Aesop knew the value of preparation…

In a field one summer’s day a Grasshopper was hopping about, chirping and singing to its heart’s content. An Ant passed by, bearing along with great toil an ear of corn he was taking to the nest. 

     “Why not come and chat with me,” said the Grasshopper, “instead of toiling and moiling in that way?”

     “I am helping to lay up food for the winter,” said the Ant, “and recommend you to do the same.”

     “Why bother about winter?” said the Grasshopper; “We have got plenty of food at present.” But the Ant went on its way and continued its toil.

     When the winter came the Grasshopper had no food and found itself dying of hunger – while it saw the ants distributing every day corn and grain from the stores they had collected in the summer. Then the Grasshopper knew: It is best to prepare for days of need.

The rock band The Clash was one of the earliest voices of the survival/preparation movement with their hit song Should I Stay or Should I Go …

This is still a critical decision that needs to be made in the early stages of any disaster/crisis.

Depending on the emergency, a decision needs to be made whether to stay in the house (which I have termed “bugging in”) or to evacuate (known as “bugging out” or “Getting out of Dodge”).

This decision will be made taking into consideration the nature of the emergency.

First, if the danger is local such as wildfires or a hurricane, or a nearby terrorist attack then it may be the best decision to evacuate.  In this case, take your 72 Hour Emergency Kit(s), get your emergency cash and any valuables that you wish to bring with you, load up the family and pets, get in one or more of your vehicles (that are at least 3/4 full of gas due to prior planning),  and get moving away from the situation. 

If the roads are jammed by other evacuees, being exposed on the road could be more dangerous than staying home so factor this into your decision.

Other conditions might make it the safer option to remain in your home and ride out the emergency. In this case, you have your 72 hour kits as well as all of your other emergency supplies and should be able to ride out a fairly long term event.  It could be important to make yourself as invisible to the outside as possible if the situation involves looting by unprepared criminals.  We will discuss home defense at a later time but if you are in an urban area just realize that most people do not have many supplies and it could get crazy pretty quickly.  You don’t want to be a target and you don’t want to be undefended.

In a major regional emergency, it is likely that the phone system could become overloaded or stop working altogether.  Same for the Internet.  In these cases, text messages might be still functioning so everyone should know how to use text messages or SMS.

It is very important to have an agreed upon “out of state contact” that everyone in your family knows the phone number for.  If you are split up and an emergency happens, everyone can call this person to let them know their status and to learn each others status.

You should also pre-arrange a location within a mile of your house as a Neighborhood Meeting point, and also a location 50-100 miles away as a Regional Meeting point in case your adult family members are separated when disaster strikes and you need to know where to reconnect if there are no working communications.

Today, a new book is being released by one of the major figures in the modern survival and emergency preparedness community, James Wesley Rawles…

He is very readable and this book addresses many of the issues that I talk about in this buggingin.com blog…

Jam-packed chapters include:

How to Survive the End of the World as We Know It is a must-have for every well-prepared family. Help move this book to #1 by buying today… And you might want to get his novel Patriots: A Novel of Survival in the Coming Collapse
at the same time…

11am UPDATE: This book just hit #4 on Amazon’s overall list as of 11am this morning…

You can’t eat gold.

When it comes to survival, you need to have access to shelter, water, and food first.  And a way to defend what you have.

Having gold and silver saved to barter for necessary items WILL NOT do you much good in a natural disaster or in the early days of a financial panic, or terrorist attack.  You need to be able to survive on what you have available.

Gold is a fine way to store some of your wealth, but…

“Before you buy gold, buy what you’ll need the gold for.”

Calling McGyver… (I loved that show)

If you are ever trying to improvise something or make it work right, there are two solutions:

“All of life’s problems can be solved with two things—duct tape and WD40.

If it moves and it shouldn’t, you need duct tape.

And if it doesn’t move and it should, you need WD40.”

—Unknown

“Bubble gum and baling wire” used to have to do the tasks that we now use Duct Tape for.  Incredible progress…

Do you have 5-6 rolls of duct tape and a couple of cans of WD-40?  Add them to your Home Depot shopping list and get with the times…

Rob

A few acronyms that you hear in the survival community that you might run across:

WTSHTF – When the Sh** Hits The Fan

This describes a cataclysmic financial, natural, or terorist action that rips the fabric of “normal” society and everything changes.  The assumption is that a period of anarchy (primarily lack of law enforcement) will result for some period.  Looting after Katrina is a simple example of this state.

TEOTWAWKI – The End Of The World As We Know It

This is self explanatory.  It is speculated that there are some situations that could be irreversible and many of the things that we take for granted might take extremely long to return to “normal”.

I am not stating these terms to be alarmist, just so that you will know what these terms are if you come across them…

 
Today, pay special attention to all the times you use a telephone (land-line or Wireless) and the Internet.  Imagine also that your TV is off and your radio quit working, If you have a battery operated radio then you might be able to RECEIVE some communications that way, but this is it.

You might also have no mail service.  In such a case, it is advantageous if you know some of your neighbors (who are hopefully also prepared) and you can communicate with them using small personal family radios.  CD radios are also potentially a good way to communicate but you wan to be careful not to attract unprepared people to your location so they can take your supplies.

How would you cope with being cut off from the outside world?

How long would you be able to comfortably survive if the stores and gas stations were all closed? You need to have enough food to live comfortably for AT LEAST one month (I will try to convince you that an even longer term supply is a good idea but we have to start somewhere).

Food and water are two main issues and we discuss them at length elsewhere on this site.  But there are many other things we buy at stores. (Keep track of everything you vuy outside the house for a week or month if you aren’t convinced).

Gas supplies can be disrupted by weather far away as well as world events. And once a “Run” starts on gas, the lines get long quickly and the pumps run dry. If you need gas to evacuate you could be out of luck. It is a good habit to keep your vehicles fairly full of gas at all times in case of a sudden emergency.  I try to keep my tanks at least 3/4 full unless I am travelling a very long distance in the same day in shich case I refill at 1/4 tank.  Overnight I try to always have at least 3/4 full.

In addition, it is a smart idea to have a tank of gas stored outside at your home in 6 gallon gas cans (the red plastic kind).  Gas can keep for about a year without adding stabilizers so just be sure to use your “spare gas” every 6 months or so and refill the containers.  You chould have enough to fill the tanks of each of your vehicles one time.

In a major disaster you might be on your own for a long while.  And there might not be any emergency services (police, fire, medical) available to you.  You need to strive for self-sufficiency in this situation.  And the only way to be able to do this is to plan ahead to have everything you need.

Today, as you go about your daily routines pay special attention to all the times that you use the following: electricity, natural gas and tap water…

Imagine that they all stopped working at the same time…

How would that impact your life?  There are many situations where these utilities could be cut-off for an indefinite period of time– Natural disasters, terrorist attacks, electrical grid failure, financial panic, etc.

You should have plans in place to live for AT LEAST a month without any utilities at any time of the year (very hot to freezing cold depending on where you live).

Electricity and gas is used for heating/cooling (shelter), cooking, hygiene (hot water), lighting, communications (tv, radio, Internet), security, powering tools, entertainment and many other things.

You need to have alternatives in case of an emergency.  This could be a generator to run a portion of your electrical needs, along with plenty of fuel to power the generator.  It could be propane camp stoves and grills and plenty of propane tanks for cooking.  It could be a wood-burning stove and plenty of wood to keep you warm. It could be a lot of blankets and cold weather sleeping bags and space blankets as well.  For light, you might stock lanterns that run on kerosene or White gas.  Or flashlights and lots of batteries. Or decent emergency candles that last a while.  And you do have plenty of matches, and lighters and maybe even spare cans of butane to refill them…

In the case of water, you can’t survuve more than about three days without it.  The average person needs about a gallon a day including cooking and cleaning needs.  So, for each person in your family you need 30 gallons to make it a month.  Bottled eater is one way to store water for a long time and it is relatively portable (and heavy) if you need to evacuate.

Think about it, would you be able to survive OK without utilities? for a week? for a month?

Most people who have read any financial planning books or magazine articles are familiar with the idea of an Emergency Fund.

An emergency fund is where you accumulate an amount of money in your bank account so that if you face a sudden job loss, short-term disability or other financial catastrophe, you will have the money to tide you over until you are back on your feet.

The recommended size of the fund is to start with at least one months living expenses, and increase that as quickly as possible to 6 months… and keep it in a fairly accessible place (not locked up in a 10 year CD for example)…

It is a good idea to have savings to self-insure against “normal” personal financial crises, but this is not enough.  An emergency fund doesn’t protect you from a loss of electricity, grocery stores shut down, and potentially hungry looters…

In the next few posts, we’ll discuss this further…