One of the things about preparing for emergencies is everyone likes the sexy and fun stuff- people imagine scenarios for TEOTWAWKI. Tongue in cheek, we called it the Zombie apocalypse forever, until that term made it so far into mainstream that it became its own gag.
We love to look at guns, security, freeze dried foods, and tons of other things, and in nearly every case, those things aren’t going to be what eventually ends us. TEOTWAWKI is more likely going to be a medical event. Your chances of dying in a Zombie apocalypse end of the world are so close to zero as to be immeasurable. The most likely event, one that most of us are unprepared for, is a personal emergency.
Perhaps you break your leg slipping down the stairs. Maybe you got laid off from work. Or perhaps your spouse was just diagnosed with cancer, or you wake up one morning and she is just… dead, lying in bed next to you, having never woken up. Are you prepared for that? Consider how the following will disrupt all of your well-laid plans:
Are you ready for suddenly having difficulty speaking, the left side of your face drooping, and don’t know where you are? Is that house in the woods, 45 minutes from the nearest hospital, no neighbors within a quarter mile of you, and no way to summon help sill working in your favor? Yeah, having a stroke is FAR more likely an event than the entire collapse of society. More than 750,000 people a year have a stroke, and if you don’t get definitive care within an hour, those deficits start to become permanent. Every minute a stroke goes untreated, the brain loses roughly 1.9 million neurons, accelerating permanent brain damage. So while living in the middle of nowhere seems like a great way to avoid TEOTWAWKI, your world as you know it just ended. Two hours after the onset of symptoms, you may well spend the rest of your life walking with a cane, or being unable to speak.
Or perhaps your job just disappeared, the company you work for was just down-sized. You are now out of work. How are you going to survive with no money? Sure, you have a closet full of guns, a basement filled with freeze-dried food, and you don’t need electricity. How are you going to pay your taxes, and how will you keep your home full of supplies when the bank comes calling, demanding that you repay your loans?
Even if all of society DOES collapse, have you planned for everything? Do you have ways of handling mundane things like trash removal? Sewage? We all know those things aren’t fun. There is a reason why publications on hygiene, trash removal, and wood gasification are on our manuals page.
It always makes me laugh when someone comes on here, bragging about how prepared they are. They will tell you about their years’ worth of freeze dried food in their fortress out in the woods, how they have 100,000 rounds of ammo and over 200 firearms. I promise you, unless you are a billionaire, you have accumulated those guns and ammo at the expense of something else. There is something you should have done, but neglected it at the expense of firearms and ammo, which believe it or not, won’t get you out of every conceivable situation, and having 200 of them isn’t any better in such a scenario than having 3 or 4 of them.
Take a look at your own situation. If you are prepared for one scenario- the complete breakdown of society, I can promise you four things:
- It probably will not happen in your lifetime
- Even if it does, you won’t be prepared for it
- Something more mundane will happen to you
- and you likely won’t be ready for that, either
Want to be ready for things? Have an emergency fund to get you through small emergencies. Then a second for bigger ones. A third for catastrophic ones.
- To start, you should have at least $1000 in cash in the house.
- Then you should have a second fund, accessible within 5 business days that is equal to 90 days’ expenses
- Then you should have a third fund, accessible within 45 days that is equal to at least a years’ expenses
If you don’t have at least the first two, then having 200 firearms isn’t going to help you a bit when you lose your job and can’t pay your bills.
Live far enough away from a city to be safe from most craziness, but close enough to civilization so that you can get help when needed.
I’ve lived through a few TEOTWAWKI events in my lifetime.
- Got divorced. Twice.
- Lost my job a few times.
- Went bankrupt
- been homeless because of the three above at various times
- injured so badly while at work, I was told it was a 50/50 chance I would never walk again
and not one of the above was caused by a riot, flood, hurricane, or collapse of society.
Remember that when you are planning for future disasters. The disaster you are planning for is rarely the one you will experience.
19 Comments
gary gray · October 16, 2026 at 7:07 am
You’re trying to defend the indefensible. I’m a little farther down the road than you. I did 51 years in suburbia. Then I did 20 years in ruralville. This is where I will die. Nobody can be 100% guaranteed a long and healthy, problem free life. My wife of 42 years and I have spent a long time getting to where we are with hundreds of decisions along the way. I honestly believe that even though we aren’t insanely wealthy, genetically healthy, we are in a better position than 90% of the US population. Constantly striving for betterment.
Divemedic · October 16, 2026 at 9:07 am
Its indefensible to have money put away for unexpected events?
SiG · October 16, 2026 at 7:28 am
That is all first rate, excellent advice. It’s worthy of a TV show of its own.
Silex · October 16, 2026 at 7:54 am
I’ve got a prepper coworker who has guns, ammo, shelf stable food, a way to live without power and a young child who is dependent on meds and near constant doctor visits and regular trips to the hospital.
About three weeks ago I got to laugh when I heard that he’s bug-bombed his house like four times in a month because all of his dry goods got fucked by flour beetles and the entire contents of the main pantry had to be disposed of and the things are still showing up in his kids’ breakfast cereal each morning. Good thing he has all those guns and ammo though, the bugs can’t eat them, heh.
JimmyPx · October 16, 2026 at 10:31 am
You are bringing up the issue that will tick many preppers off and that is “WHAT scenario are you prepping for” ?
Most think they will survive with their preps but in certain scenarios it’s “game over man game over”. For example a Carrington Event that’s a massive EMP blowing every transformer in the country and a hard electrical grid down along with blowing every electronic chip ?
Per the US governments own studies, over 90% of the US population will be dead in a year.
East of the Mississippi River – 99% dead in a year. Too many people and water, sewer failing within days along with the end of the massive shipments of food required every day to keep people fed.
Nuclear War, are you prepping for the radiation which will last YEARS ?
But as you point out, most events are the government is still functioning but you could have a 1929 style Great Depression. Plus as you say a personal tragedy including an injury or divorce is more likely to mess you up.
Jonesy · October 16, 2026 at 12:13 pm
All good points. A lot of preps go towards very low probability/very high severity events. Then the day to day and financial emergencies get ignored.
Personally I went way down a rabbit hole a decade ago, and then moderated as time went on. I don’t have quite the financial cushion you proscribe, but enough to weather some bumps should they arise.
Where I left off with everything else overlaps with different scenarios as kind of a catch-all state of preparedness. Nothing crazy. Quantity of firearms is sufficient to cover most scenarios. Ammo is stockpiled such that I have enough to continue training should the political winds shift and it becomes scarce or overly pricey with enough in reserve should it actually needed. Water, food and medicine to get through some moderate emergencies. A couple of options for power and heat for temporary outages.
I think the best thing is for folks to layout what events they seem a threat, what risks you want to mitigate and execute in such a way you work it into your budget. Having cash on hand is great, having metals is great, but having some tangible “stuff” paired with the correct mindset and skills goes a long way to make sure you aren’t a liability.
Speaking of low probability/high severity events, many may have read “One Second After”. Its being made into a movie (finally) to be aired on Netflix next year. Several articles can be googled.
https://onesecondaftermovie.com/
Ken Mitchell · October 16, 2026 at 5:23 pm
The whole point of the “zombie apocalypse” comparison is that if you have prepared for THAT, you are prepared for ANYTHING LESS.
Yes, figure out what the most probable threats are. Know what the weather extremes are where you live. If you are subject to possible flooding, then have sandbags or dykes. Trim trees if you are in a wildfire area. Have stored food, and a generator, AND extra fuel. And yes, include a few firearms and ammunition. Take them to the range regularly, and know how they work, and how to unjam them.
Keep cash on hand. Keep some “trade goods” around; I don’t drink, but I have a dozen bottles of booze to swap if I need help. Cultivate your neighbors; help them, and they will help you. Have some useful tools, and know how to perform at least basic repairs.
You’ll never see an actual “zombie”, because they don’t exist. But other threats do exist. Prepare for them.
Divemedic · October 16, 2026 at 5:34 pm
I would argue that to be false. As laid out in the post, having a house in the woods with freeze dried food, 100 firearms and 50,000 rounds of ammo isn’t going to do a thing to prepare you for having a stroke and being an hour from the nearest hospital.
Fido · October 16, 2026 at 9:34 pm
I find that “having a house in the woods”, and living there, is a lifestyle that makes demands of you that effectively pretects you from the causes of stroke.
Divemedic · October 17, 2026 at 5:47 am
And what evidence is there of that being the case? Your feelings?
Fido · October 17, 2026 at 12:08 pm
Are you suggesting that you are unaware of any evidence that regular physical exercise reduces risk of stroke, or that living in the woods, typically mountains, demands regular physical exercise?
There are many other factors to consider as well, such as “stress”, pollution, and diet, which are also affected by lifestyle and location.
Divemedic · October 17, 2026 at 1:17 pm
Good luck.
Fido · October 17, 2026 at 2:06 pm
Thanx! 😀
We don’t really know each other, and if we did, I suspect you’d like me even less, but I know you “well enough”, and I like you, and support everything you are doing here! My thanx are sincere.
Divemedic · October 17, 2026 at 2:58 pm
Perhaps. I’m actually pretty laid back in person.
We can disagree with each others’ ideas without disliking the person expressing them.
Reducing your risk of a stroke with a healthy lifestyle is great. But reducing risk is not the same as eliminating it. Airbags reduce your risk of dying in a car crash, but you still wear a seatbelt. My point wasn’t that your lifestyle is bad, it’s that being 45 minutes from emergency medical care or having zero liquid savings means you’ve planned for a war that may never come, while leaving yourself completely exposed to biology and economics, which always come.
Fido · October 17, 2026 at 11:55 pm
Yeah, I’m actually more laid back online. 😀
All stipulated. Risk cannot be “eliminated”, only ameliorated.
There is risk inherent to distancing yourself from “services”.
There is risk inherent to living *near* “services”.
My personal risk assessment resonates with O’l Remus. Stay away from crowds. I suspect this resonance results from age, and the accumulation of experiene. Of course it could be be mere temporal “culture”, but that’s not what I suspect.
I usually couch this view here, in deference, but recent events have forced me to consider the possibility that ethical doctors may have all lost their licenses for failing to become the “remdesivir/intubation mercenaries” who are now the remnant.
This view informs my assessment of the value of medical “services” being nearby.
Other experiences, of course, will inform different assessment.
Divemedic · October 18, 2026 at 11:29 am
I will say that intubation is a good thing for people in respiratory distress. It’s been done for decades. I’ve intubated literally thousands of people. So when COVID came along, everyone did what had always worked before. It didn’t in the case of COVID. I wouldn’t blame doctors or the medical profession for that. COIVD was something new, and things that used to work, didn’t.
Anonymous · October 16, 2026 at 5:30 pm
Doomsday Preppers vs Dave Ramsey.
The need for a small generator to power your refrigerator and freezer is a more likely scenario than the need for thousands of rounds of ammo. Refrigerated food may begin to spoil after four hours. A power outage of that duration or longer is not a low probability event.
Divemedic · October 16, 2026 at 5:36 pm
Most of the problems that will affect you are more readily addressed with money than they are with a stash of guns and $30k in firearms and freeze dried food.
Grumpy51 · October 16, 2026 at 7:55 pm
One of the most helpful posts you’ve done (SMO) is the preparation pyramid. Helps lay a basic foundation with advancements as resources permit.
Comments are closed.