First Month Before The Collapse

What's important whether an apocalypse happened or not, is to be able to not worry about food, water and energy, the moment they were taken away from you. By not relying on the grid or the infrastructure, I can remove the worry of not having enough water or having no power at all.

To not be dependent on the grid, buy a solar panel, preferably two 100W panels, 12V 100Ah LiFePO4 battery, and one 20A MPPT (Maximum Power Point Tracking) or solar charge controller. Buy plastic drums as well to store water, 3x200L drums should do the trick, saving enough water for months without rain and tap water. For the food situation, I'd buy as many non-perishables as I can. I'm planning to survive for the first six months in isolation and to avoid chaos. I only stocked a week's worth of perishable foods as I think the power will go out in about a week.

For the rainwater collector, I'll use a plastic tarp spread across my balcony railing, attached on both ends to two steel rods. The rods are tilted, one end raised higher than the other, so the tarp slopes toward one low corner. The low corner sits over a 100L drum on the balcony floor, which catches the water. The collected water is then transferred to the larger 200L drums using a bucket I have lying around, it then poured through a mesh that filters out dust, leaves and anything else.

The solar panels are attached to the balcony railings. It fits two 100W panels (100 x 55 x 3.5 cm each), the railing is 2 meters wide and 1 meter deep, so two of them sit side by side with room to spare. Both are tilted up toward the sky using standard metal rods or the mounting kits that come with the panels. The panels are wired in parallel to the solar charge controller, and from the controller to the batteries. The two batteries are connected in parallel too, they charge and discharge as one, doubling the storage, so there is no switching between them. If one dies, the other still carries the load.

To safely secure my home, I’d need to buy wooden planks and nails. By having only one entrance, it’s easy to barricade. The entrance and the doorway leading to my apartment, I’ll create a buffer zone with plastic sheeting as an overlapping curtain, and the ground and surrounding walls covered in plastic. This is only a suggestion I had in mind, having a buffer zone to leave behind outside clothes or contaminated things in there before going into the apartment is important, like how underground military bunkers or nuclear shelter entrances are built.

So in the first month before the collapse, the list of things of tools and materials I'd buy are:

Next, buying the right food supply is essential. For 6 months supply, if 2000 kcal/day is a sedentary baseline, I’d need ~360,000 kcal/day. The supply can also be stretched to more months by lowering my calories intake, or rationing.

At 2,000 kcal/day this lasts ~9 months, a buffer beyond 6 months. At 1,500 kcal/day (light ration) it stretches to ~11 months. Cooking oil and peanut butter are the most calorie-dense items per kg, prioritize restocking them. Rice is the caloric backbone at 59% of total. Soy + peanuts cover protein without refrigeration.

Now for the seeds, I need to grow whatever seeds I’m able to plant on my balcony. I've already planted store-bought potatoes in 10L buckets, I’ve got 4 of them already. I’d probably need more later on since it takes about 3 months to harvest, with 1-2 kg per plant. The veggies themselves are only a complementary food alongside my food stockpiles, to stretch my supply even further. The seeds that I’ll need to buy are open-pollinated or heirloom seeds only, not the hybrid ones that are prone to failure in one generation, the plant has to keep going and sprouting. Several other seeds that are essential are green beans, garlic, leafy greens (lettuce, spinach, kangkong), radish, and sprouting beans/lentils. Once rooftop access becomes available, planting all of them at once is necessary, or I’d say getting to the rooftop is a priority.

For the first aid kit, I’d go with the basic one, like; bandages, antiseptic, tourniquet and so on. Since being bitten or contaminated open wounds are a guaranteed death sentence, the focus of getting the right supply for first aid is for accidents or trauma and even combat with hostiles. What I’d suggest on getting first are; bandages, suture kit (sterile, 24ct), gauze rolls + sponges, combat tourniquet (CAT Gen7), antiseptic spray + antibacterial ointment, splints (finger or SAM), medical tapes, Chest seal (Hyfin Vent, 2ct). Day-to-day small injuries from construction, gardening, scavenging are why we needed the bandages for, not for the infected-caused wounds. Suture kits are important for deep and open wounds, for laceration and small cuts I’d suggest getting a zip stitch wound closure kit instead of suturing. Gauze rolls and sponges are for general wound packing and dressing changes. Combat tourniquets, especially CAT Gen7 are for severed limb, arterial bleed from hostile encounter or fall. It’s possible to cut the limbs of infected areas like bites, but one has to act fast before the infection spreads to the bloodstream. The tourniquet is applied above the wound, tightened until bleeding stops, and about ~3 minutes on a major artery. Hemostatic gauze (QuikClot) is also needed if the injury can’t be reached by tourniquet, like groin, torso or the neck-shoulder area, it's packed directly into the wound and applies hard pressure for 3 minutes and stops bleeding chemically. Antiseptic spray or ointment is needed for wound cleaning, infection from regular wounds is still a death sentence without antibiotics. The splints are when fractures happen and become immobilized, SAM is for broken arms, ankles, wrists from falls, while finger splints are used for common injury that might happen from barricading or fighting. Lastly, chest seal is for punctured lung from stab wound, arrow, and shrapnel, together with an irrigation syringe for flushing debris out of wounds

For the medicines, I’d suggest getting antibiotics first, for example; amoxicillin, metronidazole, and CTM (chlorpheniramine) for wound infections. Other medicines are; ibuprofen (500ct), aspirin (120ct), loperamide / anti-diarrheal, ORS (Oral Rehydration Salts), antihistamine (benadryl/CTM), antacids (TUMS).  Amoxicillin, metronidazole, CTM (chlorpheniramine) will be gone in under 48 hours the moment the panic starts, stock it up before it's too late. Ibuprofen is for pain, inflammation, fever that works like a workhorse painkiller and reduces swelling on sprains/fractures. Aspirin (120ct) is for heart attack symptoms, high stress from wounds or shock would cause cardiac risk. If chest pain + left arm pain happens, chew about 325mg aspirin immediately. Diarrhea will be a common symptom as scavenging for food is essential in post-apocalyptic scenarios, anti-diarrheal or loparemide is for dehydration from bad water/food, while ORS is for rehydration from diarrhea, vomiting, and heat that can be dissolved in water, filtered or clean water.

On the PPE (Personal Protective Equipment) part, we can’t cheap out on this, if the virus or the disease is spread through airborne, a tear or hole on the PPE could be a death sentence. PPE can be used as a protective measure against CBRN (Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear) hazards. Nitrile gloves (bulk box) is needed for handling anything that seems to be contaminated, no risking it. I’d also need a fitted NIOSH-approved N95 respirator (or FFP2/FFP3 equivalent) to filter out airborne pathogens and respiratory droplets. Another one is a fluid-resistant isolation gown or full-body coverall to block bodily fluids and splashes that is used as outer garment and disposable. For the eyes, I’d need safety goggles or a full face shield to prevent mucosal membrane transmission via the eyes.

Other medical tools that are essential are; medical scissors / trauma shears for cutting clothing off wounds fast, tweezers for splinters, debris, shrapnel removal, a thermometer, hand sanitizer + hydrogen peroxide for clean hands before any procedure and H₂O₂ for surface sterilization of tools.

What comes next is the knowledge on how to rebuild. This information tells us about survival knowledge, crafts, manuals, guidance and eventually how to restart a civilization. Military manuals often have the essential knowledge of surviving the woods, disasters, combat, and tactics. Survival skills and adapting are also essential in many survival books. Preparedness manuals extend beyond wilderness and urban survival and can include food storage plans, water collection, sustainable gardens, and more. First aid manuals are also important and a paramount during disasters and emergencies. What I’ve gathered so far from the archive.org and other sources are:

Those knowledge books and manuals basically cover everything, and I have saved a lot more. I downloaded any manuals I’ve come across, anything useful as there’ll be plenty of time to read it once the isolation happens. Setting up an LLM could be good for morale too other than acting as an archive or for knowledge retrievals. LLM could be good for journaling or simply as someone to talk to as it gets lonely fast. A simple 2b Gemma model with 4-bit quantization can run on modest hardwares, it runs okay on my Lenovo Thinkpad T480 with i5 8th gen CPU and 16GB of system RAM.

I think I’m ready to face the collapse that I’d feel would come soon. Anything I couldn’t get my hands on now, hopefully can be scavenged later. I’d like to survive not just for the first couple of months, but years if not, decades, and not just surviving but actually thriving, in the post-apocalyptic world.