SHTF we don't want

[longbow]

You go to bed happy and all is well...

at 3:17 in the morning your weather alert radio warns you of a national emergency and you have 30 minutes to react. Basically you get everyone up and dressed, but you know you have no where to run. You are able to get to the basement before the impact.

At 4:15AM your spouse is killed from a tree knocked on your house from the shockwave from an asteroid impact 400 miles away. Nothing within 500 miles can help and its 20 degrees outside.

You and your kids are on your own.

 

[Scutter01]

Hot Fudge Sundae falls on a Tuesday this year.

 

[techres]

You go to bed happy and all is well...

at 3:17 in the morning your weather alert radio warns you of a national emergency and you have 30 minutes to react. Basically you get everyone up and dressed, but you know you have no where to run. You are able to get to the basement before the impact.

At 4:15AM your spouse is killed from a tree knocked on your house from the shockwave from an asteroid impact 400 miles away. Nothing within 500 miles can help and its 20 degrees outside.

You and your kids are on your own.

If the house is now unable to be used as a shelter, we move into the car for the night. There is enough gear, food, and preps in the car to live comfortably for 3-4 days in my vehicle at all times. And that is if I cannot simply drive over to my neighbor's house.

As for no one in 500 miles? I don't think you can by that kind of privacy any more in this hemisphere short of the amazon.

But, yeah, leave wife's body in rubble, move kids to car. Get shelter gear out of trunk (from the inside if you are lucky) and setup casa #2.

 

[dburkhead]

Since I don't have a basement, I'm dead and don't have to worry about it any more.

 

[pmpmstrb]

OMGWTFSHTFBBQ!

 

[Scutter01]

Hot Fudge Sundae falls on a Tuesday this year.

A book detailing this scenario.

 

[smokingman]

Do you really think they would allow a 30 min warning...be realistic...we where all still in bed sleeping.

That would be shtf moment.I hope I have done enough to prepare.At that point my biggest concern would be a potable water supply.If I could get that i would be ok on everything else.

 

[dburkhead]

http://www.lpl.arizona.edu/impacteffects/

You are, BTW, describing an asteroid 3.2-5 km in diameter. At the small end of that range, it puts 5 cubic miles of varporized rock into the atmosphere. That may be enough to trigger an ice age.

Using the smaller size of that range, you would have to get about 900 miles away from the impact point to get outside the range of immediate destruction (defined for this purpose as far enough that the air blast no longer shatters glass windows). At the large end of that range, you need to get an 1400 miles away from the impact point to get outside the range of immediate destruction.

Max winds from that air blast at that distance is 116 MPH. That and the overpressure from the blast will mean that cars won't really be available as shelter, let alone transportation.

The final crater would be at least 25 miles across and more than half a mile deep.

This isn't just SHTF, this is TEOTWAWKI.

Incidentally, such an impact is a once in 20 million years type event.

 

[Scutter01]

Seriously, if you haven't read Lucifer's Hammer it goes into detail about the sorts of things you might have to deal with in a TEOTWAWKI asteroid (comet, in this case) strike. How you would survive the initial impact, how you would grow enough food to stay alive, retain technology, repel looters and feudal armies, etc.

Granted, it's a work of fiction, but Larry Niven is a good hard-science writer and makes a good-faith effort to get his science correct.

 

[dburkhead]

Seriously, if you haven't read Lucifer's Hammer it goes into detail about the sorts of things you might have to deal with in a TEOTWAWKI asteroid (comet, in this case) strike. How you would survive the initial impact, how you would grow enough food to stay alive, retain technology, repel looters and feudal armies, etc.

Granted, it's a work of fiction, but Larry Niven is a good hard-science writer and makes a good-faith effort to get his science correct.

Niven's a good SF writer, but it's generally Pournelle who brings the technical accuracy to their collaborations.

I've read Lucifer's Hammer. It's a "one time read" for me since some of the stuff in it was just a bit too chillingly graphic for my taste. (Although I'm utterly certain the surfer survived--he just doesn't have any further role in the story.)

 

[Scutter01]

Niven's a good SF writer, but it's generally Pournelle who brings the technical accuracy to their collaborations.

I've read Lucifer's Hammer. It's a "one time read" for me since some of the stuff in it was just a bit too chillingly graphic for my taste. (Although I'm utterly certain the surfer survived--he just doesn't have any further role in the story.)

On the whole, not his best work. But as it pertains to the end of the world scenario, it was a good read.

 

[coltaceguy]

I'd rather it be a zombie invasion, can we get a zombie invasion SHTF next story ?

 

[rhino]

Seriously, if you haven't read Lucifer's Hammer it goes into detail about the sorts of things you might have to deal with in a TEOTWAWKI asteroid (comet, in this case) strike. How you would survive the initial impact, how you would grow enough food to stay alive, retain technology, repel looters and feudal armies, etc.

I've bought paperback copies at least twice, but I've never been able to get past the first couple of chapters. It's ... plodding. Does it get better?

 

[rmcrob]

That may be enough to trigger an ice age.

Maybe we can find an asteroid just large enough to exactly counter the supposed global warming and redirect it to hit the earth. Where would we want it to land?

 

[dburkhead]

Maybe we can find an asteroid just large enough to exactly counter the supposed global warming and redirect it to hit the earth. Where would we want it to land?

Since the supposed global warming appears to have flattened off in the last few years and since the sun appears to be entering a quite period, that may be the last thing we want to have happen.

 

[indyjoe]

Does anyone else think Global Warming may have been caused all along by Al Gore talking? He seems to have quieted down, along with the temperature drop.

 

[Scutter01]

I've bought paperback copies at least twice, but I've never been able to get past the first couple of chapters. It's ... plodding. Does it get better?

The style stays the same, but once the comet actually hits, then yes, the story gets better. I know what you mean. The run-up to the event is WAY too long. As I said, it's not one of his best stories, but unlike most books of its type, the strike is not the climax of the book. The book is really about how humanity survives post-strike, although it only focuses on a small microcosm.

 

[4sarge]

The new theory is that we are entering into a 50 year cool down of the planet due to our sun having less activity. All I need is a 50 year Ice Age because I wanted to move to sunny Florida

 

[Britton]

So I could not go to the Holiday Inn down the road?

 

[jeremy]

A book detailing this scenario.

Good read