Anyone had group of 100+ for more than 10 years?

Doomsday Prepper Forums

Help Support Doomsday Prepper Forums:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
Yes, very stupid! I was sending to wrong place! Here is from email - I am not usual this stupid - sorry!
Thank you tmttactical, it is a good idea but and it will be to much money for even 1 big pump that can do the sludge. We can already see the progress just a lot of hard work can do. It is good we have motor for lift because I could not do the lifting of that many buckets of mud up the stairs! Thank you again.
Sometimes the best answer is hard work!
 
Dear Diary,
September 29 of 2021,
Solar Storms could really tear our post-pandemic world a sizeable new a-hole it seems? Solar Superstorms: Planning for an Internet Apocalypse
- DM

DM, great article !
We just recently updated our entire solar farm across multiple rooftops. It was a very expensive upgrade but we went ahead and purchased one entire extra rooftop array that we have in storage inside our Faraday-caged facility.
We also purchased extra inverters, a ton of solar connector cables, and some extra controllers since those are most likely what will get fried by a CME or EMP. I can't claim we're "ready" yet, but we're a lot better off now than we were a year ago.
 
Dave, yes I got the really padded gloves! Much much better!
Also, I can not count number of solar cells on your roof - it is so much you can give the electricity to all a small city! Maybe you can send to me your extra rooftop array - just kid I know you can not! If you have 9 rooftops with all those solar, you must have million US dollars? Yes?
 
Nope, can't send you our spares, but it is going to be a while before you could use that much solar anyway, right?
To sort of address your question about cost, yes it is all very expensive and probably more than you imagine. Fortunately, some of our full-time staff are stock market professionals and also programmers. They are charged with investing about a third of our funds. This has been such a fantastic stock market year and between their manual trades and their algorithmic trades using a program they've developed that makes trades automatically, they have made enough to pay for our HVAC and solar upgrades with cash to spare. The next big/expensive project will be an overhaul of our fresh/gray/waste water systems. That will include adding a lot more capacity and will require a lot of excavation. Expensive but necessary.
 
Darn, is that OK to say on here?
You are correct, we can not do much solar right now for many of the reasons.
We have one big tank plastic for the water and we filter rain so it is very full now.
Still not done with the sludges but soon!
Maybe if I send you computer you can make it into money machine and send back?!
Then we can do many projects! Yes?
 
Darn, is that OK to say on here?
Maybe if I send you computer you can make it into money machine and send back?!
Clair,
I don't think we can do that.
If you are familiar with any old US TV programs...
as Al would say: "I don't think so Tim!"
And then of course there's that good one from "2001: A Space Odyssey"
HAL 9000: "I'm sorry Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that"
I'm pretty sure Jayson can provide us with awesome animated gifs of the above!

We currently have 2 blade servers dedicated only to trading and each has 4 VMs with different versions of their programs running. The 2 servers compete for profit. Currently, one is about 530K in front of the other, but they jockey back and forth as the different programmers tweak their programs. One of the 8 programs has a clear lead, but several are catching it.

Great you already have a big tank for water! If that's your drinking water, you may eventually want to add a waste water tank and another for gray water. Having 3 separate systems will save you a lot of grief in the future!
 
I guess there's a reason I have water on my mind. Today was really exciting for me, I felt like it was Christmas!

Until now we've dealt with clusters of mismatched 500 and 1000 gallon tanks inside the 6000 psi trench that runs the front-most width of the parking deck. The concrete trench is wide, almost 20 feet deep, and was built for the purpose of carrying the huge weight of our drinking water, gray water, and waste water tanks. The trench is capped at ground level with steel road plates.

Today the first nine of our order of 75 vertical water tanks arrived!
The new tanks are 5000 gallon behemoths that are each almost 9 feet wide and almost 15 feet high. As we remove the remaining old 1000 gallon tanks, the new tanks are being placed in rows of three.
Eventually there will be 25 rows of three tanks extending away from the parking deck, each with access rows of about 3 feet running between tanks.

We have to be super careful with lowering the tanks…they are quite heavy, leveling them, and then connecting the new plumbing. We are slated to complete the work before Halloween if there are no serious delays. The steel plates are only removed as needed, and once each set of plates is replaced, we start filling the tanks directly below if they are tanks designated for fresh water. This way, we never have a diminished capacity in case Murphy's Law decided that the day we had less water, was the day the SHTF! From the lower level access entrances, we’ve been working on cleaning up the trench and adding new LED lighting for about a month, so hopefully we won’t be working in the dark at any point?!

Clair, just thinking about your long term water problem, I don’t recall if I ever asked you about the PSI (Pounds per Square inch) of your poured concrete. I believe you need to use a PSI exceeding 4400 PSI to have non‐permeable (waterproof) concrete. I know there are probably lots of ways to waterproof the floor of your sinkhole, but if you can afford it and the water is really mostly coming from below, that might be one of your easiest options. Pour, float, pour, float and eventually you'll have a good floor. But I could be wrong, I'll check with one of the engineers and see what they think. I've seen a lot of concrete poured, but I don't want to steer you wrong!
 
I guess there's a reason I have water on my mind. Today was really exciting for me, I felt like it was Christmas!

Until now we've dealt with clusters of mismatched 500 and 1000 gallon tanks inside the 6000 psi trench that runs the front-most width of the parking deck. The concrete trench is wide, almost 20 feet deep, and was built for the purpose of carrying the huge weight of our drinking water, gray water, and waste water tanks. The trench is capped at ground level with steel road plates.

Today the first nine of our order of 75 vertical water tanks arrived!
The new tanks are 5000 gallon behemoths that are each almost 9 feet wide and almost 15 feet high. As we remove the remaining old 1000 gallon tanks, the new tanks are being placed in rows of three.
Eventually there will be 25 rows of three tanks extending away from the parking deck, each with access rows of about 3 feet running between tanks.

We have to be super careful with lowering the tanks…they are quite heavy, leveling them, and then connecting the new plumbing. We are slated to complete the work before Halloween if there are no serious delays. The steel plates are only removed as needed, and once each set of plates is replaced, we start filling the tanks directly below if they are tanks designated for fresh water. This way, we never have a diminished capacity in case Murphy's Law decided that the day we had less water, was the day the SHTF! From the lower level access entrances, we’ve been working on cleaning up the trench and adding new LED lighting for about a month, so hopefully we won’t be working in the dark at any point?!

Clair, just thinking about your long term water problem, I don’t recall if I ever asked you about the PSI (Pounds per Square inch) of your poured concrete. I believe you need to use a PSI exceeding 4400 PSI to have non‐permeable (waterproof) concrete. I know there are probably lots of ways to waterproof the floor of your sinkhole, but if you can afford it and the water is really mostly coming from below, that might be one of your easiest options. Pour, float, pour, float and eventually you'll have a good floor. But I could be wrong, I'll check with one of the engineers and see what they think. I've seen a lot of concrete poured, but I don't want to steer you wrong!

Wow, I'd like to see that setup. Its massive.
 
Dave, Can I say the good news?! Maybe?

We have looked at plastic under concrete, epoxy, and some other of ideas but not how hard is the concrete. Maybe we can look at that to. Tell me more about what you said about your civil war and the coins and things.
 
Clair,
Please No, but I can tell you must be feeling pretty good having gotten all that sludge up!

The story I was telling you was about our Civil War here in the US, is not unlike what has happened in wars probably since long before the great Greek Wars. Young soldiers had to carry everything they owned with them so when those in command alerted them that a battle was imminent, (probably besides taking a trip to relieve themselves,) soldiers (and officers) would need to hide their most precious belongings in hopes of surviving so they could retrieve their property. Maybe half never got back to their stuff because of death, injury, because they couldn't remember exactly where they'd put it, or because someone else found it first!

All the great battlefields of the world have been scoured for these lost belongings and every once in a while, something of great value is found including ancient coins and jewelry.

All this came up (really because I misinterpreted what you were asking me!) but basically you asked me if we had a way to secure our members' valuables in the event we have 100 or more people inside the facility for an extended period?

Personally, I think everyone, including me will have customized their container with some secret panel or someplace they can slip their precious items. I'm not leaving MY valuables out there above ground to be pillaged, and I imagine most of our members won't either, so we're talking about potentially a lot of booty here!

When we originally customized the shipping containers, we had the fabricators remove all the flooring because we didn't want our families exposed to the pesticides and preservatives those floorboards are usually treated with. The standard prefabricated layout included a raised floor for plumbing, wiring, and ventilation, topped by "somewhat" movable walls.

If you choose to try rearranging the internal walls and re-bolt them, you may find that you now have a new doorway somewhere you didn't want one. Plenty of families have shifted things around, but it's not easy. Fortunately, those with experience are always willing to lend their expertise to those that get over their heads trying to modify their living quarters. We had one family that wanted a bigger bathroom and they assumed we could just give them a wall of the correct size to fill the gap they had created (this happened just back in May when we were doing a 6 month closed system trial !) "No, we didn't have a spare," so they lived with an exposed toilet for the rest of the month until our exercise was over.
Actually, I think they hung a big beach towel in the space. But this is what happens when you act before thinking things through...enough said.

Sorry, where was I?
Oh yeah, so there are only a half dozen "standard floor plans," but they ALL have in common the same kitchen space where we knew no one is going to be moving walls, so in a designated place, the fabricators boxed in with steel, and bolted in from the sides (below floor level) a floor safe for each and every family!

How many actually use them we have no idea, but in a 100 years if some modern treasure hunters locate us, and assuming they discover one safe, and extrapolate that there must be a bunch, they may become very wealthy hunters!
 
You are amuzing! Now my grandchildren will know where to find a big treasure!
I can not think of that much in privacy. We all sleep in 12 big rooms but we will divide more some day. No I have never bringed my coins with me for sleeping but I may do it if we have the big problems here. I do not think we will ever have the safes.
 
OK, another amusing story…well probably not amusing, but may be interesting to some because you could be faced with the same choices we are.
It may be too long if you don’t have or care about pets, but it was a big deal for us to solve.

When we did our 6 month closed system trial run this past January through June, no one left the facility for 6 months, no one entered, no supplies entered, no fast food! No city water or city sewer system, no electricity from the utility company…nothing but air, the Internet, and some radio/cell communications. Everything we needed, we had inside including electricity from our solar arrays.

Our facility capacity is around 340 but 49 of us signed on to this experiment including parents and kids of all ages. There was some initial panic when some people who thought they could talk their way out if they freaked out were not able to do so. That was not pleasant at all, but we got through it with some very supportive members who stepped up when it looked like it was all over before we even got started.

One of the decisions we made for this extended stay was to allow members to have their pets (within reason, no horses etc.) Just cats and dogs and a couple of smaller mammals. That decision has both set and changed some minds. Most of the folks that volunteered for this experiment had both spouses in jobs where they were already and could make arrangements to continue working remotely for the 6 months. My wife is a health professional and so no way she could join us, so we spoke frequently and it worked out for us to safely run my parallel pet experiment. I’ll explain.

Inside the facility, folks loved having the comfort of their pets but hated cleaning up after them in the common areas as a dog peeing in our common areas created a toxic environment that was not appreciated by anyone. Most kept their pets inside their homes/40' x 8' x 9'6" shipping containers.
It became a real chore for many, but everyone stuck it out (because they had to.) What happened inside the facility was informative, but what happened outside was as well.

Those of us that had both pets and a spouse who had to remain on the outside carried out an experiment that I had been planning for years. We all watched it from the inside and many are now convinced they will do the same with their pets…others, although impressed, could never be parted from their pets as we successfully were.

Whether we had cats or dogs or both, we fenced our yards (months before if they weren’t already) and put in place some automated equipment that I’ve been working on with my engineers for quite a while.

We strap-mounted multi feet long, 24 in diameter PVC pipe to a wall, with a slip/threaded coupling and a threaded cap. It’s a bug proof food container. We engineered the bottom with a dosed food release with an automated timer and also tapped into the controller so it could be actuated by cell phone. Add a cellular based webcam with a big battery and you start to feel a little more comfortable leaving your pet alone. Any height or number of pipes can be arranged.

We each used a 100 gallon vertical water tank for the purpose of gravity feeding our pet’s water receptacles, but we did assume the city water would stay on for a short time if SHTF, so we sort of cheated by hooking city water up to our tanks with a float valve to keep it topped off at all times. In retrospect, we probably need to go bigger in capacity.

The last step was automating the doors for the shelter opening and the outside fence opening. (and having the programmers write a phone app to control and view it all - up to 4 doors/or food drop switches and 4 cameras at this point.) The food drop is automated, but if it jammed, we wanted the option of trying to manually jerk it free…it never jammed on any in the 6 months.

So my wife (and other stay behinders) went to work every day, our pets had their big yards to play in, poop, pee, and whatever, but no table scraps, no treats, no going in the house! But we did let spouses cheat and take pets for walks and pet them if they used the outside gate. Some started to lose a little weight, and only the stay behinders were able to tell us that was going on because we couldn’t really tell in the camera, but WE were able to adjust their food dose by just scheduling a third daily food drop instead of two. Many of the cats gained weight killing birds and squirrels in addition to eating their dried catfood. One cat (our’s of course) went over the 7 foot fence at will and came back most nights to sleep. This same cat also ditched it’s collar after about two months…Mom was there to replace it!

The programming/setup was:
  • 2 food drops a day, skip if food overflows, keep water brimmed.
  • Cameras on 24/7 motion activated, 15 second run, 15 second reset so careful where aimed. (App option to run at any time!)
  • Personal shelter (included secured water, food, interior camera, exterior camera, collar activated door to prevent raccoons etc. from intruding.
  • Door lock disabled for 6 hours if collar not detected for 6 hours/auto reset. (In case of collar loss)
  • Personal shelters are next to house, surrounded by 7 foot tall play yard fencing.
  • Play yard fencing has collar controlled gate with camera. Fence gate stays locked until:
  • No food OR no water (sensors) activate collar control of outside gate so cats and dogs can leave yard to search for food and water in the neighborhood and return to the safety of their shelters. Gate auto closes and relocks after passage. (That never happened because they didn’t run out of food or water, but we verified each case with testing.)
We had many movie nights where we proceeded the movie with videos of the crazy things we videoed our cats and dogs doing! Everyone “thinks” they know what they want to do, but of course no one really knows for sure what they’ll decide to do until really confronted by the choice. At least we now have the option to start equipping member homes with safe options for their pets if they choose to go that way in an emergency. Some have and some will keep their pets with them at all cost…and that’s fine. Everyone understands taking personal responsibility and not infringing on our common living space.
 
Last edited:
With Amazon and Ebay we could maybe makes some things to work for our people but I do not know if everyone could do that. I do not think we could have the pets inside at my place. I can see the problem but maybe I can not solve for us. For sure, we have no programmers to do that.
Good thing about Disturbed1970 is they are all spread in the big area and if anyone has the problem with pet they can release or will not bother everyone anyway. I can see every shelter on here has good things and bad things and maybe you cannot fix or plan for all the problems? But we will try to, right? That is a good jumper cat!!
 
Dog and Cat Inventory
I went back and checked...during our 6 month trial run,
  • We had 24 containers that were occupied by the 49 members who volunteered for the experiment.
  • Of those 24 family units or singles, 19 have pets at home.
  • Of those 19, 9 have asked us to help them automate their own homes,
    so they have the OPTION of leaving their pets behind if SHTF.
    You can judge them against what you’d do, but I think they’re smart to consider their options.
    In case of the actual event, I think most will probably bring their pets anyway, but that’s just my gut feeling.
 
Check out the church universal triumphant setup just north of Gardiner Montana at corwin springs. Go to Google Earth and follow upstream on mulherin creek. Nasty setup. But , I don't know about doomsday scenarios within ten miles of the world's largest volcano. Guess that's not what they are prepping for. But , looks like they can handle a huge crowd.
 
Check out the church universal triumphant setup
Looks like they could have all the dogs and cats they want if this is their setup?! PLENTY of room but looks to be a flood risk (besides the volcano.) After a 2nd look, I don't know...the Yellowstone River looks to be WAY below, so maybe no flood risk.
 

Attachments

  • church universal triumphant.png
    church universal triumphant.png
    1.2 MB · Views: 13
Last edited:
OK, another amusing story…well probably not amusing, but may be interesting to some because you could be faced with the same choices we are.
It may be too long if you don’t have or care about pets, but it was a big deal for us to solve.

When we did our 6 month closed system trial run this past January through June, no one left the facility for 6 months, no one entered, no supplies entered, no fast food! No city water or city sewer system, no electricity from the utility company…nothing but air, the Internet, and some radio/cell communications. Everything we needed, we had inside including electricity from our solar arrays.

Our facility capacity is around 340 but 49 of us signed on to this experiment including parents and kids of all ages. There was some initial panic when some people who thought they could talk their way out if they freaked out were not able to do so. That was not pleasant at all, but we got through it with some very supportive members who stepped up when it looked like it was all over before we even got started.

One of the decisions we made for this extended stay was to allow members to have their pets (within reason, no horses etc.) Just cats and dogs and a couple of smaller mammals. That decision has both set and changed some minds. Most of the folks that volunteered for this experiment had both spouses in jobs where they were already and could make arrangements to continue working remotely for the 6 months. My wife is a health professional and so no way she could join us, so we spoke frequently and it worked out for us to safely run my parallel pet experiment. I’ll explain.

Inside the facility, folks loved having the comfort of their pets but hated cleaning up after them in the common areas as a dog peeing in our common areas created a toxic environment that was not appreciated by anyone. Most kept their pets inside their homes/40' x 8' x 9'6" shipping containers.
It became a real chore for many, but everyone stuck it out (because they had to.) What happened inside the facility was informative, but what happened outside was as well.

Those of us that had both pets and a spouse who had to remain on the outside carried out an experiment that I had been planning for years. We all watched it from the inside and many are now convinced they will do the same with their pets…others, although impressed, could never be parted from their pets as we successfully were.

Whether we had cats or dogs or both, we fenced our yards (months before if they weren’t already) and put in place some automated equipment that I’ve been working on with my engineers for quite a while.

We strap-mounted multi feet long, 24 in diameter PVC pipe to a wall, with a slip/threaded coupling and a threaded cap. It’s a bug proof food container. We engineered the bottom with a dosed food release with an automated timer and also tapped into the controller so it could be actuated by cell phone. Add a cellular based webcam with a big battery and you start to feel a little more comfortable leaving your pet alone. Any height or number of pipes can be arranged.

We each used a 100 gallon vertical water tank for the purpose of gravity feeding our pet’s water receptacles, but we did assume the city water would stay on for a short time if SHTF, so we sort of cheated by hooking city water up to our tanks with a float valve to keep it topped off at all times. In retrospect, we probably need to go bigger in capacity.

The last step was automating the doors for the shelter opening and the outside fence opening. (and having the programmers write a phone app to control and view it all - up to 4 doors/or food drop switches and 4 cameras at this point.) The food drop is automated, but if it jammed, we wanted the option of trying to manually jerk it free…it never jammed on any in the 6 months.

So my wife (and other stay behinders) went to work every day, our pets had their big yards to play in, poop, pee, and whatever, but no table scraps, no treats, no going in the house! But we did let spouses cheat and take pets for walks and pet them if they used the outside gate. Some started to lose a little weight, and only the stay behinders were able to tell us that was going on because we couldn’t really tell in the camera, but WE were able to adjust their food dose by just scheduling a third daily food drop instead of two. Many of the cats gained weight killing birds and squirrels in addition to eating their dried catfood. One cat (our’s of course) went over the 7 foot fence at will and came back most nights to sleep. This same cat also ditched it’s collar after about two months…Mom was there to replace it!

The programming/setup was:
  • 2 food drops a day, skip if food overflows, keep water brimmed.
  • Cameras on 24/7 motion activated, 15 second run, 15 second reset so careful where aimed. (App option to run at any time!)
  • Personal shelter (included secured water, food, interior camera, exterior camera, collar activated door to prevent raccoons etc. from intruding.
  • Door lock disabled for 6 hours if collar not detected for 6 hours/auto reset. (In case of collar loss)
  • Personal shelters are next to house, surrounded by 7 foot tall play yard fencing.
  • Play yard fencing has collar controlled gate with camera. Fence gate stays locked until:
  • No food OR no water (sensors) activate collar control of outside gate so cats and dogs can leave yard to search for food and water in the neighborhood and return to the safety of their shelters. Gate auto closes and relocks after passage. (That never happened because they didn’t run out of food or water, but we verified each case with testing.)
We had many movie nights where we proceeded the movie with videos of the crazy things we videoed our cats and dogs doing! Everyone “thinks” they know what they want to do, but of course no one really knows for sure what they’ll decide to do until really confronted by the choice. At least we now have the option to start equipping member homes with safe options for their pets if they choose to go that way in an emergency. Some have and some will keep their pets with them at all cost…and that’s fine. Everyone understands taking personal responsibility and not infringing on our common living space.
In the USA I think many of the people have the cows and the horses and the sheeps and the chickens and these animals are for the disaster so these animals must be near the shelter to use. Or is this just about the pets? If just about the pets, how will you do the other animals? For us, that house that we get the electricity from is where we have all the animals. It is very close to the shelter.
 
I don't think having your animals nearby is a "US thing?!
I think it's the same around the world.

We're not in that boat because our members just have home sized pets. We have all our meat stored in off the grid freezers so we don't need cattle, sheep, and chickens, although some fresh eggs would be really nice if we could figure out how to raise live poultry inside our facility...they would need their own ventilation duct to the outside for sure!
 

Latest posts

Back
Top