When planning for a SHTF Survival situation, there is really only one thing that you can be absolutely sure of: Survival is going to be a much bigger and tougher challenge than you ever thought possible. While there are some things you can do to prepare yourself for the chaos ahead, the reality of the situation is that when things go bad, there are going to be things happening that none of us prepared for or could have ever imagined.
What is SHTF?
SHTF has multiple survival meanings, but the acronym itself means Shit Hits The Fan. The meaning is pretty straight forward, but basically, it’s just a prepper/survivalist’s way of saying that during a long term survival crisis or collapse of society things are going to get bad, real bad! How bad none of us really know, and what dangers we will face is only speculation at this point, but one thing we do know for sure is that most people have no real clue to the dangers they will face during a collapse scenario.
Prepping for SHTF Scenarios
It’s not hard to imagine things going bad during a long-term disaster or collapse situation; all you have to do is look at how quickly things turn south during normal yearly disasters to get a sense of how bad things could get. Even during somewhat predictable events like summer storms, flooding and hurricanes we see a large section of the population turn desperate. From people who failed to prepare totally losing their shit in the grocery store when they find the shelve empty to the assholes who take advantage of every disaster to hit the streets looting and attacking innocent civilians, you can find plenty of examples that should at least get you thinking of what you need to be prepared to face.
10 Realistic SHTF survival situations that most people Don’t Prepare or Plan for!
While many of the threats you will face can be easily predicted by looking at recent events, we wanted to look at some very likely SHTF scenarios that very few think about, and almost nobody prepares for. These are threats they may present themselves during short-term disasters, but in all likelihood, these threats will be the ones that start to pop up during those extreme long-term situations where people lose hope and become desperate.
SHTF Law Enforcement Issues
1. No Law Enforcement
During an extreme SHTF scenario, it is very likely that law enforcement and emergency responders will be pretty hard to find; in fact, I would go even further and say that they will become nonexistent. Even during small-scale disasters, law enforcement officers often leave to take care of their own families first. When things go bad (empty grocery stores, no utilities, mass riots, violence, etc.) you are more than likely going to have to defend and take care of yourself.
2. Fake Law Enforcement
In a SHTF Scenario, you need to be on the lookout for everything including people impersonating law enforcement and military personnel. During a catastrophic event, you will most likely see criminals preying on the innocent by pretending to be either police, firefighters, emergency personnel, or military officers. In fact, almost every time a natural disaster hits we see criminals posing as some type of first responder in order to gain easy access to areas where they can then take advantage of the situation and loot homes and businesses.
You have to be able to quickly determine who are the real law enforcement officers or be prepared to stay away from people at all costs.
3. Law Enforcement and the Military Will Try to Take Your Guns.
Think it can’t happen? It already has!
In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans Police Superintendent Eddie Compass ordered all local law enforcement, including the U.S. Marshalls office and the National Guard, to seize all civilian firearms.
Without warrants, armed National Guard troops and New Orleans law enforcement officials forcibly confiscated over 1,000 legal firearms from law-abiding citizens. The New Orleans gun confiscation should serve as a warning to how the government and law enforcement officials will react during a large-scale national disaster.
It’s very high on the probability list that they will come for your guns!
SHTF Personal Safety Issues
4. Gangs & Raiders
When things go bad, there will likely be more people who mean to do you harm than there will be people who are prepared. This is something that you must accept and learn to deal with. The fact is, most people have no idea what it really takes to survive, and once their safety net is removed, they will become increasingly desperate and unpredictable. Even your once jolly neighbor will become a threat when he is faced with surviving without knowledge or supplies.
Let’s face it, even during the good times there’s a certain segment of our population that’s just downright insane. From the idiots who go nuts and riot after their team loses a game to the violent criminals and gangs who are already terrorizing big cities throughout America, there’s little doubt that a total collapse will make urban living almost impossible.
5. You need to be able to Defend Yourself.
During an extreme emergency situation, the lunatics of the world are going to be roaming the streets looking for easy victims to target. If you’re serious about survival, you need to train yourself in multiple self-defense styles and techniques. This means arming yourself with not only weapons but also with the knowledge of how to defend yourself without them.
These are things you should be doing now to ensure you can protect yourself during a SHTF situation:
- It Starts with Developing your Situational Awareness: This is probably the single most important self-defense skill you can have. It will allow you to defuse most dangerous situations before they can become a threat to your safety.
- How to Protect Yourself from Violent Mobs of Criminals: The really scary thing about situations like this is when people start to mob up and form groups. You need to be prepared to take on multiple attackers, and you need to know how to quickly get out of hotspots and trouble zones.
- Surviving Active Shooter Situations: Sadly this is a SHTF situation that we have to deal with now, in our everyday lives. Imagine how bad things will get during an actual crisis!
SHTF Sanitation Issues
6. Garbage will become a Killer.
This is another survival topic that’s not often thought about or discussed, but it’s one that will probably become one of the biggest problems you will face during any long-term disaster situation. If the gangs and criminals don’t get you, the real danger might actually come from something that you already have in your home: GARBAGE!
You need to have a serious plan on how to deal with it and how to make sure your general sanitation doesn’t become a threat. Check out our article on how to deal with Garbage during a SHTF disaster.
7. You have to Stock up on Sanitation Items
When planning to survive a long-term disaster or collapse, one thing that’s often overlooked is the danger associated with a lack of adequate sanitation. It’s certainly not a pleasant thing to think about, but this one issue has the potential to kill more people than any other survival issue we can talk about.
Even today, because of liberal policies that are destroying big cities throughout our country, we are starting to see Medieval diseases reemerge because of unsanitary living conditions in homeless and immigrant populations in these urban hell holes. In fact, in California multiple disease outbreaks are running through these populations including Typhus.
Mental & Physical Health Issues
8. Maintaining a Positive Mental Attitude during a Survival Situation
The ability to maintain a positive mental attitude during a survival situation is something that needs to be taken seriously. It’s also something that you need to start working on now, before disaster strikes.
Making it through a survival scenario often comes down to how well you can control your emotions. Keeping a positive frame of mind in the face of an unthinkable threat will help you process what’s happening and will help you respond to the situation without giving into fear.
9. You must be prepared to face a number of physical and mental challenges.
From dealing with a lack of sleep and inadequate hydration to coping with hunger pains and other stressors, survival can take a huge toll on your body. One of the best things you can do to ensure your survival, in just about any situation, is to make sure your body and your mind are trained to survive. This means motivating yourself to get off your butt and get in shape before it’s too late.
SHTF Communication Issues
10. You will be cut off from the outside World.
In a survival situation, knowledge is going to be a critical factor in determining the ultimate outcome of your situation. The ability to be able to predict what will happen during a survival situation is an important part of being prepared and often comes down to your ability to send and receive information.
When the power lines go down, and the radio stations stop transmitting, there’s one line of communication that will still be alive and well.
Having a good Multiband Ham Radio will allow you to send and receive critical emergency information during a disaster. It’s also a great way to find alternative news sources from around the world.
For more information on Ham Radio and Emergency Communication, check out these articles:
- Prepper Radio: The No-BS Ham Radio Technician Exam Prep Guide Your Key to Passing the Amateur Radio Technician License Test and Taking Your Emergency Communication Skills to the Next Level
- Emergency Communications When TSHTF
- Ham Radio Cheat Sheet
- Situational Intel: Knowledge is Power during a Crisis
- Ham Radio FAQs
- The ¼ Wave Droopy Ground Plane 2 Meter Antenna
We are just getting started w/ preps. We’ve started slowly collecting food and water, and the hubby is working on (actually, it’s over half finished) a way to generate electricity w/o fuel. That should keep the ‘fridge and stove working for food prep and preservation, and give us a small amt. of light at night. Not that I think we should use lights if it’s dark. That would be like waiving a flag, begging for looters to pay us a visit.
We have not started a garden, nor do we have a well. We also haven’t gotten around to purchasing fire arms and ammo. With two young kids in the house, I am not very comfortable w/ having a stockade of guns around. Guns do next to no good if they are locked up in the Attic, the key is hidden in the bedroom, and the bullets are in the kitchen. However, they may not be a bad idea, for the purposes of hunting food, and killing pests that may try and get into our home (I mean furry ones, not two legged ones).
We’d LOVE to have a garden, but there’s a few feet of clay all around our home (we are renting w/ no time limit, so we’ll most likely be here for quite a while), where it looks like the land in the back yard washed away. I’m afraid that putting in a fence will be useless, if it is just going to get washed away…
Basically, my question is, would a worm bin be all we should need, to get us started with a very small patch of garden? As time goes on, we can expand it. The way I see it, something (even if it’s reeeeally small) is better than nothing at all.
Hi I would do container gardening. Buy a couple plastic barrels, cut them in half and get some black dirt(check farmers) the stuff you buy in bags at the stores just do not have enough stuff in it to continue for plants to grow it seems. Put a couple smaller holes in the barrels about a couple inches up from bottom for over flow water. You can paint them white if you live in a hot climate too to help and make them look a little nicer too. You can plant tomatoes, cucumbers, lettuces, onions, peppers, squash, anything you can think of. also could make a little wooden garden and use dirt too in that. We have a lot of clay here too so I container garden and finally got a regular garden growing a couple years ago, We have horses so have all the free black dirt we can use.
One easy way to handle garbage is to incinerate it. I doubt the AQMD will be making the rounds after the SHTF.
Hi. First time on the site and thank you for all the great tips and ideas! The one thing I didn’t see mentioned that I think is a great idea is aquaponics. Growing vegetables on top and fish on the bottom so that the plants filter the water and the fish fertilize the plants. I’m just starting to look into it but small set ups can even be done inside the house. I live in an apt so it’s been a bit difficult to figure out what to do, so that looked promising. I appreciate all the insight and comments, thank you.
The “problem” with aquaponics (if there IS a problem) is your climate. If it freezes outside, your system had better be located inside…then you have the problem of enough sunshine/light to grow your plants. OR, you could use a greenhouse for year-round growth. In my climate, I could garden aquaponically for approximately 9 months out of the year which is plenty of time to get tilapia (a freshwater, tropical fish) to “eating” size.
I did a bit of research and found aquaponics to be too time-consuming / expensive / impractical for most survivalists/preppers.
The S will HTF. And what I haven’t seen mentioned is faith in God. Each one should find their spriritual center and their connection to God and have that ready for themselves and others. Prayer may be all you have many times after that “time”.
I too am prepping food, water, health, protection and shelter. But I am also prepping spiritual matter and my inner connection to God. Most religions teach essentially the same message with a little modification based on the inhabitants at the time. So find the common message and have that available to you post shtf.
Can anyone with knowledge speculate what would happen longterm to the plumbing in a home if you DO have the back flow preventer/turn off, etc? Will there be gas build up in the pipes? Assuming you don’t use the toilets, what else would you have to worry about in your home? I’m wondering if having the back flow preventer/turn off, etc makes your home livable long term?
We are currently creating home plans for building (on the grid) in a rural area and I’d like to have as many contingencies covered for TEOTWASWKI. As fairly new to prepping, I am not finding anything on new building plans that are safely convertible – only off grid building.
I’m just going to come and take whatever you all set up for me. Thanks :).
Don’t be stupid…you’ll wind up dead (quickly).
Preping is about know how. I lived in Indonesia where many things go uncertain. In terms of economic, politic, or others. Climate is dynamic, earthquakes and volcanos are literally can happen at any moment. Therefore, preping is about knowing how to survive with anything in your pocket or within reach. It is nice of course to stockpile food, but with limited budget I can only stock for a month in advance. Meaning I buy groceries to day so I can use it next month and so forth. Beyond that is not even an option. I always keep flashlight, whistle, pocket folder, 1st aid kit, and personal medicine in my edc waistbag, and I really mean edc. Also copy of my id and a cellphone
A true prepper would have already prepared for all of these things, plus some more. We have.
I would like to add one more to his list… If the lights go out all the nuclear plants will not be able to keep cool and it will lead to melt down. Not sure how to prepare for that scenario… maybe that is why he left it off the list.
Actually glass jugs are what you should keep your water in. The large bluish bottles,3-5 gallon the kind for water coolers are ok too. Plastic water bottles, soda bottles, and milk jugs ALL leech toxic chemicals into your water. And whatever you don’t leave those in the sun! Good luck preppers. Books are a great idea, one of the things I didn’t think about. Peace
Wondering if anybody has any ideas for me.
I live on a very popular touristy island.
Closed off in winter and open in summer.
I dont own a car. We ride bikes. However i live on a shipping lane…
I dont think there would be a “bug out” option. Also have small children. I have the basics down, food guns ammo propane and a way too cook.
Gardening tools seeds and dirt. The fact that i live on fresh water and a shipping lane poses its own problems, just looking for some input or ideas thanks
When the SHTF for real, and everything comes crashing down for real, and the world is dark and bleek, and we all are scrounging around for food, water, fighting the elements, killing, not to be killed, or for food and water, etc. I think I will pass on that. By that time, its to late. I would rather not be on this earth anymore. All the bug out, prepping, gun slinging stuff sounds great, and adventourous, living off the land, etc(I do own guns, and I am pro 2nd Amendment, just to let you know) but I would rather be gone, and not have to deal, because do you really want to live(try to live) like that. I know I dont….Just saying….
Hollywood, books, etc, have somewhat glamorized the bug out, end of the world, type stuff in movies and tv shows. When everything really does collapse, and all the food, water and things that make life comfortable are hard to come by, or for the most part gone, and you have to kill or be killed, then where is the glamour in that? Its not going to be a Hollywood show or movie people. Not many people will survive. Everyone will eradicate everyone else. Its not going to be like the walking dead, as adventurous and cool looking as that show may seem. It will not be a fantasy. The ones who think they are Bad or the Rambo, type will get eradicated first. There will be no winners…..So, iit will not be what you think it will be, nor what I think it will be, but I know its not going to be a Hollywood movie or show….
Some people are “survivors” while others give up before the fight gets started. Sorry for you. Life is too precious to simply “give it up.”
Like the fire-department coming to my home to grab my fire-extinguishers, the powers-that-be will NOT get my firearms. I need to protect myself, and my lovely housemates, in evil times.
Prep your mind, heart and soul first. We should all try to be more self sufficient. I have a large self watering veggie garden, backyard chickens and rabbits, a supply of food and water. I dehydrate and can food, and as a nurse I have a lot of first aid supplies and practice. I can hunt and fish, even snare small animals, clean and cook them and tan their hides. This is my hobby, I love the outdoors and have done it all my life. You can not expect people who do not want to prep or learn the way to survive where they are, to just lay down and die. They will take what they need because of the tears in their hungry babies’ eyes. So while you are prepping, do what you love as well. You only get one life, you should enjoy it, live it, love it, and smile when you leave it, your heart full, even if not your stomach.
You’ve got the right attitude. God bless you!
you seem to have no clue about police or other first responders. That “knowledge” about them being the first to leave — really….you must have been reading too much about Russia or elsewhere. I am sworn to give my life for another,as a cop, FF and medic most of us will be running into the shit while others run out. Go pound sand with your cop-block attitude. And read up about civilians blowing away their own neighbors because they heard a bump-in-the night – good luck depending on some of your peers fro protection of self and others. Unless they are trained and have the game face, I wouldn’t trust any of the newborn-concealed (or not)carriers – just ask a gunshop owner what he thinks about these masses of people buying forearms, many of them carry but never shot the damn thing…you want a dangerous situation? Have someone like that around, who has no clue about marksmanship under stress, oh never mind, how would they know if they never shot the damn thing….get real dude, this everlasting “defend yourself because the PoPo won’t” needs a face-lift…
You are just another example of the Us vs Them mentality in LE. Just because you have some training does not put you above any other citizen going his legal way. The idea that a chief of police can demand citizens to give up guns, apples, or service is repulsive to any American. What happened in NO was a travasty. NOPD has been know to be corrupt(probably the most corrupt big city pd in the US.
Many of those police went first for the drig dealers and stold there money and drugs(the ones who thought they paid protection), they then went and took guns, many to keep and then left with family and friends. Read the facts. I commend you for fighting the good fight, but LE must open thier eyes to this type of corruption and fight it from the inside. You might be a “snitch”, but you are not in jail, you are in public duty and that duty is not to you buddies, but to the public. Like it or not, that is what you signed on to do.
Now, that is too much for me to do, I know that I would be a real “prick” of a LEO, so I chose not to even think about being one.
Remain true to yourself and the public, it could well be the hardest thing you ever do.
Up here in Canada when we had a flood disaster in my AO June 2013. A town was completely flooded out and everyone evacuated.
The RCMP, our national police force, broke into empty, flooded (and not flooded) houses and confiscated firearms with no owners present. Some were charged with “unsafe storage” as we have some very strict “safe” storage laws here in Canada.
That is not very empathetic. People loose their houses and get panalties in addition…
Physical fitness will play a Very important role in determining a person’s chances of surviving the first year of a SHTF scenario..The USA has become the most obese country in the world..It doesn’t matter how well you’ve prepared.How much food you have stockpiled.How many guns you have etc..If you can’t move around fast enough,without sucking wind,and having to take a rest every few seconds,you probably will not only struggle,but also suffer..Your chances of surviving will dramatically increase just by getting in shape..Learn as much as possible about the wilderness,and everything that’s in them.Alot of things,you’ll just have to learn on the fly…You’ll make mistakes,but that’s how you learn…Prepare for the worst,and hope and pray for the best.Survival experts/instructor’s will tell you,the More you know,the Less you Need..So get off the couch,get away from the dinner table,tv,and computer,and get in shape.Store the appropriate supplies you will need,and have a plan..And whatever happens happens..You can only control so much..Do not worry about things you can’t control..A positive mind is Crucial in a survival/shtf scenario..
The biggest thing that one needs for any scenario is knowledge. without this all is useless!
Has anyone written about what should we do with the bodies of those we have to shoot when TSHTF? Notify the sheriff? Bury them after identifying them? Does not seem a good idea to just let them lie around. Everyone talks about how to defend what you have, but if it requires us killing an aggressor or 10, what then? Has another thought about how to account for our actions after order is restored?