New Father Fears the Future

Received this from Anonymous: "I am 27 years old and recently married. We have a three year old daughter and a 4 month old daughter. I live in a duplex, in I guess you would call it the burbs, because I went to school with the owner and he gives me the best rent price possible. My wife is not working now because of the baby, before she was a temp secretary but had work about 60% of the time. I am a
school engineer (really a fix it all guy), plus I do home repairs for the guy I rent from for extra income. Now I need it the extra money more than ever. One of the men I work with taught me about the Survivor Movement with me some magazines to look at and talking about the economy. I am not into guns, recently I have been thinking about getting one and I find myself thinking about what happens if the power goes off and doesn't come back on."

UrbanMan replies: I am curious if you are from the Northeast where a power outage went on for quite a while for some folks. Hopefully, the people who were affected by this used the lessons learned to get better prepared for an alike event,.....or something much worse.

You are wise to start considering what can happen, to include providing for security and protection for your family. Just having a gun is not going to solve everything. If the power goes off and does not come back on, that will only be the beginnings of your problems. Lack of food and fuel, disruption of water utilities, reduced emergency services, a fast and substantial rise in angry, hungry people are can occur quickly if the catalyst for the event are severe enough.

There are four generally categories of Survival Preparation: Food; Water; Shelter; and, Security/Protection. Each with many facets of understanding and preparatory actions.

Consider food for instance. You could have months worth of frozen goods in a freezer, but when the power goes off, what are you going to do? Canned and boxed pantry goods will have an expiration date at some point. Dehydrated foods require water to hydrate. Ready to eat meals like Military MRE's are expensive. You final survival preparation solutions for food, will probably be a combination of all these food items.

One of the easiest things to do is to buy dry and canned pantry goods on sale or when you find good deals.  Put away several months of items and rotate them using the first in, first out principal. 

Security and Protection. I believe all law abiding Americans should own multiple guns. One gun cannot accomplish all your protection tasks as well as possible hunting applications. An individual prepping for survival against many different collapse scenarios would be best served by having several firearms (and ammunition) such as a handgun, shotgun and rifle.

There are other factors of security. Where you live; potential threat streams; refugee routes; defensibility of your home. Protection and security are usually best achieved in a teamwork approach. I say, "Survival is a Team Sport".

And of course, you cannot live without water. You will dehydrate and die without water long before you die of starvation. You simply must have a full time water source, best if not dependent upon power solutions to provide you the water. Some people have a water service where they, like stocking pantry items, buy 15 or 20 five gallon jugs as their stock then reduce the periodic delivery to what they use and use their existing stock again using the first in first out principal.   This is not the cheapest way to insure you have some water on hand when the lights go out or SHTF, but having some emergency food and water on hand gives you time to make a decision,....to stay or bug out.

Shelter is important as it provides protection from the elements and two legged threats. No matter how defensible or strong your survival location is, a Bug Out plan so you can rapidly vacate and move to another safe location are paramount. The Bug Out just doesn't consider where you are going, but how you are going to get there; but what you will take with you.

You can learn much and need to learn much in as quickest time period as you can. This site, as well as many other on-line sites reflect alot of planning tips, lessons learned, techniques, equipment ideas and much, much more. Make use of all these resources. Many of which we are linked to on the bottom right side of this page. Quickly develop a plan. Objectively review that plan continually. And prepare for some unfortunate things to happen to this country be it from an economic/dollar collapse or externally generated chaos. Educate yourself, prep well and good luck.

Winter Survival - Stranded in a Snow Storm

I recently had a question from Robert B., based on a story he read in the newspaper, about what would I do in a similar situation. Apparently two college kids traveling on a seldom used road became stuck in a snow storm. Robert’s questions were would I stay in my vehicle? How long would I stay waiting on help before I would trek out towards civilization? Would I take the shortest route or would I follow the roads? What if I didn’t have any survival gear with me in my vehicle?
 

My reply to Robert:

It would near impossible for me to be caught in any vehicle oriented situation without my traveling Bug Out Bag holding various pieces of kit depending where I am going; the season (hot or cold weather); whether I am flying or not; and what purpose I am traveling for.

But for the sake of argument let’s say we ventured out without any kit, without any knowledge of impending adverse weather, cell phone went dead or no signal, traveling a remote road with long distances between any infrastructure, and, became stuck in our vehicle in a snow storm.

Your first priority is not to become a cold injury. I would not sit in my car running the motor and heater as it will eventually run out of fuel. I would use it to get warm between bouts of survival work. I would build a shelter outside of the warm for two reason: one - to have a fire (for signaling and warmth) and, two – the vehicle becomes a refrigerator without the motor and heater running....two plys of sheet metal do not insulation make.

Shelter. Even in the desert location, there are natural materials to build an overhead cover or lean to type shelter. Maybe not enough to provide decent cover from a rain, but if you make it sturdy enough you can stop snow even if you have to clear the snow off from time to time (to reduce the weight and maintain the survival shelter’s integrity).

Vehicle seat covers, floor mats and trunk carpet can be used as a tarp for your overhead cover. All these materials as well as removable seat(s) can provide insulation from the ground as well.

I would build and maintain a fire. If you do not have lighter, the vehicle’s cigarette lighter (until the Government outlaws them) can be used to ignite tinder. One of the vehicle’s battery cables can be loosened and touch connected to the other cable to produce a spark to ignite tinder.

The vehicle’s fuel supply can be used to provide an accelerant. Stuffing a piece of string, root or vine down into the gas tank with a piece of cloth wrapped on the end can collect enough fuel to help start a fire. Maybe you can stuff some paper or cloth down into the carburetor or fuel injection system then pump the accelerator to collect the fuel onto the rag or paper.

Everyone has a owner’s manual or vehicle registration, or scrap paper,…or maybe even a pile of traffic citations or parking tickets in their glove compartment. This paper source combined with small twigs, scarps or torn pieces of clothing or insulation material from your coat provide the tinder. Most vehicles have a paper air filter. The paper filter can be used as a tinder sources as well.

Don’t start your fire until you have an adequate amount of tinder, bigger tinder, small pieces of fuel and even larger pieces are collected and ready to be added to your growing fire.

Water. Don’t pile the snow into your mouth to drink. Instead collect snow in a cup, water bottle or makeshift canteen and melt it by placing it close to the fire. If you have a used water bottle you can pack with snow and put in your coat pocket or under the vehicle’s heater when you run it, to melt. Hub caps and removable vehicle cup holders all can be used for improvised canteens.

Signaling. Keep the vehicle roof, trunk and hood clear of snow so that any aircraft can more easily spot it. You can take two, 2 or 3 inch diameter sticks and fashion an “X” on the roof. You can find an open area on the ground and create a larger “X”. If and when you decide to walk out, leave a note in the vehicle on the dash or steering wheel articulating your intent and direction.

If your vehicle ran off the road, making a signal on the road where passers by can see it is a good idea.

Decision to Walk Out. The decision to walk out has to be made considering your physical condition,.....what your condition will be in a day or two. How far you have to walk…if it is within your capabilities. I would probably walk the roads, as it is much easier and in case there is other traffic on the road – you can access help. If you have no land navigation skills and are in poor condition, there is no other route but staying on the roads. Other considerations are what gear you have on you in order to build shelters and fire if the trip will take more than one movement. A final factor is if anyone knows what route you took and will be missing you therefore reporting you as missing.

The bottom line is that winter survival, as described in the scenario, above can be made much easier if you carry wilderness survival kit in your vehicle. A simple bag in the trunk or cab containing a blanket or two, a couple small tarps, fire starting material, some long stay food, a couple of bottles or tins of water, a flashlight,…even better if you add candles and chemlights. These are all simple and inexpensive items to keep in your vehicle just in case.

Economic Collapse: Watch Out For QE3

QE3 is of course Quantitative Easing Round Three, where more fiat currency is printed further devaluing the current paper money in circulation and necessarily causing prices to inflate because the dollar is worth less. Once QE3 is announced or actually executed,.....expect the latter since the Government and the Fed have taken secrecy from the people to new heights,....precious metals will go up, particularly Gold.

In fact, when the major central banks launched a joint action to provide emergency U.S. dollar loans to banks in Europe, which put more money (not backed by anything but some politician's word) there became a rush to buy equities and commodities that would survive inflation and Gold rose $30 an ounce.

As 2011 ends, the four FED governors will be replaced and most analysts figure that the next four will be much more liberal in their monetary policies. QE3 will probably be snuck in, money created from air, without much publicity; and the present incredible low interest rates will climb as the dollar devalues. This will incite the $16.4 trillion Federal Debt to explode and the U.S. will be all probability start the slide to become like Greece. So the smart people are buying precious metals ahead of the very probable QE3.

It shouldn't end there for Survivalist. Everything will go up in price,... excepting your pay checks. The smart idea is to procure now what you can, because as the interest rates rise, the beginning of the dollar collapse begins. Scary times my friends. They will likely become much more scary in early 2012.

I am not advocating going into debt to purchase vehicles or property at the current low interest rates, although I know a couple people who are rationalizing that they would rather have new, reliable vehicles for a Bug Out
than to try and procure one when the interest rates are higher and the dollar buys less.  I'm not going to do that.  I'll continue on the same rate, maybe just step it up a notch, on procuring long stay food items and perhaps more Silver. 

2012 is going to be ugly.  Be prepared.

Copper: The Other Precious Metal?

Received an e-mail from Henry who wrote: "What do you think about savings pennies for their copper value. One of my friends told me that the one cent penny is now worth 5 cents as copper scrap metal."

UrbanMan reply: Henry, you wrote me over three weeks ago and to be frank I did not think I would reply, until I saw a recent article on the internet talking about potential legislation in Congress that may result in the abolishment of the penny as currency. Until then, and only then can pennies be legally melted down for their copper value.

But not all pennies are made of copper. Pennies made in 1982 or earlier have 95% copper. Pennies since then are made mostly from zinc. The current value of a copper penny is around 2 1/2 cents.

Copper has a lot of scrap value, otherwise you would not be seeing copper related thefts of copper wiring, construction sites, phone facilities, etc. As I write this copper scrap is valued at $3.57 per pound.

Going back to the value of a copper penny, 150% of it's face value, is substantial, however you would need a truck load of it to make any substantial money once or if the legislation is passed to abolish the penny. Plus it is just so heavy as to not be practical. I even know gents who have taken very substantial amounts of silver and converted it to Gold to reduce the weight to value ratio.

I think you would do okay just to save what you normally get in pocket change. I do this and routinely fill a jar which I take once a year to the bank to convert to dollars. My average yearly conversion is just shy of $200. A little mini- windfall which contributes to my survival stockage as ammunition, or helps buy a new gun or long stay food.

You could collect copper pennies, again 1982 or before, and sell on e-Bay as some people do. I would recommend however that you put your precious metal collection efforts into Silver and/or Gold. My efforts are concentrated mostly around the buying of silver coins for their silver melt value, one or two ounce silver rounds, or, five ounce bars.