With the election coming up, you might be thinking, holy shit we might be in trouble. You are sort of right but also way wrong. We already are in trouble!! Elections have consequences, natural disasters have happened, strikes in local ports on the east coast.
Don’t fear, while we may be in weird times and feels like any time we turn on any media source, it seems like there is a new scary story to remind us how precarious things are. Elections, crime, natural disasters and concerns of civil unrest or the worst case an attack on our soil or another global conflict. Your mind is most likely starting to wander and think to “I am prepared should something happen?”
Then you start to chuckle and as that image of a crazed “prepper” pops up and you start to chuckle and think that you I cannot be that guy / gal. I struggled with that for a long time and kept my plans mostly to myself. After finding so many with a similar mindset, I realized being prepared doesn’t make you touched or weird.
Preparedness is even mentioned in the Bible. Remember, Noah was laughed at when he started building the Ark. No one expected what was once a fool’s errand turned into his safety net. Ben Franklin had a maxim and once said “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” Once we understand that it is very wise to be prepared we can start creating a plan for surviving and perhaps thriving enough to be an asset to your neighbors.
I mention being an asset to neighbors since being prepared does not mean you should dig up the ground, build a bunker and go totally lone wolf. That is a recipe for disaster. By considering those around you including your family, friends and neighbors. This is hopefully the start of a full series of ideas, tips and planning that will help you get started.
By no means, I am the final word or greatest authority, but together, we can learn together, share tips, strategies and gain valuable insight on the skills and tools needed to get better as we move forward in a world that is constantly and threats pop up. While we might not be fighting a zombie horde, there are other events that may pop up and test our abilities. As we move forward, we’ll explore these in great detail. For now, this a primer for things to come and provide some of the basics we need to consider.
Food, Water and Shelter.
We can debate the merits of each which is the most important, but first we need to understand the widely accepted Rule of Three. Those rules are three minutes without air, three hours (in extreme conditions) without shelter, three days without water and three weeks without food.
The hope is you have cleared that we have passed three minutes and still have air. Now that we know we are breathing and alive, remember, survival and preparing means these things need to be addressed in advance.
There is an acronym called PACE when planning. PACE stands for Primary, Alternate, Contingency, Emergency. We’ll cover and discuss these ideals as we go forward. We won’t super deep in the weeds as this meant to start the conversation, not overwhelm you.
Shelter
Hopefully the shelter part is that we might be sheltering in place. That said, we need to make sure you home is safe for your family. Sheltering in place would the primary option.
If it isn’t, then we need to have a alternate plan in place. Those would be things like:
• Other family members home.
• Staying at a hotel
Contingent planning would be things like
• Staying with a neighbor
• Staying in your vehicle
• Camping
Emergency
• Emergency shelter set up by the government
• Bugging Out
Of course, that is the absolutely worst-case and it really has hit the fan. We’ll take more about bugging out later on in the series.
If we can stay in your home safely, that is a huge win. If it is a natural emergency such as an earthquake, turn off your gas line if powered by natural gas / propane. If safe to go outside, do a perimeter check and confirm you are not putting your family in any additional danger.
Remember, since we are preparing, these conversations should happen now. Discussing emergency plans and procedures is just wise. When you are discussing these plans, remember, this is a two-way street. Invite them to consider your home as a safe haven in an emergency event. I have several friends who live in different parts of the state where I reside and we have an agreement that should it get really bad, each of our homes is open to our group. In case of it being the breakdown of society, there is safety in numbers.
Water
Next up is considering your water supply. We most likely take our daily water consumption for granted. I know we all shoot for drinking about a gallon of water on a daily basis, but we also use water for washing our hands, brushing teeth, bathing and cleaning. According to a variety of sources, the average usage is about 300-400 of gallons a day.
Raise your hand if you have you that much water on hand. If you do, you can pry help me write the rest of this post. If not, don’t despair, there is time to grab water. While we may talk much about the proper storage later, the first and cheapest thing to do is start grabbing some gallon jugs of water and store them in cool / dry place and out of direct sunlight. You can rotate them and they are pretty shelf stable and while it might not be the life we are used to, in an emergency every gallon will make a difference.
Now, if we talk about some alternate strategies, there are ay to purify local water as you should never drink untreated water. The risk is not worth and doubly so in an emergency situation. A quick overview of this is Lifestraws, water purification tablets, boiling water.
Food
Now that we have discussed water, the next important thing is food. My local emergency management team has suggested we store about two weeks of food. I have heard other communities / agencies say it should be longer. I agree. My primary plan accounts for a majority of my planning and preparation at this time. Those stores can get my family about eight to ten weeks and if we stretched it out, it could last longer. While that would not be optimal, it would be better than the alternative.
This process of building the food stores has been relatively inexpensively by simply by buying a few extra canned goods, rice and other dry goods. Remember, some of it can be fun. Buy some cereal, candy or other long last shelf stable foods. We are talking about surviving and not about being a bunker and eating beans and hot dogs and being miserable. While that is better than the alternative, there is something unappealing of the latter option.
We also plan to use any items in the fridge / freezer in the first few days and take some precautions to keep them as safe as possible and then preserve what we can or use it to assist others in need. By the beacon of light and hope for others when you can.
Of course, there are alternate plans such as MRE’s, canned survival food and in the emergency / contingency plan would the utilization of foraging and hunting if you are in a rural area and can easily access areas where it is safe to take advantage of nature.
Of course, I left out a lot of the other items such as security, firearms, etc. We’ll go over those items later and some of things we briefly mentioned above in more details and test and review some of the gear and options as we move forward. The idea is to share info and learn from each other and be a community of like-minded individuals.
Feel free to let me know what is your favorite shelf-stable food is. Getting an idea of new foods to add will be fun to hear.
Be safe and get prepared. You won’t regret it.
DCBNLifestyle
