THE HALL

[CharlesH]

I’ll put one I mentioned earlier into Dave’s format:
 
Negligent Weapon Discharge:  likelihood moderate - severity high.  Mitigation:  Insure everyone is familiar with how to clear their firearms of ammunition.  Have a plan for where rounds are in the firearm and enforce it (magazine in your pocket - magazine in your weapon no round in the chamber - round in the chamber weapon on safe - round in chamber weapon on fire.

[Gamer]

Retired military here.
Running out of ammo. Likelihood high.
Running out of food. Likelihood moderate.
Suffering from cold weather from late fall through early spring. Likelihood high.
Medical emergencies. Likelihood high.
Exhaustion. Likelihood high.
Illness from food-borne disease and contaminated water. Likelihood high.

Hi Dave, military men will be worth their weight in gold when it hits the fan, so welcome..
I almost joined the Brit Army many years ago in my teens and sent off for a glossy brochure, but changed my mind. Got a shock a couple of weeks later when a 'Sergeant Butterfield' came knocking my door on a courtesy follow-up visit in full dress uniform, stripes and all, so I dived behind the settee to take cover til he'd gone! Scared the life out of me and I never heard from him again..
You covered the risk factors real good, can I just pick up on a few-
1- Would it be possible to make our own bullets further down the line if we ever had to?
2- Food shortage will certainly hit us if we accept too many extra mouths into our group, there are currently 15 of us so we'll have to think twice before accepting any more.
3-Cold weather- I plan to put on an extra pair of socks and shirt.
4- Medical emergencies and illness will be a hassle when the medicines that we've liberated from pharmacies run out or lose their goodness, so I suppose we'll have to muddle through. At least we'll have obtained medical books for our library to help us.
5- Exhaustion- yeah, if things get rough we'll have to bust our asses doing odd jobs and food planting/gathering etc, how about it Bob?-

"Take the pain! TAKE THE PAIN!"

[Gamer]

I’ll put one I mentioned earlier into Dave’s format:
  Negligent Weapon Discharge:  likelihood moderate - severity high.  Mitigation:  Insure everyone is familiar with how to clear their firearms of ammunition.  Have a plan for where rounds are in the firearm and enforce it (magazine in your pocket - magazine in your weapon no round in the chamber - round in the chamber weapon on safe - round in chamber weapon on fire.

As a Brit, guns terrify me and I've only ever held one once in my life when I was about 5 and my dad let me handle (but not fire) it, he brought it back from WW2 (he was an aircraft mechanic) and I can still remember how heavy and cold it felt, (I think it was a chunky square Colt Browning?)
He made me promise not to tell anybody he'd got it.
I never saw it again, years later I think I asked him where it was and he said something like "What gun are you talking about? I haven't got a gun".
I searched the house but couldn't find it, he probably threw it away.

[LvsChant]

I'm thinking your concerns should be more long-term than short-term. For example:  The current approximate population of England is 53 million, living on 50,301 sq miles (32,192,640 acres), which is equivalent of approx. .6 acres per person. If my math is correct, only approximately 53000 people remain (607 acres per person).

Let's say (worst case), your group came out of London- current pop. 8.788 million (who could expect to have had 8788 total survivors -- not counting any who died after the initial plague?). With the total square miles of London being 611 (391,040 acres), each survivor would have had app. 44.5 acres available... of city scape - crammed with businesses, homes, all sorts of stuff everywhere! If the stores were stocked for 3 days' supply (as is typical in the US), let's assume the food stock on hand when the crisis began was 8,788,000 (# people) x 3 days = 263,640,000 person day's food supplies. Let say that 2/3 was perishable -- that still leaves 87,880,000 person-day's of food. So... everyone didn't die on the first day, so maybe only half of that was remaining on the store shelves or in transport trucks at the end... 43,940,000 person-day's supply of food. If you divide that by the remaining 8788 people who survived the initial crisis, that still leaves approximately 5000 days' supplies of food available to each person -- not counting any fresh veges/fruit/fresh meat from hunting...

The abundance of goods, natural resources, etc. is huge, considering the very small percentage of survivors. While I agree about the need for gardening, cultivating and maintaining infrastructure, it seems to be that the threat of other humans is pretty small. 

Planning for the future and especially for the survival of the race seems more important... and I don't think we need to worry about running out of food if more people join our group. we should welcome them if they can get along...

[Gamer]

..I don't think we need to worry about running out of food if more people join our group. we should welcome them if they can get along..

If food runs short we'll tell newcomers LvsChant is happy to share his with them..
As for "getting along" with people, if newcomers are a pain in the butt we'll kick 'em out, I personally can't suffer fools at all..
The Survivors (1975) episode called 'New Arrivals' touched on the theme, it seems to have vanished from youtube but here's a still I made from it when it was around.
Young agricultural college graduate Mark (circled) joins the group and although he's a whizz at growing stuff, his manner is rude and offensive and bad for everybody's morale.
Here he is trying to lay down the law once too often.
They don't actually kick him out, but their coldness towards him makes him realise he's not wanted, so he saddles his horse and rides on out, taking his bad vibes with him..



“Associate yourself with men of good quality, for ‘tis better to be alone than in bad company"- George Washington
"He who walks with the wise grows wise, but a companion of fools suffers harm" (Bible: Proverbs 13:20)
"As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another" (Bible:Proverbs 27:17)
"If you hang around with losers you become a loser"- Donald Trump

[CharlesH]

Military experience is certainly valuable in a scenario like this, but I’d argue it is less because of weapons training (as LvsChant mentioned, there aren’t too many people left to shoot) and more because of the training we received in being mission focused, planners that focus on the mission, and practicioners of “planned spontaneity”.  We also look at the “enemy” as more than just the bad guys, it’s anything that keeps us from accomplishing the mission.  Corporate management and others share this mindset, but in the military we do it under life and death situations during war and at does make us different I think.
 
A mission needs some thought, it should be general enough to last a while but specific enough to focus the group’s effort.  “Stay alive another day” doesn’t seem to give us much direction.  “Create the seeds of a new civilization to  repopulate the world” maybe focuses too much on the far distant future.  Some sort of broad statement that we can bounce day-to-day ideas off of is good.
 
Planning is another thing that the military excels at.  Anyone who has had to sit through a full up Military Decision Making Process, knows it is a special kind of hell.  I don’t recommend it to a group like this.  But it offers valuable tools.  One such tool is identifying constraints.  Did everyone notice two groups in this discussion that formed around whether or not the house Gamer found was a good one?  Some felt it was a very bad choice.  Others didn’t really talk about the choice of house but opened dialogue on other issues for the group.  For the latter group the house was a constraint:  this is where we are staying so we will focus our mission on other things within the constraint of having this house.  There is nothing wrong with criticizing a constraint and asking for it to be removed.  But once higher hqs says the constraint stays you move on.  One of my old military supervisors put it like this:  “you pee with the pecker god gave you”.
 
Once you have your mission and have planned how to accomplish it, crap happens and you have to do something else on the fly. This is where “planned spontaneity comes in.  When the enemy throws a wrench in your system, you don’t ask him to wait a minute while you re-plan the operation you do something.  If they ambush you you lay down suppressive fire and maneuver into a position to kill them.  If your comms go out you use a backup.  If a soldier drops from heat exhaustion you call in a medevac with a 9-line.  Yes plans change.  But the army backs up plans with procedures for a variety of contingencies so we can deal with them quickly.  The procedures are the “planned” the recognition that no matter what happens we’ll do something is the “spontaneity”.
 
Building those procedures means looking at the enemy not only as people but anything that can keep you from accomplishing your mission.  It can be injury (combat lifesaving procedure), ambush (actions on contact), communication (PACE plan, Primary, Alternate, Contingency, and Emergency means of communication), weather, insects, disease, etc. The procedures are the way we mitigate risks to accomplishing our mission.  Dave got us launched on risk mitigation quite well.
 
Yes, I think in a post apocalypse military folks will be money.  And if shooting is involved I suspect most would hold their own.  But their real value will be keeping us alive by applying the lessons they’ve learned in preparing for change, planning for a mission, and executing to accomplish a mission.

[Gamer]

..Planning is another thing that the military excels at.  Anyone who has had to sit through a full up Military Decision Making Process, knows it is a special kind of hell..

Hopefully our group will be clear-thinking enough to keep things simple so we can adapt, improvise and overcome in all situations..
"Great leaders are almost always great simplifiers who can cut through argument, debate and doubt, to offer a solution everybody can understand" -Gen. Colin Powell

Schwarzkopf in action-


Our simple top-priority objective is to put enough food on the table for at least one square meal per day, every day, pull up a chair..



At the moment there are still a few unanswered questions from earlier in this thread that we need to systematically address one by one, and learn from each others comments and opinions before moving on to the next question.
For example how long will petrol/gasoline/diesel be available for our forage vehicles and generators?
It's all there in underground tanks at filling stations, but how will we get it up as there's no electricity to power the pumps? And as a matter of interest, will it be good for hundreds of years, or will it eventually evaporate away?

PS- for any popcorn-munching readers of this thread out there, don't be shy, come and post in it if you like, there's no bouncer on the door..

[CharlesH]

how long will petrol/gasoline/diesel be available for our forage vehicles and generators?
It's all there in underground tanks at filling stations, but how will we get it up as there's no electricity to power the pumps? And as a matter of interest, will it be good for hundreds of years, or will it eventually evaporate away?

 
After three years both gas and diesel may be pretty skunked.  Gas that was treated with some sort of stabilizer should give it at least a year of life and I read on “Off the Grid” for this post that stabilizer can give gas a couple years lease on life.  Diesel used to seem to last forever, but that wasn’t really true.  It gathers water to it, so diesel in tanks where condensation was possible may have a lot of water now.  And there are algae that grow in it too.  There used to be diesel stabilizers that would inhibit algae growth but I don’t know if they are still available.  Even if diesel was treated with one three years ago i’m not sure how long those mixes work.  Anyone know?

[LvsChant]

What about avgas? And is there a supply nearby? I think it stores much longer. Likewise propane, which is pretty common in the US... This is one reason that it is vital to try to keep/gain any technical expertise in the engineering/technician world in our group. Are there any natural gas supplies/wells in the region? Can we keep it going enough to supply the hall?

Can any of our equipment be retrofitted to operate with these more stable fuel sources?

As for diesel engines... remember that there are ways to prepare cooking oil to burn as biofuel for diesel engines... (I know it isn't an efficient long-range possibility, but maybe it offers us a chance to extend the lives of those diesel engines).

There may be stockpiles of vegetable oil in warehouses that could be used for this purpose for farm equipment.

[Gamer]

After three years both gas and diesel may be pretty skunked.

What about avgas?..propane..natural gas supplies/wells in the region?..cooking oil to burn as biofuel for diesel engines...vegetable oil in warehouses that could be used for this purpose for farm equipment.

Luckily, (and correct me if I'm wrong), we wouldn't need gallons and gallons of stuff to make our vehicles go, as we'd only need just a small regular supply which should hopefully be relatively easy to get.
For example we'd only take our truck out on foraging expeditions to local towns and cities within a 50-mile radius now and again, a round trip of say a hundred miles, how much fuel would that need?
As regards farm vehicles, we'd only need to crank up our tractor once in a while for a spot of ploughing wouldn't we?
In fact in a worst case scenario where there wasn't a drop of vehicle fuel anywhere, I daresay we could get by with bicycle forage trips, and do any ploughing by hand or with a horse couldn't we?

 

[Morning Sunshine]

I think we should make bicycles a priority, actually. 

quieter than vehicles for opsec.
No need to worry about fuel.
if we can use black-top roads, the bikes would last a long time.
There are lots of designs for carrying people and supplies by bike - https://www.worksmancycles.com/
look at these - https://www.alibaba.com/showroom/4-passenger-bike.html
easier to fix when break-downs occur
can even get small engines to run hybrid bikes.
could get some dirt bikes for riding around the homestead and to and from the ocean

make one of our last vehicles runs a raid on a bike shop or two.

[Gamer]

I think we should make bicycles a priority, actually..

Saddle up..



The zombs may take the cities and the main roads and the gas stations, but they'll never take a cyclists FREEDOM!
Random pics from the net-



Bypassing zomb roadblocks on the main roads-



The wheels take all the weight, not your knee joints-




Walk up all the hills, never push the pace and you can go on forever-





Just pull off the road and set up camp anywhere-


Here's my bike (below) in the middle of Wales some years ago, I did about 70 miles that day. My sleeping bag and food are crammed into the saddlebag and my tent is strapped on top.
The orange waterproof jacket is lashed over the whole caboodle to rainproof everything-

[Gamer]

A well is better for fresh water than the river, although boiling/filtering river water works.  Rivers may have heavy metals and other contaminates washing in from upstream.  Plus people up river from us might be using it as a latrine...

The remote location also argues for there already being a septic system.  If it’s not a gravity fed system we’ll have to work on it to meet our needs, but I it’s probably here and probably in good shape.  In the meantime, outhouses aren’t so bad. 
 
We should also be burying our trash rather than sending it down river.

1- If we dig a well how can we be sure there'll be water down there?
And is there any guarantee it'll be fresher than river water?
The chances of our river being contaminated by heavy metals and people upstream are low anyway, and the river is all we've got at the moment.
HEY an idea!- we can use solar stills to distill sea water!

2- What exactly is a "septic system"? if it's a hole or tank in the ground won't it fill up eventually? How will we empty it?

3- As for "burying our trash", what sort of trash will it be? Most trash in our current world is food wrappings, newspapers and stuff like that, but in a post-apoc world nothing will be wrapped will it?

[LvsChant]

basics of a septic system:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=udBaGyzJyU8

[Gamer]

basics of a septic system:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=udBaGyzJyU8

Looks too complicated for me mate, she says you have to hire somebody to keep coming to pump out your septic tank, but in a post-apoc world where would we find such a dood?
And in a post-apoc world the amount of sewage the few surviving humans will be churning out will be unnoticeable in the general environment, as thousands of wild animals and birds and fish are continually crapping and peeing everywhere, so our little bit extra wouldn't make much difference and we can just empty our buckets downriver and let nature break it down with sunlight and fresh air couldn't we?
Even if we had our own septic tank we'd have to somehow pump it out ourselves when it got full, and where would we dump the stuff then?

[CharlesH]

1- If we dig a well how can we be sure there'll be water down there?
And is there any guarantee it'll be fresher than river water?
The chances of our river being contaminated by heavy metals and people upstream are low anyway, and the river is all we've got at the moment.
HEY an idea!- we can use solar stills to distill sea water!

 
While nothing is 100% in this new world, the odds of well water being fresher than river water probably approach 100%.  Especially since I doubt we have to dig one.  If this is a rural house anywhere beyond the reach of city water service, I bet it has a well.  It will be a pipe of 4-8” (US measurements) sticking a foot or two out of the ground.  Someone earlier mentioned that we can fashion a bucket system to pull water up, or that the buckets are for sale in some places.  I like that idea.  There is a chance of bacteria down there after three years so I’d dump some bleach down it first.  Pull out water until the bleach smell is gone and it should be good.  Again, if this house is away from town, the well is probably already there waiting for us.

[CharlesH]

Looks too complicated for me mate, she says you have to hire somebody to keep coming to pump out your septic tank, but in a post-apoc world where would we find such a dood?
And in a post-apoc world the amount of sewage the few surviving humans will be churning out will be unnoticeable in the general environment, as thousands of wild animals and birds and fish are continually crapping and peeing everywhere, so our little bit extra wouldn't make much difference and we can just empty our buckets downriver and let nature break it down with sunlight and fresh air couldn't we?
Even if we had our own septic tank we'd have to somehow pump it out ourselves when it got full, and where would we dump the stuff then?

 
Septic systems are often not too bad.  Like the well, my bet is the house has a system already if it is away from town.  If the system is gravity fed there are really no moving parts at all:  you can fill the toilet reservoirs with water from the river and flush just like the old days.  As for emptying it, in my area they only need emptied every 5+ years.  15 people might fill the tank with waste faster than a normal family, but we won’t be running much grey water through it so maybe not.
 
Emptying it is going to be smelly but it’s only going to be necessary once or twice a decade.  I don’t want to minimize the stink, but the hatch on the tank is probably 1-2’ square so it could be emptied with buckets.  It would be a 1-2 day full time job and stink to high heaven.  The sludge is probably organic and can be composted and used for fertilizer if we can convince the group to not freak about it being human waste.
   
Outhouses work well.  They can fill, and they can stink.  But they can be moved regularly and they provide organic material in the soil where they were located.  The river is certainly an option.  Maybe it’s just me.  Sending our toilet paper, sanitary products, and crap down the river just seems like a bad idea (and as long as the toilet paper lasts, I for one would like to use it).  Why run the risk of a zomb group finding something washed ashore just a few miles down river of us?

[mountainmoma]

Looks too complicated for me mate, she says you have to hire somebody to keep coming to pump out your septic tank, but in a post-apoc world where would we find such a dood?
And in a post-apoc world the amount of sewage the few surviving humans will be churning out will be unnoticeable in the general environment, as thousands of wild animals and birds and fish are continually crapping and peeing everywhere, so our little bit extra wouldn't make much difference and we can just empty our buckets downriver and let nature break it down with sunlight and fresh air couldn't we?
Even if we had our own septic tank we'd have to somehow pump it out ourselves when it got full, and where would we dump the stuff then?

It has been 20 years and I have never had my septic tank pumped. Dont put stuff in that cant be decomposed by the resident bacteria ( rinse the dirt off produce outside) dont put stuff in that kills the resident bacteria.

That said, composting toilet are very simple, they get emptied to feed the orchard trees. Raised platform, with 2 bays to compost, 2 holes up top. Use one for a year, move the seat to the other while the first composts. Empty to feed the trees, etc...

   

[Gamer]

..Septic systems are often not too bad..Emptying it is going to be smelly..
The river is certainly an option..

Good for you mate, you and any others in our little group are of course welcome to create and use your own septic tank and outhouses and empty them yourselves, (preferably when the wind is blowing away from us in the Hall) while the rest of us barbarians will just keep slinging the contents of our buckets downriver as usual..
As for using the stuff as fertiliser, you shitters will be quite free to apply it to your own specific fenced-off area of the vegetable plot and orchard..

..composting toilet are very simple, they get emptied to feed the orchard trees..

Well that's alright momma, but to cut down on your workload, please feed only your own trees in an area behind the Hall and please PLEASE don't feed ours..

[Morning Sunshine]

Incidentally, our group won't have a "leader", we'll be a democracy all chipping in with ideas for discussion and friendly debate, then going with the ones the majority likes best..
Regarding education, our kids will no doubt find it fascinating to see pics of the Old World in books (planes, ships, trains etc) and will be asking us "what was it like", so in the interest of balance, can I just chip in and suggest we don't forget to tell them that it wasn't all sweetness and light, and that it could be a (gulp) very scary, smelly overcrowded place at times..

Good for you mate, you and any others in our little group are of course welcome to create and use your own septic tank and outhouses and empty them yourselves, (preferably when the wind is blowing away from us in the Hall) while the rest of us barbarians will just keep slinging the contents of our buckets downriver as usual..
As for using the stuff as fertiliser, you shitters will be quite free to apply it to your own specific fenced-off area of the vegetable plot and orchard..

Well that's alright momma, but to cut down on your workload, please feed only your own trees in an area behind the Hall and please PLEASE don't feed ours..

Sounds like you have a pre-conceived notion of how this Hall community will be working, and any ideas are not open for debate or discussion. 

[CharlesH]

Sounds like you have a pre-conceived notion of how this Hall community will be working, and any ideas are not open for debate or discussion. 

 
 . There’s probably a place (upriver) for us human waste fertilizing whackos...  let’s look for one with a well and gravity fed septic system for starters.  And I’m bringing all the toilet paper I can lay my hands on!

[Gamer]

Sounds like you have a pre-conceived notion of how this Hall community will be working, and any ideas are not open for debate or discussion. 

Like I said mate, people can crap in septic tanks and outhouses if they like, and "fertilise" their own fenced-off areas of the veg plot and orchard provided they don't try to get the rest of us to help empty the friggin things, or try to "fertilise" our part of the veg and orchard area with the stuff..
If I was a tyrant I'd ban "fertilising" outright on the grounds that the stink would be too much to bear and would attract flies like a Nam rice paddy..

Mekong Delta 1963

[mountainmoma]

Good for you mate, you and any others in our little group are of course welcome to create and use your own septic tank and outhouses and empty them yourselves, (preferably when the wind is blowing away from us in the Hall) while the rest of us barbarians will just keep slinging the contents of our buckets downriver as usual..
As for using the stuff as fertiliser, you shitters will be quite free to apply it to your own specific fenced-off area of the vegetable plot and orchard..

Well that's alright momma, but to cut down on your workload, please feed only your own trees in an area behind the Hall and please PLEASE don't feed ours..

you do have alot of preconceived notions. I have lived in and used septic and composted humanure, there is no mess, smell or anything like that.

A septic system that is not abused never has to be "emptied", that is rather the point, the organisms eat everything and it goes out in the leach field on its own

Compost from a proper, hot composted  composting toilet does not smell, it is not wet, it is like any other finished compost. Compost must be applied to to growing areas, or mulch or both or else the soil gets worn out and unfertile. 

Fecal matter must NEVER be thrown into a water way ! That is not normal human behavior and  we are smart enough to know how and why doing such a thing causes problems. Why in the world would you throw fecal mater into a river ? Land animals defacate on the soil. SO, bury it like all other land animals ( An outhouse is one way humans defecate into the soil for a period of time, then bury it), or use some of our gained knowledge to do something more convenient ( a septic system, anearobic decomposing) or that makes use of the fertility potential ( hot compost, aerobic decomposing)

[Dave in Broadway, NC]

make one of our last vehicles runs a raid on a bike shop or two.

And if we come across any broken bikes we should grab a couple. Source of parts and you can use the frame to make a wheel hoe.

[Dave in Broadway, NC]

I'm thinking your concerns should be more long-term than short-term. For example:  The current approximate population of England is 53 million, living on 50,301 sq miles (32,192,640 acres), which is equivalent of approx. .6 acres per person. If my math is correct, only approximately 53000 people remain (607 acres per person).

Lvs, if this is your beer math, I'd hate to see you with a calculator 

[mountainmoma]

 
 . There’s probably a place (upriver) for us human waste fertilizing whackos...  let’s look for one with a well and gravity fed septic system for starters.  And I’m bringing all the toilet paper I can lay my hands on!

I just joined your group and left to move to a site upriver where we can be sensible about sanitation

[LvsChant]

Charles, MS and MM: I'm with you.

[Chemsoldier]

Does Charles Xavier know you guys are squatting in his house?

[Gamer]

Well guys and gals, early in this sensational thread I said our Hall group would be run as a democracy with everybody chipping in with ideas and we'd go with the ideas the majority liked best.
But somebody then said a democracy might not be a good idea, as a strong leader would probably emerge.
I'm now inclined to agree with him, as having a good strong hardass leader around would give everybody a warm fuzzy feeling knowing he's got their backs..
So, as this is my thread and my Hall, and as I've got the love of Jesus in my baby-blue eyes, I'm stepping up to the plate as your Beloved Leader and issuing my first edict, namely that if anybody wants to crap in septic tanks/outhouses (our 'Shitter faction') they're free to do so, and if anybody prefers to sling their crap in the river (our 'Bucket faction') they're free to do that too.
However, a friendly warning to the shitters- if the stink of your "fertiliser" makes the rest of us gag we'll have to close you down..-

"And don't you ever forget it!"