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Imagine that the S has HTF, and you’re one of the lucky survivors. While many didn’t make it, your “preps” provided the sustenance that made it possible to ride out whatever apocalyptic event occurred. Over time, you’ve acquired many skills for self-sufficiency, and you have no interest in banding together with other survivors. In fact, almost all of the survivors prefer to live as nomadic individuals or isolated families in a post-apocalyptic world. Eventually though, that will change.

The most important rediscovery in a post-apocalyptic world will be fried-chicken. Fried chicken will not only be a catalyst for a post-apocalyptic civilization, it will divide humanity into two distinct subgroups:

1.Liberals
2.Conservatives

Frying chicken requires vegetable oil and flour, which will lead to the reemergence of agriculture. Since there will be no home delivery, those wanting fried chicken will stay close to the source, and that’s how villages will be formed. Some men will spend their days building pens and raising chickens. These men will be known as Conservatives.

Other men will have no agricultural, or chicken raising skills. They will learn to live off of the Conservatives by doing their sewing, hair dressing, and fetching. This will be the beginning of the Liberal movement.

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Growing food and surviving off the sweat of your brow is not easy.

As time passes, Conservatives will once again become big-game hunters, rodeo cowboys, lumberjacks, construction workers, firemen, medical doctors, police officers, corporate executives, athletes, and generally anyone who works productively.

Liberals will not be involved in society until Conservatives have once again tamed the land. In a post-apocalyptic world, Liberals will domesticate cats, and facilitate group therapy. Although they’ll produce little or nothing, Liberals will consider themselves “enlightened”. They’ll prefer to govern the producers, and decide how to divide the fried chicken that the Conservatives provide.

Not all villages will be productive in a post-apocalyptic world. Some people will be content to sit around a campfire, moaning about their bad fortune. “It’s so unfair”, they’ll say, “that some villages have so much, while we have so little.” As luck will have it, Liberals will come to the rescue by redistributing fried chicken, taking from the productive villages and giving to the non-productive ones. To further enhance their image, Liberals will offer free cooking oil and flour to everyone. This will not sit well with members of the productive villages who will be forced to supply those things, but Liberals will counter Conservative arguments by calling them names and correcting their grammar. Liberals will become so popular with those receiving the handouts that little can be done to stop them.

Some people will not be willing to work too hard no matter the situation.

Some people will not be willing to work too hard no matter the situation.

This ends today’s lesson in post-apocalyptic history. It should be noted that a Liberal may have a momentary urge to angrily respond to the above. A Conservative will simply laugh and be so convinced of the absolute truth of this that it will be forwarded immediately to other true believers and to more Liberals, just to piss them off.

– – – –

The inspiration for this came from a humorous story I read recently concerning the invention of beer, and from my favorite place to go to for fried chicken. I take prepping seriously. I believe that the things I’m doing now may one day save my life, or that of a loved one. I also believe that humor is often the best medicine, and I find that it keeps me going at times when I’m feeling overwhelmed.

I’m grateful for the many contributions from my fellow preppers, and I’ve learned a lot from them, even when I disagree. Hopefully I’ll never have to use my preps as the result of societal collapse, but if it comes to that, I’m not going to have time for the political correctness that has permeated our society today. I’m not going to deal with non-productive people who’ll drag me down. I won’t support those who are able, but choose not to support themselves. I have friends who are skilled at hunting, fishing, building, and fixing things, but I also have friends who can’t do any of those things. I’ve often wondered what kind of childhood they had that so poorly prepared them for life. Were they more concerned with keeping up with the Kardashians?

I’ll support capitalism. I’ll help those who are less fortunate than me, but not to the extent that it puts my own survival at risk. I’ll contribute to charity based on what I think is fair, and not according to what someone else thinks is my fair share. In a post-apocalyptic world, I won’t respect “gun-free” zones, and I certainly won’t listen to those who tell me I should give up my weapons. Call me a bigot if you want, but if I’m suspicious of anyone, for any reason, that person will not be part of my inner-circle. I would rather be wrong, and alive, than right, and dead.

Knowing that my contribution will not reflect to views of everyone, I encourage alternative opinions in the form of respectful comments, or humorous stories.

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Imagine that the S has HTF, and you’re one of the lucky survivors. While many didn’t make it, your “preps” provided the sustenance that made it possible to ride out

 

Following World War II, the small shortwave frequency bands allotted to amateur radio operators became crowded, and this is still true today. “Ham” operators were forced to switch to “single side band” transmission, which occupies only half the space of the familiar “AM” transmissions used throughout the commercial shortwave bands. In emergencies, the best information available on the radio may be from amateur operators, many of whom maintain emergency equipment for disaster situations.

Many “shortwave sets” do not receive single side band, and I recommend that anyone serious about preparedness consider acquiring one that will receive single sideband signals. Single sideband – capable sets are a little more expensive – typically in the $100 to $200 range, but in a crisis, are likely to be very much worth the extra expense.

A set which is single sideband capable will have “SSB” in the specifications, and have a switch marked “SSB” as well. If those markings are absent, it is almost certain that set will not receive single side band signals.

TecSunSSBRadio

Single Side Band communications do not have to be complicated or overly expensive.

WHAT IS A “SINGLE SIDEBAND” SIGNAL?

Let’s start with the traditional AM or amplitude modulated signal, which is standard throughout the commercial shortwave bands.

An AM station transmits a single, strong, steady signal when it is SILENT. That is the “carrier” signal. The carrier is on the station’s assigned frequency, such as 7,490 kilo-Hertz (7.490 mega-Hertz.)

When voice or music is transmitted, that carrier remains constant, unchanged in any way. The voice or music produces two small “clouds” of mixed frequencies on either side of the carrier. These “clouds” of mixed frequencies are each about 3 kilo-Hertz wide for voice, and maybe 6-10 kilo-Hertz wide if music is playing.

You know how every cell in your body contains, in the DNA, the full blueprint for how your body is built? Well each of those two “clouds” of mixed frequency contains the FULL information needed to convey the voice or music. Both “clouds” of mixed frequencies are not actually needed just to convey the voice or music. Even more surprising, that strong carrier frequency isn’t needed either.

Those two “clouds” of mixed frequencies are called “sidebands,” and they are referred to as “upper sideband” (USB) or “lower sideband” (LSB.)

Amateur stations usually just transmit one of the sidebands,and no carrier, and this takes up the least space on the busy amateur bands.

TUNING SINGLE SIDEBAND SIGNALS

Single sideband (SSB) transmissions require a little fiddling at the SSB receiver to hear the incoming signal as normal speech. Doing this does not require a technical background, though it is like learning a new electronics gadget – it requires a little practice. To begin tuning an SSB radio, the SSB switch is moved to ON. There is a helper knob called “FINE” or “fine tuning” and it’s a good idea to center that small knob.

In a normal AM radio, for best reception, you tune the dial, or punch in the exact frequency on the keypad, so you are CENTERED on that station’s frequency. In SSB, you tune to the UPPER SIDE or the LOWER SIDE of the signal, instead.

Normally, you will not know which side to tune, upper or lower , but once you hear a garbled voice you want to “clarify,” you try tuning the radio to one side, or the other. You will hear somewhat garbled speech, and you use the FINE helper knob to clarify the voice. If that doesn’t work, you tune to the OPPOSITE side of that signal, and try clarifying with the FINE knob again. That’s what it takes to tune an SSB signal.

If the above procedures don’t work for you, it may be that instead of tuning to one SIDE of the garbled voice signal, you have tuned to the center. Experiment and you will soon be able to know how to tune to the sides of the signal. THE “STEP” SETTING Today’s shortwave receivers with keypad tuning, even if they have a tuning knob as well, MUST be set to the smallest tuning “step,” which is usually 1 kilo-Hertz.

Any larger tuning step size will prevent properly tuning a single sideband signal. The radio’s manual will tell you how to set the tuning step, and once set, there should be no need to change it. You will know if the step setting is too high because signals will disappear when you attempt to tune to one side or the other. Watch the frequency readout, and you will see how many kilohertz each movement of the knob or tuning arrow button changes the frequency.

PERIODS OF SILENCE IN A SINGLE SIDEBAND SIGNAL

One difference you will notice with a single sideband transmission is that during gaps in the speech, you will hear background noise, as if the station isn’t transmitting. That is normal with an SSB signal, and is not a problem with either the remote station or your radio. Because an SSB transmitter does not transmit a carrier when no words are being said, there is nothing being transmitted.

BONUS – YOU CAN HEAR MORSE CODE TOO
When your receiver’s SSB switch is on, your set can receive the many amateur radio Morse code stations as well. While this isn’t of interest to many, those who have learned code for some other purpose, say scouting or military service for example, will be able to receive Morse stations with the SSB switch on.

WHAT FREQUENCIES TO LISTEN TO FOR AMATEUR SSB SIGNALS

1800 – 2000 kHz (1.8 – 2.0 MHz) … 160 meter band
3750 – 4000 kHz (3.75 – 4.0 MHz) … 75 meter phone
7150 – 7300 kHz (7.15 – 7.3 MHz) … 40 meter phone
14150-14350 kHz (14.15 – 14350 MHz) … 20 meter phone
18110-18168 kHz (18.11 – 18.168 MHz) … 17 meter phone
21200-21450 kHz (21.2 – 21.45 MHz) … 15 meter phone
24930-24990 kHz (24.93 – 24.99 MHz) … 12 meter phone
28300-29700 kHz (28.3 – 29.7 MHz) … 10 meter phone
26,965 – 27,405 kHz (26.965 – 27.405 MHz) … “CB” radio

“CB” operators will sometimes use AM, and sometimes SSB. Valuable emergency information can be obtained from CB operators too.

AM SIGNALS CAN BE HEARD WHEN THE SSB SWITCH IS ON
If you come across an AM station when the SSB switch is on, you will hear atone mixed with the voice. Switch SSB off for listening to that particular AM station.

EMERGENCY POWER
Unfortunately, at time of writing, manufacturers tend to provide no solar charging or hand crank generator features with their SSB-capable radios. This makes powering the radio when the AC power is down more complicated, but SSB-capable radios are in the price range where an EXTERNAL POWER JACK is available. There are so many variations of emergency power sources that I can’t give an exhaustive list of options here. But I can give a couple of general rules:

POLARITY is CRITICAL. There is no way to know if a given radio is protected for accidentally applying the wrong polarity to the external power jack, so you must be absolutely sure what the polarity at your external power cable plug is before connecting to the radio. An inexpensive hardware store voltmeter is a good investment for preppers, and can show polarity. You don’t want to destroy your radio inadvertently. See the polarity test illustration on the following page.

MultiMeterTesting

Testing the polarity on your batteries.

IMPORTANT: See also the TIPS FOR USING METERS in Appendix A below.

VOLTAGE is CRITICAL. Just as with polarity, you must not feed your radio external power which can damage or destroy it. A radio may be able to tolerate, say, 15% over-voltage, but even there, you may shorten its life. The good news is many radios will still operate at as little as 60% of normal voltage. This means that a USB (5-volt) power source can power a 6-volt radio.

(I use “Enersys” 2-volt sealed lead-acid cells to make up the voltage I need for my radios. Using 2-volt cells allows me to make up any voltage needed for equipment which uses a variety of voltages. See diagram below.)

BatteryBackUp

Back up power supply.

SOLAR or HAND-CRANK CHARGER output voltages can be much higher than the batteries they are charging, but are still safe WITH BATTERIES . But solar charger and hand-crank charger voltages VARY, A LOT, and these should NOT be fed directly into the radio’s external power port. This is because their energy output is small and won’t harm batteries, but their widely varying voltages can potentially damage sensitive solid-state radio components.REGULATORS ARE REQUIRED WITH SOLAR OR GENERATOR SOURCES

Whenever the solar cells or hand-crank generator are in contact with radio circuitry. In a radio with a crank, the hand-crank generator is connected to the batteries inside. However, there is an important detail – a built-in hand crank generator or solar panel has a built-in REGULATOR so it cannot harm the radio. An EXTERNAL hand crank generator or solar panel, unless specified by the manufacturer as having regulated output, must be assumed to NOT have regulated output. What this means is, use external hand crank generators or solar panels without certified regulated output ONLY for charging batteries removed from the radio.

Note that standalone hand-crank generators are commercially available. USB SOLAR and HAND-CRANK CHARGERS (5 volts) have literally taken over the emergency power marketplace for small equipment. This means that when shopping for emergency radio power, special attention must be paid to the VOLTAGE RATINGS of a charger you are considering. USB power is always 5 volts. This will work fine with a radio rated at 5 or6 volts, but may not work well, if at all, with a 9- volt radio. It is probably OK for a 4.5 volt radio. USB CHARGERS may or may not charge a 6-volt battery set.

KTOR

Hand crank generators will give you an alternate way to recharge batteries.

USB’s 5 volts is too high for a 3 volt radio, and there are some scanners which operate on 3 volts. USB’s 5 volts is too low to run a 12-volt radio, or charge its batteries. You can see that a non-technical person is probably going to need experienced technical help with the matter of external power supplies for radios.

GETTING HELP

With both the SSB tuning issue, and putting together a safe and effective emergency power setup, I recommend contacting a local amateur radio club. If there is none, amateur radio operators will often have unique antennas set up at their homes. Local shops which handle electronic parts in particular (e.g. Radio Shack) are also likely to know some of the local ham operators. Many ham operators are glad to help with matters related to their hobby

APPENDIX “A” – TIPS FOR BUYING AND USING METERS

This appendix may be a little dense for readers who just want to tune their radios to an SSB station. However, readers who are interested in external emergency power for radios and other equipment will need to have some familiarity with meters.

Meters would include “multimeter” (usually volts, amps/milliamps, and ohms), and battery testers. Both are very important for emergency preparedness and many are not outrageously expensive. Here are my recommendations for buying and using them:

  1. Having more than one of each type of meter is very wise. Meters can fail just as any other equipment, and there are really no substitute products for meters. I recommend purchasing two lower priced models in place of one high-priced model.
  2. Both analog (moving needle) and digital (numeric window) meters will do the job. Analog meters are more sensitive to rough handling or dropping. Try to avoid static electricity when using a digital meter. Frequently touching something that is grounded to discharge your body is one way to do that.
  3. Meters can sometimes be repaired, but in an emergency situation, it’s best to assume meters will not be repairable , other than perhaps repairing broken test leads.
  4. Having both multimeter and battery checkers on hand is highly recommended.
  5. Unless you have a fairly good background in electricity/electronics, I recommend NOT using either the current (amp/milliamp) or resistance (ohm) or “diode” scales. Applying voltage to those scales will at least result in a blown fuse if you’re lucky, or maybe a totally ruined meter. (This causes lots of tears!)
  6. Most multimeter have both AC and DC voltage scales. Take your time and be sure which type of voltage you are about to measure. (If you meter is set for DC voltage, it will give a false reading of zero with an AC voltage source.)
  7. If you have any doubt whatsoever about the maximum voltage level you are about to measure, start the meter on the highest voltage scale, and reduce the scale setting in steps until you get an understandable voltage reading. Meter movements (analog) or digital circuitry can be destroyed by applying more voltage than the scale is set for. Very important for battery checkers when measuring any batteries other than simple single cells. (Such as lantern batteries,and other multi-cell batteries. Also be very careful to set the 9-volt scale for “transistor” batteries which are small but contain multiple cells!)
  8. Some multimeter may be “auto-ranging,” meaning they will select their own scale. If your meter appears to be an auto-ranging unit, read the manual about what the maximum voltage limits are for that particular meter.
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  Following World War II, the small shortwave frequency bands allotted to amateur radio operators became crowded, and this is still true today. “Ham” operators were forced to switch to “single

Don’t worry, this isn’t going to be an article about how ‘bad’ or tough I am. This is an article about surviving ‘unexpected events’.

Unexpected events are things in life that range from inconveniences such as a flat tire, to serious disasters, such as a tornado, hurricane or tsunami, where loss of life is the unfortunate norm. Most people are Preppers at some level and don’t even realize it. Even the person who makes certain to have a good spare tire, jack and lug wrench in the trunk of the car is a Prepper to a minimal extent. There are others who have either witnessed or who have been affected by large or small events (sometimes both) and who have through their experiences, made preparations so that ‘the next time’ won’t be as bad. Still, many others prepare for unexpected events as a result of hearing or reading about certain relevant risks and then taking those potential risks into measured and proportionate consideration with regard to preserving their lifestyles. Automobile and life insurance are forms of prepping, designed to preserve a lifestyle after an unexpected event. One thing we learn in life as we look around is that we need all kinds of ‘insurance’… martial arts training is a kind of insurance.

Today the study of martial arts is quite popular. Many movies and TV shows depict people who are saved from demise as a result of heroes who are endowed with various martial arts skills, mostly beyond the realm of reality. Mixed martial arts (MMA) are also very popular and have transcended many others sports as of late in popularity.

When I was very young, I was small for my age and the school I attended had more than its fair allocation of bullies. Finally after taking one too many beatings at the hands of these little villains, my father said enough was enough and he enrolled me in a Jujitsu school, where I learned much more than just how to ‘bring the pain’. I learned many things that don’t seem to be taught in many schools these days; respect, honor, balance (of mind and body), breathing (amazingly, most people don’t use the full capacity of their lungs), meditation (leads to clear focus), and of course how to inflict the opposite of all those things upon any would-be attackers (imbalance, confusion, choke holds, joint locks, throws, punches and kicks). Two of the most important lessons were; ‘never give up’ and ‘combat is the absolute last resort’. Over the years I had continued in the tradition of my Sensei’s training and philosophy, which have served me well.
TruckIt was a black night in late July 2002 when I was heading southbound at about 75 mph on the I-5 freeway, just north of Sacramento, CA. Unknown to me, a drunk driver was heading in the opposite northbound lane traveling at a speed nearing 100 mph (according to the California highway patrol) when he crossed over into the path of my vehicle. The highway patrol on scene estimated that the impact speed (the combined vectors) was about 160 mph in a collision that bent the drunk’s Chevy pickup truck into an almost unrecognizable shape. The impact was so intense that parts broke free from his truck and penetrated my van (his drive-line and alternator) like bullets shot from a gun. The van I was driving was old and didn’t have airbags. The accident closed all the southbound lanes of I-5 and traffic was backed-up for miles, as the MediVac helicopter landed on the freeway. Having survived the accident, I later learned from several doctors that my survival was nothing short of a miracle.

Amazingly I didn’t break a single bone in the accident, and about a month later I was healed enough to visit the wreckage of my van and the drunk’s pickup truck in the wrecking yard where they had been stored. As I examined the two wrecked vehicles, it was clear to me that I was more than lucky to have survived the wreck; there was something more.

As I learned from several trauma physicians, who saw me after the wreck, there were two things that should have killed me right-off:

RobertTrias

Grandmaster Robert Trias

First, was the fact that I had no airbag to slow my forward progression into my shoulder harness at the moment of impact. And normally at impact speeds in excess 100 mph, your chest is suddenly compressed by a single-strap shoulder harness as your body weight shoots forward and then instantly stops; that sudden and powerful compression is equivalent to being hit in the chest by a sledge-hammer. As the doctors explained, it will normally rupture one of the large arteries at the heart, causing massive internal bleeding. At least this is what they have seen in most autopsies from these kinds of high impact collisions. The other thing that also occurs at the moment you reach the end of the slack in your shoulder harness, absent an airbag, is that your head, which weighs about eleven pounds continues forward at the impact velocity (in my case 160 mph) as your body is stopped by the shoulder harness, which results in the equivalent of being hanged; it simply snaps your neck.

As I relived the second or two up to the moment of the impact in my mind, I realized that it was the way I reacted just before the impact that saved me. At the moment of impact, I instinctively let-out a ‘kiai’, which is a learned instinctive response in martial arts combat.  An explanation is surely needed for those readers who are not serious martial arts students.

As the Grandmaster Robert Trias explains:

“The kiai must be recognized as the ultimate unifying force that brings the body, mind and the opponent into a focused, controlled alignment, with harmony between self and the opponent. The actualization of this potentiality of time and space at one point, physically, and while releasing spiritual potentials, determines the way of development and brings to consciousness an inexpressible awareness of life itself.”

As the doctors would look upon me, even to this day, in disbelief as to my survival, I know without any doubt that the instruction and training I received from my teachers over the years served the providence that saved my life that day.

Do not overlook the value that can be gained from a quality martial arts experience.

 

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Don’t worry, this isn’t going to be an article about how ‘bad’ or tough I am. This is an article about surviving ‘unexpected events’. Unexpected events are things in life that

Having a plan in place for Communication in a disaster or survival situation is important to your preparations. This may be a plan for communicating with your family if you are away. It could entail group communications at a retreat or neighborhood watch scenario or it could be as simple as letting family members know where you are if you are forced to separate? Taking the time to plan your communications now can save someone’s life and make any other plans you have function more smoothly.

Communications also encompass staying aware of news and information. If you are in the middle of a natural weather event and you need to know what if anything else is coming your way or which parts of town are the most impacted, you will want to stay in touch with the outside world. If there are traffic snarls that are blocking your retreat route or rioters or vigilantes have cordoned off a section of town you need to go through, you need to know this well in advance of trying to lead your family through there and adjust your plans accordingly.

Know your neighbors

This has certainly been discussed at great length but it bears repeating. The simplest and closest forms of communication you have are the people who live right next to you. During hurricanes Sandy and Katrina, neighborhoods banded together quickly after both of these tragedies for support and protection. This is another reason to stay focused on your surroundings and practice good Situational Awareness. You as well as your neighbors should know who lives in the houses around you. They may know if one of your neighbors is on vacation and someone strange is lurking around their house. Neighbors can check on people who may be older or need special assistance when regular service isn’t possible.

It is highly likely that after a disaster you may not have the ability to call the police or paramedics to assist people who are injured. Your job in this case would be to join up with your neighbors to take care of the injured and help anyone who needed assistance. The power of the group will make you all much more successful at staying alive, fed and sheltered as much as possible.

Special Family Signals

If you are forced to leave your home for whatever reason and a member of your group isn’t able to leave with you a predetermined symbol comes in handy to pass the unspoken message of where you have gone.

Having a similar signal like this could be beneficial for you. I would caution that the secret signal should be a little harder to accidentally trigger. In my case, it would be easy for one of the neighborhood kids to knock the fish over and I would come home and think everyone had left me. Less obvious signals can be devised that can alert family members to your status and what is to be done next.

Another aspect of this type of survival communication is simply leaving a detailed record or note for someone. If you are a backpacker and plan to go into the woods on a multi-day hike, it is always a good idea to leave a note with your plans and expected arrival date with two people. I would leave one note with a close friend or family member who would contact the police if you didn’t show up at the appointed time. I would also leave another note face down on the dash of my car. The information should let anyone who is looking for you, have a really strong idea of where to start looking.

Solar Powered/Hand Crank Radio

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Ambient Weather WR-111B Emergency Solar Hand Crank AM/FM/NOAA Digital Radio

In any emergency situation, staying informed not only gives you information but it can be reassuring or even motivating to you and your family. I would recommend that everyone have at least one emergency or weather radio at any of your locations. I keep one stored with my emergency supplies and only have to walk into the other room to grab it out of its box. You do want a radio that is powered by batteries in case the power is out and a nice option is to have either a solar panel or hand crank to power the radio in case you don’t have batteries.

There are tons of options on radios but The Adventurer is currently the highest rated according to Amazon. It runs off batteries, crank or solar and has an optional USB port to plug your phones in when they run down. Additionally it has a light to shine around while you are listening to either weather/AM/FM or NOAA broadcasts.

Cell Phones

Cell phones are the first thing you would think to grab in an emergency scenario and actually, having a fully charged phone and spare battery are great contents of any Bug Out or Get Home Bag, but they might not be in use in a major catastrophe. If you remember 9/11 cell phone traffic was knocked offline. Even during the relatively minor earthquake in Virgina in 2011, cell phone service was interrupted. Imagine if a real catastrophe or earthquake happened.

This problem isn’t limited to cities either. If you are too far off the map, your cell reception may not be sufficient to make a call. For example, you can look at just AT&Ts coverage map and see that there are giant portions of the western US that are completely uncovered by AT&T’s towers. You don’t want to depend on your cell phone in an emergency.

Internet

Can the internet be useful for communications? Of course it can, but like cell phones I wouldn’t rely on that for my disaster plan. In most emergency situations there isn’t power. You could take another route and say that the communications on the internet may compromise you. There are ways to stay anonymous on the internet, but they do require some level of work and every day more systems are designed to snoop on you regardless of the safeguards you have in place. Now if your entire family is a bunch of hackers with backup power generators, have at it! The common person shouldn’t rely on this method in most disasters.

CB Radios

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Cobra® 29 LTD BT CB Radio with Bluetooth

CB or Citizens Band radios have been around for a long time. I remember my father had one in his old Mercury Capri and we would turn it on every once in a while and listen to the truckers talk while we were on a drive. I would try to come up with a clever handle, but it usually just revolved around whoever my favorite TV show hero was at the time.

CB Radios generally have a range of 5-20 miles depending on the terrain. Each channel is a different frequency and channel 9 is the emergency channel. You can listen to channel 9 for news updates and stay in touch with friends or family well away from your home. Some models like the Cobra® 29 LTD BT even have Bluetooth now so you can take calls on your CB. You just need a CB and an antenna and you are in business. Installation is simple and you can talk to anyone who is within your range.

Scanners

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PRO-164 1000-Channel Handheld Scanner

A great companion to a CB Radio is a scanner, sometimes called a Police scanner that randomly scans all of the radio frequency channels. It surfs for you and when it finds traffic, it will stay on that channel during the broadcast. Some scanners hold thousands of frequencies and you can use this to hear what emergency service personnel are saying. You can also hear news before it makes it to the TV. If the scanners are still working and your police department isn’t blocking the frequency somehow you can hear what is happening in other parts of your town and make plans to bugout if necessary.

Two-Way FRS radios

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FRS Band Radios

Everyone who has ever been to WalMart has seen the FRS radios or walkie talkies. These are great on car trips when you want to stay in contact with another driver in a different vehicle. They are also good for camping trips when one group wants to separate from another group. They do have a much smaller range and this is highly impacted by line of sight. I think on the pair I bought, the range says “up to 23 miles”. Yeah, right! Maybe if you are standing the in middle of the desert and you can see the person 10 miles away. And you have a tail wind…

These radios are better than nothing, but the communication (as with CB’s) isn’t secure so don’t think you can purchase two of these and set up a foolproof command center at your bugout location. They would be great if your communication didn’t need to be secure though and most models now have sub channels so you can set your main frequency to channel 12 and your sub or “privacy” code to 110. This way, without a scanner someone would have to be dialed into the exact same frequency to hear you.

Military Surplus

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TA-312/PT Military Telephone

Once again, one of my favorite options (for certain scenarios) is a good old field telephone (TA-312/PT). These are pretty simple. You have two phones and they are connected by a line. Communication line, it’s really just a two strand line. When you want to talk to someone you crank the arm and the other phone rings. I think you need two D batteries also to power them, but since this is really low voltage, they will last a long time. This is as secure as the phone line and may work at a retreat area with one phone out in an OP and the other inside the house as long as the line is buried.

Regardless of the method you choose (we have several) it is wise to think about different scenarios and the communication plan you would use to keep in contact with your family. What other ideas do you have for communicating with your group?

What about Short Wave or Ham Radio? Good question. I think Ham Radio is an excellent option, but it is a complicated topic with a higher entry cost, learning curve and commitment which means its worthy of its own post. I will be discussing Ham radio in the future.

On a different note, here’s some other self-sufficiency and preparedness solutions recommended for you:

The Lost Ways (The vital self-sufficiency lessons our great grand-fathers left us)
Survival MD (Knowledge to survive any medical crisis situation)
Backyard Liberty (Liberal’s hidden agenda: more than just your guns…)
Alive After the Fall (Build yourself the only unlimited water source you’ll ever need)
The Lost ways II (4 Important Forgotten Skills used by our Ancestors that can help you in any crisis)
The Patriot Privacy Kit (Secure your privacy in just 10 simple steps)

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Having a plan in place for Communication in a disaster or survival situation is important to your preparations. This may be a plan for communicating with your family if you

For some preppers, a common motivation to become prepared is the risk of a biological outbreak of some disease with a high mortality rate and aggressive transmission vector. They fear, and with good reason, that if a disease gets out into the open, society will quickly fall and the grid will collapse under the weight of so much death and suffering. This fear certainly seems plausible with events over the past decade of aggressive strains of virus’s but so far we have been relatively protected from any major outbreak. This could be due to the hard work of scientists and disease specialists who are trying everything in their power to create cures and quickly eradicate sources of Pandemic style threats like this. Or at least that is what I assumed until recently.

Tuesday in the Independent we learned the following:

A group of leading scientists has urged President Obama’s advisers to investigate the ethical issues raised by a decision to create a highly infectious strain of bird-flu virus that could be transmitted easily between people.

The scientists, who include a former UK Government chief scientist and a Nobel laureate, said that it is “morally and ethically wrong” to create a new type of influenza virus in the laboratory that is more lethal and transmissible than what actually exists in nature.

This is important because of the high mortality of the H5N1 virus. If infected, the rate of death is 60%, but to date there has been such low transmission from infected birds to humans we have been spared a significant outbreak. Not intent to leave well enough alone, scientists from Erasmus Medical Centre in Rotterdam and the University of Wisconsin-Madison succeeded in 2011 of mutating the H5N1 avian virus so that it could in theory be transmitted through the air between people.  This theoretically makes it much easier to contract, more deadly and much more likely to cause death. Why is this research being allowed?

“But these are high security labs”, you say and “they are very safe about how they handle these virus’s”. Really? It was just last week that a Bio-terror lab in Galveston Texas lost five small plastic vials of an obscure virus called Guanarito.

“They did not consider this a public health threat or a potential theft,” Weaver said, adding that the lab voluntarily made the incident public because of a long-standing pact to be transparent with the Galveston community

They didn’t consider a killer virus getting out in who knows whose hands a ‘health threat’? Without going too far into the realm of conspiracy theory (which in cases like this looks like conspiracy fact) what can you do to prepare yourself and your family for the event of a biological outbreak like the H5N1 virus?

Plan for personal protection

Most biological viruses pass through air, direct contact or bodily fluids so protective gear that will minimize the potential of coming in contact with these pathogens is an important consideration. At a minimum, you should consider a respirator or mask, protective clothing to include eye protection, gloves and footwear and potentially decontamination options. In our article explaining our rationale on why everyone should consider a gas mask as part of your preps, we mentioned some options but you can obtain protection from a less confining option.

Tyvek Suits or coveralls are really cheap considering their use. You need to shop around, but you can find Tyvek coveralls for around $8 each or if you want to be really prepared and save on the per suit cost, you can buy in bulk.  You can find these online or even at your local hardware store. Respirators are available in all shapes and sizes from the lower end N95 masks to full face protection masks with interchangeable filters.

Plan to protect your home

In the event of a biological outbreak, we may be required to stay in our homes or “shelter in place”. The simple act of removing yourself from contact with society may reduce your risk of exposure to the virus so planning to stay in your home for an extended time should be a consideration.

Some items to consider:
  • Make sure you have an adequate food storage supply to last you through the outbreak
  • Make sure you have water and adequate methods of disinfecting water you and your family will need to drink
  • Purchase large rolls of heavy plastic and duct tape to seal windows, doors and vents if necessary.
  • Consider pets and how they will go to the bathroom.
  • Plan for entertainment during any situation where you will be confined for long periods of time.
  • Ensure you have at least a month’s extra medication for anyone who requires medicine for their daily use.
  • Plan for Sanitation and make sure you have plenty of hygiene and sanitation items on hand.

These are just a few items to consider, but for each person there are numerous other options. The goal is to start thinking about the potential for this type of threat and how to plan for your family’s safety. It seems obvious that the people we thought were looking out for us simply ‘didn’t consider it’.

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For some preppers, a common motivation to become prepared is the risk of a biological outbreak of some disease with a high mortality rate and aggressive transmission vector. They fear,

What if tomorrow you wake up to a world torn apart by a nuclear war? What if the governments fall and the society you knew goes crazy with neighbors attacking neighbors, looting local stores, etc.? What if a deadly virus was leaked as a bio-weapon and turns the people that were surrounding you for many years into mindless, flesh eating zombies? What if you will need to survive in at least one of these worst case scenarios?

Probably, the very first thing you should take care of during survival is the protection of your body. Living in a progressive world, where most everyone is allowed to own and use fire arms, defines the nature of body armor you should have (or be looking for). Whatever the case is, you will make the most benefit from using a bullet proof vest, because you never know, who will be walking behind your back and that person (or persons) can carry a gun and have no good intentions towards passersby.

A Bullet proof vests is a very useful thing to have in your arsenal, when surviving in extreme conditions. This little vest that covers about 15-19 inches of your back and front can save your life on multiple occasions. You may think that it’s better to wear tactical body armor, because you will have most of your body parts protected. But, even here you will have a weakness – the enemy will see the protected parts of your body and will intentionally attack the unprotected ones. Moreover, if you are in conditions that require you to constantly move, tactical body armor may cause a severe disadvantage and slow you down. Regular bullet proof vests are much more effective in this case.

If you need to survive, you don’t want to spend your time looking for stuff you could have prepared ahead of time. Since it’s not the end of the world right now and you have the time to read this, you should think about getting a bullet proof vest, before anything actually happens. Online you can get them shipped in a day, companies like SafeGuard Clothing offer this type of quick protection service, so you can be protected by tomorrow! Even if you will never get a chance to wear and use it, you will at least not regret that you weren’t prepared for an extreme situation.

Bullet proof vests can offer two types of protection – ballistic protection and combined ballistic and stab protection. The latter is more effective, of course. Moreover, there are two types of protection rankings for ballistic and stab attacks provided by the NIJ and HOSDB, respectively. While there are 6 NIJ protection levels, there are only 2 HOSDB protection levels. Obviously, the higher the protection level, the heavier the vest. Heavier vest means it’s bulkier and less comfortable. These facts have to be considered, when choosing the vest.

You can purchase a bullet proof vest in an online store. Make sure it’s of the right size and will suit you well. In order to make sure about this, you can talk to the online support and find out everything you need. However, it is best to visit an actual body armor store and get all the required assistance, because an online support worker can’t see you and can skip something important. It’s always better to be prepared, rather than being caught napping.

 

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What if tomorrow you wake up to a world torn apart by a nuclear war? What if the governments fall and the society you knew goes crazy with neighbors attacking

Access to clean water means the difference between life and death in any part of the world. In order to disinfect water preppers usually recommend bleach as part of a broader strategy of stored water, filtration and boiling. Household bleach as long as it isn’t scented is a great method to disinfect water to make is safe for drinking so some people stock up on bleach for just this reason. There is a problem with bleach though in that it has a relatively short shelf life. Bleach will start to lose its potency before a year and that amount of time can be hastened in high heat or freezing conditions.

When asked the question if bleach has a shelf life of one year, the Clorox website states:

The overall answer is yes, but there are a couple of possible caveats. The active ingredient in liquid bleach, sodium hypochlorite, is very sensitive to high heat and freezing, but under normal home storage conditions, it should still perform well for nine to twelve months. So if your storage conditions were either of these, then you will have irreversibly created salt and water.

Calcium Hypochlorite can be used to make your own bleach. When mixed together though you have this shelf life and that is never good when we are thinking of long term prepping plans. There is a simple alternative though and that it to purchase Calcium Hypochlorite and make bleach as you need it. Calcium Hypochlorite has a shelf life of 10 years if stored in a cool dry place.

Calcium Hypochlorite comes as a stand-alone powder or you can purchase bags of pool shock. One thing to be aware of is the main ingredient. Some pool shock says Chlorine-free and uses other chemicals. You don’t want that. Also, you don’t want any other ingredients like antifungals or algaecide so read the label carefully. Alternately, you could just purchase the Calcium Hypochlorite powder and eliminate this possibility. A one-pound bag of pool shock that is 68% Calcium Hypochlorite can make 10,000 gallons of disinfected water.

Along with the capacity to create bleach that can be used as a long term stable source of treating your water,  bleach is also very effective at killing viruses. We use this to kill viruses in our water and it is just as effective at killing Ebola so a plan for storing Calcium Hypochlorite is wise on two counts.

Ebola and Bleach

A reader Matt sent this link to a Public Health Agency of Canada article on Ebola and in the section under Section IV Stability and Viability it mentions the following:

“SUSCEPTIBILITY TO DISINFECTANTS: Ebolavirus is susceptible to 3% acetic acid, 1% glutaraldehyde, alcohol-based products, and dilutions (1:10-1:100 for ≥10 minutes) of 5.25% household bleach (sodium hypochlorite), and calcium hypochlorite (bleach powder). The WHO recommendations for cleaning up spills of blood or body fluids suggest flooding the area with a 1:10 dilutions of 5.25% household bleach for 10 minutes for surfaces that can tolerate stronger bleach solutions (e.g., cement, metal) . For surfaces that may corrode or discolor, they recommend careful cleaning to remove visible stains followed by contact with a 1:100 dilution of 5.25% household bleach for more than 10 minutes.”

Essentially bleach kills Ebola and if you need to clean up any spills or body fluids a higher concentration of bleach should be used. Prepping for virus outbreaks might have seemed crazy just a few weeks ago but now the information in the news makes this more possible and if you are already prepared to make your own bleach by having a stable supply of Calcium Hypochlorite, you will additionally be prepared to disinfect Ebola and potentially save lives. I am not going to suggest having bleach will save anyone, but it can help.

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A worker disinfects a deceased Ebola patient.

How to make bleach

The Calcium Hypochlorite powder is used in two strengths according to what you need to disinfect. The 1:10 bleach solution is a strong solution used to disinfect bodies and fluids. A lighter mixture of 1 to 100 is used to disinfect water or to clean surfaces, medical equipment, bedding, protective equipment like gloves and clothing.

You use the 1:10 solution to make the 1:100 solutions. The 1:10 bleach is very caustic so you want to be very careful about handling this.

In terms of Ebola disinfection, a publication from the World Health Organization says that Bleach solutions must be prepared daily because they lose their strength after 24 hours.

To prepare the bleach solution you would use one heaping tablespoon of Calcium Hypochlorite for every two gallons of water. This will give you bleach essentially and would be your 1:10 mixture for hardcore disinfection. DO NOT DRINK THIS

To dilute this to your 1:100 mixture you could add your gallon of bleach (1:10) above to 100 gallons of water, but this isn’t practical usually.

To disinfect water you would add eight drops of your 1:10 bleach solution to one gallon of water. Let this sit for 30 minutes. If the water is still cloudy you can run this through a coffee filter (should have done this first) or add more bleach a couple of drops at a time and let it sit for 30 more minutes.

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Access to clean water means the difference between life and death in any part of the world. In order to disinfect water preppers usually recommend bleach as part of a

Yesterday I read about hundreds of armed vigilantes in a small Mexico town . This was preceded earlier by reports of townspeople capturing and murdering several men, displaying their bodies propped up in lawn chairs for the world to see. Their captors had written signs on some of the dead men as a warning to those who came to loot and kill. On the surface, with so much violence associated with the drug wars in Mexico, this seemed like a positive development purely from the aspect of people taking justice back into their own hands. Their corrupt officials not caring to protect them anymore were ignored and the town was saying “we aren’t going to take it anymore”.

Now, however things appear to be evolving and so are my thoughts on this subject. The “Vigilantes” are setting up road blocks, arresting police officers, conducting searches of homes for weapons and increasing their presence everywhere. I fear that the vigilantes could wind up being just as dangerous to the citizens of that town as the gangs and corrupt police. I also wonder if that type of scenario isn’t what we have in store for us here.

An article in the Global Post states the simple motivation for the vigilantes:

“The federal and state governments haven’t been able to do anything,” said Evert Castro, an Ayutla municipal councilman. “And we don’t have the capacity to fight these criminals. So the people got tired and decided to act on their own. We see this as a good thing.”

We are supposed to be a society of laws. For this to work people have to obey the laws and those who don’t are supposed to be dealt with fairly and in a just manner. When this happens, you have an equilibrium that is maintained and for the most part people live together in a civilized manner.

When you take the laws, justice and fairness away as we have seen for years in Mexico and one could argue that this is happening here to a different level as well, society becomes unbalanced. Injustice rules and people can be taken advantage of.

What if the rule of law no longer applied to your community? This is something we discuss in prepper circles daily, but usually in theory. Hypothetical scenarios that we use to either bolster our argument or use as rationale to make decisions. WROL (Without Rule of Law) is nothing that any of us should want to live through. I know that some may say (as I initially did) “Great! These people will clean up their own streets.” Really?

What is the difference between police searching through your house without cause or warrant and a gang of vigilantes? What makes getting stopped on the side of the road by a gang of armed vigilantes and having your car searched any better than going through some random checkpoint setup by the government? Are they really better off now in Mexico?

Source Daily Mail:

In January, hundreds of armed vigilantes made a series of arrests and imposed curfews in Ayutla de los Libres and Teconoap. They also manned checkpoints and claimed they had arrested at least 30 suspected criminals. One of the masked vigilantes said: ‘They kill, extort, rape. You do know if they are drugs dealers, thugs, who want to grab everything. ‘We want to return peace and tranquility to the entire population. Only the people can restore order.

If society devolves to the point where “only the people can restore order” do you trust that all of the other “people” will be fairer, less prone to corruption than anyone else? I am not for one second stating that only government or the police can protect you. What I am saying is that the people who are entrusted by our society to ensure justice must be just themselves. If the gang of people who are trying to protect your town are no better than the ones they ran off, killed or arrested, where does that put you? What can you do now to put yourself on a level footing in your neighborhood or community?

Know your neighbors

This is a simple one. Knowing your neighbors and how they will react, what their thoughts and philosophies are will help you deal with them if a situation arises where some form of resistance or vigilantism is planned. You want the people around you to know you, be able to vouch for your character and hopefully protect you from any lawlessness that is caused. If you are part of the team responsible for “restoring order” you will have a supreme advantage if you know the people you are working with and supposedly protecting. It should also go without saying that you have a supreme responsibility also to your fellow man.

Practice OPSEC

As much as possible, you want to be prudent in what you say, how you say it and to whom you say it to. OPSEC is keeping essential information about you or your family as quiet as possible. You don’t want to brag about supplies, preps you have or someone could easily say: “Hey, Joe has a whole bunch of ammo. We could take it from him.” This is just one example, but could carry over into a lot of other aspects of survival.

Ensure you have the right stuff

When and if chaos ensues, the last thing you want is to be without the essentials. You need a decent store of food. You need water and I would recommend a means of defending yourself. I am not trying to be an alarmist, but I do believe the writing is on the wall for our society and I am preparing. You should evaluate your life, your situation and make sure you have plans to take care of your family if it all goes sideways. Make sure you have this taken care of now and you are not trying to make it to the sporting goods store after the riots have started.

Prepare to Get Out of Dodge if necessary

It may be wise for you to leave. If we are back to a wild west, Mad Max type of world, you may want to get out of town. Prepare yourself now by clearly thinking and analyzing your decision to bug out or bug in. Knowing what you want to do, preparing for that eventuality is a start, but situations are dynamic. Think through your options well in advance of needing to employ them. If you have to get out of dodge, make sure you have a plan, a great vehicle and options. If you intend to hunker down, make sure you know your neighborhood or town. Intelligence like this could help you make decisions on the fly.

Never let your principles be compromised

I was going to say “Above all else” before never let your morals be compromised. It is easy to say what you would “never” do when you are sitting in front of a computer. I can easily say I would never do anything bad to another unless my life or my family’s lives depended on it, but that isn’t completely honest. We are all human and are subject to weakness for a million reasons. What I try to do is live like I should and act as God leads me. I know I will make mistakes, but I try to think about situations I may be faced with. Imagining how you will act is no substitute for the real moment, but it does give your brain some practice thinking through the ramifications of your actions. Even developing a personal threat escalation plan, while just an exercise, can be beneficial. State out loud what you will or will not abide as your conscience leads you. Try to maintain that moral compass as straight as possible. You may fall, but having a direction in the first place will point you back to the right path much quicker.

I fear for our civilization but I will not sit idly by and watch it crumble and consume us. I will make plans, prepare my family as best as I can and try to be a force for good. Besides praying, I don’t think any of us can do much more than that.

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Yesterday I read about hundreds of armed vigilantes in a small Mexico town . This was preceded earlier by reports of townspeople capturing and murdering several men, displaying their bodies

 

Great gardens that grow heaps of high-calorie food don’t just happen – you have to build them. I learned that this year when I tried growing a guerrilla garden in a nearby field, described here on FinalPrepper. To summarize, I sprayed Round-up on a 10’x10’ plot in an abandoned farm field, chopped holes in the ground every square foot, and then dropped in a couple of corn kernels. No watering, no fertilizing, no amendments of any kind to the soil. Just to see what would grow, if I needed extra growing room in a SHTF situation, and couldn’t spend lots of time tending my guerrilla garden. These lessons learned can also be helpful if you are converting a part of your entire lawn to a survival garden after SHTF.

Lesson #1 – Unimproved field gardens are not as productive as established gardens, so expect less food.

My home garden produced 16 pounds of field corn in 100 square feet because the soil was improved with composted kitchen scraps, and I could water it during dry spells. My guerrilla gardening only produced about 4 pounds in 100 square feet. Therefore, we have to improve the soil and/or plant more land for a needed quantity of food when starting a garden from scratch.

Plan of Action #1 – The soil in the field is piss-poor: compact, full of clay, and lacking in humus – probably why it was no longer used as a farm. To improve the soil for next spring’s planting, I turned over the 10’x10’plot with my trusty spade. Next, I hauled a couple of 30 gallon bags of grass clippings and fallen leaves from my car, down the path about ¼ mile, and spread the contents over the plot. Finally, to break up the clay and improve fertility, I spread about four pounds each of lime and pelletized gypsum. I will turn and add the same amendments in the spring a few weeks before planting. Once the crop has sprouted, I will mulch the plants with grass clippings to reduce evaporation and the need for watering.

 

Lesson #2 – Deer and other wild animals will eat whatever they can find, unless they can be scared away or blocked.

Plan of Action #2 – Because the plot is far from human activity, the deer see my guerrilla garden as safe for them. My job is to make it seem inhabited by humans to the deer, without giving its location away to human passersby.   I have read that clothing that has been worn keeps a human smell for weeks, and can be used to repel deer, or funnel them to a kill zone. I can try that with the orphan and “holey” socks my wife is determined to throw away. I have also read that human hair and urine have a repellent effect when sprinkled around a garden perimeter. Rather than courting danger by transporting sloshing bottles of urine in my car, I think I’ll stick to saving floor sweepings when I cut my children’s hair. In a SHTF situation, I could dump our semi-composted humanure on the garden to keep everybody away!

 

Lesson #3 – Crop selection is important.

Corn seemed to be a good choice for field planting, as it has a high calorie density/pound, but it turned out to be a terrible choice for guerrilla gardening. Because the corn that did develop was so tall, it was exposed and the opposite of stealthy. Any hungry deer or person within 100 yards could spot it, but because we are in an “all-normal” situation, only deer attacked it.  Also, corn is needy, requiring lots of fertilizer or rich soil and plenty of water.

 

Plant of Action #3 – Next spring, I will plant sweet potato sections with eyes in this plot.

Advantages –

  • Sweet potatoes can be planted earlier (late April) compared to corn (mid-late May) in our region, as the growth is underground for a few weeks, protecting it from frost.
  • Because the crop is underground, it is less vulnerable to attack by animals or people.
  • The vines are above ground and low, less visible, and could easily be mistaken by people for vines of some non-edible plant.
  • Sweet potatoes provide more calories per square foot than corn, at least in my garden. My 10’x10’ garden plot of field corn produced 1600 cal/lb x 16 lb = 25,600 calories. My 10’ x 10’ sweet potato bed produced 390 cal/lb x 108 lb = 42,120 calories.

Learn more about Guerrilla Gardening and how you might be able to use this in austere situations.


Disadvantages –

* Sweet potatoes are more vulnerable to underground pests like moles. While last year I got a harvest of about 108 lb, this year moles ate all but about 2 pounds of my crop, and I didn’t even know it until digging time! Next year I will definitely defend my garden with some of these mole-proofing ideas, but I will put away needed supplies this year.

* Corn can last for several years when stored in a cool dry place, sweet potatoes generally last about a year in a root cellar. I had good luck with my sweet potatoes in the basement this year, as we just finished eating the 2014 crop early this October.

* Sweet potatoes require loose soil, so they are more work-intensive and only suitable for small gardens, not acre-sized fields.

* Corn is more versatile than sweet potatoes – You can cook cracked corn, grits, hominy, and grind cornmeal for bread. Sweet potatoes you can just bake whole, or put into stews.

Lesson #4 – The one plot I had was found and attacked by deer.

Plan of Action – Next year I won’t “put all my eggs in one basket”. I started a second garden next year, out of sight of the first plot, by turning and amended another 10’ x 10’ plot. That way, if someone hungry discovers the first plot, all is not lost, and if both plots are safe, I have doubled production. This lesson applies to other storage decisions, like splitting your emergency food storage into two areas of your house, or burying some in a cache in your backyard.

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It is important to know how to quickly build a survival garden. Even if you are not lucky enough to have an abandoned farm near your house, you may still have an urban lot, remote public park, or other area where you can try your hand at guerrilla gardening. Just be discrete, and don’t get caught. If you want to play it safe, just pick a sunny part of your lawn, and start converting it into a garden this fall – the experience gained may save your life!

 

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  Great gardens that grow heaps of high-calorie food don’t just happen – you have to build them. I learned that this year when I tried growing a guerrilla garden in

 

Around six years ago I stopped running (got suddenly sick of it) but for the 15 years before that it was basically a part-time job for me. Over that time I did around 100 marathons (42.2km 26.2 miles) and 100 ultramarathons (anything over 26.2 miles). Since getting into the concepts of prepping for SHTF I have been thinking that my previous experience as an ultra-marathon runner has left me with many great tips and ideas for everyone to travel more than 26 miles unsupported. No I am not telling you to run to get back to your home or bug out location but if you can then great! I certainly could not do it anymore! My best race was 6 hours and 24 minutes in a 50 miler to give my experience here some context and I could pop out sub three-hour marathons easily. That said all these ultramarathoning tips I learned the very hard way and perhaps some might help you even if you are planning only to walk home or to your bug out location?

PREPPING:

Ultramarathoners prep and we never know if we will finish the race when we line up. We prep our minds and our bodies and I will talk about the body first.

Vaseline is more than a fire starter:

Slap it on or skin becomes badly excoriated from the continual friction or running for hours. Between the thighs and buttocks and do not skimp on it at all. Between the underarms as well as you will be surprised at how painful friction burns are the next day. Runners’ nipples are the partial removal of your nipples from friction and hurt like crazy the next day. All these friction points need Vaseline as you will not notice them until too late. Put a small dab directly on the nipple and cover with a bandage. As you walk or even run for hours check these friction points at rest stops and reapply as required.

Sun lotion is an everyday thing:

Run or walk for 9 hours with the sun mainly hitting you from one direction and you will burn even on a cloudy day. Winter is worse as you do not think about it or notice it. SP 30 or higher and yes use expensive “sport” ones and I recommend the waterproof versions for swimming. The cheaper ones fail quickly. In Summer always have some with you on your journey and reapply it often. The main areas to get burned are top of the head even through hair, tips of the nose and ears, and lips. The backs of your knees if in shorts or thin trousers and exposed elbows get burned fast and need more frequent sun lotion applications. Your neck and head should be covered so use a bandanna!

Clothing is optional:

Yes there are naked races but I’d avoid long distance over trails in the buff. However your choice of clothing is optional. Layers of course and remember you will feel a lot warmer once you start moving so set off a bit cold not comfortable. Remove the hat and clothes early not late as sweat will end your race early (see Just Doing It section). For races or bugging out you should visit specialty stores and online sites that have great quality gear designed for you to move in for hours. Compression socks are a good idea. Wicking inner layers are essential and they better not rub! Test all clothing out before the real event. Trash bags are good for rain and wind protection and every prepper should have some but they make you sweat badly. No doubt you have seen runners wearing them before the race starts but did you know the trash bags can be slit along the sides and holes made to keep you mainly dry and let the sweat out? Three holes (head and arms) is never going to help you avoid dehydration and rain is actually real nice to be in when you are moving hard.Marathonbook

Clothing for running (triathlon, long distance hiking, etc. as well but they are not areas I can speak about) is much lighter and better designed for hard forward movement than traditional camo/military gear. It is a bit non-functional for our purpose but many new developments come along all the time including jackets with multiple pockets for long distance events. Think outside the military choices here. At the very least look at hiker clothing if you cannot bring yourself to try running gear.

These boot were made for walking:

I expect many people will get upset by this but in all honesty for fast return to home or fast bug outs please do not wear military or hiking boots. Their weight will cause severe leg and lower back fatigue in only a few hours unless you use them daily before the event. A decent pair of trail running shoes works almost as well and should be totally fine in most scenarios. They work very well on asphalt but road shoes do not usually work well on rough trails. Sure the ankle is not encased but the flexibility of the shoe and its lower weight mean it is much more suitable for hard moving over miles and miles.

They work fine on ice and snow and wet rock provided you have a quality trail shoe and have tested it out. If you are running stop using the heavy trail shoe after 25 miles and put on a lighter pair for the rest of the trip. Many people in road races do this in reverse which is a shame as they cannot lift the legs as high after 25 miles and dropping foot weight helps with this to some extent.

For trail shoes visit a store and try a bunch on wearing the socks you would use in the event (race or the end of the world). Find one or two that work and then ask if last year’s model is available. Do not pay more than $120 and not less than $60. Higher priced ones are not doing anything for your abilities no matter what mumbo jumbo the clerk says and cheap shoes are not helpful. Tell the clerk you want a “decent pair of trail shoes to do an ultra-marathon”. Then say you are starting running, have no idea about how to do it, have no running experience, and have not decided the race yet but it will be a trail race. Expect them to be puzzled but distance on trail is the shoe you need and it has to fit your foot type. This is why you must have an experienced person fit the shoe to you rather than buy something from a chain store or online.

The Mind is the major muscle here:

The very first ultra-marathon I did was on a bet and was 100 miles of trail. I did 70 miles and had to quit. I had not read and reread the maps, I had not thought about what and where I would eat and drink, and I had no real conviction that I could do it. When the wall hit me I had no experience and no belief I could walk through it and get on with the race. Practice is ideal and as close to the event conditions as possible. So for bugging out or getting home on foot from work do all or at least some of the route for real and carry and dress in what you would be doing in SHTF.

running-573762_640

Volunteer at a local 100 Miler race or equivalent triathlon/bike race. Help out at an aid station for the entire event and realize just how tired the participants must be. Who makes it and who fails and why? Jot down notes on tips and gear. Ultramarathons are ideal for this as many runners get very chatty late in the race!

Sweetness is Critical:

Being relaxed and happy is vital before the start. Do not start all anxious and stressed. Likely you will be but then take 2 minutes silence to think about your life and why finishing this event is important. Being sweet means you likely have people with you in this event (race or SHTF) so check them out for issues before the start. Have they got Vaseline or sun lotion on? Do they have water and food?

Carbo-loading is an immense topic but it works. If you know you will bug out in 24 hours or have to go on a 20+ milers then hit the rice and pasta. Pig out as you will burn all this and more. It is a bit more complex than I am saying here but just upping the carbohydrates prior to the start for 24 to 48 hours will help.

JUST DOING IT:

Set rest intervals and enjoy them:

I use rest intervals every hour and a 5 minute walk or a full sit down if I am in trouble. Vary these as you do not want to ever stop on an uphill as restarting is hard. Momentum is vital but so is adequate rest and hydration and nutrition from the very, very start of the event. Sure you are hyped up and can keep going but it has been estimated that every minute of sensible rest in the first half of a race equals two to four minutes of less time taken to do the last half. Simply put going to hard and/or for too long at the beginning will make the journey much longer, much harder, and often causes failure to finish. You are doing something very hard so be nice to yourself.

Later on keep the rest intervals at 5 minutes and walk or sit but increase their frequency. You might find yourself doing one minute rest and one minute walking after many hours. Is it worth it? I have revived and gone on to finish well but mostly the smart move is to stop the event and recover. With a bug in or a get home scenario camping out might be dangerous so again your mind has prepared for this and you have sites preselected in case you cannot make it without sleeping.

Water, water, everywhere:

Drink 500ml (one pint) an hour every hour. If it is hot increase this. At 40C I found I needed about one litre (two pints) every ten to fifteen minutes but I was running hard and in great shape. Dehydration will end your journey and can easily end you in very hot or very cold conditions. Drink a lot of water and do not ration it. Have the resupply sources (shops are not a good idea for us but gas stations are great in normal events) fixed in your mind in advance. Rivers, industrial pipes, pools, and best of all are buried caches of snacks and water along the line of march. Think no effort water treatment and fast. A life straw is not a smart move here as you need effort to get clean water. You are going to be very, very tired. There are multiple sports bottle filters that work great. Scoop them full and put in a tablet as well (better safe than having diarrhea). Bladder type bags are excellent and I recommend one that you have trained on. They can be a bit fiddly until you get used to them. Even with this I would have a minimum of two liters in four bottles as well.

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Water alone will kill you:

Not going to be technical but hard efforts lasting hours need you to drink a lot of water but you need to add in salts or your brain will swell and burst (literally in the worst case scenario). Drinking any sports drink you like that comes as a power (you can easily make your own). Mix it half or a third strength but never full strength. Keep one bottle sizes in separate small plastic bags and dump one in and add water are you are all set without thinking. This is not your only source of salts and you want to avoid slow egress from your stomach which happens with full strength. Get trained to drink hot water and hot sports drinks in case you need to move mid-Summer. Sure cold drinks work better in being absorbed and cooling you but will you have an ice bucket with you in SHTF? Salt tablets and capsules are meant to work great but for me they did nothing and they sure cost a ton. Again, get out of the house and train for the event using what you would use in the event. Have multiple varieties of flavors here not just one or two. Variety gives you a focus and helps you focus on planning what flavor you want at the next rest stop. Sounds silly but really helps to get you through events after being mobile for eight-hour or more.

I have used very light beer in races and it works very well after 4 hours in getting your mind back into the thing. Basically the liver has little resistance to the alcohol after prolonged exercise so you get smashed in a more controlled way but it is not a great idea. I use it as a last-ditch method to finish and it worked all 5 times.

Hunger:

Please use and carry sports gels and bars. Eat every hour at the beginning at least 500 Cal. Up this later on. This sounds a lot but works out to one gel packet every 15 minutes. Again resupply is going to be useful. Have different flavors and different makes. Use hard and soft bars. Variety is vital here. Crush up chips into small bags and pour into your mouth before a water break. You are burning massive calories here even if just walking hard. Running out of energy to fuel yourself is painful and a horrible thing so avoid it.

Trail mix is dreadful on the trail. Choking hazard and very dry. Same with nuts. Big chewy bites is the way to go. You are likely different from me so train and use what works for yourself. I am fine with that!

Mentally it will not be long before you are focused on what you will eat at the next rest stop. It gets to be a main motivator or a main failing as the cravings hit. You have done this before and know what you want, when you want it, and are actually carrying it. Dates work great for me but if I use them every snack I get very fed up of them very fast.

Go Girl Female Urination Device

Go Girl Female Urination Device.

Ultramarathoing tips for Sanitation:

Pee in the middle of the trail. Do not waste effort going off trail to pee behind a tree. Look at your pee and up the fluids if too yellow and decrease them if too clear. However after multiple hours clear may mean you are also in a critical salt shortage but you have been taking salts in from the beginning right?

Carry a small pack of Kleenex. Hop slightly off or next to the trail. Scoop a small holes and vacate your bowels. Do it quickly as on trails the flies come real fast. Wipe, wipe, cover reapply Vaseline to your nether regions. If weight allows a good baby wipe is a thing of sublime beauty in these situations.

My first outdoor bowel movement was a classic in how not to do it. I tried for 10 miles to hang on to it to get to an aid station. It was very painful. Your bowels are partially shut down and go as soon as you need to.

Getting there without effort:

Use a car. Otherwise use these tips to make the crushing pain a bit less.

Roads have camber as do trails. This means hard top roads generally are higher in the middle than at the sides while trails generally are lower in the middle than the sides. If you are walking the side of the road or trail move over every 15 to 30 minutes to the other side and do this from the start and keep on doing it. It sounds insane but the extra half-inch your outside leg has to move compared to the inside leg will cause all sorts of problems if you keep doing it for hours. Ideally walk down the flat middle or the flat outside of all trails and roads. Security issues might make this a bad move so plan it out in advance.

Most trails and roads curve a lot except in Florida! Seriously cut all corners from the beginning if safe to do so. Cut them very gently and about 50-100 yards out from the turn. Over miles this is cutting down the distance you have to walk or run by a decent amount.

Jog/Walk on the flats and the down hills. Walk gently uphill taking extra rests. Focus on the next visible objective not how many miles you need to go. The event is over if you do not make the next tree and if you keep thinking “I’ve got 40 miles of this to go!” you are literally talking yourself into failure.

Pace is a key issue. As I said go slower than you can right from the beginning. Every 5 to 10 minutes alter your pace a bit. Either walk a bit slower or a bit faster. Swing your arms more or less. Do this for a minute and then relax back into your natural pace and rhythm. This pushes back the time your muscles fail due to repetitive strain. If you are in good shape jog a little of safe down hills but not too much as that will cause muscle strain. Put your main faster intervals in on flat terrain (if you have any. If not then whatever passes for “flat”).

Night Owls are a hoot:

If you plan at doing this at night practice it. The world looks very differently at night especially if the grid is down. A decent head lamp is what most people use but I always used a hand flash light. I found I could sweep the trail much easier with the light source in my hand while going forward. Have at least two flashlights with spare easily obtainable if the one in use just switches off.

Most people pushing for 24 hours or more crash at 0300 and revive after sun up. Plan on that. If the terrain is very hard sleep through the hardest hours. But we are all unique and I find that time I am relaxed, awake, and very functional. When the sun comes up I crash badly. I have worked night shifts for decades but the dawn hitting me and myself falling asleep as I walked was unexpected.

Herd Mentality:

Women tend to be better at long distance than men and lighter men better than heavier men. Take this into account if you are in a group. The slower member is at the front or next to the front and never 200 yards behind. They go faster at the front. If the group splits up for any reason the explorers move while the rest stay put spread out along the probable route of return for the explorers but in visual range of each other. If both groups continue to move but at differing paces expect finding each other again to be impossible. I would never recommend splitting up. I have done it in races when our lead pack gets lost (this happens a lot in ultra-marathons!) but it burns time and is risky.

Look after each other. If you are the leader and no one is checking on your mental and physical state you are doing a bad job. Everyone has a buddy and everyone looks after everyone else. People will crash mentally so those who are okay need to be able and willing to take the lead and push the nearly dead.

Geographically brain-dead:

Honestly trails are tough and some people are much netter at reading terrain and maps than others are. Use the good navigators and trust them. One rule is use a paper map and check it at each and every fork in your road no matter how obvious the route seems to be. At night this is a practiced skill so do not move at night unless you have been on the terrain before and have great navigational skills. I have seen runners take the wrong route and literally end up twenty miles off course before they realized it.

Post event issues:

Every muscle will ache for days unless you are fit. The harder you push yourself in terms of early pace the worse this will be. This will get better but to get it gone faster try these tips

  • Keep the pace slow until the hall way mark
  • Do not run all out ever even for short distances
  • Avoid smashing down hills at speed. It sure feels great and I can do it but most people cannot
  • The next day go for a two-hour walk. Seriously this helps

Often after arrival lying in bed or on the floor of a shower is all you can do. Get up, get dry, change those clothes, and get fatty high calorie hot foods into yourself. You will actually not feel hungry at all but once you start eating you won’t stop. Beer is also very helpful afterwards especially heavy stouts.

Conclusion:

I hope this helps with your bug out or return home plans. I would love to see tips from serious cyclists, trail bikers, and triathletes illustrating those secret parts of their sports that preppers could use when hauling ourselves long distances. The main rule I would say is each of us is unique and what worked for me may very well mot work at all for you. Practice makes perfect J

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  Around six years ago I stopped running (got suddenly sick of it) but for the 15 years before that it was basically a part-time job for me. Over that time

Okay, so you don’t want to be the “lone wolf” prepper on your block. You’ve experienced the “strength in numbers” approach working on teams at work or school, and believe making friends, forming alliances before a catastrophic event is preferred. Maybe you’ve read a few of the survivor novels or have seen the movies/series where a prepper group convoys to their bug out destination. The fictional group’s platoon size, weapons with endless ammo, and burning need to escape Anytown USA for the bug out promised land, carry them through the perilous journey and daily human attrition. These stories make for great TV drama, but we can only gain a few practical tips from some of the scenarios presented as we consider the benefits of realistically starting a prepper network.

Could the lack of a connection with a local prepper network be the missing piece to your family’s survival strategy in a regional or global disaster? Do you feel the need to connect with folks in your building, on your block, in your subdivision or in the same township for mutual support? Should your planning even go further, starting an independent civilian militia?

So you’re thinking “Plug into the prepper network here in Anytown or start a small group with like-minded folks.” You believe that the network is all upside… strength in numbers, combined resources, and sharing the security work….in short, more eyes, ears and hands to share the burden. Plugging into the network could significantly increase your family’s survive and thrive capability.

What could go wrong with starting a prepper network?

Think Again! I used to think like this until our town experienced a tornado. My family, neighbors and fellow citizens taught me some key lessons and drastically changed my perspective on starting a prepper network .   I’m not naive or delusional. In a long-term SHTF situation, I’m certain that hungry, armed gangs will visit our half yuppie, half farm community from their city turf literally 15 minutes away. They will be seeking food, firearms, ammunition, fuel, water filtration equipment, better vehicles, cigarettes, liquor and maybe even hostages. No, I don’t plan to “play Alamo” and die in place to defend my family and property. I’ll need to be on an effective team. So, I’m really for being on a team, but for me it’s a question of when to form the team and with whom. Please consider my observations and lessons learned. Take what you can use in your prepping, but please don’t dismiss them as conceptual or fiction.

Perceptions – Prepper vs. Survivalist vs Militia Member.

The US public and news media do not differentiate between the terms Prepper, Survivalist and Militia Member. Will it help your prepping or your survival if all your neighbors perceive your some flavor of extremist?   Joe Six Pack cannot describe the difference between Prepper, Survivalist and Militia Member. Mrs. Six Pack fears all of them for no reason.

In US cities, the media has succeeded. Citizens perceive gun owners as a criminal fringe. Why do they need all those guns when we have the police to protect us? The citizenry actually believe laws will keep criminals from obtaining firearms and the police will protect them.

Militia groups can be a good place to get training with a larger group.

NRA members and anyone dubbed a “gun enthusiast” are considered worse than average gun owners … extremist advocates, on the fringe of society. Who should dare to stand up to the government to retain their rights?   Two of my neighbors have asked how many guns I own. I always provide the standard answer, “just a couple of 22 target pistols.” Family members are forbidden from sharing any firearms or prepper resource information to friends and neighbors. My high school age daughters have learned to tolerate their male classmates bragging about shooting and hunting, remaining silent on their training and our equipment.

Do you want your neighbor’s perceiving you’re a Prepper, Survivalist or Militia Member? Will they treat you, your wife, or your children differently? How is their knowledge of your activities and resources to your advantage?

God, Walmart, and the Nanny State will Not Care for You.

If you’re reading this, you’re probably a prepper open to ideas and improvements, or at least a future prepper with some level of self-actualization. You embrace the unknown or ambiguity, adapt and overcome adversity. You have high awareness of the real world and you get things done. You are the poster child for self-reliant.

Most of our fellow citizens don’t think like us and are not self-reliant. They have bought into the “Somebody Else is Always Responsible” approach to life.

I don’t know about your neighbors, but my neighbors believe the anonymous “They” in the Nanny State (city, county, or state) will actually take care of their safety, water, electricity and natural gas needs in times of crisis. This includes immediately after a tornado erases 600 homes, severely damages 400 more, 25% of a community, including the homes and family homes of the 15 people who run your city. One neighbors wife assured me that “they will get the power restored” when the temperature was headed to 17 degrees that night. Her husband had gone to work, leaving the family, including a physically handicapped son, without power and heat. I offered a connection to my generator set, but was again assured “they will take care of it.”

Our city leaders were so swamped, they couldn’t communicate the changes in No-Go zones due to debris, curfews placed in force, or the homeowner cleanup restrictions the 2 days FEMA conducted their assessment. My neighbors believed the mayor and his crew could handle things. Part of the city’s electric grid was wiped out, but the mayor remarked, “city website, we don’t have time for that, we’re conducting news conferences.” Citizens outside the damage zone started a Facebook page to spread the messages. City leadership was overwhelmed and to be fair nothing could have prepared them for this.

Two of my neighbors referenced God taking care of their future. My BS detector went off recognizing rationalization for inaction. I immediately suggested God had empowered them to take care of themselves and not wait on our city officials. These folks had young children.   I was told things were now in God’s hands and he was guiding our city and county leaders in the recovery. I reminded them that, except in extremely rare cases, God works through man, so they should get moving to obtain water, food and heat for their children, perhaps moving to relatives just outside the city.

Walmart’s & Kroger’s shelves were empty by Day 2. My neighbors somehow think it’s their corporate responsibility to continue to supply them., even when debris prevent the 25 daily tractor-trailer deliveries.   Walmart got lumped in with the proverbial “they” in the Nanny State. Citizens were shocked at how fast the shelves were empty, not just limited selections, literally empty.

Some people will not be willing to work too hard no matter the situation.

Some people will not be willing to work too hard no matter the situation.

Real World Responsibilities.

Before you plug into a prepper network, perhaps you might review you responsibilities in priority order.

Yourself. You are responsible for taking care of yourself (safety, hygiene, health) to avoid becoming a burden on your family.

Immediate Family. If you’re a parent or caring for an elder, you are responsible for them (safety, food, water, hygiene, health). In a SHTF environment, your family responsibility exceeds everything else, including friends, neighbors, colleagues, and fellow citizens. This extends to retrieving relatives to consolidate the family in one location and obtaining resources to sustain your family.

Neighbors & Friends. You should visit and assist neighbors, especially elderly and those with young children. You can assist, but do not deplete your family’s resources to assist. I checked on elderly that had no power, no communications (depleted cell batteries), no vehicle fuel and were heating one room with their propane kitchen oven. They declined to relocate to a relative’s home or a motel. I collected all their batteries, recharged, and returned them, violating the local curfew.

Neighborhood Group. Part of your family safety responsibility could become forming and engaging with a new neighborhood defense group. This needs to be done before security or looting becomes a problem. You should limit the resources you share with the group. You must mentally prepare to defend the neighborhood, relocate within the neighborhood, and/or relocate to consolidate with another neighborhood defense group.

Privacy and OPSEC.

Do we advertise when we earn a raise, buy a new TV, acquire a new gun, or install new carpet? Of course we don’t. So why would we disclose we have resources by joining local prepper groups or recruiting neighbors to form a block safety group? What advantage do you gain by non-family members’ awareness of your resources and plans?

What’s Yours is Mine, Really?

Sharing is Caring right? We believe it won’t happen to us. Wrong. My neighbors believe I should plan, buy, store & maintain emergency resources. They didn’t say this directly. Some joked “Why should I buy it when you have it and we can share it?” Others opined, “We’ve only needed emergency power twice in 10 years, so why should I invest in a generator set? This won’t happen to us again.” The What’s Your is Mine approach gets really dangerous when the crisis is extended and your neighbors believe it applies to food, water, firearms, ammunition and fuel.

Resources – Food, Water, Fuel, Power & Daylight.

Based on our neighbors’ communications and apparent resource levels, we recognized a greater need to remain silent regarding our resources. We turned off all exterior lighting. We perceived the need to have blackout curtains in a long-term crisis to conceal we powered up our home.

      1. Food – Several neighbors expressed concern the day of the tornado because they only had 1-2 days food on-hand. They were concerned with feeding their children. This planning is irresponsible for the middle class economic level my neighbors live at. We don’t understand. My family maintains a minimum of 30 days food in the pantry all year. We have five months of freeze-dried food from various suppliers in storage.
      2. Water – The tornado broke a water main and wiped out the water treatment facilities, both supply and waste treatment. My neighbors had no ability to filter water and local supplies of bottled water were purchased within 4 hours. The neighbors were complaining by the evening of Day 1, and trapped due to the curfew, preventing them from leaving town to search for water. Our teens whined about non-potable water until I explained it’s uses. I reminded them of our stored bottle water, approximately 40 gallons and had them retrieve some from the basement. This brought smiles when they recognized no need to boil water. We then took the time to locate our portable water filtration system. We also talked about obtaining water from our two 40 gallon water heaters and storing water in the home.
      3. Fuel – No local fuel stations had backup power. We had 3 days generator fuel on hand without siphoning from a garden tractor or pickup truck. Siphoning from cars and trucks is difficult with modern cars. Our cars and trucks all head ¾ tank of gas, so we didn’t feel we were at risk. I sent two family members out for more fuel about 3 hours after the event. I failed to brief them properly and arm them. They did not understand how far they needed to travel outside the community to obtain fuel and encountered long lines after trying to obtain fuel at 6 stations. Firearms weren’t needed, but there were arguments at gas stations when customers had many gas cans in their trunks. Trip elapsed time was more than 2 hours. Neighbors did not complain about fuel.
      4. Electricity – Our subdivision of almost 400 homes had only 5 homeowners running generator sets.   I wondered if neighbors asked for shared power, could they provide the fuel to run the generator sets. In a long-term power outage, money collected would be useless unless I could obtain fuel. Most local gas stations do not have backup generators and do not have electrical connections that would allow portable generator connection without an electrician and rewiring. Finding the other 4 generators was easy because they were so loud. We’re using a much quieter Honda 3Kw generator and position it for additional sound suppression. We were able to power our home using only the 3Kw by not using the microwave, dishwasher, washer and dryer.
      5. Daylight – One valuable lesson learned is that temporary electrical re-wiring needs to be completed during daylight because it takes 4x longer in the dark by flashlight. We saved the temporary wiring and can now safely power up in 30 minutes or less.

Today’s Network Won’t Exist on Day 2.

Will the network you plug into pre-crisis, exist during the crisis? More than 40% of our neighbors did not remain in their undamaged homes during this short-term, post-tornado crisis for our subdivision. There were multiple reasons for residency change; 1) Moved in with Family Elsewhere, 2) Bugged out to a Vacation Home; and 3) Didn’t Make It Home from Travel, Stayed Away. What will the percentage of those who remain home be in a longer crisis requiring a common defense team? How hard is activating a prepper network when 50% of the members have relocated? Will members still have the same pre-crisis priorities when the prepper network is activated?

Leadership & Planning.

All family members did not return until 2 ½ hours after the tornado struck. One family member was redirected by police and debris, making a 10 minute ride, 2+ hours. She had to drive out-of-town, around through another community, and then back into town. Family members crossed debris fields and could have become stranded, requiring retrieval by other family members.

Without knowing the extent of the massive damage, the family waited another 1.5 hours to meet informally, prioritize tasks, and execute the hasty plan. In retrospect, we should have met immediately upon all members return and checked on elderly neighbors, deployed to obtain more fuel, setup the generator, and connect wiring during daylight.

Waiting for the family to return, friends and classmates were reporting erased and highly damaged homes in the tornado’s path. I walked into the damage area to assess damage on a family member’s residence and found no damage. We later returned on foot to retrieve a car and clothes. Police advised if we left with the car, she would not be permitted to return. We asked the restriction’s duration and were told duration was unknown.

Cell Networks.

Cell phone networks were overloaded with voice traffic. We reverted to text to communicate with each other. Many family members and friends were calling us from outside the area to check on us. They were seeing TV news coverage of the damage we couldn’t see without power or media. We texted them our status and asked them to stop calling so we could communicate with each other. We preempted some calls by texting our status before being asked and pleading for no calls.

Disaster Tourism.

Our city was inundated with disaster tourists immediately after the tornado. Cars from outside town with 3-5 occupants were everywhere, blocking and clogging traffic. Implementation of No-Go zones with police road blocks reduced this, but left us in long lines to pass the road blocks. We did not expect this and were unprepared.

Make sure you are not.

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Okay, so you don’t want to be the “lone wolf” prepper on your block. You’ve experienced the “strength in numbers” approach working on teams at work or school, and believe

The moments after a crisis or disaster can be incredibly chaotic. In today’s world, we receive near instantaneous feedback from news outlets, images on TV and the internet of destruction and rumors. The fog of any major event like this can leave us confused and in some cases panicked. If you are involved in the actual disaster yourself, you may be injured or scared. When you are faced with this type of scenario most people are usually quick to contact loved ones to discuss what happened and to touch base.

If you are in the middle of an event like this though, that need to touch base might require physically moving to another location. In all of the pandemonium you might need to make your way back home and if your family or group is spread out in multiple locations, it is a good idea to have a rally point that everyone is aware of and knows to go to in the case of an emergency. Having a plan for where everyone will meet after a disaster will ensure that there is no question for your family on what to do and where to go. This is a part of a larger plan on how to Bug Out that we will be talking about over the next weeks.

Multiple Rally Point options may be best recorded on a map.

Multiple Rally Point options may be best recorded on paper.

Traits of a good Rally Point

Easy to find – A good rally point is some place that is easy to find. You probably don’t want your rally point to be that stream 5 miles into the woods in most situations. If your family was faced with an event that caused a wide-spread dispersing of people, you want a place that is familiar and your family can find without having to revert to a map, GPS or anything more than memory.

Offers cover and concealment – If you are displaced from your home; your rally point might have to shelter you for the night. I wouldn’t pick a place like the park bench in central park where we first kissed unless your plan is to meet there and move to someplace more fortified. Your rally point should be a hard structure that you can stay in if needed to wait for the rest of your group.  Cover will give you the added benefit of offering protection from small arms fire. This may not be possible or practical depending on where your family members are, but worth consideration.

Away from lines of drift – In a grid-down scenario you might have heard of the terms lines of drift. This refers to the tendency people have of taking the path of least resistance out of major metropolitan areas. Major highways will be the first route people take until their cars no longer work or there is a major traffic snarl. Then they will start walking and gradually take side roads looking for shelter and refuge. You want your rally point to be away from areas like this to avoid being caught in the trap of too many other desperate people who may view your group or supplies as targets.

Defensible for short periods of time –Ideally, your rally point would be someplace hardened that you could defend if needed. This may be a concrete reinforced building that you could barricade yourself into. I know this makes a rally point location harder to find, but may factor into your considerations depending on your circumstances. It could be a high location on a hill with plenty of cover from rocks or large downed trees. It could be a bunker…

Types of Rally

Initial – In a true bug out scenario, you may have in your survival plan several different rally points at various locations. The initial rally point may be your first location that everyone is supposed to meet at. This could be that park bench, a friend’s house a short distance out of town or a central location in town.

Depending on how far you plan to go you may have other rally points to meet along the route you are planning to make. In situations like this, you may have multiple points based upon the route you might have to take. For instance, one route may be blocked to traffic so you would need to take back roads to your destination. Communicating the route you are taking is going to be crucial so having a method to talk to the other members of your group either by radio or shortwave needs to be considered too.

Objective rally point (ORP) – Your objective rally point may be your retreat location or a neighbor’s home in another state or city. This would be the final destination for all of the members to meet and regroup after a situation that caused everyone to have to leave home in the first place.

Your personal rally point could be as simple as your home. Whenever I am traveling, my family knows that if anything happens, to stay home and I will come to them. If they have to leave for some reason, they will leave a note telling me where they went and I will find them. Having a plan for keeping your family together or reuniting them after a disaster will help you in your preparedness plan.

Identifying which type is best for your family

If you are new to prepping or even if you have been prepping for years, your plans for what to do if we have a major SHTF event may fall into one of two camps. The first camp is going to Hunker down or shelter in place. The second group plans to Bug out to a remote location. If your plan is to Bug Out and your family is not all together, planning a rally point in route to your destination makes perfect sense. On the other side of the coin, if your plan is to Hunker down and shelter in place at your home, but that home is unreachable due to a natural disaster what will you do? It is times like this that a rally point would be wise to plan for.

It may seem to be the biggest hurdle to getting something like this done, but a conversation has to be initiated about topics like this and even more importantly followed through. As parents, in most homes you have a conversation with your child that goes something like this. If there is ever a fire, you get out of the house and meet at the mailbox. That is a simple refrain, it’s easy for kids to understand and visualize and gives them a sense of security that they know what to do if something bad happens. For a major emergency, their house may be just fine and the lines blurred more. If your house is on fire, you know it’s time to go. You easily feel the heat and fear that drives you to get out of the building and move to a location where you are supposed to be.

With something less definite you would need to have gate keeping types of events and a plan for how this works. Most of this rally point idea is focused on a situation where you are unable to communicate with your family. If you are in contact, then meeting is much simpler. However, there may be situations where you will not be able to communicate and your family will need to know what to do if they can’t contact you.  For example:

  1. If all communications are out and you can’t reach me. – Non weather related
  2. If I am out of town and martial law is declared
  3. If travel is stopped – no driving/roads are blocked/ no flights are taking off
  4. If there is a chemical spill nearby – Should have options for different directions – based upon likelihood of this happening.

 

Each families situation is different but identifying the causes that you may be faced with would be step one.

Once you have an idea for what situations would prompt going to your rally point and assuming there are multiple rally points, you would need to determine which Rally point would be used and how long someone should stay there. The last thing you want is for everyone to be showing up at different rally points and then leaving to go to other rally points missing each-other in the process and potentially being in an unsafe situation needlessly. This brings up a good question. Isn’t it better to simply pick one place that you will be safe in and stay there?

In a perfect world, you would be able to say if the SHTF I will be at Aunt Kathy’s. Everyone would be able to get there, knows where it is and it provides a single location that hopefully would already have supplies that you need. If not, you can at least plan to bury caches along the route to your Aunt’s house. Not everyone has a single, remote location they can run to.

On a recent trip my wife and I agreed upon a rally point she would be at if I had to come and find her. She was vacationing with family several hours away and worked out a location. If anything were to happen I was going to get her and if she wasn’t in the location she was supposed to be, she let me know how to find her. Let’s assume for arguments sake the “anything” that went wrong in this hypothetical was the grid going down. Real SHTF time comes to our neck of the woods finally and the world is thrown into complete chaos. In this case, there was a state park nearby. She said she would be 45 minutes’ walk inside the main entrance to the park which happened to be across the street from where she was staying. Knowing about how long it takes her to walk 45 minutes, I could go to that location and reconnect with her. For distances like this it is a plan not without drawbacks, but it does remove one risk that landmarks such as buildings would be destroyed and provided she stayed put for the entire time it took me to find her, this would work.

You can also use the rally point concept if the world hasn’t gone to hell. What if your children are lost at an amusement park or the mall? Identifying a rally point before you start the day will give them a place to go if they are separated. What if you were at a mall and some nut started shooting? With a rally point, your children would know exactly where to go if they could to meet back up with you. It prevents a lot of searching and worry.

I know there are a wide range of other aspects of this concept that I could go into, but for now start planning a rally point for your family. Beginning those discussions can help you all get on the same page so that if a disaster happens, you will know where to go. If you have created your own Rally point, please share what you decided in the comments below.

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The moments after a crisis or disaster can be incredibly chaotic. In today’s world, we receive near instantaneous feedback from news outlets, images on TV and the internet of destruction