Oversimplification?

Looking back over my life, it seems that all the emergencies that I have encountered have required the same basic preparation:
Water and a means to purify it
Food and a means to prepare it
Shelter from the elements
Sufficient clothing of the proper type
Arms and ammo

Step one is to have enough for 3 days
Step two is to have enough for 2 weeks
After that, have enough for 1 month, 3 months, 6 months, and 1 year.
Just balance your preps. If you like PB & J sandwiches, it's not very good to have 37 jars of jelly and only 3 of peanut butter!

 

I like it.

 

I would have been nice to have @Gray Wolf as my mentor but when I started this journey.

Looking back on my journey is so much different. I was never a sheep but I never considered putting things away for "just in case". Maybe I was too busy to consider that tomorrow will not be as it was today. Since I am a news junkie a few years ago I realized the numbers and the future were not looking so secure, I started looking into putting things away and being prepared. After reading a few books I was overwhelmed and panicked. There was so much that I needed to put aside, learn and be prepared for. I had a well but no idea how to purify water. I had a grill but my little cylinder of propane would only last so long. The panic came from the fact that everything in my world/home was not prepared.

Being overwhelmed, my preparations and learning were all over the place. I bought lots of food, much of which was wasted or made no sense. I bought some cheap gear because I needed this and that but that was also a waste. My learning was hopping from one area to another. Maybe my intro into prepping would have been easier if I had been a member to a site or two that was willing to kindly help a newbie not overwhelm them. The finding of sites that would help simplify the whole process came after wasted food, money, time and lots of anxiety. In the five years that I have been on this journey, I have learned a new way of life. I now look at things differently and I feel confident. My children have a chance should SHTF (learned prepper lingo also) and that is the reason I am doing this.

 

My intro came at an early age, in 1968 s blizzard in the midwest shut down the roads. My brother & I walked home from the High School, our parents walked to the grade school to bring our younger brother and sister home. They didn't get back for a week.
As emergencies go, it wasn't much, we still had electricity and natural gas heating and cooking worked. The rough part was our parents telling us to go stay with a neighbor, and the neighbor was ill prepared to feed two teenagers. After 3 days, we walked to the store for food, 1.8 miles, snow 18" deep where it had not drifted. The shelves were well stocked with soap and toilet paper , but there was not a bit of food to be had. On the way home we found a bread delivery truck stuck in the snow and abandoned, the driver had left the doors open. I don't know if looting is the correct term, but I took a couple of packages of dinner rolls.

I vowed that as an adult, that sort of thing was not going to catch me unprepared.
My brother didn't learn the same lessons I did. When he had to evacuate for Katrina, he waited a little too long, then his family got hungry while on the road. He complained bitterly that there was only 1 restaurant serving food along his route, and all they had left was steak, and it cost him $75 to feed his family one meal! I have 3 days worth of food stored in my vehicle at all times, and had advised him to do likewise more than once.

 

I was a young adult when I discovered and began to develop my secret superpower. You have the same superpower if you choose to develop it yourself. Can you guess what it is?

It's this: You have the ability to turn most emergencies into mere inconveniences! It takes preparation before the emergency.
People on the gulf coast of Texas who wait until the hurricane is in the gulf and headed their direction before going to the store to buy flashlights and batteries are SOL, the stores are sold out.

As a truck driver, just before Christmas one year I found myself stopped by a blizzard in a place where never in my life had I seen a single snowflake, let alone enough snow that traffic came to a halt on the road between Pear Blossom and Victorville in California.
I had the CB radio on, and it wasn't long before I heard another driver complain "I'm eating snow because I don't have any water to drink!" Then another one said "I'm hungry! I wish I could have made it to the truck stop before the road closed!"

I sat in my truck with a case of water, a 12 volt coil to boil the water, I could have hot chocolate, coffee or tea, hot soup, or oatmeal.
I had enough food to last a week. As you can tell, by this time in my life I had my superpower well developed. Emergencies for other drivers had been turned into mere inconvenience for me. BTW, I did offer to share with the other drivers.

 

I'm home from work today with a sore throat that has taken out my voice. It's impossible to teach at a truck driving school when you can't talk! I can't seem to resist posting on this thread, and it doesn't require speech, so maybe some of the new folks here at SM can learn from some of my experiences.

What happens if you must evacuate?

Twice we have needed to evacuate, once for a wildfire, and once for a hurricane. Probably the most important decision to make is this: When do we leave?

I'll tell you. You want to leave the day before everyone else! You have more than a week's warning when a hurricane is heading your way. That's more than enough time to pack your important documents and smaller things into your vehicle, along with some food and water.

About 12 hours before the storm pushes ashore, the preceding storms and flooding often take out the electricity. No electricity = NO ATM. No electricity = NO GASOLINE BEING PUMPED!

We were fortunate to own a large travel trailer, so evacuation meant hooking up to the trailer and leaving. I moved the RV 100 miles inland, then the next morning my responsibilities took me back to town. The roads were clear going into the city, but the evacuation route became a parking lot 40 miles long. Enough vehicles had run out of gas, overheated form idling too long, and broken down to completely stop movement in the outbound lanes. Divided Highways kept those with still running vehicles from finding another route. .

The lessons to be learned from this
LEAVE EARLY:
Always have some cash on hand, and keep at least a half tank of fuel in your vehicle.
It doesn't cost any more to drive on the top half of the tank than it does on the bottom half, and if no fuel is being pumped, you should still be able to reach a safe place.

Now I'm going to take a nap and give someone else a chance to share their wisdom.

 

Actually, you get slightly better gas milage, with the tank kept full, than empty. Less of the tank volume is in a gaseous state, and the slightly heavier weight is offset by the higher mpg. It is not a large savings, but it is there.

 

@Gray Wolf wonderful sharing. I am enjoying your writing. That seems to be the problem with most folks is that they stay until officials tell them to leave. Sort of like being in school, you can't go to the bathroom without permission so I think many folks don't realize they can leave. It never enters their mind until the event is at their doorstep and officials say leave now. It is really quite sad.

Q: not talking hurricanes or forest fires but what signs would be that S has HTF? I have always wondered when to declare this is it, there is no fix.

I have read over and over that 3 days before all he!! breaks loose. After seeing the riot in Baltimore this week, I think those 3 days is optimistic. People have really short fuses and will hit the streets and start destroying within an hour or two of their cards not working.

 

@Motomom34 I'm with you on this .... I honestly dont know signs. Incomeing weather stuff is obvious. But other indications are not.

I keep worrying about Jade Helm the potential for this being the beginning concerns me.

 

We are in uncharted territory. I am reminded of ancient cartographers, when they reached the edge of their knowledge, they would write "Here be dragons" on the map. When the country was in the great depression, and people did not have jobs, they did not form out of control mobs, and were more than willing to work for anything they received. It was a matter of pride, and considered shameful to be a charity case. Now nearly half of the population is on government assistance, and the taxpayers are carrying much too large a burden and most of the folks getting the free stuff have no concept working to support themselves. So it's easy for them to rationalize that they are "owed " whatever they can steal. They resent that they do not have the nice things their parents and grandparents have, not realizing or caring that those things are the result of a lifetime of WORK.
The formula is this:
Resentment + Rationalization = Rash Act (or riot)

For me, the signs will be as follows:
The internet gets shut down
Cell phones quit working

The time frame will differ depending on your location. If you are in the city, look for an event that could trigger a Ferguson, or Baltimore reaction. Then leave before the riot develops. Monitor scanners and short wave radios. If the inner city is being trashed, it's time to leave the suburbs.

The USA is being brought down from within, and the downhill path is getting steeper and more slippery.
At this point, The best advice I can give is prepare as best you can, because when the time comes, you'll have to roll with what you have.

Jade Helm has ugly potential, but there is no point in creating or adding to rumors, we will just have to wait and see what happens next. Here be dragons.

 

I'm well seasoned at evacuations, Boat, Helicopter, Auto.
I once evacuated the Gulf 8 times in one year.
People or rather the unprepared turn into greedy animals in a matter of hours.
Always watch the habitual ones that are late or last minute people, They get real stupid in a real hurry.

 

Always watch the habitual ones that are late or last minute people, They get real stupid in a real hurry.

Good advice from Gator 45/70

 

When the SHTF it will probably be sudden, and shocking. You may see things happen, like air burst EMP weapons, or it may just be our government beginning to move on us. If there is a major power outage in a city or multiple cities, get the heck out of the way of the major egress routes, as that will be the direction of travel of the (damn, cant use the racist term Thugs)...... unfortunate venting victims (ok, that was PC enough. And they will kill you for anything you have that they think they deserve. Hopefully you have researched and found a defensible BO location. Be prepared to help when you can, but never ever ever let anyone know you are well stocked as they will return with others to take it all from you, at your peril. Keep those you help at a distance, and be willing to use deadly force to defend yourself, your family and your hard work. Trust will be something you will have to dole out very sparingly. People will be trying to survive, as unprepared as they will be, and will take your life if you fail to defend yourself. That is my Texan opinion.

 

I think they get stupid because they are so self center they cannot think past their personal inconveniences. During Sandy I followed a bunch on FB and all they did was whine. No batteries, long gas lines, having to buy a generator, on and on these people wanted things fixed in a hurry and they also wanted to be reimbursed for all their expenses.

 

WolfBrother Edited to Specific:

Very good simplification showing what is needed.

From my perspective - you missed one basic item.

6. Prescribed Medications, normally needed OTC medications, and at a minimum a BooBoo treatment 1st aid kit.



Begin thread Hijack
short version - I am WolfBrother because a friend's dog Wolf wound up greeting me like a long lost brother. By the end of the day Wolfs Brother had been shortened to WolfBrother
How did you pick up Gray Wolf?
End thread Hijack.

 

I lived for a long time on a dirt road called Gray Wolf Lane, and it seemed appropriate to me to have it as a user name.
BTW, good call on medicines and first aid kit.

 

I had family on both sides during the Second World War, Dad's family was in the US, with the exception of my maternal grandmother, the rest of her family were in Germany. Some folks here may take some lessons from what the German side of the family lived through in the immediate aftermath of the war.

I remember my mother telling me that as a child her family saved bacon grease and sent it to the family in Germany. My thoughts at the time were "Who saves bacon grease?". Many years later, I had a chance to talk with my Great Aunt Charlotte, and her friend Karl about how people got through the hard times.

Karl told me "There was no industry, men formed work parties and went into the forest to cut trees for fuel."
From my Aunt Charlotte, I learned about the black market trading. Honey was worth 5 times more than sugar. If you had cooking oil, you could trade for anything. That was when I finally understood about the bacon grease! Her husband, my Uncle Henry, was in the German army. He was fluent in French and English as well as his native German languages. He got a job translating for the British, and took his pay in coffee, which he then traded on the black market!

When the time came to jump start the economy, there was no banking system, no records of who had what money in the bank.
They started everyone off with x number of German Marks. I questioned my aunt about this, and learned that it was about the cost to rent a decent apartment for two months.
Sometime before I was born, my aunt and uncle made it to the US, were proud to become citizens, and raised a son who served in the US army, But that is another story.

 

Motomom said she started reading books. That is a good place to start for anything! Go to the local library and see what they have. Then look up books on the 'net and get them through the interlibrary loan system which is a low cost or free way to get books from other libraries. Of course there are a HUGE number of books that are trash, Don Black and Duncan Long (Duncan is "Long on BS, short on facts" as one book reviewer put it, and exactly true!) spring to mind. Many of the "survivalist" books are simply military manuals with writing/lines/arrows on the photos to make them "new" or have a few pages added (BUSHCRAFT the english book is one. I bought it and went "I've read this before! I know that photo!" Sure enough, they were 96% British mil manuals that I already had). MOST of the weird book sellers (Paladin, Loompanics - now out of business, Delta/Desert, etc.) are selling junk. About 10% are actually worth adding to your shelf and another 10% are worth reading but not buying (library). Skyhorse Publ. is about the same, MOST is trash but then you run into that rare gem that is worth buying. ANYTHING by Kurt Saxon (now in a nursing home) is worth buying/reading/watching.

Unfortunately everyone is jumping on the survivalist bandwagon (again) so there is a huge amount of trash out there. Harris Publ. puts out most of the junk in the mag market. Of course the newbe buys them because they don't know a lot and it is all new and they learn something here, even if it is only how to pour water out of a boot because the instructions are printed on the heel. All I ever learned from New Pioneer, Modern Mountainman, "new" ASG, etc. is that 97% of the mag is adverts! Either openly adverts or ads made to look like "articles" with no knowledge shown or the item being used. If there is a subject they run you are interested in go to the library and look it up! Chances are VERY good you will find the book they got it out of!

Survivalist Mag (survivalist.com) and the now out of print INDEPENDENT AMERICAN are worth reading. Survivalist has a offer to let you buy a mag for S&H ($2.50) and check it out (or Barnes and Noble). They started horribly, after four/five issues to decent writers who knew what they were talking about and got 100% better each issue for four/five issues, then went to "theme issues" (the one about the Amish, which I live "around", nearly killed it for me! HORRIBLE issue!) but finally got the good writers back and are getting better and better every issue. Highly recommended.

The INDEPENDENT AMERICAN ONLINE MAG was EXCELLENT! If they wrote it up they went and did! Then reported what happened, good AND bad! If it didn't work, they reported that too! Who did THAT?! Needless to say they only lasted four or five or six years (can't remember and it was years ago). They then tried a print mag but that only lasted a year or two. They sell a CD of all back issues (yes I have it somewhere here,... or used to!) for $25.00 and worth every penny. Northwoods Traders, POB 21, Fernwood, ID 82820 (have to check the zip, not sure now). They prefer you send a MO/POMO to buy.

Other mags would include Countryside and Small Stock Journal (the family got bought out so it is not exactly what it was, but still VG), Backwoods Home (Duffy is a commie/lib, which he mentions every so often, but figured it was easier to get money from the people who work than his lib/tard buddies. Mostly Libertarian writers who are excellent! I HIGHLY recommend the CD of all issue and the print anthologies), Field and Stream (like better than Outdoor Life), Outdoor Life (which also puts out F&S), BACKWOODSMAN (excellent 18th-19th century how to. The Big Foot stuff gets on my nerves and Charlie had a editorial about how preppers/survivalists are all nuts and flakes, but he will now run MORE bigfoot stuff no matter what the readers like!). Most of these should be available at B&N too. I am not a fan of B&N, but they are the only book/mag store left here that is worth going to outside of the WallyWorld rack.

Mother Earth News is a lib/tard shadow of what it used to be. The mag sucks but I HIGHLY recommend the CD of all back issues! WELL worth having! The old ones were great!

Prepper and Shooter Mag has three issues out over the last couple years (check Barnes and Noble).

GRIT and the other mag they put out. Used to love them as a kid, but a couple years ago I got a sub and went "Who cares?"

To spread the word, get your local library to buy the good survival books/mags!