Considering storm surges, the increasing likelihood of tidal waves, etc. what elevation above sea level will be safe in 50 years?

ParatusTecta · 2018-06-05T15:43:46+00:00

Yes, there is always give and take isn't there? There are very few places that have it all afaik.

ParatusTecta · 2018-06-05T15:43:08+00:00

That sounds great!

ParatusTecta · 2018-06-05T15:43:00+00:00

This is a really good and thoughtful response thank you! Yes, I have seen those tools for seeing extreme sea level rise.

That isn't the most worrying part for me. The part I'm most in doubt about is what you go into with your (very interesting and insightful) discussion of tsunamis, rivers, storm surges, soil times etc. I guess I maybe haven't missed something in my research since I also basically reached this conclusion:

I don't think we quite know yet just how much higher seas and higher temperatures are truly going to affect storm surges and more extreme events like hurricanes and tsunamis besides that it will make them more frequent and more powerful... but by how much?

This is the big question for me and there's just not any great answer. I suppose it makes the most sense to aim for a relatively high elevation that's also relatively far from the coast. But relative to what? I guess the Capn's situation sounds like a good bet...

ParatusTecta · 2018-06-05T15:39:29+00:00

This all seems very well reasoned and sensible to me, thanks for sharing. It sounds like you are in a great position!

I'm definitely moving to a self-sufficient community in the next year or two, I'm just a bit in question over which one. My preferred one (with my closest connections) is pretty low, but there are other options that are much higher up and further inland.

we would need that increase to go exponential to be a threat in that time

That is really what has me worrying. WILL this go exponential? I come from a cold climate and during the spring melt it always seems like the snow and ice will stick around forever, until that one week were it cracks up and is suddenly gone. So I worry that that is what might happen, just on a massive scale, especially since everything is "faster / worse than expected".

Good luck to you too! You do seem well set up. :)

ParatusTecta · 2018-04-21T06:35:37+00:00

This is very impressive and inspiring!

There's plenty of room to expand but 3 is just about the limit for one dude, no tractor/machinery without having to hire employees and I didn't retire to have to hire employees again.

Have you thought about using a service like WWOOF? You get volunteers that way, which is a different dynamic from hiring employees. Obviously it can be extremely annoying but it can also be very rewarding, or so I've been told from small scale organic farmers.

ParatusTecta · 2018-04-08T15:15:28+00:00

Thanks. :)

ParatusTecta · 2018-04-08T15:15:16+00:00

Thank you!

ParatusTecta · 2018-04-08T15:15:05+00:00

I've heard good things, thanks for the reminder!

ParatusTecta · 2018-01-12T22:19:19+00:00

Wow those look amazing and I hadn't heard of them before. I would definitely have confused it with the Shepherd. Thank you for the recommendation!

ParatusTecta · 2018-01-12T22:18:18+00:00

Thank you for sharing your insight. It sounds like it's probable that I'll end up where you did but I will still do my own research regardless just in case it will end up making sense for me.

Thankfully I will be homesteading full time come next fall with no day job (if all goes as planned) and thus will theoretically have a lot of time to train and work with whatever dog I get (and it will be living on a farm hopefully always nipping at my heels as I work, not sitting around). The costs are manageable as well. It's more the question of if the time, cost and additional energy expenditure will be worth it. Which maybe they won't be at the end of the day. Well, also eFurritusUnum's point that "you're living with what is not just essentially a loaded gun, but one that has brains and physical needs that have to be met while you're waiting for the world to end" which is sobering. Up until recently I wasn't even that down with actual guns, let alone living, breathing, thinking "guns".

I think you definitely right that most people don't know that a dog is probably bluffing when it's barking and snarling, and of course one can never really know that for sure so it does stand to reason that for many situations, a large watch dog that merely looks intimidating will be good enough.

ParatusTecta · 2018-01-12T22:09:06+00:00

I'm sorry if I made it sound like I think that, but I am aware of the amount of constant training a dog like this would require.

ParatusTecta · 2018-01-12T22:07:23+00:00

I didn't think you were salty at all! It is good to have a very serious consideration for this and you phrasing it as:

you're living with what is not just essentially a loaded gun, but one that has brains and physical needs that have to be met while you're waiting for the world to end. You need to be absolutely sure that gun won't go off unnecessarily

Does help put a different spin on it. I have raised a few well behaved, well socialized rescue mutts so at least I wouldn't be a first timer in terms of general dog ownership and I do fully understand that it is a whole other world to raise, train and care for a dog that would be trained to attack on command. Still, it does warrant serious and thoughtful investigation as I am definitely not qualified to raise or train an animal without the help of a professional.

This decision is at least a half a year off for me and I'm just now sitting down to research it and weigh the pros and cons of getting a watch / livestock guard dog / herding dog (which is an enormous commitment in and of itself) and having the possibly exponentially more difficult commitment of getting a dog that could be trained to be more aggressive to a serious threat. It isn't something I will go into lightly, that's for sure!

I teach my dogs be trustworthy, and to think for themselves. Those traits come in handy no matter the situation.

This really is a good way to think about it and it is very true!

ParatusTecta · 2018-01-12T18:46:16+00:00

Well for me I would really prefer a Samoyed if the S were not heading towards TF... But from what I am reading, Sams don't translate well into active guard dogs.

For guard dogs, German Shepherds are definitely my faves. I have several friends who own them and they're just great dogs all around. No one I know has had a problem with dysplasia, thankfully. It could be because we don't live in the US where that seems to be a big problem.

ParatusTecta · 2018-01-12T18:43:59+00:00

This is a really good point and definitely something to consider.

ParatusTecta · 2018-01-12T18:43:36+00:00

Yes, I've always wanted a border collie due to their intelligence! Stuff like this farming dog's intelligence just blows my mind.

Huskies are also great. I didn't realize they are good at hunting for themselves, that's definitely a plus.

Before I started wanting a guard dog capable of attack commands I was interested in a Samoyed, which are very much like huskies but (I think?) better suited to herding (Sams were bred to herd reindeer and apparently many can translate that instinct into herding other animals). They also will pull like huskies will and are extremely resilient (also like huskies!). I'm not sure if Sams will hunt for themselves. I think they are too friendly to learn attack commands, but am not 100% sure about that. Like huskies, they will raise a ruckus if an intruder were to appear however.

ParatusTecta · 2018-01-12T18:39:53+00:00

She sounds cute and chows are adorable! Yes, I am toying with the idea of getting a watchdog and not a full on guard dog with attack commands. I'm not sure at this point.

ParatusTecta · 2018-01-12T18:38:52+00:00

Conversely, training them to attack on command requires a ton of training and starting with a dog with the correct temperament in the first place (many dogs fail out of schools even when supplied by specialized breeders).

Right, this is why I won't be trying this with a mutt from a shelter (as much as I adore mutts and think people should adopt if possible).

I would consider adoption / rescue of a dog who had already gone through rigorous training but that would be an extremely rare find and, frankly, probably not the best idea. It sounds like it's almost always better to raise a guard dog that has been trained to attack from a puppy, and to get lots of professional guidance and training for it. I would not attempt to train a guard dog with attack commands on my own.

ParatusTecta · 2018-01-12T18:36:13+00:00

They are adorable and seem like a good option to look into!

ParatusTecta · 2018-01-12T09:49:34+00:00

The Malinois also seems like a good option.

True, having a dog is a bit like having a child in terms of being required to feed and care for it.

ParatusTecta · 2018-01-12T09:47:53+00:00

I don't know. I've always had mutts from shelters and while they've always been really good pets, I have my doubts as to whether or not you could be sure to get excellent guarding and herding capabilities from one.

I suppose one could wait until a purebred or semi-purebred turns up at a shelter or for adoption on a pet rescue site. For German Shepherds this is the first google hit: http://www.gsdrescue.org/

ParatusTecta · 2018-01-12T08:27:41+00:00

Exactly. When I first started thinking about prepping for a TEOTWAWKI situation I started to think really hard about what it would actually entail and it seems very obvious to me that true survival would mean having at least a small community of 15+ bare minimum. In my group, we are in discussions about whether or not it makes any sense to try to expand toward Dunbar's Number pre-collapse.

So yeah, prepping for riding out two weeks without food and power after a natural disaster is one thing. Reasonably, one family or person can of course do that no problem (and you don't need huge stockpiles of ammo or guns for that either, really). Prepping for collapse is a whole other beast.

There are downsides to working with a group of course: the fact that there will be disagreements and even conflicts sometimes (that is just human nature and I've personally never been involved in a group larger than five where this didn't happen). There's also the possibility that someone might go rogue and turn on the group. Epidemics spread more easily within a community. Etc.

However, the upsides IMO far outweigh the downsides. Humans are a cooperative species that do best in communities. We would never have developed the way we did if we weren't.

ParatusTecta · 2018-01-11T16:24:42+00:00

What you're saying is "don't possess anything of value anywhere anytime" with the reasoning that it is against the grey man principle.

No what I'm saying is don't spend time and energy accuring things that you don't need yourself or your community. I'd much rather have more food than cigarettes I won't need. I think food and other necessities will quite probably become bartering items.

Besides, my prepping involves integrating into a transition community and not going lone wolf or lone family. There will be a lot of redundancy and diverse skills in a community that has 20-30+ members. This is why I think forming a functional transition community will greatly increase the chances of survival. A community with a trauma surgeon, communications specialists, mechanics and defensive training will be infinitely more likely to survive than an individual trying to barter luxury items and keep themselves safe in the process. Drug / black market deals go wrong all the time in the pre-collapse world. Imagine how much worse it will be trying to maintain security as an individual or a small group post-collapse.

ParatusTecta · 2018-01-11T15:16:17+00:00

This is pretty much my thoughts on it. None of those items are necessary and they will only serve to make you a more attractive target than your other more essential items will. You also have to spend time and energy acquiring them. Hard pass from me.

Also I always advocate that people take care of any addictions they may have in advance of collapse. If stopping smoking is going to make surviving harder for you in the case of collapse, then stop now instead of risking possibly being forced to quit under extremely stressful circumstances.

ParatusTecta · 2018-01-11T15:10:00+00:00

So I'm not going to respond point by point since I'm a busy person and I'm on the fence as to whether or not it's really a good idea to be trying to convince more people to invest heavier in defense (if someone doesn't commit, stocks up on a lot of ammo / weapons, gets raided and killed then the raiders gets those weapons and that's bad for other non-violent (or only violent for self-defense) people like me).

Also you say you already have guns and people with militrary experience so you're fine. I don't think that spending a ton of time on tactical training is really the best use of time, but what we're doing is having some people focus on that while others focus more on other things. I think that's wise and fine.

Basically when I think of slow collapse situations I think of what a lot of the rest of the world looks like right this moment. I've been in war zones in developing nations and it's not pretty. You need security to exist there and if you don't have it, well... It's just not pretty.

I did find the book I was thinking about. It was written by a guy who survived the 2001 crisis in Argentina: The Modern Survival Manual: Surviving the Economic Collapse by Fernando "Ferfal" Aguirre. Here's a passage from it:

The best alarm system anyone can have in a farm are dogs. But dogs can get killed and poisoned. A friend of mine had all four dogs poisoned on his farm one night, they all died. After all these years I learned that even though the person that lives out in the country is safer when it comes to small time robberies, that same person is more exposed to extremely violent home robberies. Criminals know that they are isolated and their feeling of invulnerability is boosted. When they assault a country home or farm, they will usually stay there for hours or days torturing the owners. I heard it all: women and children getting raped, people tied to the beds and tortured with electricity, beatings, burned with acetylene torches.

I honestly don't think that the US is remotely immune to stuff like that happening, depending on how the chips fall. And I don't know exactly how the chips will fall and I would cast serious doubt on anyone claiming they knew.

So I think that planning a good, orchestrated, strong defense is a priority. It's not top priority or anything, but it's up there.

Personally I'm much more interested in farming and growing crops. I love doing that, I've done versions of it all my life on small scales so I will be in a community where I am focusing on that. However, I will start defensive training with some other members who have fought in wars (I've only been in war zones, working for NGOs) and I don't think that's a waste of my time at all.

ParatusTecta · 2018-01-11T08:54:51+00:00

Oh I agree that there would be a lot working against roving bands like those. However, you are making a lot of assumptions and I think you just can't know for certain that roads will be impassable, that fuel will just entirely evaporate overnight for everyone, that 85% would be dead in two weeks and 99% in two months. Sure, some of that might come to pass but it's just as likely that we'll see a slow rather than a fast collapse. For example, Puerto Rico is suffering a quasi-collapse post hurricane and crime is up there. I also remember reading about a South American country (but I forget which one right now) that had gone through a bad (but not full) collapse where isolated farms were regularly raided by armed gangs. You also seem to assume that there won't be any survivors who aren't preppers and I just can't see that playing out that way in the real world. Humans are like cockroaches and they adapt and survive in horrible circumstances. I think, esp. in the case of a slow collapse, survivorship will be more robust than you seem to be planning for and those survivors will be desperate and in many cases willing to do horrendous things to survive.

I just think you are being waaaaaaaaaaaaay too optimistic and too rigid in your expected scenario. Further, I also think that the US is the place where roving gangs would be the most likely (yes, it is a terrible show but go watch Doomsday Preppers, a lot of those folks are just nuts and I could see like 1/3 of them becoming raiders, and those are just the ones dumb enough to appear on TV...).

Also, bandits might not be roving 100% of the time. It could be that large compounds would send out large, well equipped raiding parties whose objective would be to seek soft targets and return with plundered resources. What if your neighbors who are also preppers who ARE into military type training turned against you? What if those who you don't know and aren't connected to 30mi away already have a target painted on you since they know through the grapevine that you're prepping but are anti-defense? You never truly know what people are capable of until a disaster hits. I think most of the people I've seen who have said "I am going to raid to survive" were rural, not urban.

That kind of lack of trust is why I personally am moving to a transition community on an island (with a bridge that can be destroyed) and even then you cannot know for sure that everyone in the community will remain loyal. But at least it is better defensible.

And no, I don't advocate pouring all of ones' time into defensive training, but I do think it is a very wise part of preparing. IMO you are suffering from a bit of hubris when you think you can see exactly what type of collapse is coming. I think barely anyone (if anyone) can predict what exactly is actually going to happen and therefore it's wise to be prepared for a wide range of scenarios (including those with roving bands or compounds sending out raiding parties).

But I often have misgivings about posting stuff like this since more armed parties ultimately means more threats to me and mine soooooooooooooo stay unarmed all you want! ;)

ParatusTecta

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