The Preparedness and Survival Site

This is a project that I came up with due to some tomatoes on the front porch that still need to be planted, the question was “where to plant them”. This is the solution that I found with about of 15 minutes of planning and three hours of work from start to finish (this includes the engineering nightmares that you will be spared if you decide to build one of these raised beds on your own).

A raised bed planter like this is at home in the front yard or the back and the the architectural style should bend in well with just about any surroundings. The cousin to this planter that we have on the property has been a consistent producer of lettuce, cabbage, chives, rosemary and oregano over the years that we have used it.

First off, the almost finished product:

I can’t give you an estimate on the cost involved if you were to purchase the lumber at the Home Depot or similar store, this one cost me a little over $15.00 using a bandsaw mill to make the lumber from a tree felled on my property (curtosey of my friend and neighbor, cost inlcludes a damaged band saw blade due to human error).

The construction is pretty straight forward once you have the materials cut to the right size, here is the build list for the raised bed shown above.

• 2″X6″ - 6 @ 8′
• 2′X6″ – 6 @ 3’6″
• 4″X6″ – 4 @ 6’6″
• 4″X6″ – 2 @ 3’6″
• 2″X6″ – 2 @ 10′
• Lots of 3″ sheet rock screws!

I’ll need to make sure to adequately emphasize enough sheet rock screws, I used up a whole box of them and still was short!

Layout is fairly easy. On a flat area, lay out the two upright supports on the ground (4″X6″ @ 6’6″), then place one of the bottom boards across the top and bottom of the upright supports. The photo shows the assembly details for the most part.

Measure the diagonal (corner to corner) on all four corners, if the measurement match, its square. If not, adjust until they are.

Once the front/back is sqare, screw the bottom panels to the uprights.

After the bottom panels are in place, the overhead stringer can be placed and screwed down (2″X6″ @ 10′). For the bevels on the ends, I measured 2″ from the top and cut a 45 degree angle. Measure 1′ from each end and mark it accordingly with a pencil, when laid on what will become the top of the raised bed, the marks will line up with the outside of the upright supports and the top flush with the uprights.

Repeat the process for the other front/back section.

Once both the front and back are assembled, the sides can be screwed into either the front or the back. Lift the other completed section on top, and secure.

Note: for the joints on the 4″X6″ overheads, I countersunk the attachment points for the screws a little over 2″

Once assembled, tilt upright and you are in business (with a little leveling to ensure it sits properly).

Using untreated lumber, as I have, a good coat of paint of sealant goes a long ways towards the longevity of the raised bed.

Hope you found this useful.

More scary information is coming to light in regards to the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill that is taking place in the Gulf of Mexico.

In a nutshell, all the efforts to stop the hemorrhage of oil into the Gulf of Mexico are failing, BP knows this, and they also seem to know that there may be much larger problems afoot than they are admitting.

Let’s start with the “Top Kill” effort, pumping the well full of drilling mud to seal the well.

It didn’t work, but it did create evidence of what is really happening. First of all the method used in this particular top kill made no sense, did not follow the standard operating procedure used to kill many other wells and in fact for the most part was completely contrary to the procedure which would have given it any real chance of working.

When a well is “Killed” using this method heavy drill fluid “Mud” is pumped at high volume and pressure into a leaking well. The leaks are “behind” the point of access where the mud is fired in, in this case the “choke and Kill lines” which are at the very bottom of the BOP (Blow Out Preventer) The heavy fluid gathers in the “behind” portion of the leaking well assembly, while some will leak out, it very quickly overtakes the flow of oil and only the heavier mud will leak out. Once that “solid” flow of mud is established at the leak “behind” the well, the mud pumps increase pressure and begin to overtake the pressure of the oil deposit. The mud is established in a solid column that is driven downward by the now stronger pumps. The heavy mud will create a solid column that is so heavy that the oil deposit can no longer push it up, shut off the pumps…the well is killed…it can no longer flow.

Usually this will happen fairly quickly, in fact for it to work at all…it must happen quickly. There is no “trickle some mud in” because that is not how a top kill works. The flowing oil will just flush out the trickle and a solid column will never be established. Yet what we were told was “It will take days to know whether it
worked”….”Top kill might take 48 hours to complete”…the only way it could take days is if BP intended to do some “test fires” to test integrity of the entire system. The actual “kill” can only take hours by nature because it must happen fairly rapidly. It also increases strain on the “behind” portion and in this instance we all know that what remained was fragile at best.

Early that afternoon we saw a massive flow burst out of the riser “plume” area. This was the first test fire of high pressure mud injection. Later on same day we saw a greatly increased flow out of the kink leaks, this was mostly mud at that time as the kill mud is tanish color due to the high amount of Barite which is added to it to weight it and Barite is a white powder.

We later learned the pumping was shut down at midnight, we weren’t told about that until almost 16 hours later, but by then…I’m sure BP had learned the worst. The mud they were pumping in was not only leaking out the “behind” leaks…it was leaking out of someplace forward…and since they were not even near being able to pump mud into the deposit itself, because the well would be dead long before…and the oil was still coming up, there could only be one conclusion…the wells casings were ruptured and it was leaking “down hole”

Umm, Houston, we have a problem..

So why did it take BP so long to acknowledge the failure? Could it be that they already know that there are much larger issues at hand? What next? Lets see:

A down hole leak is dangerous and damaging for several reasons.
There will be erosion throughout the entire beat up, beat on and beat down remainder of the “system” including that inaccessible leak. The same erosion I spoke about in the first post is still present and has never stopped, cannot be stopped, is impossible to stop and will always be present in and acting on anything that is left which has crude oil “Product” rushing through it. There are abrasives still present, swirling flow will create hot spots of wear and this erosion is relentless and will always be present until eventually it wears away enough material to break it’s way out. It will slowly eat the bop away especially at the now pinched off riser head and it will flow more and more. Perhaps BP can outrun or keep up with that out flow with various suckage methods for a period of time, but eventually the well will win that race, just how long that race will be?…no one really knows….However now?…there are other problems that a down hole leak will and must produce that will compound this already bad situation.

This down hole leak will undermine the foundation of the seabed in and around the well area. It also weakens the only thing holding up the massive Blow Out Preventer’s immense bulk of 450 tons. In fact?…we are beginning to the results of the well’s total integrity beginning to fail due to the undermining being caused by the leaking well bore.

The first layer of the sea floor in the gulf is mostly lose material of sand and silt. It doesn’t hold up anything and isn’t meant to, what holds the entire subsea system of the Bop in place is the well itself. The very large steel connectors of the initial well head “spud” stabbed in to the sea floor. The Bop literally sits on top of the pipe and never touches the sea bed, it wouldn’t do anything in way of support if it did. After several tens of feet the seabed does begin to support the well connection laterally (side to side) you couldn’t put a 450 ton piece of machinery on top of a 100′ tall pipe “in the air” and subject it to the side loads caused by the ocean currents and expect it not to bend over…unless that pipe was very much larger than the machine itself, which you all can see it is not. The well’s piping in comparison is actually very much smaller than the Blow Out Preventer and strong as it may be, it relies on some support from the seabed to function and not literally fall over…and it is now showing signs of doing just that….falling over.

If you have been watching the live feed cams you may have noticed that some of the ROVs are using an inclinometer…and inclinometer is an instrument that measures “Incline” or tilt. The BOP is not supposed to be tilting…and after the riser clip off operation it has begun to…

This is not the only problem that occurs due to erosion of the outer area of the well casings. The way a well casing assembly functions it that it is an assembly of different sized “tubes” that decrease in size as they go down. These tubes have a connection to each other that is not unlike a click or snap together locking action. After a certain length is assembled they are cemented around the ouside to the earth that the more rough drill hole is bored through in the well making process. A very well put together and simply explained process of “How to drill a deep water oil well” is available here:
http://www.treesfullofmoney.com/?p=1610

The well bore casings rely on the support that is created by the cementing phase of well construction. Just like if you have many hands holding a pipe up you could put some weight on the top and the many hands could hold the pipe and the weight on top easily…but if there were no hands gripping and holding the pipe?…all the weight must be held up by the pipe alone. The series of connections between the sections of casings are not designed to hold up the immense weight of the BOP without all the “hands” that the cementing provides and they will eventually buckle and fail when stressed beyond their design limits.

These are clear and present dangers to the battered subsea safety structure (bop and lmrp) which is the only loose cork on this well we have left. The immediate (first 1,000 feet) of well structure that remains is now also undoubtedly compromised. However…..as bad as that is?…it is far from the only possible problems with this very problematic well. There were ongoing troubles with the entire process during the drilling of this well. There were also many comprises made by BP IMO which may have resulted in an overall weakened structure of the entire well system all the way to the bottom plug which is over 12,000 feet deep. Problems with the cementing procedure which was done by Haliburton and was deemed as “was against our best practices.” by a Haliburton employee on April 1st weeks before the well blew out. There is much more and I won’t go into detail right now concerning the lower end of the well and the troubles encountered during the whole creation of this well and earlier “Well control” situations that were revieled in various internal BP e-mails. I will add several links to those documents and quotes from them below and for now, address the issues concerning the upper portion of the well and the region of the sea floor.

The ramifications of this can be spectacular. If this whole thing leads to a “bleed out” of the entire deposit that was tapped, it will be a catastrophe the likes of which that has never been witnessed by human kind. The oil deposit is thought to contain approximately 1.5 BILLION barrels of crude oil, this makes the amount that has spewed out in the gulf thus far only a drop in the bucket. At this point the estimate is that approx 39 million gallons have leaked into the gulf, if the entire deposit bleeds out the 1.5 BILLION barrels, at 55 gallons per barrel, it could be up to 82.5 BILLION gallons of oil!

More chilling words from the author of the article that these excerpts were taken from:

Over the next 2 months the mechanical situation also cannot improve, it can only get worse, getting better is an impossibility. While they may make some gains on collecting the leaked oil, the structural situation cannot heal itself. It will continue to erode and flow out more oil and eventually the inevitable collapse which cannot be stopped will happen. It is only a simple matter of who can “get there first”…us or the well.

We can only hope the race against that eventuality is one we can win, but my assessment I am sad to say is that we will not.

The system will collapse or fail substantially before we reach the finish line ahead of the well and the worst is yet to come.

Sorry to bring you that news, I know it is grim, but that is the way I see it….I sincerely hope I am wrong.

We need to prepare for the possibility of this blow out sending more oil into the gulf per week then what we already have now, because that is what a collapse of the system will cause. All the collection efforts that have captured oil will be erased in short order. The magnitude of this disaster will increase exponentially by the time we can do anything to halt it and our odds of actually even being able to halt it will go down.

The magnitude and impact of this disaster will eclipse anything we have known in our life times if the worst or even near worst happens…

We are seeing the puny forces of man vs the awesome forces of nature.
We are going to need some luck and a lot of effort to win…
and if nature decides we ought to lose, we will….

Another article confirms that oil and gas have been spotted escaping crack in the seafloor in the area of the well, this is in line with what the author has stated:

Over Two weeks after it was widely reported by those watching the BP live oil leak cam that a series of  explosions may have Gulf of Mexico sea floor to collapse the Government is now investigating those reports.

I first reported here that a series of those explosion of oil and debris continued and caused topkill to fail although there was no immediate mention of the event in the media, until now.

Last night on Countdown Keith Olberman said their is now evidence that an underground blowout may be happening causing oil to seep out of BP’s leaking well through in various places on the ocean floor.

If this continues to go as badly as it has been already, this can end up being the worst ecological disaster that man has ever unleashed on this planet, the results of which have the probability to impact many facets of our lives for decades or longer.

Source 1: http://www.theoildrum.com/node/6593#comment-648967

Source 2: http://blog.alexanderhiggins.com/2010/06/09/gulf-oil-spill-sea-floor-collapse-seabed-leaks-prevent-bp-capping-2/

The final part of the Preparedness on a Shoestring Series by forum member Cutter.

This will be the last of the shoestring series. Unfortunately, anything beyond the 30 day store just can’t be done on a shoestring in anything short of a lifetime. One idea still applies. No matter what your goal or how big it is, staying on target and working toward it a little at a time will get you there.

As you go forward into preparing for “come what may”, you will have to make some very difficult choices. The wise and frugal prepper will always look for a way to make one resource satisfy multiple demands. Flexibility will save you money and lighten your load. It will reduce your need for storage space It will make your inventories smaller and your life easier.

On the other hand, in some things more money and work will often make a limited use plan a more flexible one. For instance, a root cellar makes for good storage space and functions well as a tornado shelter. Spend the money and effort to sink it a little deeper. Upgrade it for longer term occupation. Strengthen it to withstand fallout or even nuclear blast, and you have made your root cellar into a nuclear bomb shelter. Your bug out vehicle is the same way. For a higher price, you can go from marginal transportation to a vehicle that has a good chance to get you and your supplies through.

For better or worse, at this point in your prepping, your mind and good judgment will serve you much better than your checkbook. One thing is certain, the change in mindset will drastically change how you look at life and its problems. The knowledge you gain will make you infinitely better able to face life’s problems and overcome them. This holds as true in normal times as it does the worst imaginable catastrophes. If you stick with it, you can’t help but better yourself and be better off for your prepping efforts. Now that is worth something.

I wish you all the best of luck in your prepping and the greatest of joy in the doing.

Staff Note: Cutter, Thank You for the time and effort that you put forth preparing this series!

Another installment of an ongoing series by forum member Cutter.

Natural disasters are a mixture of the common and the area specific.  For instance, thunderstorms and high winds happen all over the continental US and even most of the Earth.  On the other hand, we generally don’t have to worry about blizzards dumping 2 feet of snow in the Arizona desert and Florida or 140 degree heat in Alaska or Maine.

All natural disasters have a few stock requirements.  Food, water, and shelter are universal needs.  Other concerns are more threat specific.

The nature of the disaster will dictate a few things about your shelter, how you store your food and water, and what other considerations you will need to address.  Flooding will mean a need to stay above the water line.  Whether that means getting out of the water’s way or literally staying on top of it (floating) depends upon your needs, abilities, and plans.  How you will stay safe and likewise keep your resources safe and useful to you is what you must decide.  You can bet that in a flooding situation, public utilities will be spotty and sporadic at best and will probably not be functioning where you are.

Extreme cold and snow requires you to have a reliable means to stay warm.  Snow could also bring the additional concern of its weight damaging your shelter as it accumulates.  Both conditions will limit travel and will be hard on equipment.  Engines might not start.  Exhaust systems for both engines and things like furnaces and fireplaces might become blocked and cause a dangerous buildup of deadly gasses.  Traveling in a blizzard is a great way to become hopelessly lost really fast.  If you don’t have the warning or ability to get out of the way, staying put is your best bet.  With that in mind, your priority is to provide enough supplies and means to stay warm to outlast the storm.

Hurricanes and tornados have a great deal in common.  There are also some significant differences.  They both bring a lot of high wind and rain.  They both cause atrocious damage.  The differences are that hurricanes cause a ton of damage and do it a lot longer and over a much larger area than tornados and also tend to bring massive flooding with them.  Having miraculously lived through no fewer than 5 tornados without injury, I can safely say that I would choose to go through 10 more than to face a hurricane head on.  Given the choice, I would rather avoid seeing either up close for the rest of my days.

Shelter in these disasters is your first, highest priority.  Better to get out of the way altogether if you can.  As we have seen in the past, timely help from the authorities is far from assured and may not be the kind of help you want or need.  The greatest concern here is the time involved.  You must have sufficient, usable resources to hold out until real help arrives.  In tornados, that may be a few hours to a couple of days.  In a hurricane, the time scale may be days to weeks.  Also bear in mind that you are not going to be the only one in a bind.  Others will have a need for the same resources that you do but may not have prepared as you have.  The longer the situation goes on, the more desperate the unprepared and insufficiently prepared will become.  As I have said many times, desperation, while not pretty, can motivate a person to do great and terrible things.  Bear it in mind.

I am sorry and glad to say that I have little to no experience with things like mudslides, volcanoes, and earthquakes.   The best advice I can give is to get out of the way of the hazards if you can.  These, like other area specific threats, are best prepared for with the advice of those who live in the areas where they are most likely to occur.

Good luck and happy prepping.

Another installment of the Preparing on a Shoestring Series from forum member Cutter.

Note: part 16 became part 9B (Firearms Safety).

Loss of municipal utilities and services is a good place to start when making threat specific plans.  Not only can these things fail on their own, their failure is often a by-product of other survival situations.

WATER
We will take water first.  Continuity of water supplies, whether municipal or well supplied, depend on 3 things.  For you to have running water available, there must be a supply of water, there must be electricity to pump that water, and the water must be kept above 32 degrees.  If any of these 3 requirements are not met, your water will not flow.

There isn’t much you can do about the water system outside of your own property line.  The water company takes a dim view of anyone else doing anything to their system.  Inside your property line is another matter entirely.  Whether your water comes from a water company or a well, make sure the supply lines are buried below the frost line from the source (well or water meter).  This is the depth where water will freeze.  Below it, your water lines are safe.  Above it, your lines could freeze.  Check your local building codes to find out the frost line for your area. 

Inside and under any buildings with water service on your property, insulate the water lines.  If you are building new or have cause to open up walls, insulate the lines in them, even if they are in inside walls.  This will have the bonus of keeping water in the hot water lines warmer for longer.  You get hot water at the tap faster and your water heater doesn’t have to work so hard.

There is nothing you can do about supply.  If the well or municipal source is dry, you are going to have to depend on stored water, rain water, and any alternative source you can find.  I actually have agreements with one person on well water and one on a separate municipality’s water system to provide water to me and for me to provide water to them if needed.  Between them and rain/snow, I should be able to procure enough water to manage.  I have the capability to transport a couple hundred gallons of water at one time if need be.  My plan utilizes my pickup, a tarp, and a few pieces of  plywood for baffles to prevent too much sloshing of the water while driving.  Losing water isn’t the primary concern for the baffles.  If that much water gets moving, it can cause you to have an accident.

If you are on city water, power is beyond your ability to prepare for.  If you are on well water or a cistern, make sure you can power your pump by an alternative power source.  A spare pump in stock probably wouldn’t hurt either.

ELECTRICITY
People lived without electricity for thousands of years.  The Amish still do it.  Still, electrical power makes life much easier.  To this end, an alternative power source that will allow you to at least have a few lights, your furnace blower, and a TV or computer (or both) is a good idea.  That said, you can buy a lot of candles, batteries and flashlights, a good kerosene heater, and a propane fired camp stove for the money you will spend on generator big enough to do the same job.  They also last longer on less fuel than running a genny 24/7.  They make less noise, are more secure from theft, and draw much less unwanted attention than a running generator.  Even if you have a genny, alternative heating and lighting will extend the fuel supplies of the generator and draw less attention.  It is always good to have multiple options.

SANITATION
Septic systems with a tank and pit or lateral lines are essentially immune from most disasters.  Floods are the only real threat to them.  Municipal sewage systems are susceptible to flood problems and loss of power.  All conventional sewage and wastewater disposal systems are dependant on water.  Funny how too much or too little water can shut a waste disposal system down, isn’t it?  If your sewage system is compromised, you must find alternate means to “do your business”.  This includes laundry, dishwashing, and bathing as well as going to the bathroom.  Truthfully, bath water and laundry water can be safely poured out on the ground in an emergency situation.  Dishwater and human waste must be handled with more care.   In cases of extremis, these can be buried safely.  A word of caution, remember where you buried it.  Now you can bury it deep where you will not be likely to ever be exposed to it again, or you can bury it shallow so that natural organisms in the soil can break it down.  If it were me, I think I would go deep.

COMMUNICATION
If you lose your comms, you can’t contact loved ones and cannot get information about the emergency.  We rely on TV, phones, and the internet every day for information and communication.  If those systems are compromised or power is out, how are you going to find out emergency info or keep in contact with loved ones?  A battery/hand crank radio is the best backup for receiving outside information.  For communication, the best I can suggest is to have a plan.  Your plan could be to send smoke signals for all I care.  So long as your plan works, it is a valid plan.  Just make sure you have one, two is better.

BUGGING OUT
If the loss of utilities is too troublesome for you, you can always bug out.  The key here is to have transportation and a destination to bug out to.  It is always a great idea to have a means to bug out, a place to bug out to, and multiple options for which way to get there.  Always have more than one route planned.  You never know when Murphy’s Law will make your primary path impassible.

That is about it for losing utilities.  Being prepared to deal with this eventuality will put you way ahead of the curve in preparing for other specific threats including many of the things that man or nature can throw at you..  You already have a lot of what can go wrong covered.

Batteries are one of the most often overlooked items in a household, and in the middle of a power outage they are something that you don’t want to be without. For the most part, batteries are not on all of our regular shopping lists unless there is a specific device in the house that is in need of some juice, this is one area that you can easily strengthen your preparedness posture.

The easiest way to start is by buying batteries in bulk, rather than the usual 4, 8 or 12 pack. Don’t aim to buy batteries for the remotes and the like that are lying around the house, think about the least used items in the house like flashlights. A flashlight without batteries is about as useful as a doorstop or maybe a projectile to throw at a nighttime intruder, if you can see them to throw it accurately.

There are a couple of sources for batteries in bulk, but you need to be careful in what batteries that you buy. Carbon based batteries are all well and good for certain tasks that don’t require any sort of longevity, beyond them, alkaline batteries are the only way to go when it comes to the disposables (rechargeable batteries are a whole different subject).

You can buy bulk batteries from Costco, Sam’s or any of the other big box outlets that are out there. You can also buy them on eBay. I have had great success buying large lots of batteries in bulk using eBay, actually it is my preferred method (especially when it comes to specialty batteries like LR44’s). Hunt around on eBay, and there are deals waiting to be found, many times at less than ¼ of the retail price that you would normally pay.

 Our battery storage box in the pantry

When it comes to the on-line purchases, make sure that you stick with the name brand batteries (Energizer and Duracell). The last thing that you want to do is try out a new brand of battery by buying it in bulk. From Costco, the Kirkland brand batteries seem to function just as well as the Energizers or Duracells and they come with the same ‘guaranteed fresh’ dates that the name brands do.

Rechargables are also a great way to go. The newer Nickel Metal Hydride (NiMH) batteries take quite a charge compared to the standard Nickel Cadmium (NiCAD) batteries of old, and they are pretty reasonably priced considering how many charge cycles they are good for.

Throw in a decent solar charger with those and you have a solution that does not require a 120V outlet to get the batteries back up to speed. Silicon Solar Inc makes a nice unit that utilizes flexible thin film technology that can take the elements outdoors and keep your batteries charged.

Bottom line, batteries are just like any other staple in an emergency, and they disappear from the store shelves just as quickly as bottled water. Having a decent supply at home that you rotate through for normal usage is just another small insurance plan that keeps you from being stuck in the dark when you really need light the most.

Memorial Day is the time that we set aside to honor those that have served, and are serving in the US Military in order to protect the freedoms that we as Americans hold dear. It is time to reflect upon the fact that those freedoms were paid for with the very lives of the service men and women that fought to protect our way of life.

The words inscribed on the Korean War Veterans Memorial in Washington D.C. best reflect the reality of what it took to forge this country.

“Freedom is not Free”

To all those out there that are currently serving, those that have served, and to the families of those that lost their lives in the line of duty, we wish to say Thank You and pay our humblest respects for the tasks that have been accomplished by all of you in the name of Freedom and the American way. Without the brave souls that have served, and those that are serving, we would not have the freedoms that we enjoy today.

Thank You!

There is a mostly undiscovered secret out there, the second hand stores. They have been getting to be more mainstream as of late due to all those that are out there that are having trouble making ends meet. You don’t have to be financially challenged to take full advantage of the deals that are waiting for you at stores like this.

Clothing is one of the best things that you can find there, jackets, slacks, jeans, etc. can be found on the racks that have never even been worn (or so lightly worn that they look new). Routinely I frequent the second hand stores for work clothes, dress shirts, suits and shoes in brand new condition for literally pennies on the dollar of their original cost.

Household items are another treasure trove, we have two full sets of cast iron cookware thanks to the second hand stores. I have even found several pieces of ceramic covered cast iron, this stuff cost an absolute fortune when it was new, at the second hand store the pots were only like $3.00 each versus the $50-$60 they cost new.

Books at the second hand stores are another treasure trove, a treasure trove of knowledge up for purchase at a fraction of its original price. How-To books for gardening, construction, remodeling, hobbies, etc. are plentiful, and the price is right.

The other aspect of shopping the second hand stores is that you are helping to keep stuff out of the landfills. Society has adopted the disposable mentality for the most part, and by scooping up the unwanted items from those who don’t know any better you are helping the environment as well as yourself.

Part 15 in an ongoing series by forum member Cutter

Beyond 30 days, the idea of preparing for “come what may” becomes a real Pandora’s box of possibilities and challenges.  The possibilities against which we might prepare are limited only by our imaginations. 

Here’s a short (very short relatively) list of just a few of the possibilities.  Now please understand that not everybody believes that some of these things will or even could happen, even in the prepper community.  To be honest, I don’t buy into some of the scenarios that are talked about within or outside of the prepper community, including some of these things.  There are other scenarios that I believe are not only possible, but inevitable.  Natural disasters and the sorts of atrocities that humans can do to one another have been so thoroughly proven throughout history as to be indisputable.

Here’s the short list:

• Power outage (short or long term)
• Contamination or loss of municipal water supplies or utilities (short or long term)
• Snowstorms, tornados, hurricanes, flooding, mudslides, volcanic eruption, earthquakes  (area specific)
• Climate change (global warming or ice age)
• Economic turmoil or collapse ( October 29, 1929 duration approx. 10 years)
• Life changing injury or illness of yourself or a family member that affects your ability to  provide for your household or the death of a primary provider for your family.
• Social unrest, rioting, gang turf war, civil war, foreign invasion, tyrannical government
• Selective, theater wide, or Global Thermonuclear War
• Terrorist attack of whatever type they might nightmare up (9/11, Oklahoma City bombing)
• Biological pandemic along the lines of the Black Death in the Middle Ages
• Chemical catastrophe (Union Carbide in Bhopal, India Dec. 3, 1984)
• Nuclear accident (Chernobyl April 26, 1986)
• Asteroid, comet, or rouge planet impact (Tunguska event, Siberia, Russia 1908)
• Planetary magnetic pole shift resulting in massive, planet wide upheavals
• Solar flares or other cosmic phenomena
• Alien invasion (Think Will Smith in Independence Day)

Hey, I said the possibilities ranged from the common to the, uh, bit far fetched.  Still, what I or anyone else thinks about any given possibility is immaterial and frankly irrelevant.  It is what YOU believe is possible and what YOU think should be prepared for that is important.  If you prepare for a given scenario and are wrong, you are wrong.  Big deal.  If you do not prepare for a given scenario and you are wrong, you are reduced to the prayer, hope, and luck methods of survival. That is never a good place to be.  While all three of these are, and should be, a part of preparedness, they do not a plan make by themselves.

The 30 day store is your gateway.  It, along with a secure home base, makes you almost as prepared as you can be to weather most anything Nature can throw at you and gives you a good fighting chance against all the other stuff. 

Deciding what specific threats you believe are possible will guide you from here.  It is this decision that will guide you in making threat specific preps.  We will be discussing those preps in greater detail in future segments of this series.  For now, it is time for another break.  I think another weekend getaway is in order.  Go, have fun, and refresh yourself.

Good luck and happy relaxing!

Part 14 of an ongoing series by forum member Cutter

At this point there is just no getting around the fact that you must have equipment. A lot of things can be improvised for short duration situations, but 30 days is beyond short term. Consumables are fine for short term situations but become too expensive, space intensive, and unreliable in the longer term. For instance, you can store enough batteries to power Cleveland if you have room but they will just be dead weight if they are far enough out of date that they are dead.

So, let’s get down to it. We will start with water. If you have the space and inclination to store 60 gallons of water per person to cover 30 days, go for it. It isn’t a bad idea. An easier and smaller way is to have a means to provide safe water for yourself from other sources than storage. This also can potentially increase your available water far beyond the 2 gallon per person per day recommendation. To borrow a line from one of the other members of this board, a means to purify water can put you in a position where your attitude could be, “Don’t waste it, but don’t be afeared of using it either.”

Common water filters like Brita are fine if you are sure the water you procure is already marginally safe to drink, but can you be sure? They cost more, but the filter you really need is one that will filter out impurities, chemicals, and biological pathogens. You can see mud and even evidence of things like heavy iron and sulfur content, but you can’t see things like E. Coli.

The second way to purify questionable water is a multi-step process. First, you filter through a cloth to remove solids. Second, you boil the water for at least 10 minutes. Third, you filter the boiled water through a couple of inches of crushed charcoal from burned wood. Fourth, you boil again. It is a long process, but works. It is a generally safe method and definitely beats drinking questionable water untreated, but isn’t foolproof. Some pathogens are not killed at the 212 degree boiling point. A pressure cooker can raise the boiling point of water in it to 240 degrees which will kill most dangerous pathogens. The boiling times remain the same as open boiling. This is a better and safer variation of the multi-step process, but even this isn’t foolproof. Best to have a good filter and use it for as long as it will do its job. Don’t forget replacement filter cartridges and plenty of them. Cartridge capacity varies with manufacturer and model, so make sure you have enough that their stated capacities will cover the quantity of water you will need. It would be wise to have additoinal filters to at least double that quantity.

The next thing to consider is how to cook all that food you have stored. Again, propane and liquid fuel stoves are great for short term emergencies. They are convenient and fairly portable. To use them for the long term, you must consider the logistics of a much larger fuel supply and the service life of their components. When a component fails, your only options are to repair or replace the component or scrap the stove. In my opinion, 30 days is about the practical limit for such stoves as they apply to the urban and suburban prepper without re-supply due to fuel requirements.

Liquid fuel stoves would be out of the question, with the exception of alcohol stoves. Then again, if you can run a still to make alcohol, you already have a heat source to cook with and don’t need to be making moonshine for fuel. Propane stoves can be fed with bulk tanks which make them viable for much longer. If you are willing and able to keep (5) 20 pound pigs or a 100 pound canister, you can extend a propane stove’s usefulness to 5 months or so with careful use. Five hundred and 1000 gallon tanks could last you a few years.

A wood burning heat source is the way to go to cook. You have fuel that renews itself anywhere there are trees. That includes most habitable areas of the world. Backyard fire pits are very popular these days. We have one that we cook on in all seasons. We use real wood but charcoal works well too. In fact, if it will burn and is not toxic, it is a viable fuel to cook on.

A wood burning stove or fireplace in the house serves the double purpose of providing a means to cook and a heat source for your home. It is money well spent and is a single effort that serves more than one purpose. I cooked many a hot dog and toasted a lot of marshmallows in the fireplace when I was growing up. In my Boy Scout days, I cooked a lot of meals in a fireplace with a dutch oven.

You have the same concerns with light sources. Lanterns suffer the same fuel limitations as stoves and heaters. You are going to have to find another way to get light. You can still use your battery lanterns and flashlights. It was mentioned in an earlier article to use medium base, 12 volt light bulbs powered by 12 volt deep cycle batteries. So long as you keep extra light bulbs, these can work indefinitely if you have power. There is the problem. Rechargeable batteries are the first half of the answer. Deep cycle batteries are rechargeable by definition but have a standard life cycle of 6 years once the acid is added. Extra batteries stored “dry” with the acid kept separately for future use is the answer to that.

The second half of the answer is a power source to recharge your batteries. You have a range of answers. They include solar power, wind power, hydro generators (water driven), and human and animal power. For the urban and suburban prepper, animal power is probably not viable. Solar power is the easiest and most compact of answers. A few hundred dollars will buy you a solar array kit that will provide you with limited charging and the components to connect it to your batteries. Harbor Freight has a 45 watt semi-portable array that works well for the purpose, but you can build your own.

Your trauma kit can last you for a long time if it is extensive enough and well enough stocked, but one serious injury might just wipe it out. The only answer to this is knowledge and resourcefulness. You are going to have to find alternative materials to replenish the items from your kit. It is still a good idea to double or triple the supplies you have. So long as the items are kept dry, sealed, and out of sunlight and temperature extremes, they can easily last 100 years. That time span should cover a person’s lifetime.

Tools are a must now. These need to be manual tools. A power saw will do you no good if you don’t have power. A rototiller won’t turn your garden plot if you have no fuel. Shovels, picks, hoes, axes, hand saws, and “ancient” tools like a brace and bit (the original cordless drill) are the order of the day. Hand tools can do everything power tools can do. Power tools just make the work go faster and easier. Sometimes, the old way is still the best way. A long term emergency is one of those times. A word of caution, hand tools come with their own hazards just like power tools. You must take time and trouble to become skilled in their use to be safe and effective with them.

Your greatest concern is shelter. A tent is great to cover you while bugging out or during repairs if your home is damaged, but it just isn’t a viable long term shelter solution. Yeah I know the Hebrews did it for 40 years in the wilderness, but I’ll bet they didn’t like it. Permanent, enduring shelter is what is called for. There is no substitute for four walls, a roof and a floor. If you do not already own your home or haven’t already started toward that goal, this is the time. When you have finished your 30 day store, start putting back that down payment. Use up to half of your prep budget if you must but take solid steps toward owning your own home. With the 30 day store, you are ready to weather fairly major emergency situations. You have bought yourself a lot of time. Now is the time to make sure you have a place to make it count.

Of course, your entire prep budget would probably amount to enough to put you in your own home in 50 years or so. Given that, you really should re-think your finances in such a way that most of your home buying money comes from your non-prep funds. Using some prep funds is justified but should not be your primary money source for the purpose.

The importance of a solid home base cannot be overstated. You must have a permanent, solid place from which to operate or you cannot adequately guarantee your safety. If your safety is compromised, you are in more trouble than you can imagine. Without safety, none of your other preps can be considered reliable.

Now another word on Murphy’s law of refugees. They will always find resources they lack…yours. The whole point of preparedness is to provide for your wants and needs when bad turns to worse. The needs and wants of the unprepared are the same as the needs and wants of the prepared. The difference is that we have and they have not. The have nots will find the haves when the balloon goes up, I guarantee it. Provided they live long enough, they will search until they do.

This is the other part of the choice I mentioned in the last segment. Food is not the only thing they will need. They will also need shelter, clothing, and all manner of other things. They will likely be desperate and desperation can motivate a person to do great and terrible things. It can also motivate a person to do great and wonderful things. You have a choice, take them in or turn them away.

If you choose to take refugees in, you must have the means to provide for all the things they lack. If your plans include taking in refugees, you best be prepared to provide shelter for them, food and non-food consumables, alternative consumables for long term scenarios, and tools and equipment for them to work. You will want and need them to work. You might be able to do the work of 10 people, but that won’t provide for 20. You will need their help and they will need the implements in order to help you.

If you choose to turn refugees away, you best be prepared, both in equipment and mindset, to repel them. One or a few might leave in peace with a little grumbling and posturing but a group is very liable to put up a fight. Such a mob will literally be fighting for their lives and so will you.

Even if you take refugees in, they may force you to turn them back out for any number of reasons. You best be ready to do that too. This is an especially dangerous situation because they are already “inside the wire.” Depending on how much freedom you allow them and how much of your preps and plans you have shared with them, they could be just as well equipped as you, and with your own equipment no less!

Make the refugee choice with the utmost of care. It could be the best or worst choice you ever make. It could also be the last choice you ever make if you choose poorly.

Good luck, happy prepping, and most importantly, happy home making.