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 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.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

SELF-RELIANCE FRIDAY EDITION FOR SEPTEMBER 25TH, 2020

Image
  HAVE AN AWAY PLAN: PART I The odds are that the average Ann and Andy will be away from their home when an event hits. That is because most of us have to earn a living so we will be either commuting to or from, or be at work. If we aren’t doing that then we are shopping, out with friends, at movies, sporting events, etc., or we are taking the kids to and from school or be at some school event. We might even be on vacation somewhere. I know. That conflicts with the PC image of the “prepper/survivalist” huddling in their home a step away from their bunker. It also happens to be reality. There are exceptions, of course, where the event can be seen coming (the slow train wreck) such as icy roads, heavy snow, wind or rain storm or tropical storm, school is canceled and your boss might actually let you stay home (LOL! Yeah, right). But many events hit without warning ( bolt out of the blue)   such as earthquakes, tornados, some flash flooding, power outages, , bridge/high...
Read more

SELF-RELIANCE FRIDAY EDITION FOR OCTOBER 8th, 2020

Image
    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...
Read more

OUR WEEKLY ARTICLES FOR FRIDAY AUGUST 28th, 2020

Image
  WHEN THE NEWS CREWS LEAVE             An individual posted on Facebook a while back about how people in Iowa were without power from storms the week before and how this seemed no longer “newsworthy”?   The news crews from the national media had left. The problems hadn’t. Does anyone believe that all the areas affected have their normal grid back? Maybe most have water and sanitation, and the roads are clear enough to get to stores and such that are operating, and maybe even most of the area have electrical power. But some still don’t. It may be a few days or it may be a week or so more before the basics of the grid is back. Meanwhile, people are driving long distances to bring home foods that don’t need refrigeration or a lot of cooking. Do they know what to get? How far do they have to travel to find stores not stripped of goods? Now, after the hurricanes hit the Gulf Coast, you’ll have this happen in a few days. Th...
Read more