Urban Survival Planning - The Aftermath of the Storm

Following up with the aftermath of the giant storm that gripped our nation, on the first day when temps went above 20 degrees, which is very cold for the desert southwest, I went to the local version of Sportsman Warehouse around noon and guess what material was flying off the shelves?

Sleeping Bags. I saw a crowd of a dozen or so people in the sleeping bag aisle picking over what was left, and that wasn’t much.

Ammunition. The clerks were telling me that .32 ACP, .380 ACP, .40 S&W and .45 ACP were flying off the shelves as was .270 of all things. They said they sold more ammunition that morning then in the previous 2 or 3 weeks.

Firearms. While I was hanging out around the firearms section, four people purchased guns - three of them 12 gauge pump shotguns and one a semi-auto handgun.

Battery Powered Lanterns. There were almost none left. However, flashlights were a slow seller. Most of the lanterns that were bought used D sized batteries which very few people have the capability to recharge – so I hope they bought enough batteries. This store still had a large amount of batteries of all types so it was hard to tell how many were bought that morning.

Several of the convenience stores I stopped at were out of cases of water.

I keep a running list of equipment and material that are on my short list for purchase/procurement once the collapse indicators start indicating the collapse is near term imminent. Some are things I can do without now, or just nice to have during a collapse, and others are items with a shelf life so I want to purchase them at a point where I’ll get the longest use out of them.

The below list of items was sent to me by a friend in North Dakota, relating to the most common things that are bought by people in panic,…preparing for a hurricane, storm or whatever. What do you think are the first things to go?

Water, Batteries, Flashlights, Ice, Candles, Matches, Toilet paper, Paper plates, paper towels, Heavy duty aluminum foil, Water filters, Flour, Sugar, Milk, Powdered milk, Coffee, Canned soup, Soup mixes, Bouillon cubes, Hand‐held can openers, Dry cereal, Diapers, Wet wipes, Baby food, Baby formula, Sanitary napkins & tampons, Bath soap, Laundry detergent, Waterless hand sanitizer, Disinfectant, Bleach, Trash bags,

Re‐sealable plastic bags, Toothpaste, Tooth brushes, Shampoo and conditioner, Shaving equipment, Lanterns, Lantern fuel, Lantern wicks or mantles, Butane igniter, Charcoal grills, Charcoal, Camp stoves, Propane for camp stoves, Pocket knife, Army knife, Vitamin supplements,

Antacids, Antibiotics, Rubbing alcohol, Hydrogen peroxide, Laxative and diarrhea remedies, Antihistamine, Epsom salts, Bandages, Sterile gauze pads, First‐aid tape, Portable toilets, 5‐gallon plastic buckets, Gas‐driven generators, Gasoline storage containers, Duct tape, Chain‐saws,

Cast iron Dutch oven, Cast iron frying pan, Bug spray, Mouse traps, Mouse bait (D‐Con), Thermal underwear, Insulated coveralls, Heavy work gloves, Boots / rain gear, Band saws, Axes, Solar panels, Hand‐crank radios, Canvas and nylon tarps.

While many of us involved with Survival Preparation had many of the above items, a lot of the aforementioned items on that list we are thinking WTF? If anyone wants a free copy of an e-book containing details on the above and other items, just e-mail me and I’ll send it to you. Depending upon the response, I may only be replying for the next two weeks.

Survival Planning - Zero Hedge and Internet Access After the Government Shuts It Down

Ever heard of Zero Hedge? They are another multi-dimensional analytical entity keeping track of the financial, political and political factors affecting our Country,....our individual survival, ..and predicting the coming monetary-financial collapse. A smart person would add them to growing score of intelligence sources.

I like the Zero Hedge motto, which is: “On a Long Enough Timeline, the Survival Rate for Everyone Drops to Zero”.

Zero Hedge can be accessed, by clicking here,…..be sure to bookmark it.

One of my technical guys sent me the link to Zero Hedge due to a recent article entitled: “How to Maintain Internet Access Even If Your Government Turns It Off”

Driven or at least accelerated by the events in Egypt are efforts to combat a Government’s shut down of the Internet. Thanks to Zero Hedge re-printing an excerpt from Get Internet Access When Your Government Shuts it Down, by Patrick Miller & David Daw there possible solutions if mass civil unrest strikes a country, a government may respond by banning internet access and severely restricting information flow.


Here is the excerpt:

"Even if you've managed to find an Internet connection for yourself, it won't be that helpful in reaching out to your fellow locals if they can't get online to find you. If you're trying to coordinate a group of people in your area and can't rely on an Internet connection, cell phones, or SMS, your best bet could be a wireless mesh network of sorts--essentially, a distributed network of wireless networking devices that can all find each other and communicate with each other. Even if none of those devices have a working Internet connection, they can still find each other, which, if your network covers the city you're in, might be all you need. At the moment, wireless mesh networking isn't really anywhere close to market-ready, though we have seen an implementation of the 802.11s draft standard, which extends the 802.11 Wi-Fi standard to include wireless mesh networking, in the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) XO laptop."

"However, a prepared guerrilla networker with a handful of PCs could make good use of Daihinia ($25, 30-day free trial), an app that piggybacks on your Wi-Fi adapter driver to turn your normal ad-hoc Wi-Fi network into a multihop ad-hoc network (disclaimer: we haven't tried this ourselves yet), meaning that instead of requiring each device on the network to be within range of the original access point, you simply need to be within range of a device on the network that has Daihinia installed, effectively allowing you to add a wireless mesh layer to your ad-hoc network. Advanced freedom fighters can set up a portal Web page on their network that explains the way the setup works, with Daihinia instructions and a local download link so they can spread the network even further. Lastly, just add a Bonjour-compatible chat client like Pidgin or iChat, and you'll be able to talk to your neighbors across the city without needing an Internet connection."

"[Another alternative is] FidoNet--a distributed networking system for BBSes that was popular in the 1980s. FidoNet is limited to sending only simple text messages, and it's slow, but it has two virtues: Users connect asynchronously, so the network traffic is harder to track, and any user can act as the server, which means that even if the government shuts down one number in the network, another one can quickly pop up to take its place."

"You could also take inspiration from groups that are working to create an ad-hoc communications network into and out of Egypt using Ham Radio, since the signals are rarely tracked and extremely hard to shut down or block. Most of these efforts are still getting off the ground, but hackers are already cobbling together ways to make it a viable form of communication into and out of the country. Given enough time and preparation, your ham radio networks could even be adapted into your own ad-hoc network using Packet Radio, a radio communications protocol that you can use to create simple long-distance wireless networks to transfer text and other messages between computers. Packet Radio is rather slow and not particularly popular (don't try to stream any videos with this, now), but it's exactly the kind of networking device that would fly under the radar."

"In response to the crisis in Egypt , nerds everywhere have risen to call for new and exciting tools for use in the next government-mandated shutdown. Bre Pettis, founder of the hackerspace NYC Resistor and creator of the MakerbotApps for the Appocalypse," including a quick and easy way to set up chats on a local network so you can talk with your friends and neighbors in an emergency even without access to the Internet. If his comments are any indication, Apocalypse apps may be headed your way soon. Tons of cool tech are also just waiting to be retrofitted for these purposes. David Dart's Pirate Box is a one-step local network in a box originally conceived for file sharing and local P2P purposes, but it wouldn't take much work to adapt the Pirate Box as a local networking tool able to communicate with other pirate boxes to form a compact, mobile set of local networks in the event of an Internet shutdown."

Reader Response on Getting Your Friends and Family Ready

UrbanSurvivalSkills.com received a comment from Secunda on the post "Urban Survival Planning - Getting your Relatives and Friends Ready", …..“Good post. We too have friends and acquaintances who have nothing prepared; no food set aside, no extra water, and have no disaster plan - and they live in earthquake country! Usually when we get together and the subject of an earthquake, hurricane, or, since last week the unrest in Egypt , becomes a topic my spouse and I are careful to couch our preparedness comments under the aegis of the virtue of self-reliance. They seemed to feel less threatened when we mention a basic or two every home should have. Sadly though, it has been my experience that for 90% of the population they do not know how thin the separation is between civilized living and barbarism.”

UrbanMan’s reply: Good idea linking self reliance for disasters like Earthquakes. This way is much more palatable than preaching economic collapse and Armageddon, ha ha. However from my experience most people, even my friends and family who live in earthquake and hurricane country, always think “hey, it never gets that bad”, or worse yet, “they (the infamous they) always get things back on track fast.”

Not bragging, but I have taken several people from total obliviousness to any possibility of surviving on their own, to a path of preparedness – and some of these guys were armed professionals who carry a gun every day. Sometimes I get the question, “How do you know about this?”, and my response is “How you do not?” I simply read, study and analyze like most people reading this site. And I grew up both as a child and as an adult learning that you had to take care of yourself as you are second priority at best with anyone else.

Still, it is in our interest to get friends and family as prepared as possible so they won’t be such a burden on us when they inevitably show up a day or two after the collapse. Maybe take some of these sheep to the gun range. I have taught several women how to shoot and they now love it and own their own guns. Take someone hiking and when they see your Camel-Bak HAWG bag or whatever, they’ll want one also. Show them a steel and magnesium fire starter – well they have to have one,…etc.

I’d say Jim, who writes the “Survival Chronicles of Jim” posts for this site – is my pinnacle case. Jim is a computer guy who didn’t even own a gun 15 months ago and now you can see how far he came from Day One to now through the 22 Chapters he has written on his journey to preparation.

In fact I talked to Jim this morning in the wake of this giant storm. He said he stayed home for two days with intermittent power shortages and felt extremely prepared. Of course, in a collapse with decayed or non-existent infrastructure such as electrical and water utilities, law enforcement and emergency responders, we’ll will have to take much, much more on our shoulders than simply waiting out a bad storm.

And you are absolutely right about a thin line between civilized living and barbarism. Once people are without water or food for a couple days I think you would see brutal behavior running rampant. Who could blame the people who have no food to feed their family? There would be large sub groups here. Some looking extra long at legal and ethical means to procure food,water and shlter for their family and others (may we should call them entitlists) who were too stupid, to lazy or too self absorbed in their pitiful lives to prepare when they had the means - these are the people I be inclined not to help.

You know, I guess you could come right out and make a proclamation to your family and friends,...."Just to let you all know, I am a survivalist. I have been planning, preparing, stocking material and all the little mundane things one needs to do to be prepared to survive a terrible collapse or even Armageddon. Do not show up to my house after the collapse starts unless you bring assets - food, water, gear, guns, skills and a willingness to work as a team."

Anyway Secunda, thanks for the reply- stay safe and stay prepared friend.

Urban Survival Planning - Winter Storm Lessons

There's a good chance some of you are in geographic location that is or recently experienced a pretty bad winter storm. Winds in excess of norms; temperature lows 20 to 30 degrees colder; maybe some sleet and/or snow. Maybe you experienced power outages. Maybe the power authority in your location conducted rolling electrical backouts due to the large surge in power needs. Maybe you attempted to get kerosene or electrical heaters but Wal-Mart, Target, etc., but they were all out.

All the above just happened to me. Power outages throughout the day; and with normal low temperatures for this time of year of 30 degrees and highs in the high 40's or low 50's,......the drop to a low of 5 and a high temp of 12 was quite a change. Been that way since yesterday and supposed to continue for a couple days.

Getting back to the house today I thought I was sitting pretty. Had extra wool blankets; military three piece sleeping bags; LED lantern kit powered by rechargeable batteries; plenty of food to get through even a long period of vehicle immobility due to bad weather; and, 80 gallons of stored water.

But like probably most of us believe, we prepare and are better off for it, but we will never really be satisfied with our preps. Always something we missed.

I used this opportunity to look at my preparations for the coming collapse and wargammed several additional stressors. What I wrote down for my preparation tasks list (you do have one don't you?) is the following:

No matter how good your foot wear is, sitting in one place such as in an LP/OP or on security for your Survival Site, just ain't good enough when the temps are 5 degrees F and the wind is honking at 12-15 mph. I am going to look into battery powered heating socks and have my friend make some canvas cover wool snuggie type half sleeping bags so the person in the static position can put his/her feet and legs into it but quickly get out of them.

Water froze in my Camelbak in my truck. I recently saw some surplus military artic no-freeze canteens which I have used before in a past life and in a place I want to forget.

Although I have watch caps galore, I think some fold-able behind the head ear muffs that can be worn underneath the knitted wool watch caps is in order. The wool and cotton variant watch caps just don't cut the wind.

Gloves. I have some pretty damn good gloves but a second and third pair, per person, of the Extreme Cold Weather (ECW) design is on my list as is several pair of military wool inserts, both the five finger and mitten w/ separate trigger finger type.

I have a pretty good stock of hard wood to burn in my fireplace. I am going to add to that significantly and place a 3/4 inch steel plate I have laying around in the fireplace so it can get hot and radiate heat. It was actually pretty comfortable going without power for 3 hours at night and sitting in front of the fire place reading a book bu LED lantern light.

Although I only had enough of the AA rechargeable batteries charged to run five LED Lanterns. Note to self: more rechargeable batteries and keep more charged. Although no power in the house, I could have charged them from my truck with the 12v adaptor, but sitting in front of the fireplace, with a book and two ounces of Woodford Reserve Whiskey was pretty comfortable. Not that I think the real collapse would permit much of this activity.

Not that I needed any, I called Wal-Mart and Lowe's to see if they had any electrical or kerosene heaters in stock. Both told me they were bought out. One of the sales people told me flashlights are going quick. Oh, a word about flashlights. Love the Surefire line of flashlights; I have several models from hand held to weapons mounted lights, however those CR123 batteries sure lose power quick. Knew this was not the best bet for long term survival a couple of years ago and started to procure LED flashlights, like the excellent Pelican brand (and others), that use AA or AAA batteries so I can re-charge them. So if you only have non-rechargeable battery powered flashlights, then maybe consider some AA or AAA powered flashlights.

Lastly a friend called me on cell and told me his lost power and couldn't use his electric stove. No problem for me, I have gas and when the electric is out, you can still light the burners with a match. Anyway, he has a gas grill and extra tanks, like I do and I'm sure most of you do as well, now he knows knows he needs a gas camp stove or the burner and hose element so he can cook in the house or the garage with it. Heater elements are also available for these portable gas tanks - I've used many of then inside of tents in shitty locations to stay warm.....okay, maybe not warm, but at least to keep from freezing.

Did this massive storm prompt anybody else to think of something new?