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MY COUSIN AND PREPPING, PART I

  My cousin recently went through a major change in her life and as she is resettling into her new lifestyle, she is more able for a number of reasons to prep. Up to now she has followed my guidance and added flashlights, water, food and a first aid kit. But because other events were happening in her life, she did not have the situation to enable her to prep in a more orderly fashion. I advised her to begin by assessing and NOT obsessing over the possible threats and assigning them importance based on the highest probable and the most damaging. I pointed out the short term but annoying ones, such as power failures brought on by weather (ice storms, tree limbs across lines) or water main breaks. ( I have a general chart for this everyone can use.) I then went to the main threat to her, namely flood. While her new apartment is above the ground level, she could be cut off by flood waters, and the building could catch fire and burn down. We’ve seen this happen before in floods in...
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STEALTH PREPPING

                Due to the virus and the political situation we suggest you should be prepping, but at the same time do it very quietly. The last thing you want is to be labeled as some kind of extremist of any side or ilk.             This is where our “Toucan Bill” system comes into play. When you go to the store, put “Two-cans on the Bill”. In this way you draw no attention, especially from some whack job who wants to start screaming that you are a hoarder. If you can get to a “case lots” type store, buy a case, not twelve.             It’s great to live in an area like mine when gun ownership, camping, hunting and fishing are part of what we do, and prepping is no problem.   But not all of us live in areas or situations where prepping is looked upon favorably so it helps to avoid hassles by “stealth ...
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PLAIN FOLKS PREPPING EVENT WATER LINE BREAK

              Nothing like starting the year off with a “plain folks prepping event”, in this case, a water line break. This is the type of event that has good odds of happening to all us plain folk sooner or later. It’s also what we call a “bolt out of the blue” as there was no warning.             At about ten AM, yesterday we found out we had no water. We had a plan and supplies for such an event but first we needed to know as much as we could about why we had no water. A leak in the house is a different emergency than a water main break down the street.             We use a DAN (Deploy As Necessary) guideline for what step to take and what supplies and gear to bring out.   A check with the water company told us a main had broken affecting our area and that the crews would be working on in. The expected re...
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NO WATER!!!!

  HAPPY NEW YEAR… YOU HAVE NO WATER…LOL             About an hour ago we found out that we had no water coming from the taps. A call to the water company told us they just got the report of a water main break in our area.             So now what happens to us?   Not a whole lot.             There is a five gallon jug on the cooler in the kitchen and at least another 5 gallons of various sized bottles in the refrigerator. That’s before we even go to the pantry and break out any bottles there.             The slight pain in the butt is that I will have to go out to our storage and bring in a 28 gal bucket of stored water and transfer it into the toilet tank to flush it. At a bucket a day, we can last weeks. Our friend posted the other day of her power g...
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WELCOME TO OUR EDITION FOR SATURDAY NOVEMBER 21ST 2020

  THE BASICS:   WHEN IT’S PERSONAL Official type emergency handbooks and such from FEMA, the Red Cross, and other such sources use general guidelines for most situations. They also concentrate the most on natural disasters, and stick to the common basics. Some “survival and prepper” sites stick to country/worldwide, Level III “apocalyptic” type events such as solar flares, EMP’s, epidemics, economic, governmental, or general societal collapse, and the old standard, zombies.  You, however, should take a look at your own personal situation and try to access the threats to you and your loved ones. True, many of those listed above could affect you, but there are some others that are more likely for your area. As far as the natural disasters, I live in an area that has very little chance of a major earthquake. With my home here at the foot of the mountain, the terrain makes a tornado much less likely, but still reasonably possible. I am also sufficiently high up from...
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SELF-RELIANCE FRIDAY EDITION FOR OCTOBER 23rd, 2020

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    GETTING OUT DRIVING          PLANNING: PART V             After an event, a vehicle offers a number of positives from the amount of people and equipment it can carry to how fast it can get you to your safe haven. The negatives, however, have to be recognized and expected.             First the vehicle has to be gotten to. Rubble, fire or downed power lines may prevent this. Know how to open your garage door without power. (You can open one with an extension cord that runs to an inverter plugged into a car’s cigarette lighter, or if possible, manually.)             Then it has to be operational, having suffered no effects to prevent it from working, or being put back into operation quickly.             Next...
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SELF-RELIANCE FRIDAY EDITION FOR OCTOBER 8th, 2020

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    GETTING OUT WALKING      PLANNING – PART IV             No matter how good of a safe haven your home is, your prepping should include a plan to quickly “bug out” (Get out of Dodge/ GOOD). This is because a number of after effects of an EVENT could negatively affect you. AN EMP or other power outage could cause the transformer down the street to blow and set fire to a neighbor’s house.             In the worst case you won’t have your vehicle due to any number of reasons.   This means a pack on your back and whatever else that you can grab and go with in the shortest time possible. Pre-packing will be of great help here. For some, a bicycle may be of use, but remember roads may be blocked or dangerous. The faster you can get away the better.             If you are going from wo...
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