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Sunday, January 31, 2010

Urban Survival Gear – Battery Powered Lanterns

Although we would consider a lantern to be a luxury for the Survival Bug Out Bag, battery powered lanterns are such a great item to have on hand not only for Armageddon but for those simple eight hour power outages that always seem to hit at night. During a survival situation, if you can maintain light discipline meaning using the lights without alerting passers by, lanterns would provide a moral boost, being able to see in darkness to read, cook, etc.

There are many battery powered lanterns available on the camping market. We think your lanterns should be powered by “AA” or “AAA” batteries in order to maintain some battery compatibility with the handheld flashlights and re-charging system(s).

Another necessary feature is that the bulbs should be LEDS and not conventional bulbs which are much more delicate and will burn out. Using various reflectors, LEDS can provide a good amount of light commensurate with their power.

There are two models that we have owned and tested that we would recommend the preparing Urban Survivor to considering purchasing:

Cabelas Ultrabright 8 LED Tent Light



The Cabelas Ultrabright 8 LED Tent Light, priced around $20. This light can be used as a standing lantern with three collapsible legs or can be hung from a hook using a ring mounted of top.

This lantern uses 4 “AA” batteries and should provide 50 to 60hours of light.

Rayovac Sportsman 70 lumens Lantern




The Rayovac Sportsman 70 lumens lantern also uses LEDS and is powered by 3 “AA” batteries and reported to provide light for 60-72 hours. Price at around $14 this is also an excellent buy. Available from Amazon or your local hardware store.

We give the slight tip of the "Don't Tread On Me" ball cap to the Rayovac Lantern. At these prices you could afford several for your survival kit and their size makes them a good candidate to pack away into your Survival Bug Out Bag when you have to get out of dodge.

Surviving Armageddon – A History Channel Perspective

We recently watched the last half of a History Channel show entitled “Surviving Armageddon”. It immediately held our interest while channel surfing as the program appeared to be what we are writing about – Urban Survival, and moving out of the cities to a planned safe area, requiring Survival Skills and Preparation.

All in all a good show, depicting what we believe to be a fairy accurate portrayal of what we could expect with a total infrastructure collapse from any number of incidents; Nuclear and/or EMP attack; Super Economic collapse; Pandemic, or a host or combination of others. The program talks about the cities emptying out as people go in search of food and water and safety.

It further discusses the human condition and how people are basically nice because they are comfortable, then the program asks the rhetorical question, “how nice would you be (to people in need during an infrastructure collapse) if you yourself were miserable”. To be sure, the generosity of humans is not infinite and you can be assured that people facing death from starvation will resort to barbarism.

The key actors were a man, woman and their teenage son fleeing the greater Los Angeles area into the Mojave Desert. We did not see the beginning of the show to see what point in the collapse did they make the decision to flee. The show did a good job of forecasting what the situation would look like with armed gangs possibly taking over food warehouses, electrical grid off, fuel and water distribution broke therefore water and fuel unobtainable.

The program depicted the man approaching an armed group looking for food. The man offers paper money, which of course, holds no current value. And just as obvious, the armed group is not willing to barter. The man leaves at the point of the gun and without his expensive looking watch for his efforts. The trio stops on the highway to take a break and think of what their next actions are. Upon seeing an approaching truck, the trio hides in the brush and watches as the truck stops and armed men steal the trio’s belongings and drains the van of fuel. Which brought to light another obvious point, your firearms (but he didn’t have any) and your bug out bag or individual kit are never more than arms reach away. So at this point the trio have nothing.

The show moves on with the trio trying to walk out of the desert, occasionally searching houses, either abandoned or with dead people on the porch, to search for water. The man does locate some non-potable water in a bucket which he filters through his shirt, starts a fire with a car battery and steel wool, and purifies the water. This is the high point for the depiction of survival skills, basically everything else they do is in haste, like searching other houses for water and not realizing the potential for water in hot water heaters, for example.

Once the trio stumbles into a yard to find, what presumably is, the family pet being cooked over a fire. A young girl tries to drive them off with a shotgun. The man takes the shotgun away from the girl only for the viewer to see him without the shotgun in the next scene.

We’ll end our review of the show with that, but will say that this show was worth watching and was advertised as being available from www.history.com, however after a quick search of that site we could not locate the particular DVD. The show was worth re-checking the history channel web site for its availability a few weeks from now.

Saturday, January 30, 2010

Urban Survival Skills – Recognizing and Treating Dehydration/Heat Injuries

Simply put you can live without food for many days if not a week or more befoere it begins to significantly degrade your survival ability, but 48 hours (2 days) without water and you are probably toes up. In a controlled environment, you should drink about half of your body weight in ounces of water, per day. Physical activity will exacerbate your lack of water problem in a survival situation, so you should conserve or ration your sweat by accomplishing your Survival tasks in periods of low heat and out of direct sun light, which means in the morning or evening hours and at night. Eat less food. The body requires water to digest and absorb food, so eat less of it if your water supply is limited.

Thirst is not a reliable symptom of dehydration, the other symptoms below are more reliable for indicators of a heat injury cause by dehydration.

Heat Cramps. Caused by the loss of electrolytes through sweat, a good indication of initial dehydration is muscle cramps, may be followed by a headache. Get out of the sun and hydrate now. Minimal activity should be allowed until sufficient water is taken in and the cramps go away.

Heat Exhaustion. This is the next level of severity of dehydration. Additional symptoms include headaches, dizziness, pale skin clammy to the touch. Irritability may be present, but if you are in a survival situation, who wouldn’t be irritated? Drink water! Evaporative cooling by pouring water onto the person and letting the air (not the Sun) evaporate would be a good idea.

Heat Stroke.. Again headaches, dizziness probably accompanied by nausea, vomiting, fast pulse and mental confusion are key symptoms for heat stroke. If you are at this point you probably won’t recognize it in yourself and if you are by yourself you will probably die. Immediate hydration by IV fluid and evaporative cooling are crucial and immediately necessary. If the patient is conscious and able, allow him to drink water in small amount frequently, maybe 3-5 ounces every 5 minutes or so.

If you are in a Survival (Urban or Rural) Situation with other people, train each other to watch for these symptoms and use a buddy team concept to monitor each other.

Urban Survival Skills – Field Expedient Water Purification

Just got an e-mail from Jim wanting to know if there was a way for him to purify water if he was stuck in a Survival situation someplace without a commercial water filter or purification tablets.

Sure Jim, here’s the deal: The two most common pathogens from non-potable water are Cryptosporidium and Giardia. Giardia will cause bad stomach cramps and projectile diarrhea (hope you’re not eating dinner as you read this). Cryptosporidium which is like Giardia, but can be more severe or less severe and may last for a longer time, as much as a week or more.

You can also ingest parasites which can cause you problems down the road. But we always say “you’ll be dead of dehydration before you ever get sick from parasites.” Still it pays to have and maintain water purification discipline so you won’t be laid up in a fetal position when the zombies try kicking down your door or chasing you through the woods.

Here are some field expedient means to purify water (all protocols require shaking then let standing for 30 minutes): 10 drops of 2% providine iodine to one quart or 2drops of 10% providine iodine; 2 drops of chlorine bleach to one quart; or, 5 drops of 2% tincture of iodine. I'll bet you're now thinking water purification tablets are much easier....they are. But file this information away into your kit bag of Survival Skills and Knowledge.

Of course, the best method of purifying water is to boil it to a rolling boil for about 5 minutes. That even kills Cryptosporidium and Giardia that the aforementioned field expedient mixes may not or won’t.

A field expedient Survival Water Filter can be made using socks or cloth layered with cold black charcoal (from a camp fire) and sand. This helps takes out some of the objects, bad taste and pollutants before you purify it.

I’ll bet your bottled water never tasted so good after reading this. Good night Jim.