SELF-RELIANCE FRIDAY EDITION FOR OCTOBER 8th, 2020

 

 

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 work and can’t get to your car, fall back on your “last ditch lunch bag kit”. If you can get to the car, but it can’t be used, have in it your “Bug out Bag/BOB” and a “fishing vest” with more “last ditch” survival gear. You can have a basic 72 hr. homemade or commercial BOB, or a bigger backpack with sleeping bag and tent. (What’s in a BOB will be covered later.)

            If you are leaving from home and have a significant other who is up with your plan, you add to your support depending on what they can carry. My wife, Mama Donna, can tote a standard 72 hr. survival backpack and a mini shoulder GO bag with water bottles.

            Know where you are going to and have alternate routes, overland if possible, and know beforehand sources of water, as you can’t carry a lot of it.  Have “strip” maps of your routes if nothing else. Have a safe meeting point along the way in case you have to start out from separate locations.

            Weapons are a tricky aspect that depends on your local area and situation and your own personal beliefs. You may go with pepper spray. An alternative is a folding stock rifle in a case inside or strapped to a backpack and a pistol, along with a good sheath knife. You may have to keep the weapons hidden until you are out of an urban area and into the countryside. Remember, you don’t have to be carrying “heavy artillery”. In the words of Pat Frank, a writer from the cold war days,” A .22 will kill you just as dead as a 20 megaton”

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 posted below 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 our valley.

Her options are to  “bug out” , “bounce back” or “hunker down”. In such an event, if she can get out, she knows she can come to our “safe haven” here, high up at the foot of the mountain. But she needs to have a “bug out/bounce back bag” in her car, one that in the worst case she can strap on her back and carry here. But, there always exists the possibility of her being trapped in her place by swiftly rising flood waters. A few years back, Mama Donna and her co-workers were trapped at work when flood waters rose faster than predicted, but were able to get out by climbing a hill behind the parking lot.

So to slip another “ace” up her sleeve, we will cover her being able to evacuate from home       (bug out), get to us or her place from work (bounce back) or to shelter in place (hunker down).

As she is like most of us, just an average working person, she doesn’t have tons of money for all the fancy “survival” gear out there, so I will show her and you the most economical ways to be as reasonably ready for the threats, starting with the most likely and the shortest lasting and working our way up.

POOR RICHARD’S CORNER                    EVENTS AND RESPONSES

          This is a general guideline I came up with to help my prepping. While you may have a specific event in mind to prep for, such as tornadoes, there are others that can affect you. They can be minor, such as a power pole knocked down by a car accident causing a short term loss of power or as long and destructive as an EMP or Solar Flare.

BASIC   LEVEL I   (most common)
DURATION: 0-2 wks
CAUSE: Loss of the “normal grid” of stores, banks, electricity and/or water due to man-made, (including derailments, chemical spills, etc.) or natural events (storms, flooding, etc.)
EFFECT: No light, no heat in colder months, no A/C in hotter months, no refrigeration/freezer.  There could be water supply / sanitation issues. Banks/stores may be affected
RESPONSE: At least 72 to two weeks of non-perishable food and water, alternate shelter plan, good basic first aid kit or items, batteries, flashlights, possibly a generator of some kind, $50 in small bills and change if possible, and your choice on self-defense methods and items.

ADVANCED   LEVEL II   (less likely but possible)
DURATION: 0-4 wks.
CAUSE: All of above plus computer virus affecting banks,
stores,(ATM’s debit and credit cards), electrical and water/sanitation systems
EFFECT: All of above if electricity/water/sanitation affected. No normal
banking, bill paying, shopping (gas/food) possible. Possible effects
on communications (cell and land line phones)
RESPONSE: All of the above plus 2 more weeks of food and water.

AFTERMATH   LEVEL III   (least likely, but still possible)

DURATION: 4+ wks.
CAUSE: Economic/ governmental collapse /EMP/Solar event/Pandemic/
Nuclear (plant meltdown/limited exchange). This also includes any serious
disruption of order in the major cities/ supply chains, etc., due to terrorist attack.
EFFECT: All of the above for at least 90 days or more
RESPONSE: Full change over to self- support, gather family if possible/
try to have 90+ days of food, etc.