Survival Preparation - Getting Others to Prepare for the Collapse

I was listening to Glenn Beck this morning and a caller was asking for advice about his wife whose beliefs about the coming collapse were described as “ostrich like” – meaning she was putting her head in the sand. The caller said that when he mentioned to his wife about buying additional food or maybe buying some precious metals she would freak out.

The caller also asked Glenn Beck how he can get his wife to see the need to prepare. Glenn said something to the effect that “how can anyone not see what’s coming?” – a rhetorical question to be sure. He then further asked the caller if his wife had any friends that saw the future the way the caller did. When the caller replied yes, Glenn then suggested he get the friends to help get the wife to see the aspect of “preparing for the worst, hoping for the best”.

When your wife or family doesn’t want to listen to your perspective on Survival prepping, this is called “There is No Expert in the Village” syndrome. Where because of the simple fact you are so close to your family and friends, they think you cannot possibly know much more than them. It doesn’t help your credibility for them to have seen you crap faced drunk on occasion (come on that’s a joke).

But what is not a joke is that if your family and friends do not prepare they will be a burden on you come collapse time. Plus if you cannot get your immediate family to see the need to prepare, even just a little, then it could even lead to a break up of the family unit. I have a friend who follows what I say,....he bought an M-4 carbine and his wife freaked out. They are currently separated and heading for divorce court where I’m sure the wife will paint her soon to be ex-husband as a Survivalist Loon.

If you have a wife or even close family members who are in the "denying the coming collapse camp", then you need to be in a careful hurry to get them to see the light. Short papers or conversations on facts, and short videos may work the best. This is called “Dripping”. Sometimes if make take five, ten, maybe 20 drips for your intended audience to say “tell me more”. This may seem like a chore, but it is absolutely critical that you get the immediate family on board and build a survival team with your close family, close friends and even neighbors.

I recently got a close friend of mine not only interested in prepping but on a frenzied pace to prepare. All I did was call him up and say “Hey buddy, I know you go camping often, can you use a case of MRE’s that will expire in 6 months?” He replied “Heck yes, I would love a case of MRE's. Why are you giving them up?” I told him “I bought a bunch more long term food and am trying to make room.” He asked “Why are you buying a bunch of food?” and I simply said “mainly for insurance, but lately I’ve been thinking I’m going to need it.” He asked why and I went into some financial factors indicating a coming collapse,.....then I said, “on a lesser extent preparing for bad things such as terrorist nuclear events or pandemics is a good idea also.”

So I drop the MRE’s off and have lunch with this friend of mine where he proceded to ask me a laundry list of questions pertaining to survival prep....stocking food, building Bug Out Bags, buying cold weather gear, developing power supplies during a infrastructure collapse, etc. He had did some research on his own and he was prompted by “fear of loss or fear of being left behind” by me NOT trying to convince him. I then let him in on the fact that this website was mine - he was floored which even add fuel to his prep fire. The good news is that my friend is more than an avid gun collector,...he has a Class III license, owning some belt fed weapons, and many others. So he doesn’t have to prepare for that aspect. And in fact, part of my strategy on getting him focused on survival preparation was that he can be a big asset, as I can to him, when the collapse comes.

So if you’re having problems getting people to listen to you may try the short survival prep drips,...remember that there is no expert in the village,…use the fear of loss/being left behind concept. Some recent facts that can help are posted on the fuel price signs at your local gas station! with no reduction in price on the horizon; commodities such as Gold, Corn, Cotton and Sugar up 60%, 78%, 43% and 164% respectively in the last 12 months; Food stamp recipients up 35%; number of people in poverty up to 43.6 million an increase of almost 10%; and most importantly the National debt up 32% to a level that cannot be fixed – yes we are heading for at least an economic collapse.

Good luck, prepare well and preach preparedness to the extent you are willing to compromise your OPSEC.

Urban Survival - Fuel Emergencies: Making Gas From Wood

For some of you more technical or mechanically sound individuals, it is apparently possible to build a Biomass Gasifier Unit that can provide fuel for internal combustion engines for use in a Petroleum Emergency.

This technology is not recent. Fuel gas produced by the reduction of coal and peat (from Peat moss) was used for heating as early as 1840 in Europe . Although not common, nor widely used, it was familiar technology. During World War II, due to gas shortages for the war effort, these gas generators were much more common and even common to Korea into the 1950’s.

All internal combustion engines run off of vapor not liquid. All liquid fuels are vaporized before they enter the combustion chamber. The purpose of a gasifier is to transform solid fuels into a gaseous form to keep the engines free of particles. So think energy converter and filter.

FEMA,…yes the infamous FEMA, produces many publications, and one of the more interesting documents was a 90 page report entitled “Construction of a Simplified Wood Gas Generator for Fueling Internal Combustion Engines in a Petroleum Emergency”,..whew!,…that’s a mouthful even for a recently de-classified document.

The entire document is available here, and it may be a good idea to print a copy and put in your 3 ring binder of other Survival and Collapse information. You do have a 3 ring binder of good Survival information, don’t you?

Reader Response on Sniper Rifles and Street Gangs

UrbanSurvivalSkills.com received a comment on the "Urban Survival Firearms - Sniper Rifle Necessity?" post,....I think most people who expect STHF have basic fire arms skills. and out of those (only) a few have basic long range fire arms skill. I don't think its a necessary piece of equipment but if you have the ability to use it then its going to be a primary tool when engaging hostile targets at 300 yards or more. Also it would be used with you team you need to build for cover and observation of the surrounding area. I myself have little knowledge of using a scoped rifle but I am learning and learning fast. with the world looking more and more like its going to in a sense turn in to a mad max world its good to have the ability to see and asses targets or bands of targets.

Also if you get a laser range finder and use it to set up range markers at your bug out base or even long term camp or "base" the sniper rifle would a tool worth its weight in gold. my opinion...its better to shoot someone who you deem a threat before he shoots you. also one thing I haven't seen this website talk about is street gangs. In a disaster such as massive black out or natural disasters street gangs go on massive offensives and like to kill rape loot and and start chaos. so in an urban or suburban area if you can find a suitable bug out location or temporary base camp with a nice field of vision set up range markers....subtle ones. maybe a group of rocks or tin cans every hundred yard going out to 700 yards or whatever you feel is decent.

UrbanMan replies: Good comment. Glad you are learning the art of the scoped rifle. Sniping is all together a different subject, but the ability to use a scoped rifle to increase your ability to engage at longer ranges, when your environment supports it or even necessitates it, can be huge. Laser Range Finders are good kit when taking a shot from unknown terrain, but the Survivalist can mitigate that need by prepping the terrain as you mentioned with range markers - way too many historic examples of that. A flag or way to determine wind value if helpful too.

Did you say Street Gangs? You mean like: Barrio Aztecas; Bloods; Crips; Folk Nation; Gangster Disciples, Mexican Mafia aka La EME; MS-13; SUR 13; Surenos; Texas Syndicate. If you count in the Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs (OMG’s), then you can add the Bandidos; Hells Angels; Mongols; and Pagans...plus others. Where I live there
are over 70 Street Gangs. The vast majority of them are just a bunch of neighborhood punks,...but one has to respect the power of mobs and the capability of already existing organized groups of criminals.

Know your enemy or your potential threats. The way to begin is to understand their operational territory and boundaries; operational routines (the how of their criminal actions) then analyze how that can impact on you and your Survival Groups safety and mobility, especially Bug Out routes.

Getting tied into the local police through personal contacts or serving on a civilian advisory board; talking to other emergency providers, as well as reading the paper and talking to commercial vendors in the area can help you build and maintain a Situation Map, aka SITMAP (see the below map graphic as an example...this is a fabricated example and no way intends to depict real world conditions). The next step on a SITMAP is to keep track of criminal actions and events,..e.g..shootings, robberies, car jackings, etc. Eventually you will be able to see a pattern - this is called Pattern Analysis.....and lets you forecast with some degree of accuracy future criminal operations.

This is a beginning of Intellignce Prep of the Battlefield (IPB) or you can call it Intel Prep of the Area of Operations - doesn't much matter. It is simply the process of understanding the threat and how their intent, criminal operational routines, and capabilities can effect you.

The reader is absolutely right about the large threat from organized and armed street gangs especially in a degraded infrastructure - hence the necessity of being armed yourself, having a survival team for mutual support, having safe protocols for operating your patrols and performing all survival tasks, and utilizing rudimentary intelligence related practices to keep yourself safe.

In a total collapse, Street Gangs will sooner rather than later expend all the loot (food, water, etc) in their given original "gang territory" and will eventually expand to other areas, especially the areas that are 1 - easy targets and 2 - high yield targets.

Be smart, be prepared.

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.