So the SHTF almost, here's what happened

[mrortega]

What you guys don't get is that no one knew whether this phenomena was entirely localized or nationwide. How do you know when the SHTF?

Shoot first then ask questions then call Guy?!?

 

[Larryjr]

Kinda give you that EMP feeling a little???

 

[jbhummer2]

that fiber optic is going to cost someone a ton of money to fix

 

[You'll shoot your eye out]

when the power goes out at my house my wife runs to open the refrigerator to check it.... of course this lets all the cold air out. Next she flushes the toilet and runs the water faucets to check them...... of course letting the pressure out of the well tank. Then she goes around the house turning on everything she sees....... of course creating the highest possible load for when the power comes back on again. It is the same every time and no amount of explanations seem to have any effect at all. by the time I get out the portable generator, measure out some storage gas with all the preservative chemicals and get ready to pull the cord..... the power ALWAYS comes back on.

 

[elwoodward]

Last night for an entire 7 hours I had the same situation . . . as I was asleep.

Why would people worry? They are already ready. Just look at the food supply your fellow citizens carry around their waists, they certainly won't starve.

People have cars, they can drive to another county.

Instead of SHTF, isn't it Mildly Inconvenience Hits the Fan?

MILDLY INCONVENIENT? What if you was in a car crash on a country road and you was pinned and and could watch your family member that was ejected from the car bleed to death all because the mildly inconvenient 4 hours our county had. what if your house was broken into an your alarm system failed to call 911 and you cam home and was shot by the robber who heard you shut your car door. What if you had a elder parent or grand parent with a medical alert system that was unable to call for help when they needed it? Yes some people are prepared but many people don't think about not being able to call 911. Its always supposed to work. Ask an average person if they an ambulance what would they do. (call 911 duh) ok phones don't work now what? (uh?). People could have died.

even you what if your house was broken in to you shot the bad guy but he also shot you and now your wife cant call for help and watches you die laying on the floor of your bed room. i know during the 4 hours that everything was "dead" not 1 EMS call was dispatched nor was a single Fire Dept. in all of Washington county. I listen to Fire and EMS 90% of every day it even stays on while i'm asleep. I sure hope the mildly inconvenience didn't cost someone their life.

Rant OFF. on a side note i did hear(not sure if it is true or not) that its $10,000 a minute from time down to time up. i sure don't want that 2.4 million dollar fine.

 

[mrortega]

when the power goes out at my house my wife runs to open the refrigerator to check it.... of course this lets all the cold air out. Next she flushes the toilet and runs the water faucets to check them...... of course letting the pressure out of the well tank. Then she goes around the house turning on everything she sees....... of course creating the highest possible load for when the power comes back on again. It is the same every time and no amount of explanations seem to have any effect at all. by the time I get out the portable generator, measure out some storage gas with all the preservative chemicals and get ready to pull the cord..... the power ALWAYS comes back on.

Sounds like you need some emergency hand cuffs.

 

[handgun]

MILDLY INCONVENIENT? What if you was in a car crash on a country road and you was pinned and and could watch your family member that was ejected from the car bleed to death all because the mildly inconvenient 4 hours our county had. what if your house was broken into an your alarm system failed to call 911 and you cam home and was shot by the robber who heard you shut your car door. What if you had a elder parent or grand parent with a medical alert system that was unable to call for help when they needed it? Yes some people are prepared but many people don't think about not being able to call 911. Its always supposed to work. Ask an average person if they an ambulance what would they do. (call 911 duh) ok phones don't work now what? (uh?). People could have died.

even you what if your house was broken in to you shot the bad guy but he also shot you and now your wife cant call for help and watches you die laying on the floor of your bed room. i know during the 4 hours that everything was "dead" not 1 EMS call was dispatched nor was a single Fire Dept. in all of Washington county. I listen to Fire and EMS 90% of every day it even stays on while i'm asleep. I sure hope the mildly inconvenience didn't cost someone their life.

Rant OFF. on a side note i did hear(not sure if it is true or not) that its $10,000 a minute from time down to time up. i sure don't want that 2.4 million dollar fine.

I feel you. I guess you can take this as a que for what will happen if SHTF in your area. I was once told people should have 1000.00 in cash at home in a safe. Maybe something you should think about. I only wish i had that kinda of cash laying around at home.

But, for the worries of The alarm system not working in your house. Those systems are easily circumvented. What i mean by this is,they are more or less there for a peace of mind type thing. While they will work for the common Crack head, they will not work for those a little more savie. Your phone line can easily be Cut.

be very observant and on high alert when something doesn't feel or look right outside your house, Unusual car in the drive way, street. Remember criminals will want a quick easy exit typically.. On foot requires well more work and is slow departure.

You might wish to consider a beacon light for if your alarm gets tripped that you will see it upon arrival to your house. You would then see it flashing nice and bright. I am not certain about modern alarm systems but are they not hard wired into a power source? The power was still on right?)

Bleeding out doesn't sound very fun. But here are some things you could do to help contain the situation.

Put Duct Tape over a chest wound. If exited both sides place duct tape on back covering the hole. That may buy your spouse/ You some time. Not all wounds prevent someone from getting up. I think at that point its more a mind over matter move.

You will want to remain as calm as possible, if you are ever shot. There is no reason to go into panic mode. Long slow deep breaths would be your best bet.

As far as a relative needing help. Know your route to the hospital.

A family member of mine sadly died, Due to relying on an ambulance. Help did not arrive they spent 20 minutes trying to get into the neighbors house. They went to the wrong House!! By the time they realized it was an error. That family member expired.

I am not trying to make light of this situation. I am not criticizing. Just some food for thought.

Yes clearly a lot of bad things could have went down, in your county. It is a good thing no one was hurt, that you know of at this time. Maybe the county needs to be monitoring channel 9 on CB radio. I don't see too many COP cars with Whip antennas anymore. I just assume they are no longer monitoring the airwaves.

 

[Colt556]

I can foresee potential for some real problems if the power/communication net went down for a while. The PO talked about it in a small town where most ppl have some common sense and decency. Just think if the same thing happened on the near northside or eastside of Indy. I think that there would be a near riot state and that a lot of the thugs would run wild as soon as they figured out there was no power or communications to contact the police. What if your home was being invaded by a gang of thugs, your family was in need of medical attention or your house caught fire? Without power or communications you would be screwed! I can see things going south very quickly not to far from my house if the power/communication net went down for a few hours. I hope it never happens and I hope I'm wrong, but I think I'm right.

 

[ArmedProgrammer]

Serious question here... Why would a fiber optic cable being cut effect cell phone service I thought they get their communication through radio and satellite signals? I need to do some research I guess, unless someone answers my question quicker than I can use my Google skills.
Well that didn't take much, just learned more about cell communication than I ever cared for...

In Washington County - here's some of the why and it happens painfully often:
1) There's really only a handful of internet sources:
a) Verizon (now Frontier - blech) DSL - very skinny bandwidth through Scottsburgh
b) Blue River Networking - who gets their bandwidth via Insight cable
c) Insight cable themselves
d) Verizon Wireless 3G??
2) Many business and homes use Blue River's VOIP

So some DA cuts the Insight cable coming up through Pekin... Both Insight and Blue River are SOL. And Verizon Wireless and Fronteir get immediately overloaded from the backlog. And if you're on VOIP, well, sucks to be you...

It's kind of like Bill Cosby in that "Noah" bit. You don't need it to rain for 100 days and nights - just 40 days and nights and let the sewers back up....

Voila... one cut of a cable and our town is back to dial up (at best) in 4.5 minutes..... FYI it happened during the tornado as well - same cable was knocked down in Pekin where the tornado crossed Hwy 60. Salem was out of action internet wise for 2-3 days.

And there's only one cell tower that serves Salem. Verizon Wireless is the main game in town. Anyone else is piggybacking. There MAY be another now but I doubt it. You want to watch how fast that cell tower's out of action under these circumstances???

 

[DoggyDaddy]

What you guys don't get is that no one knew whether this phenomena was entirely localized or nationwide. How do you know when the SHTF?

There's another INGOer whose handle escapes me at the moment that has a signature line to the effect of, "run outside with your rifle. If you're the only one, it's not time yet."

 

[Cemetery-man]

Same thing happened here Tuesday for 7 hrs. Probably the worst part was not being able to get meds at CVS because the computers were down. I just switched everything over to 3G and was good to go except I couldn't rent the movie "The Gray" that I had been waiting a week to see on VUDU!

 

[redneckmedic]

Its not a true SHTF until all members of the MS Group arrive locked and loaded... unfortunitly there was a fail in phone tree, and Plan B (smoke signals) seemed to not ripple out the way folks planned

 

[Hotdoger]

Old school, I always have cash.

I'm with you!

Cash, genny, fuel , food and firearms.

 

[patton487]

There is never a shortage of folks here who like to poke fun. Especially when it comes to survival senarios. However, the OP has a legitimate point. What happened in Salem (isolated incident) is what may happen one day nationally.

Our own SHTF will probably come in the form of a finacial crisis rather than a zombie attack or EMP. It happend in Argentina, it is happening in Greece. It eventually will happen in the USA. Yes, I said "will happen" here, not "might".

So I see what happened in Salem as kind of a warning of what is coming in the future. Anyone that has any understanding of finance would agree that our current path will lead to collapse.

Adjusting my tin foil hat. Flame on.

 

[jkaetz]

Serious question here... Why would a fiber optic cable being cut effect cell phone service I thought they get their communication through radio and satellite signals? I need to do some research I guess, unless someone answers my question quicker than I can use my Google skills.
Well that didn't take much, just learned more about cell communication than I ever cared for...

Satellite phones would indeed still work, but no one has those unless they're going way off the grid. Cell phones communicate with cell towers via radio waves, but the towers have physical lines to the rest of the network (Voice and Data). Just like your home wireless internet, you're eventually going to depend on a cable of some sort.

 

[indyjs]

The Telcos once built in redundancy to prevent this. Cheaper to pay the fines. Cheaper yet to bribe someone to avoid the fines.

 

[sparkyfender]

Did Slimmo's close??

Does it even still exist??

 

[malern28us]

It seems like everyone in Salem would be better prepared, especially after that guy planned on blowing up all of the bridges in that town back in the late 80's (IIRC). Its true, Slime-ohs really sucked. No one would miss it.

 

[sparkyfender]

It seems like everyone in Salem would be better prepared, especially after that guy planned on blowing up all of the bridges in that town back in the late 80's (IIRC). Its true, Slime-ohs really sucked. No one would miss it.

LOL! I played music in that joint a few times over the years.......

When I was younger and dumber. Well.......... at least younger.

 

[malern28us]

LOL! I played music in that joint a few times over the years.......

When I was younger and dumber. Well.......... at least younger.

I loved how everyone tried putting the fear into you to try to keep you out of there. I heard everything from "you'll get stabbed" to "you will get beat up if you have more than $40 on you." It reminded me a lot of the nasty truck stops I visited on my "road trips" to El Paso.