The Preparedness Articles Category
Hurricane survival tips
Having been through Hurricanes Ike and Rita, evacuated for Hurricane Andrew, and having worked an evacuee shelter for Hurricane Katrina, I think I can offer some tips on Hurricanes.
* Have at least 1 week of food and water for every person in your group. The government says at least 3 days, but shoot for at least 5 – 7 days. Depending on how much debris is on the roads, it could take 3 days for the road crews to get the roads open.
Evacuate low lying areas. Storm surge is no myth, get away from low lying areas and areas prone to flooding.
LED flashlights are better then old style bulbed flashlights. LED flashlights are more reliable then lights with old style bulbs, and LEDs have longer battery life.
Buy lithium batteries. Lithiums last longer then alkaline batteries.
Buy LED flashlights with long battery life and low lumens for inside the house. This is not a tactical situation, anything over 50 lumens can mess up your night vision. As you walk around the inside of the house, you do not want to blind other people.
Have a way to cook, such as a camp stove, or propane grill. Nothing boost morale like a good hot meal.
Video about cooking with a Coleman Perfectflow stove.
Stockpiling beans and bullets
Lets say SHTF tomorrow, what would your survival gear stockpile look like? For a lot of survivalist it would be mostly beans and bullets – meaning now very much thought or attention to detail has been put into the plans.
When the SurvivalistBoards youtube channel was opened, I wanted to publish a wide range of videos. The plans were to post videos about everything from gardening to wilderness survival. There are certain topics that do better then others. It seems that fishing videos probably do the worst in view counts, and firearm videos do the best.
But to have a balanced channel and blog, I think one should cover a wide range of topics. It seems that example videos and articles work best. Instead of saying what people should do, I show people what I am doing, and end it with that. Then let the viewer make up their own mind.
How does all of this relate to stockpiling survival gear? When dealing with survivalism, I do not think its enough to just stockpile bullets and beans. A well rounded, long term SHTF survival plan, should cover as much information and resources as possible. It is not enough to buy a case of 7.62×39, store some rice and beans in mylar bags, and then proclaim you have a well rounded survival plan. Ammo, rice and beans are not a well rounded plan.
Lets look at a well rounded SHTF food plan:
SHTF Day 1
Cook the meat in the fridge and freezer
Plant a garden
Canned goods
MREs
Food in mylar bags – rice, beans, oats, other stuff
Harvest food from garden
#10 cans
Hunting
Fishing
Gathering wild edible plants
SHTF 6 months later – I plan on still being able to eat good.
If there is a failure in the plan, there should be a backup plan, and then a backup to the backup plan. I like having plans hat are at least 2 and sometimes 3 levels deep.
Video about stockpiling food, ammo and fishing supplies.
Holy crap its hot
And not only is it hot, its dry. Its not that “oh, we did not get any rain in the past week” kinda dry, its like “we are in a SERIOUS kind of drought” type of dry.
Where is the rain?
Our lakes dry up, and no rain falls.
Our creeks dry up, and no rain falls.
Our crops wither away, and no rain falls.
Our tree sheds their leaves and start to die, and still no rain falls.
Back in February 2011 my kids and I went to the Bug Out Location and planted some trees. the trees included some oak trees, a plum tree and a peach tree. One of the oak trees had been grown from an oak that fell from the tree in my front yard. When the oak tree was planted, it might have been maybe 5 years old.
Over the past 6 months my family and I have been making trips to the camp to make sure the trees have been getting plenty of water. Well, over the past few weeks it looked like we had been getting some rain at the camp, so I did not bother checking on the trees. The problem is, the rain was a little of nothing.
August 20, 2011 my wife and I go to check on the trees, and they were in bad shape. Most of the leaves had turned brown and fallen off. There were a few green leaves, but not many. My wife and I put 2 gallons of water on the tree, waited about 30 – 45 minutes, and then put 2 more gallons on the tree.
Video about climate change and long term survival plans.
Calm before the panic buying
There is enough fear mongering these days without my help. With that in mind, please remember that this article is just my personal opinion and it not meant to interpreted as fact.
I feel that we are in a calm before the storm. Not necessarily a SHTF storm, but a panic buying storm.
From August until the first part of 2012:
August and September: Kids are starting back to school in the next few days, parents are having to buy back to school supplies, clothes, meet the teachers and get their kids shots caught up. Right “now” parents have a lot to think about and worry about besides prepping.
Labor day: is right around the corner.
October: Halloween in October.
October and November: Hunting season starts.
November – thanksgiving.
December – Christmas and then New Years.
People have stuff to keep their minds occupied until the first part of 2012. After the turn of the year, I look for people attention to turn towards world events and the direction this nation is going.
After new years I think is when the panic buying mode is going to kick in – and especially after people start getting their income taxes back.
Storing food in mylar bags for SHTF
My SHTF food preps include mylar bags, #10 cans, MREs and canned goods. In this article and video ware going to discuss making up 20 mylar bags of rice, beans, oatmeal,,,,, and various other items.
Awhile back I made up some homemade superpails of oats, rice and beans. I found the 5 gallon mylar bags difficult to work with and a little difficult to seal. After that experience I decided that the largest bag I was going to mess with was probably going to be around the 2 1/2 gallon size.
For my current project I decided to make up some 1/2 gallon and some 1 gallon mylar bags. Inside of the bags I am going to store oats, rice, beans, instant mashed potatoes,,, and a few other things.
Items to be stored in mylar bags:
2 – great value whole grain old fashioned oats, 42 ounce containers
4 – great value whole grain quick oats, 42 ounce containers
3 – great value elbows enriched macaroni product, 3 pound boxs
1 – hungry jack mashed potatoes, 26.7 ounce box
2 – great value mashed potatoes, 2 pound box
1 – 20 pound bag of rice
several – 1 pound bags of pinto beans
Gun cleaning supplies at the bug out location
This evening I was cleaning my FN/FAL, at which time I realized my gun cleaning supplies at the bug out location were going through a can opener syndrome. The “can opener syndrome” is when someone overlooks the small items. That you might be so focused on buying #10 cans, that you forget to stockpile can openers.
With gun cleaning supplies, people are probably more focused on stockpiling ammo, and shooting their firearms, that the forget about buying cleaning supplies.
Lets list some simple gun cleaning items:
Storage Box – something to store the items in. In my case, I am using a large tackle box
Copper bore brushes – for scrubbing the inside of the barrel
Gun oil – I like the pump spray bottles
Hoppes #9 powder solvent
Bore light – I use an led light with a flex neck
Screw drivers
Cleaning rods – for pushing the bore brush through the barrel
Cloth patches
Stockpiling SHTF food ammo and fishing supplies
Lets talk about stockpiling food, ammo and fishing supplies for SHTF. These are the supplies that will be used to feed and protect your family if, or when, the SHTF. There is no perfect survival plan, and only the fool says otherwise. Its because of this admission that my plans have changed over the years.
My food stockpile has gone from simple stockpiling beans and rice plans, to something a little more complex.
In the ammunition category, my plans have gone from having various rounds stockpiled, to taking inventory, and trying to standardize my SHTF ammo stockpile.
The fishing category is where I am currently having the most fun. I have gone from just stockpiling fishing supplies to running trotlines and testing my fishing plans.
Stockpiling Food:
10 – 15 years ago I was stockpiling beans, rice, MREs, canned goods and some garden seed. My plans were to head to the bug out location, plant a garden, and hunt for fresh meat. It was a simple plan that had a lot of holes.
About 6 or 7 years ago I decided to focus more on gardening, and less on hunting. My family and I started planting fruit trees (peach, pear, apple, plum,,,) and I started stockpiling more garden seed. Then came along the drought of 2010 and 2011. In the past 2 years this part of Texas is at least 3 feet low on rainfall. Lake Sam Rayburn is about 9 feet low as of when this article was written. The long solution to a long term survival plan is having a self-sustaining farm and garden. In the face of global climate change getting a farm and garden up and running from scratch is going to be a little difficult.
About a year ago I decided to change my plans again and add mylar bags, and some homemade superpails to my SHTF food stockpile. So now we have mylar bags, MREs, canned goods, fruit trees and garden seeds. In the mylar bags I stored beans, rice, oats, pancake mix, pasta,,,, and a few other things.
In the face of climate change, my plans have changed yet again.
Instead of relying entirely on hunting for meat, and beans for protein, I decided its time to bite the bullet and start stockpiling #10 cans of freeze dried meats, fruit and certain vegetables.
The concept of stockpiling survival gear
With organizations like FEMA, and the preparedness divisions of the separate states telling people to stay prepared for a disaster, there is no reason not to listen. All families should have at least 7 days worth of food in their house, and a small stockpile of bottled water. Some people stockpile MREs, while others may stockpile canned goods, beans and rice, or even freeze dried foods.
By previous examples, the government is either inept, unable, or unwilling to protect its citizens during a disaster.
Lets take the outbreak of the swine flu for example. When the swine flu was first reported in mexico, President obama refused to close to borders with mexico, citing companies would lose too much money of the borders were closed. By that example, when it comes down to profit or protecting the citizens, the government will protect the profits of big business over the safety and welfare of the citizens.
With the government willing to sacrifice safety in the name of profits for big business, is their 3 – 5 days worth of food and water sound advice? I do not think so.
In some kind of disaster, the less prepared people are, the more dependent they will be on the government. This is where the concept of stockpiling survival gear comes from. Lets say that some kind of long lasting disaster happens – civil unrest (LA riots for example), hurricane, natural disasters, another world war,,,, I do not want my family standing in a food line to get something to eat. I would rather have a garden, and stockpiled food to help us get through what ever happens.
How about a random video about stockpiling survival gear.
Hastily assembled and ill equipped survival plans
Science channel Saturday morning of July 30, 2011 had a program on about Kublai Khan, and his doomed fleet that tried to invade Japan.
During excavations of the ocean floor, scientist discovered that most of the ships in the fleet were flat bottom river boats. River boats do not have a keel like what ocean going ships have. The keel helps ocean going ships weather large waves, while flat bottom boats will capsize.
It appears that Kublai Khan was in a hurry to invade Japan, so he ill equipped his navy with the wrong type of ship. This short sight meant the fleet was lost in a storm.
How does the example of Kublai Khan apply to survivalism?
Those that do not take the time to properly prepare are doomed to fail. The key word there is “properly” prepare. Kublai Khan had his army, weapons, armor, supplies, ships,,,,,. But the ships were the wrong type of ship, they were not ship designed for oceans, they were designed for rivers.
In the survivalist community, there are a lot of people that plan on grabbing their bug out bag, bugging out to the wilderness and living off the land. There are lots of problems with that situation, such as being able to find enough food, diseases, illness, vitamin and mineral decencies,,, only to name a few.
Back in November and December of 2010, a buddy of mine and I spent 3 days on the Angelina river camping and trying to live off the land. During those 3 days I did not see a single wild hog or whitetail deer. Some deer came close to the camp site at night, but I did not see anything during the day. We caught a few catfish, but not enough to feed a group of people with. In order to catch enough fish to live off of, we would have had to have people fishing all day long.
Can opener syndrome
The can opener mentality is when your so focused on larger things that you forget about the smaller items.
An example of this happened a few months ago when my kids and I went to the camp for the night. Around 10pm or so we decided to go out and take a look at the fields. Guess what, we forgot to grab our regular flashlights and bring them to the camp with us. This left us with the handcrank flashlights that I had stockpiled. Handcrank flashlights might be good for around the house, but their not good for lighting up a 10 acre field.
Over the past year or so I had been more focused on planting fruit trees, stockpiling ammo and first aid supplies,,,, other odds and ends that I had totally overlooked some simple and inexpensive LED lights for the Bug Out Location.
Carving and steak knives is another thing I had overlooked. A couple of months ago I found a knife set at an estate sale, so I bought the set and brought it to the camp. Now we have a set of carving knives, steak knives and a knife sharpener.
Solar showers is another thing that I need to get a few of and keep stored at my house and at the Bug Out Location. For privacy when taking a shower, I might need to get a couple of 6 foot X 8 foot tarps and some trotline string to hang the tarps up with. I already have the trotline string, its just the tarps and the solar showers I need to get. I was thinking of getting at least 4 showers per location – 4 for the Bug Out Location and 4 to keep at my house. The showers can come in handy on camping trips and not just emergencies.
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