot of these labs and large retailers it helped paint a much clearer picture and I think things are going to be just fine. Just going to be a few weeks until the kits are everywhere.

 

Girlfriend and I just got some groceries. They had no ground beef, no chicken, no paper goods, and were very low on soup, beans, and other canned food. We didn't really need any of those things, but I did buy a little more food than I usually do.

We would probably make it a month on decent meals with what we have at this point. 2ish if we started settling for simpler meals just to eat what we have in the house. I don't think it will come to that, but I feel better about having the ability to make it a while without a trip to the store.

 

Some of the people I work with go to the store every day. Others don't cook at all; they order out for basically every meal, or just throw a frozen dinner in the microwave
Can't understand wanting to live that way.

 

I went to 6 stores last night just to find TP. And every store was busy as hell

 

Yeah, we average a trip every week and a half. Almost never eat out and cook every night.

 

After store #2 was out I'd have just bought paper towels and cut the roll into 3rds


For what it's worth, a bag of decent shop rags, a 5 gallon bucket w/lid, a plunger with holes cut in the rubber, and a bottle of bleach will get you a long way in a long-term TP emergency as long as you've got a good source of water.

You can use the same setup to get clean laundry, but personally I'd recommend a separate bucket/plunger combo for that.

I generally hit the grocery store weekly for Fresh, and to replenish the shelf-stable stuff we've used over that week. The local Hannaford is usually pretty dead at 6:30 Saturday morning.

 

I think I already posted. Wuhan is basically back open with limited hours. So I think even by the time the kits are out and about it’ll already be dying down. I hope.

ah. Ground beef that totally non perishable food....blows my mind people are going bonkers over that kind of stuff. Rice and beans yeah they should be going for. It’s like everyone knows they should be kind of stocking up a bit but doesn’t actually get how to do it. But the news guy said tp so time for tp.

I pass by a stop and shop and Shaw’s on my way home. Other route brings me past another stop and shop and Walmart and target. Other route liquor stores (that’s my Friday route). And down the street is a price rite (oh yeah there’s actually another one on another route too). I find myself stopping not daily but a few times a week at the end of my road, it’s close and I get what I’m in the mood for to make for dinner quite often. Its nice because it’s also like a 2 minute stop and a small store so it adds like 4 minutes if I know what I’m going for.

 

My wife was out today and couldn't find bananas. Is the new universal currency going to be bananas and solely bananas?

My paper towel supply is a bit low and I could use a second case of water, but everything else is pretty on point. I'm not necessarily worried about off the grid type prepping, but I just want to make sure if there were some sort of nutty two week travel ban I'd have stuff for the baby. I'm not anticipating utilities being down. I've actually read a bit about things the power companies are doing to make sure the grids stay up and if all the accounts are true, it's pretty awesome actually.

 

Yes, I feel that is a good idea. Expect to spend a long time to do it. Worth it though

 

Yeah, after the Northeastern blackout/grid failure that we had back during the summer of 2003 they've been working to build a lot of redundancy into the grid, which has made it a lot more resilient.

 

Makes me proud to be a black bear. Haven’t been up in a while. Feel like I need to make homecoming happen this year.

https://bangordailynews.com/2020/03...-umaine-seniors-threw-their-own-commencement/

it’s not so much a post apocalyptic travel ban. But if I get it I will genuinely want to keep myself locked up to prevent it spreading. If I’m not able to leave for 2 weeks then I want to be ready for that. But then again I also live next to providence, I could probably get stop and shop to deliver still. I am not a city person but there are some perks.

 

The story I read is that the electric companies have offered some operators huge amounts of cash to stay self-quarantined so they stay sick-free with their trucks so that if they are needed to be counted on there's no way they're in any trouble to run / repair the grid.

That makes sense. I'd do the same myself, but at least in those regards someone could deliver stuff to me. Even so, I don't see it being an issue for two weeks. What I'm more worried about than anything is people like my Mom who's already in her late 70's and has a touch of COPD.

 

Yea I know and if it was just me, the parts store would have been my next venture. 5 of the 6 stores are within a mile of each other though

 

Yes , I feel the same . My folks are very elderly as are my in-laws . They stay in

 

I always go to the local Stop-n-Plop 1st thing on Saturdays when they open. It's always the same half dozen people in there every week.
today, parking lot was jammed.
Lots of empty shelves. The paper section is completely empty.
Meat section, canned goods as well and a lot of holes in the frozen food area.

Glad I shot 3 deer last season as I have plenty of Venny. Propane, gas, lots of non-perishable food and alcohol (both kinds), So I'm GTG.
Plenty of Boolits to repel any boarding parties as well.

 

Hopefully the call to repel boarders doesn't sound; but it'd probably happen in your area before it happened in mine just due to population density. If it happens around here, it'll be safe to say that things will have well and truly gone to sh*t.