A Perception On Preparing

From: Preparing with Dave

A Perception on Preparing

Written by Preparing with Dave

Story Date Sun 21 Apr 2013

My Personal Thoughts For You   1

A Perception On Preparing

Chapter 1, Why Should I Prepare?

Why Prepare?  Why not?  You set your alarm the night before, so you wake up in the morning for work.  You study for a test before you take it.   You take many actions to prepare yourself in your everyday life. Your everyday life can also change in an instant.  This can happen in small ways or large ways.  You could be get laid off from your job, so hopefully you have some money saved up.  You could suffer a relationship breakup, and have to find a new place to live or hire an attorney.  Someone you depend on could pass away, leaving you vulnerable.  There’s also the realistic possibility of a natural or unnatural catastrophic event happening, which could render food and water sources unavailable, and emergency services unreachable. You also have to prepare for this, if you want to be okay, in the event something disastrous happens. Don’t fail that test!

Humans are the only life on the planet that does not prepare as a normal part of life.  We travel through life, mostly unaware, and focusing only on what is directly in front of us.  We may plan financially for the future, but not for a natural or unnatural disastrous event.  Most other species have a bug out or shelter in place plan at all times.  We have become weak, unaware, unprepared, and may I say, spoiled.

We have electrical power and lighting at just the touch of a finger on a switch, refrigeration to keep our food fresh, vehicles of all kinds to take us anywhere we want to go, hand creams, sterilizing sprays and gels, great medical practices that keep us at a medical state of not facing the possibility of mortality until it is right in front of us.  We have the ability now, to do anything we want to, at anytime of the day we so chose to do it, in anyplace, anywhere. Some people see it as progress.  I see the greatness in all of this, and I love convenience myself.  I love a nice hot shower, toilet paper, and many other great items that make life cleaner and more pleasant. I also see the position of vulnerability we have placed ourselves in. We rely too much on mechanical means and conveniences.  We don’t do very much by hand anymore.  We are regularly not aware of our surroundings or how our environment is changing around us.  Not just our natural environment, but our social environment. Some people don’t even know how to handle food and prepare a meal.  Most people don’t know how to grow food, or hunt food, let alone process and store it.  If all the mechanically means went away, and stores were not stocked, half the population of the world would die in a matter of months, from starvation and war. Without technology, there would be a period of time needed for people to learn how to communicate face to face again, with certain mannerisms that have become non-existent. These mannerisms would be the defining factor as to the quality and quantity of life and peace.

Without the capacity to successfully communicate vocally and convey one’s intentions, battles and wars would be constant, and many would die. It is necessary for people to turn off all technological devices, and speak to one another as much as possible, in order to keep communication skills at a quality level.  Without this skill, if technology goes away and people have to work together and communicate, then confusion and misunderstand can turn into arguments, which lead to battles, which can lead to all out war.  Eventually, no one knows why the war even started in the first place.

There are so many reasons to prepare yourself Mentally, Physically, Spiritually, and in your Skills.  If a natural, unnatural, or even cosmic or economic disaster happens, do you want to be at your best, your worst, or just pretty good?  It’s your choice of course, and you may even have some type of disability, but that doesn’t mean you give up and decide not to give life your best effort. Even if you have a disability, and especially if you have a disability, you may want to prepare for not having normal services if they go down in a disaster.

What could possibly happen? Here are some examples and realities:

Earthquakes can happen anywhere in the world, and do happen everyday somewhere.  Not just in the regular places they happen, but everywhere.  New fault lines are being found and are forming all the time.  Some places they might happen do not have the stringent buildings codes that areas where they happen frequently have.  Also, some areas of the world and in all countries, there are older buildings that can collapse in an earthquake. A man in one earthquake had a building collapse around him.  It took him two days to cut himself out to safety, through all kinds of materials with just his fishing knife.  Since hearing this, I always have a knife with a serrated edge on it, with me at all times.  Even on my casual clothes at home relaxing.  When I leave the house, I have a flashlight on one side of my belt, and the knife on the other.  The knife is small and legal.  It is a tool, not a weapon.

Flooding can happen for many reasons.  A dam could break. Many dams are earthen dams, which mean they are made of dirt.  They can become saturated over time and weaken.  They can go without warning.  An earthquake can loosen them up, and then millions of tons of water will come down a small creek or river, taking every with it as it travels downstream.  This won’t be just water. It will be debris, like trees, rocks, and maybe even vehicles.  Since you may be wondering about these dams being inspected regularly, they aren’t.  There aren’t enough inspectors to inspect all of them, and many are in bad shape.

There could also be heavy rain, or rain on top of snow with quickly warming temperatures, that together, cause great amounts of water to overwhelm streams, creeks, and rivers. Water is a very powerful force. It is beautiful and dangerous at the same time.

Tsunamis have already happened recently, and the video footage of their power is sobering, to say the least.  Even if you are a healthy, fast runner, you can’t outrun one on open ground.  You have to know how and why they happen, so you will know the signs of one coming.  Even a cool day with the breeze going “out to sea”, can be a sign.  The air would be warmer coming over land if it was “normal”, unless you are in wintertime or a cold area.  I will cover tsunamis more in another chapter.

Cosmic events, like a meteor strike or large solar flare, are realities as we have seen in recent past events.  Both are devastating in their own ways.  One can cause an impact and sonic wave damage, and the other can overload our electrical grid and take down needed power for days, or even weeks, months, or more.

Economic collapse can cause hunger, fear, violence, and martial law to be invoked.  If the economies of the world collapsed, resources would stop flowing freely.  No one does much of anything these days without getting paid, so food, medical supplies, and other products and resources would stop.  What do you have on hand to last you through this period?

War!  What if war broke out?  It’s not a far-fetched notion.  If resources became scarce for some reason, countries would start competing harder, and possibly go to war. If a terrorist nuclear device was to be detonated in the United States or in some other country, the world’s stability would change instantly and all nations would be on high alert.  One missed step could send the world into WW III immediately.

There are many everyday occurrences that can be disastrous to a person’s singular life, without anyone else even noticing, or it making the news.  I believe in being prepared for whatever may happen.  This puts my mind, heart, and soul at ease.  I find it empowering and uplifting to know I am prepared and can help others prepare, before and after any disaster happens.  Whether that disaster is large or small, natural or unnatural, I believe I am prepared to do my best through it.  I would like for you to feel the same way, so when someone mentions the possibility of something disastrous happening, you just smile and say, “I’m ready”.

My name is Dave, and I am prepared.  What for?  For anything and everything.  Just as we prepare for simple everyday events, I prepare for the unexpected and unwanted moments of life, too.  We prepare for weddings by renting a tuxedo, for example.  We prepare for a test by studying.  We prepare our children for adult life in many ways.  We prepare for our future retirement, by setting money aside in an account.  I’d like to talk with you about another account that you may be overlooking, the survival account.  This account may be empty and in need of some deposits into it.  I’m talking about the account that you will need to withdrawal from if the stores are closed, or the emergency services you are used to, are not available.  To deposit into this survival account, you have to do what is called preparing, or more commonly known as “Prepping”.

There are TV specials, websites, social pages, blogs, and many other resources that are dedicated to preparing.  Many offer advice, information, survival food and gear reviews, and links to purchase supplies, tools, and literature.  There are different levels of political or criticality mindedness with these sources for learning about preparing, and links to supplies you may need.  You have to pick which ones you access your information and other resources from, based on your beliefs and choice of what you want you or your family exposed to.  Some may be harsh to you, where others may be too political or not enough of both.  You may want one that covers survival tools and survival methods, or you might want more of a homesteading/old ways of living type of page or site. I would suggest all of the above, so you can get a good perspective from many sources, and then settle in to what you are most comfortable.

Most of the time, it is called prepping.  I like to call it preparing, because it flows better and is the real meaning and original word to describe what is being done.  A “prepper” is a person that is preparing for any number of events that can stop the availability of emergency responders and necessary supplies, and create a dangerous environment for all life.  These events can be natural or unnatural.  Most of the basic steps in the preparing of supplies and skills are common to all possible events.  Some events may require more expertise in certain areas, so you may have to learn an advanced skill to ready yourself to respond in that situation with a quality level of success. A person preparing, is establishing a network of people, a supply of goods and materials, and knowledge of needed skills, so they can be as self-sufficient as they can be in an emergency event, without outside assistance.  These people should be praised for their independence.  They are doing something that will prevent unnecessary strain on the emergency system of first responders.  Their positive actions, free up the emergency responders to help more disabled or disadvantaged people, which shows a level of maturity on their part.

There are good and bad people in the world.  There are sane and insane people in the world.  The world of preparing is not without either.  No place in the world is.  There has been some bad press and talk of people that prepare.  Many words have been used to describe them, and a couple of those words are paranoid, or on edge.  Well, who isn’t a little on edge these days.  There’s allot of negative going on, and it all seems out of our personal control.  I prefer the words mature and independent when describing people that prepare. Anybody that takes actions to create an ability to be self-sufficient in an emergency situation is mature in their thoughts, as well as in their actions.  People that prepare are independent, and as an American, it is the founding principle of my nation’s beginnings.  We have a Declaration of Independence that is one of our most valued documents.  I am proud to be prepared to look out for myself and others in an emergency situation, wherever it happens, and whenever it happens.  Independence and preparedness should be held in high regard, and should be taught in all schools, no matter what the grade level. All nations should have emergency preparedness held to be just as important as any other curriculum.

May what I offer you here, be of use, and perhaps enhance your life or save it someday. What I offer is not of my own making, but of a set of circumstances, events, decisions, mistakes, failures, and relationships throughout my life, some personal and some professional.  I believe I have been guided in many ways, right here and now, to this point.

I have seen a little bit of life in my years on earth.  More than some, less than others.  I have experienced natural disasters, self-made disasters, disasters at the hands of others, financial mistakes, mishaps, and successes, as well as disastrous relationships of the personal and profession nature. I have studied many other types in depth that I have not personally experienced. All of these experiences guide my decisions now, in every part of my life, personal and professional.  I look, listen, and feel more deeply than I ever have. I feel connected more now than ever in my life, to myself, to others, and to something that is more than anything I can see, touch, or taste. I call that something, God.  Not in a religious sense of the word, but in the spiritual sense of something far greater and more powerful than me or anyone else.  This force is more powerful than any institution or government.

I look more for the similarities I have with others, rather than the differences.  I try to always remember that the mind can be like a bad neighborhood, and I shouldn’t go there alone.

My wish now, is to share some of what I have learned along the way. To help you in your everyday life, as well as what may come in the future, standing in your way of a successful life or just to survive through the night after a natural or unnatural disaster. May you use this information to be as prepared as you can Mentally, Physically, Spiritually, and in the Necessary Skills a person needs to survive and succeed, no matter what the environment. What I have to offer you is a general way of thinking, training, feeling, as well as tools to prepare for any situation that may arise.  This is general information.  I will lay out more specifics in other writings associated with focus on separate subjects.  For now, let’s look at the mindset of preparing and go on from there.....

I hope you find this information useful, or at the least, entertaining.

Why Should I Prepare?   5

A Perception On Preparing

Chapter 2, When Should I Start Preparing?

When should you prepare?  Start right now.  Start a list of your everyday food items, and multiply them by how many days you would like to be self-sufficient, without having to go out to the store. Then shop for all this food and supplies.  You will arrange your supplies so that they may be rotated to maintain freshness. You store foods that you will actually be eating regularly, so your supplies do not spoil.  This wastes your money and is a useless action. Write the expiration dates of your food supplies in large numbers on the product with a black marker to make them easy to inventory.

The stores may not be open after a disaster, so if you don’t want to be hungry, do this. You will need to also buy water at a formula of six bottles per person per day, minimum.  Just for drinking.  I will cover more of what you need in another chapter dedicated to this.

Disasters don’t have the courtesy of asking us when we would like them to happen.  They happen when they happen. If you are not ready your chances of survival are small without the help of others, be those people from the government or people like me that prepared for such a situation.  I would not advise hoping for generosity in this situation.  Scared people hold on tight to what they have, and fear will be a large presence after a disaster has happened.

Your cell phone may not work.  Emergency services may not be available.  People may not help you.  It’s there duty to take care of themselves and their family first, and so is yours.  Yes, your duty.  Are you going to be honest and tell your young child, wife, or husband that you don’t have anymore food or water, because you didn’t think it was necessary to prepare?  Are you going to tell them that Preparing with Dave told you this could happen, but you didn’t listen?  Are you going to look at yourself in the mirror when this happens, and say “good for you” and smile, or are you going to say, “OMG, why didn’t I listen and prepare?”?

At they least, purchase food and water for 72 hours, three days.  You should also have a back pack, called a B.O.B., with you in your car or office, or both.  BOB stands for Bug Out Bag.  It’s an emergency use pack.  I had mine on the day of the 1989 Loma Prieta Earthquake, and made it through the night with three other men.  My flashlight lit the way, and eventually we were picked up by one of the guys uncles, and taken to his place, to stay overnight.  It was good to have some water, a flashlight, and some foods bars.  I also had a radio for news updates. My experience is proof of the necessity for having this emergency pack at all times. I will cover the contents in a later chapter.

Get started, and let your preparedness grow, as you and your knowledge grow together. Involve your family in a fun, intelligent way.  You don’t have to scare them into thinking the world is going to end. Just let them know that events happen and show them proof in video and writing.  Keep it basic and simple, so they can see the reasoning and necessity for doing so.  Expand your knowledge to learn more about identifying plants, cooking and processing food, medicinal plants, medical methods, and bush craft.  Physically train your body to carry the load of your pack, and endure long laborious days, and traveling long distance on foot.  Learn fighting skills. Even basic ones to expand on and hone through practice.  Practice your faith daily, and meditate to stay free from fear, worry, or judgment.  Keep your mind fresh and aware of your surroundings and world events.

I would advise starting this today.  An event could happen at any moment. One is happening right now, somewhere in the world.  It may be large or small, but someone is being affected by it.

When Should I Start Preparing?   27

A Perception On Preparing

Chapter 3, How Should I Prepare?

How should you prepare?  This depends on what you wish to prepare for.  What do you feel you are at risk of happening to you? What are you planning in the future, large or small?  This could just be assessing a new job, or a vacation.  It’s the mindset of preparing we are discussing right here, not necessarily just an action.  It’s a life choice to be prepared, plan ahead, and be ready at all times, not by being on edge, but by knowing you are prepared to react to any situation with a practiced and prepared ability to succeed.

A set of decision making tools are important for consistent success in planning and preparing to accomplish a goal, or to overcome an adversity.  Once you have identified what you wish to prepare for, then you use planning tools to formulate a plan of action.  Access risk, and the necessity of the disaster or life decision.  Formulate a plan of action based on scenarios that you run, so you can see any obstacles in your way, or shortcomings in your plan.  Once you are confident in your plan, put it into action and go to work on accomplishing your goal. Nothing is perfect, but you can re-access and shift your plans by using the same tools you formulated your plan with, and adjust as you go. Use these same tools to plan for any disruption in your normal everyday life, such as a disruption in the power supply, food and water supply, emergency services, and anything else that effects your everyday survival, comfort, safety, and security.

Think of your everyday life, as well as the world around you.  Consider where you live, as far as your weather, your terrain, crime, highway system, home security, etc.  Observe your everyday life and look to see what or who could harm you.  Look to see what could stand in your path of travel, if you had to leave your town or city.  Make yourself aware of social issues, government issues, and world issues, and see where they may affect you.  Know what risks you could face, as far as earthquakes, volcanoes, flooding, tornadoes, etc.  You are just looking at reality, and not becoming paranoid or creating fantasy.  Stay rational and clear-minded. Just look at the facts, and assess the reality of what can happen at any given moment.  You should start to realize how vulnerable you and your family are if you are not prepared.

One decision you will have to make in the event of a natural or unnatural disaster is whether you are being stationary or going mobile.  You should be prepared for both options.  If you are going to shelter in place, then you must be prepared to defend your property, your supplies, and life if necessary, as well as the lives of your loved ones. You should assess your security and defensive strategy with your family, as well as with your neighbors if that is possible.  The more people standing together and working together, the higher the chance of protecting yourself from those that will use the situation to there advantage for gaining valuables. You can also work together to stay fed and well hydrated.  If there has been a large earthquake, for example, you will also have to be aware of any gas or water leaks.  Not just with your property, but with others.  One house goes, they all can go.  Remember, emergency services may not be contactable, and may also be overloaded or damaged themselves. You and your neighbors should know how to turn your gas and water mains off. A wrench to do this with should be easily accessible and clearly marked with bright red or orange coloring.  You should also know how to turn your electrical main switch off.  The National Electrical Code is a Fire Code, because electricity can cause fire.

If you are going mobile, you have to know routes of travel and have supplies that are ready to grab and go with you. You have to make sure that everything, including you and whomever else there is, will fit in your vehicle or vehicles. If you will be taking more than one vehicle, you should have two-way communication radios of some type, as cell phones may not be working.  A dry run is advised in this situation.  Just as buildings and cruise ships run emergency drills, so should you. You should make sure that your vehicles are kept fueled as much as possible.  Don’t let the gas tanks get below 3/4 full.  Gas stations will not be open in a disaster, and you will limit your ability to travel away from danger, or to a family or friends house, possibly in another state.

How Should I Prepare?   35

A Perception On Preparing

Chapter 4, Essentials

There are some essentials that you should always have on hand, and in good quantity.  These are items that you will definitely want if the stores are closed for a long time or indefinitely.  Yes, indefinitely.  If a large solar flare hits the earth directly, it could take down the electrical grid of the entire planet.  If the transformers that feed the grid are damaged, we don’t make them, and it takes power to manufacture them.  Get the picture.  That would be lights out and power out for a long time. If you doubt this, then I suggest you research The Carrington Event of 1859, and judge for yourself the power of the sun’s energy plasma, and how it effects grounded electrical equipment and devices. When you have read how it affected a basic telegraph system, imagine then, what it would do to our systems today.

Water!  You can never have enough of it.  I use a basic formula of mine to determine basic need for water.  Six bottled waters per person, per day.  You can purchase around 10 cases of good quality bottled water for around $50.  That’s 40 days of water for one person, or 20 days of water for two people.  Add pets, and it is less.  Yes, don’t forget your dogs or cats. For $50, you can have 20 days of water prepared for two people already.  That’s at least a start that you can do immediately.  You should have water filtration bottles, also, and extra filters, too.

What else would you like to have stocked up?  Number one, what you normally use, multiplied by four at the least.  Some people like to store canned food, but we don’t, for a number of reasons.  Number one, we don’t eat canned food.  We eat naturally and fresh, mostly.  We use the fresh and dried vegetables from our garden, like tomatoes, peppers, herbs, berries, and cucumbers in our cooking and in smoothie drinks over the winter-time, and also what we find in the organics section that we are lacking in.  During the spring and summer months, we grow our own food.  Because we are in a mild winter climate area, we grow cooler season crops through the winter that supplement our food supply.  We add Hemp Protein Powder and a vegetable mix powder to all our smoothie drinks also, which gives us more than the recommended daily servings of vegetables, fruits, probiotics, amino acids, and more. I keep these powders stored in bulk for use in a time where stores may not be open.  We are close to being nutritionally self-sufficient as we can be.  Number two; canned foods are bulky and heavy.  The pounds add up fast with canned food, and if you have to bug out, you have to carry all that bulky, heavy food with you to survive.  Dried foods weigh less.  Freeze dried meats can be purchased and have a shelf life of twenty years or more.  They can be pricey, but are well worth it.  Many types of freeze dried foods can be purchased or made by you. They are lighter and store longer than canned food.  If you chose to store canned food, I would recommend marking the expiration dates on the cans in large numbers for easy inventory, and rotate them by using them.  Don’t buy what you don’t eat, as a rule.  Some people are learning to preserve food and canned it themselves.  This is a great skill to learn.

Other items that need to be stocked are toilet paper, medicines, contact lenses cleaner, sunscreen, feminine needs, toothpaste, tooth brushes, cotton balls, baby wipes, first-aid supplies, sewing needles and threads, duct tape, plastic sheeting, deodorant, etc. Whatever you use in your daily or monthly life, you need to stock in quantity. More items are things such as batteries of all sizes, candles, lighters, matches, spices, flour, vinegar, rubbing alcohol, soaps, etc.  Other dried foods that last a long time are beans, rice, grain, dried peas, and many more. Just add water, soak, and then cook.  You should have some kind of propane cooking stove and extra bottles in stock.  I would suggest boiling everything and drinking the liquid when it cools, or while it is warm if greasy.  You will learn quickly not to waste anything in this situation. Boiling your meals is the best way to keep smells down to avoid hungry wolves from showing up at your doorstep or camp. Those are the two-legged type I’m referring to.

I would be a good thing to have some building supplies in stock if you are able to.  Nails, screws, materials, etc, are essential.  You may have to make a repair to your house, or cover a broken window to keep the elements out, or fix your roof from leaking the best you can.

You should learn to garden and have a good supply a vegetable seeds, as well as edible seasoning and medicinal herb seeds. An active garden is an essential food source if the stores are closed, and you will also know exactly where your food came from and how it was treated and grown, because you grew it.  This to me, is an essential skill to have if needing to survive without grocery stores and other commercial goods suppliers

There are many everyday items that may not be available in an emergency situation where a disaster has happened.  It’s up to you how well you fare through it, when it happens.  Yes, when it happens, not if.  If you are in an area that is free from blizzards, hurricanes, and other regularly occurring disasters, then you may not have ever experienced stores running low on goods.  If this is the case, then please make a point of talking with someone from those areas to put your thoughts right on the fact that it does occur more often than you think, and when it does, supplies go fast.

The percentages say you will experience a disaster of some type in your lifetime. You already have more than once, depending on where you live.  If you have, you understand the seriousness of preparing.  I hope you share that experience with others and help them prepare. Perhaps this book will help you convince others of the importance of preparing. It is a mindset of preparedness, nothing more.  It isn’t a paranoid feeling or paranoid state of mind.  It is a mature decision to be prepared for an emergency so you can be more self-reliant, safe, and secure.  I gives you a greater margin of safety and a better percentage of survivability.  There’s also an inner confidence and strength, knowing that you are ready for almost anything that could happen.

Essentials   43

A Perception On Preparing

Chapter 5, Types of Disasters

There are many types of disasters, large and small, natural and unnatural.  I will list some here and go over some measures you can take to prepare for them, as well as how to react and survive them. My explanations may not have every variable, because I am not perfect.  There’s no such thing as an expert in some of these situations. Some of these events are what is called fluid situations, and you must adapt as variables change.  You may have a personal idea for expanding your readiness and capability in one or more of these situations.  Also, you may be highly trained in some of these areas, and have more to offer than I do.  Please share your experience with others around you in your life, to help and strengthen them.  Sharing your knowledge and experience with others, is a good way to review, practice, and strengthen your skills. Let’s look at some types of disaster....

EARTHQUAKES

The strength of an earthquake is one of the main factors in how much damage and injuries it causes.  Another is un-preparedness.  Some people are hurt by falling items in their own house.  There are soft putties you can purchase at a hardware store to put under your heavy and/or breakable items that you have on shelves.  This will prevent them from sliding off and hitting you or breaking, leaving sharp debris on the floor for you to possibly fall on or walk on. DO NOT hang heavy frames over the head of your bed, or place heavy or hard objects on shelves above your bed.  If you do this, you may never wake up again.  Dream on, my friend.

Tall book shelves, dressers, and other furniture can fall over on top of you, pinning you down, or breaking one of your bones.  You can also be knocked unconscious, leaving you seriously injured and vulnerable to more harm.  People have been trapped in burning buildings by items that have fallen on them or that fell over and blocked their path to safety. You can purchase earthquake straps for furniture, or make your own.  Make sure that you attached them securely to the furniture and then to the stud in the wall.  Do not use a toggle bolt or sheet rock anchor through the sheet rock, or it may pull out under stress.

Some houses are not anchored to their foundation and can slide right off the foundation.  This movement can cause everything in your house to shift to one side of the house, smashing against anything in it’s path, including you.  There are companies that do the work of securing houses to their foundations.  It’s a matter of drilling through the supporting wall bottom boards and drilling into the foundation to set anchors that secure the house to the foundation. This may be worth the money investing in this service.  If your house slides off the foundation, it may be intact, but useless, and have to be demolished.  Your home owner’s insurance may not pay for it, unless you have earthquake insurance.  Earthquake insurance may require you to have your house securely bolted to its foundation.

Never go near windows during an earthquake to look outside and see what is happening.  Windows can explode inward or outward from the compression of the shifting house.  You don’t know which way the exploding glass will go until it happens.  Glass in your face and/or eyes, is not a good thing.

It’s also a strange but useful idea to rub a little bar soap on at least one of you doors leading to the outside of your house, on the end where the handle is located.  If the movement of the house squeezes the door tight and jams it shut, then this minor lubricant may assist you in freeing the door.  You can do this to the top of the door also.

Make sure you have pet carriers for all your four-legged family members.  This will keep them safe, while you clean up debris, and prevent them from escaping your house.  In this type of event, animals can become stressed and look for a hiding place away from the disaster.  They don’t understand that it is widespread, and is not just at your residence. Emergency personnel may also be more acceptable in allowing your pet or pets to go with you if you have to be rescued, because they are contained in their carriers. Have these carriers readily accessible for quick use, and for the safety and protection of your four-legged family members. Have food and water for them ready, also. You can rotate it with their daily feeding’s to keep it fresh.

You should know where all your utility shut offs are.  I’m talking about your gas main shutoff, your water main shutoff valve, and your main electrical shutoff at the meter on the outside of your house.  You should have a wrench for you gas main shutoff near your gas main, on the door leading out or wall, and marked with bright red or orange so it is clearly visible.  Reflective tape is good for this.  If there is dust or smoke in the air and it is dark, the beam of a flashlight will reflect off of it, making it easier to find. Make sure you help your neighbors with theirs, also.  If one house catches fire, the rest can go.  You and your neighbors may have to fight any fire on your own.  Don’t wait for the fire department.  They may not come for sometime, as they may be overloaded or unreachable.  Water service may even be off or low in pressure from broken pipes or major use in fighting other fires, elsewhere.

Communications will likely be down.  You may be on your own for sometime.  Having a good supply of medical supply needs, may save your life or the life of a family member or neighbor. You should have a plan for this, no matter where you live.  Earthquakes can hit anywhere in the world.  No place is safe from this event.  Also, an earthquake far away in another state, can effect the flow of commercial good and services.  It could take down power and communications in areas that weren’t hit by the quakes rocking or jolting.  An earthquake far away could take down a dam, sending raging waters your way.  You may only have minutes to throw your emergency plan for that into effect and get on the move to safety.

TSUNAMI

Tsunami waves are a mass movement of a large volume of water that can travel long distances over open water, and travel long distances inland once they reach land. Depending on the terrain, tsunami waters can travel miles inland.  If you live in an area that is within five miles of the ocean, and you are near a river with a low descent or slow moving, and low in altitude, you are at risk from a tsunami.  The tsunami wave is not a regular wave that breaks on land and loses its energy.  The tsunami wave is a volume of water that has be displaced, which means it has a volume and mass that needs to stretch out over a large area before losing energy and receding back to the ocean.  Once a tsunami wave reaches land, it continues inland until it runs out of volume and mass, or rises up when it hits a obstruction.  If the obstruction is not strong enough to withstand the force and weight of the water, the obstruction will be moved or destroyed. A tsunami collects debris as it moves inland, and that debris becomes like a mass of battering rams which help to crush anything in its path.  The only structures left standing after these masses of debris and water pass and recede, are concrete or reinforce masonry buildings.

There are a few ways that tsunami waves can be generated.  I can list three I know of right here and now.

One is the release in tension from one land mass that is pushing under another, known as a subduction zone or fault.  When a release of tension happens, one of the land masses moves under the other quickly and the top section lowers quickly.  This creates the movement of a large volume of water, which can travel across the ocean at upwards of 500 miles per hour. It’s the same action you have done in the bathtub, where you put your hand just below the surface of the water, and push downward really fast and hard.  You make tsunami waves in the bathtub. If you are close to this fault, you only have minutes to get to higher ground.  Depending on how low the ground at the fault dropped, and the mass of the volume of water displaced, these waves can be over 100 meters high, and travel many miles inland over flat ground, up rivers and streams.

Another way a tsunami wave can be generated is by a landmass sliding into a body of water and displacing a large volume of the water.  This happened in a large bay in Alaska, when a section of hillside slid into the waters of the bay. The wave generated was said to be over 1500 feet high.  It was witnessed by a man and his son who were fishing in a boat that survived to tell their story. The volume of the water displaced was more than the available area of the bay, so the mass of water was forced upward, against the high banks to a phenomenal height.  There is a volcanic island off the coast of Africa that may have an entire side, break off and slide into the Atlantic Ocean, creating a wave that would decimate the east coast of the United States and almost every island or other low area of land in the Atlantic. The Hawaiian Islands are susceptible to this event also.  Sea floor surveys have shown that it has already happened before.  Half of one Hawaiian Island slid off into the Pacific Ocean a great many years ago.  The mass of this slide stretches out for hundreds of miles.  The wave generated must have been gigantic. A tsunami way generated in this way can also happen in a lake, far inland from any other large body of water.

One other way for a tsunami wave to be generated is for a large meteor to impact directly into a body of water.  The force of the impact would disperse an enormous volume of water.  Even if a large meteor were to explode many miles above a body of water, the energy from the explosion would generate a shock wave that would impact the surface of the water, thus forcing water down and away, in all directions.  The explosion miles above the water, would displace air, which has its own volume.  This is the same effect as if you were to blow straight down on a glass of water.  If you see an explosion of a meteor in the sky above a body of water, you have a limited amount of time before the shock wave hits the surface of the water.  Then you have a certain amount of time until the displaced volume of water comes ashore. You should move away from the water and find higher ground immediately.

FLOODS

Floods can happen for many reasons and almost everywhere, even in the mountains, far above sea level, at anytime of the day, week, month, or year.  All that is needed are the dynamics of space and quantity.  When there is more water than space the level of water rises.  A dam could break miles away from you on a beautiful, sunny day, and if you have some loud headphones on, you won’t hear the warning sirens.  You should always be aware of your surroundings, in your field of view, as well as your hearing ability.  Don’t make the mistake of limiting your response time for a few minutes of enjoyment. Is it worth detaching from what is around you, to possibly be detached from your life?

It could be raining and warmer in the mountains in early spring, causing an excess amount of water to flow into streams, creeks, and rivers, overwhelming any area that is smaller than the amount of water associated with the flow.  It’s that simple, just area and quantity.  This can build fast or slow.  Most of the time it happens fast, so you need to have a plan, as well as a backup plan for this one.  They further downstream you are from the mountains, the more warning you may have. You might wake up with water in your house and have to call on that super-serious plan ’B“, immediately.

We live in the delta area of California, with many old Levies that were built with baskets, and using only rocks and dirt. Most of these levies were built a hundred years ago.  Anyone of them could go at anytime, from an earthquake, wear and tear, or from years of saturation and water movement against them.  We are 56 feet above sea level so we should be flood-free as far as the house goes.  Seems safe enough as far as our house flooding if a levy breaks, but what if we are cutoff from services because of this event?  For this reason, I purchased an inflatable boat. It’s a nice one, too. It’s our water vehicle if the roads turn into water.  Utilize, don’t analyze, as I heard someone say many times on a road I took to be where I am now.  Good advice.  The boat I selected was based on two people, a few pets, and supplies.  I have seen many times, where people have had to leave their four-legged family members behind because they had to rely on emergency personnel to rescue them.  They were not prepared for themselves or their furry family members.  My boat, my rules, and the four-leggers are going with me! I will not throw them in the water or abandon them to make room for someone that didn’t have the good sense to prepare.  To me, that would be like throwing my wife or one of my sons out of the boat for someone I don’t know.  I love our furry family members. That is why I also prepare for their safety and needs.  Don’t forget to store pet foods, too.

Another preparatory action you can take is to look up your area on an interactive map, and check your height above sea level.  Then look around your area on the map for the places that are the highest above sea level.  This way, you can plan an emergency route to the closest high place, avoiding low-lying area that may be blocked by flood waters.  If you don’t plan this route ahead of time, you could get trapped by surrounding water and perish in the flood.  This has happened to many people that didn’t plan this out.  Be wise, and plan this out.

Again, you have to have your “Go Bags” ready, so you can grab them and go.  Seconds and minutes are important here.  Your “Go Bag” is the same as your “72-hour Pack”, or “B.O.B.”, also known as your Bug-out Bag. I will dedicate an entire chapter to this essential item in preparedness.

VOLCANIC ERUPTIONS

Many people agree that this is one of the most devastating events that can happen, because a large event of this type can effect the entire population of the world. You may not be in the area of the volcano and suffer from direct effect of the eruption, but the disruption of the world’s climate from the expelled particles can affect the weather of the entire planet.  You could experience winter in mid summer, no matter where you live.  A year or more of crops that feed the world’s population can be ruined or not even grow.  The ash that is ejected travels up into the atmosphere and can fall thousands of miles away.

This ash is porous, and when it hits the moisture in your eyes, lungs, and sinuses, it forms a paste that is like concrete.  This will make it hard to see and suffocate you.  This ash is also acidic and will burn soft tissues and the eyes, possibly rendering you blind. If you experience volcanic ash, you will need to protect your eyes will goggles, and your sinuses and lungs with a dust mask.

Because volcanic ash is porous, it also compacts easily and can absorb a large amount of water. If it builds up on top of your house, it can become very heavy and collapse your roof.  If the is ash on your roof becomes wet, it can double in weight very fast, thus possibly collapsing your roof. The flatter the roof the more ash can collect, and the more chance of the roof collapsing. I have plastic sheeting to throw over the roof of my house, if I know that ash is going to fall in my area.  My hope is that the plastic sheeting will make the ash slide off more easily.  I have goggles, dust masks, and a long painter’s pole with a squeegee end on it, to pull ash off the roof.

If you are in an area that is close to a possible eruption, you should be prepared in many ways.  You should be prepared as I have, and you should have many evacuation routes. If the volcano near you has snow and ice on it, the heat from the eruption will liquefy it.  This water will mix with the ash from the eruption and make a wet cement mixture that will flow down rivers and streams.  You cannot swim in it or tolerate the heat of it, let alone the acidity of it.  If you are near a river below a volcanic eruption, you have to move immediately out of the area.

Volcanic eruptions are a very serious risk in every area of the world.  No one is safe from the effects of an eruption.

SOLAR FLARES

Many people do not know much about solar flares. You can research The Carrington Event of 1859, if you would like to read of an event that is unparalleled to anything we have experienced since electrical grids have been in high use.  We have had large solar flares that have effectively overloaded the electrical grids on the east coast and through Canada, but nothing like the flares of The Carrington Event. The auroras from this event were so bright and widespread, that people could read the newspaper at night without lights, at night-time, in Panama!

The way this works is that the sun is electrically charged material, that can be released into space under certain circumstances, and hit our planet, causing charging of the earth.  Sometimes in the eleven year cycles, areas of the sun form what are called sunspots.  These sunspots can become masses of opposing polarities and have a kind of short circuit, like an electrical one you may have seen before, and cause a spark.  These sparks, though, can be hundreds of thousands of miles in size, and release large amounts of the electrically charged plasma.  This plasma travels through space like a tsunami waves in the ocean.  If it hits our atmosphere, it is directed by our magnetosphere towards the poles.  The energy that is captured at the poles enters the planet and charges the ground.  This charge can travel up the ground wires into the electrical systems and overload them.  If this charge is very strong, it can act as another source of energy supply, react severely with the existing power supply, and cause the transformers and other equipment to explode.  If these large transformers explode, then power will be out for a very long time.

In the Carrington Event of 1859, an amateur astronomer named Carrington, observing two large sunspots, saw two large flashes.  The next day, the telegraph personnel reported sparks flying off the equipment.  They had to disconnect the batteries to protect them from exploding.  Even with the batteries disconnected, they were still able to send messages every 60-90 seconds, just from the ground charging the system. Bear in mind, that this was just the telegraph system. It was the internet of that time, connecting people and businesses for miles around.  We now have world wide communications, internet, and massive power system grids that we depend on for everything.  If all this went down, there wouldn’t be any food distribution, medical records access, cell phone service, land-line phone service, Lighting (even street lighting), power to your outlets, and so on.  Your vehicle would still work, but watch out for getting into your vehicle, as you may cause a static charge to it from ground, through you, until the earth’s absorbed charge dissipates.

To prepare for this, you should store batteries, and have a backup power source.  There are many solar generators on the market today, and they don’t make noise like a gas-powered generator.  While the gas-powered generators have more available power, they are noisy and run out of gas.  Noise can attract unwanted attention by others that are out of power.  Of course help your neighbor where you can, but beware of the mob-minded.  You need to stay small like a mouse in these situations, as other people that have not prepared will feel that you should be sharing everything you have with everyone. Your supplies won’t last very long if that happens, and you will not win a fight against masses of hungry, scared people.  It’s not mean spirited or cold-hearted to protect yourself, your family, and your supplies so that you can survive.  You were wise enough to prepare and they weren’t.  Everyone knows to store some nuts like the squirrel.  It’s not rocket science. It’s natural.

The solar generators come in many sizes, also, and are portable.  You can take then with you if you have to go mobile.  There is one that is around 100 pounds of total weight, with base unit and solar panel.  With a unit like this, you can run a string of Christmas lights, or grind some coffee, brew some coffee, charge a device, run a small drill, or use for other light power needs.  Power usage and power storage is limited with these units, but they are quiet and do not require fuel. They come with a fifty foot cord for the solar panel, also. Larger units are heavier and have more solar panels.

Again, you should also have food, water, and other necessary supplies stored in quantity for the amount of time you feel will be necessary.  I will not set an example of how long you should feel necessary.  This has to be set on your level of concern, your financially capacity, and your decision on whether you value paper money in this situation or supplies. Personally, I go for the supplies. You can’t eat or drink paper money, but it may be useful in the bathroom if you didn’t stock-up on toilet paper.

NUCLEAR EXPLOSION

Not something I ever want to experience.  What can you do if a Nuclear Device is detonated near you?  Pray.  Just say, “OMG”.  Then act fast.  You have to get as low as you can, facing away from the blast, crossing your legs, and covering the back of of your neck and head with your hands, and tightening your body as tight as you can.  Your tightened muscles can protect you from materials penetrating deeper into your body and possibly into your organs, or piercing veins.  Close your eyes and don’t open them until the two blast waves pass.  This will at least save your face and brain, maybe.  You need to stay in this position after the initial wave of the blast passes.  As the power of the blast rises up, it will create a vacuum that sucks what went outward, back towards the center of the blast, and upward.  This movement of force and debris can harm you as much as the initial blast.  This is not my favorite subject, because it is so heinous.

After these waves have passed, get up, but don’t stand around and observe.  You have to move fast and gain shelter, because all that debris and dust that went up, is now falling down towards you, and it is radioactive, and of different sizes. Some pieces are very large and some are small.  Some are very sharp and some are dull or blunted.  They can all cause damage to you.  Topless is optional here if you have no other article of clothing to use.  You have to cover your nose and mouth.  Do not breathe the air and dust.  Right now, you are looking to get as low as you can and close the place you select up as tight as you can.  The lowest basement would be good.  The surrounding ground will insulate you from the radiation cloud that is coming.  If someone is hurt, start dragging them.  “You have absolutely no time to spare here.”  If they are immovable, it’s your choice to stay and die with them or save your own life.  I’m not going to sit in judgment of you either way on this one.  If my wife was stuck, I’d stay with her.  Bonded together, die together.  This is my code.

Once you are low and sealed in, then you can start assessing injuries and/or food, water, etc. You are going to have to wait for people to come for you.  Outside is not where you want to be for a longtime without protective gear. If you have to go outside and move away from the danger area, you have to seal yourself up as best as you can.  You have to cover your face, head, and all other areas of exposed skin.  If you can find some tape, use it to seal up your clothes and attach other material to you to cover exposed areas.  Insulate your clothes as best you can with paper, cloth, or whatever you can find.  This gives you more barriers that the radioactive dust has to penetrate to get to your skin.  The more you lesson your exposure, the more you increase your chance of survival. Scavenged for anything you can find.  There are no manners or rules here.  It’s survival time.

Note: If at the time of this explosion you are wearing a Nuclear/Biological Suit, do the procedure of laying down and covering. Then just walk your way out of the danger zone.  You have prepared well.

EMP DEVICE

EMP:  Electro-Magnetic Pulse.  This was discovered when they activated the first nuclear device.  It is a pulse of energy that can enter unshielded electronic devices, and render them useless.  It fries the circuitry and components.  You can protect some devices by just leaving the battery out and the antenna disconnected when not in use. This is common practice in battlefield conditions. Just leaving the antenna off helps to protect from EMP, because the antenna is a pathway for the energy to travel into the electronics. Another way to protect electronic devices from EMP is what is called a Faraday Cage.  It’s basically a metal shield that absorbs the energy from the EMP, protecting the electronic device that is inside it.  You can make one with a metal trash can, by insulating it inside with non-conductive material and placing your electronic devices in it, and closing the can’s lid, making sure there is complete contact between the lid and the can.  The energy of the EMP will be absorb by the can and then easily dissipate. The energy doesn’t last long.  It’s the initial wave that you are protecting against.

Some people are concerned that EMP and Solar Flares go hand in hand.  I disagree with this assumption that is not based in scientific facts.  Any EMP has to happen within the planet’s atmosphere, or it is deflected by the magnetosphere and the particles in the other layers of atmosphere.  A Nuclear Device or EMP Generating Device would have to be used inside the planet’s atmosphere, and at a high altitude to disperse widely, having a large effect on a greater area.  Electronics at higher altitudes may be affected by a very large impact of solar radiation, but not at lower latitudes. Planes may be affect by severe solar radiation, as they fly above one or more of the protective atmospheres.

It is wise to use the trash can Faraday Cage method in a closet or other space that is cool, to protect back-up electronic devices that you would want to have after a possible EMP.  You can keep your batteries in it or an extra cell phone, perhaps. It would be wise to add a portable radio, a small handheld CB, or Ham Radio.  It’s your decision on what you feel is important for you in the aftermath of this event happening. Portable devices will come in handy if the power is out for whatever reason.

METEOR IMPACT/EXPLOSION/BLAST SHOCK WAVE

I learned allot from a recent meteor explosion over a town in Russia.  It exploded in air, around 15 miles above ground.  There was no EMP from it, but there was a shock wave.  Because of the shallow angle of decent, the shock wave took 3 minutes to reach the ground.  People were gathered outside, looking at the trail it left in the sky, when all of the sudden, BOOM! The force was very strong, but it was not as bad as it could have been. It shattered windows and pushed in doors of different sizes.  It even took down masonry walls.

I watched a special about the event on a PBS Channel, of course, since regular TV doesn’t cover the cool stuff.  Many scientists, working together, collected all the videos of the event they could, to assess the angle of decent and speed.  All this data was fed into a computer program that calculates the shock waves from above ground nuclear explosions.  It was amazing to see how the shock wave moves outward and downward, away from the blast.  Most of the energy moves in the direction that the meteor is traveling, so in this case, it traveled mostly away and dissipated in air.  If the meteor was travelling on a steeper decent, more directly towards the ground, the town would have been flattened.  The shock wave would have traveled straight down, hitting the ground and moving outward, flattening everything in its path for miles.

If you are near a meteor explosion, find a deep, sheltered place to get as low as you can in it, hugging the wall closest to the explosion or flash.  If you see a trench or drainage ditch get in it and hug the side closest to the blast or flash.  Take this action immediately after you see the flash.  If you can’t find a sheltered place, use the procedure I explained to you for a Nuclear Explosion.  Lay face down, away from the flash, covering your neck and the back of your head with your hands, and cross your legs.  Tighten every muscle in your body when the shock wave comes.  There will not be a secondary wave from this event.  When the wave hits, exhale.  Otherwise it will do it for you and it will be harder to get your breathe back.  Do not exhale all the way.  You are just doing a procedure to remove some air pressure from your lungs.   The impact will compress you and your lungs.  If you have ever heard a martial artist or other fighter grunt or gasp, this is what they are doing to release pressure on there lungs from the impact of hitting the ground, or the pressure from a punch or kick.

This is what I have come up with for this type of event and has not been proven effective.  Hopefully it will help someone survive this event someday.

WORLD-WIDE ECONOMIC COLLAPSE

It could happen in some degree.  It’s the actions of people in the aftermath of it that is a cause for concern.  If people feel that there is nothing left to lose or live for, because their whole life and being is built around material possessions and bank accounts, they may see it as the end of the world as they know it. “Know not a man by how he stands in calm waters, but by how he stands when the winds blow”.  There are many ways of saying this, but the point is that it calls to a person’s character, and how they react under pressure. Some people may riot.  Some people may hideout.  Some people may decide that it is a time to cleanse the world in order to serve their judgments, prejudices, or religious beliefs. Some people are so reliant on the government for what they receive, that they do not have the ability of free thought and creativity that a person needs to survive on their own. For whatever reasons, it may be like taking the food bowl away from an untrained dog.  There’s going to be allot of biting going on.

You’re going to have to know how to defend yourself, and be physically capable of doing so.  Every man, woman, and child is going to be called on, to keep order and defend themselves.  Martial Law may be enacted by the city, state, and federal governments. That means that National Guard Troops will be patrolling the streets.  There may be firefights between anarchists and the military.  Patriots may see this as the time to rise up and fight against the military presence, seeing it as a violation of the Constitution.  Smaller towns may block entry into their areas.  You may be able to join a smaller town’s force if you have skills or supplies to offer.  This is another reason to prepare.

One thing is a fact, is that paper is backing paper, which is nothing more than a shell game of shifting value.  It’s not a stable structure, and has the capacity to collapse fast, and without warning.  It’s just paper, back by forecast and reported numbers of growth and profits.  Forecast loss or gain is the structure of your financial future and most of the world’s economy, monetarily.  A bad forecast ruins your future and puts the world into chaos.  Right now, numbers are being rigged in China, Europe is failing badly, and the United States is playing a fantasy game, by kicking the can down the road and hoping the economy will get better somehow, so they can collect more taxes to pay off the national debt.  Something bad is eminent.  Eventually the numbers just won’t add up, no matter how they try to make them work.  At some point, you can’t borrow from nothing.  It would be borrowing from someone that didn’t have anything to loan.

These are all a possible and realistic events, and some are happening everyday, somewhere.  It’s up to you whether you prepare or not.  It’s up to you, whether you have what you need when, or if, one of these events happens. My hope is that you take care of business, and prepare for your sake, and for the sake of your family.

ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE

This will not happen in the way everyone is thinking.  I you die, you physical body is dead.  It will not function.  Even some type of mutated rabies virus, would destroy the brain, leaving the person non-functional.  If you have ever had a really bad flu virus, you know this to be true. Did you feel like running around?

The only zombies will be the masses of starving people wanting to feed on you and your supplies.  In four days, people that have not eaten, will go instinctive and kill for whatever they can get.  They will do this for themselves and to feed their family.  They will put themselves first, which is a normal instinctive response of non-spiritual people.  Many people do not have a spiritual set of principles, so they will act as animals and take want they want, and fight over anything they find if in a group.  Just like animals.  A zombie acts on instinct.  I want, I see, I take, it’s going to be mine now.

This is why I touch on stealth living in a survival situation. If you have prepared, stored food and water, and have a plan for survival, it had better contain a plan to deal with zombies.  These unprepared people are your biggest danger.  There will be a kind of cleansing if all society collapses, and it will not be pretty.  Many good people will band together, learn to grow food, make clothing, hunt for food, protect each other, and everything else they will have to start doing for themselves. Others will show their true character and take what they can, harming others in order to have their way.  Some of these people will try to claim themselves as leaders in order to dominate others.  They are the lazy ones, and should be weeded out.  They are the walkers, and have no good purpose for you, except to be fed on for what they want. They are going to be plentiful in the beginning of a total collapse of the latest Empires.

There is good in this scenario if all good people, of all beliefs and traits, stick together, and weather the initial extremes.  If these good people accept each other’s differences, and see the greater multitude of commonality they share between each other, they will prosper and be happier than they have ever been.  They will laugh harder and love deeper than they ever have.  Without electricity, bills, governments, and all the noisy machines, it will be peaceful and beautiful.  Enjoy...

Types of Disasters   53

A Perception On Preparing

Chapter 6, Should I stay or should I go?

This is a question that can only be answered by analyzing the variables in front of you, in any relationship, employment, or disastrous event.  How you live your everyday life, should coincide with how you will take action in the event of a natural or unnatural event.  It is good to have a set of guidelines you will follow, depending on the conditions of any emergency situation. These guidelines should be discussed with every member of your family, so that you are all on the same page and working as a team, instead of working against each other. In an emergency, there is no time for argument.

Assess any situation just as you would assess how bad an injury is, whether you can treat it or need stitches or a cast.  It’s a graph of sorts to refer to.  If this happens, I do this.  It should be something you practice mentally and physically, so that you are prepared when something occurs, or you have to make a serious life decision.  Say there has been a large earthquake, and you live in a coastal area.  Your plan may say “get to higher ground immediately”.  If there is a storm coming in, you may tie furniture down or bring it inside.  It’s all preparation for a set of circumstance, within an event that has happened or is going to happen.

What you do in an event, depends on your judgment of how serious it is, where you are safer, or even your decision on whether you want to survive or not.  Yes, you may decide that you really don’t want to live in a world after nuclear war, or build a new house and life at your age after everything you have acquired over the years is destroyed.  You may have to set your decisions based on a disability, limiting your ability to survive certain events, and spiritually accept death.  That’s a real possibility.  I don’t judge people by their own personal beliefs.  I merely offer what I can, and allow free people to decide their own future, based on their own individual beliefs and decisions. I believe that a test of a person’s spiritually is in how they accept reality or create their own. For me, mental and spiritual preparedness goes hand in hand with physical preparedness and honed skills of survival.

STAYING HOME/SHELTERING IN PLACE

If you are staying at home in an emergency of any type, you have to consider some variables and have a plan that can be altered as variables change, and even move into Bug-out Mode, where you leave in a hurry if you have to. You may have survived an earthquake, with your house intact, but a fire breaks out, or a dam breaks above your town. Variables can change fast, and you have to be at a state of preparedness that allows you to move faster. That is, if you want to survive.  It’s your choice.

You should already be stocked up on all the supplies you need to make it through the period of time you believe is reasonable.  I would say a minimum of 90 days.  That means every need you would have.

You should survey your house from the outside first, to see where your security is lacking.  You may even want to consult a professional with this.  I would, if I were not trained.  Some communities have programs where the police come to your house and assess your property’s security from burglars.  While they are there, you can ask them some tactical questions, as to dealing with intruders or attackers.

When you survey the outside of your house, look for places you can set noise making traps to alert you to intruders on your property.  There are many electronic devices that are sold for this purpose, but the mechanical methods do not rely on electricity.  Do not hang wind chimes, as they can provide cover noise for intruders.  Just simple strings with rocks in cans can give you good warning. There are security camera systems you can purchase, that you can put on solar battery back up, also.

Look to see how easy you could get into your house if you were locked out.  Of course someone can break a window to get in, but they are not going to want to draw that much attention if they don’t have to.  Outside your house, you should know the paths of travel, so you can move quickly in the dark.  The intruder will not know your property as well as you do, and this gives you an advantage over them in a race to the security of your house if you are caught outside with a stronger attacker.  You can set traps that you engage if being chased.  Anything you can do to give you a little space between you and them is good. That way, you have a better chance of getting to the door and locking it ahead of them.

Next, move inside and look at how your windows and doors are made.  Sliding windows and doors are easy to get into if they are an without extra means of locking them in place.  If you just add a dowel, cut to the length of the space between the door and the frame, and wedge it in the space, it makes it extremely harder to break in through the door without breaking the glass.  You should do this with sliding windows, also.  Some come with these devices already installed, but remember that they should secure snugly into place, so it is harder to lift them.  Potential intruders can slide something flat through the seal gaps and lift a loose one.

If you own a security screen door, have a deadbolt installed on it.  Even though it has a plate to prevent sliding something in, to pop the turn-handle latch, a screwdriver or knife can reach it.  This helped me one 4th of July when I locked myself out of my house.  It was a 3 second job to get in.

If you prefer firearms to use for self-defense, then your entire family should be trained with all of them.  Just like everyone living where there is a pool or near water should learn to swim, or at least learn how to float.  It’s as simple as teaching everyone how to be safe when using the firearm, to load it, and to shoot it.  Having to actually shoot someone is a decision that should be practiced, so no one freezes up.  That could cause the firearm to fall into the hands of the intruder and possibly get your and your family killed.  Home invasions don’t ever go well.  These people don’t like witnesses.  You should prepare mentally, physically, and spiritually for the possibility of having to take another person’s life.  Your must be strong enough to use the firearm, strong enough to keep it if there is a struggle, and spiritually strong enough to have the will to conquer the evil that has attacked you by squeezing the trigger.  Martial arts training is a must have in my preparedness.  Even basic striking, grappling, and kicking will give you something to expand on and practice daily.

The basic premise is you or them.  If you want to lay down your life and the lives of your loved ones, that’s your choice.  I choose me and my loved ones over evil people.  That makes it a simple choice of just squeezing the trigger, or kicking the crap out of them.  I did not invite them.  I’d did not provoke them.  I did not attack them or enter their house.  They are in my house, and not for good reasons.  My plan is to win this confrontation and protect my loved ones, property, and supplies.  It’s my natural right, by nature, not by any hand-written law.

BUGGING OUT/GETTING OUT OF DODGE

If you have a plan to leave your home in the event of a natural or unnatural event, you should have a number of locations to choose from.  This should be another property or place, somewhere away from danger.  A friend’s house or property is a good place, perhaps.  A spot in the wilderness you are familiar with, and can camp out for as long as you need to.  The more choices the better.  Environmental and human variables can change quickly, inhibiting your ability to get to one location. You should be able to shift your movement to another location, or even double back to another one. You may have to move several times depending on changing conditions with population or new hazards.  If power went out around the globe, the gas in the generators and battery back up to run nuclear power plant cooling pumps would only last so long.  You may have to travel hundreds of miles to be at a safe location from the radiation from the cores melting down. An area you are at could become flooded. There are many scenarios you should consider, but please do this calmly and rationally. You don’t have to make it anymore than just competing with and number of variables to win the game of survival.

Your chosen vehicle should be in good condition for travel at all times.  For example, tires, oil, gas, windshield wiper blades, etc.  A siphon hose is a good investment to keep in your vehicle at all times, so you can acquire gas along the way from other vehicles.  I have a construction grade Knack Box mounted in my truck to hold many useful items.  Even snow chains are good to keep in your vehicle if you can do so.  I may have to go over the mountains in winter, and it may not be plowed too well.  A tow cable is a good thing to have, and some strong ropes.  If something is blocking your path, like another vehicle or some other obstruction, you can wrap around it or hook it up to your vehicle, and move it out of the way. Be aware that someone may have blocked this path for a natural or unnatural reason.  Stay alert and ready for an altercation, at all times.  A person or group may have blocked the road to take your vehicle and supplies. If you see the road blocked ahead, you may want to stop and survey the situation from a safer distance before approaching to see if it is safe.

When you prepare to bug out, you should have everything you want to take with you, ready at all times.  You should have emergency packs for every member of your group.  You should have bags of extra food and water that you rotate on a monthly basis to keep them fresh.  This only takes 20 minutes or so, once a month.  If you think this is too much work, then think of being hungry, or don’t eat for three days.  That is how to actually feel what you may feel someday if you don’t do this. As always, it’s your choice, and your life. You can have all the pain or comfort you want, based solely on the effort and decisions you make in this regard.

Your traveling may have safety risks, so riding shotgun will have a whole new, real meaning to it.  The best driver should drive. Someone that can drive in all conditions, have good reflexes, and not afraid of driving through whatever is in your way to safety. The others are the protectors and should be looking for harm from all directions.  I’m sure you get the picture here.  It may be an extremely serious situation, as people could be acting viciously.  You have a right to protect yourselves and survive.  Be wise in this situation.  I am not telling anyone to shoot other people.  I’m saying you have a natural right to defend yourself if you are attacked.

When you arrive at your Bug-out Location, secure it just as you did your home, as best as possible given the conditions. Live on!

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Chapter 7, Training Yourself To Survive

My training is Four-fold.  I train Mentally, Physically, Spiritually, and in my Survival Skills.  I will elaborate here on how this training plays out in my everyday life, as it may seem that there is not enough time in a day to do all this. Just do your best.  That will vary day to day, but do something everyday.  You will get out of it, what you put into it.  Do something, get something.  Do nothing, get nothing.

MENTALLY:

To mentally train yourself, you must open your mind to all possibilities.  You must put aside all your beliefs and judgments.  I did not say abandon your beliefs.  Just put them aside for a time and run scenarios in your head of specific events that may happen and assess them in a rational way, free from judgments.  You may not fully believe that this event you are examining could happen, but you would like to look at it and see how it might play out, so you can prepare for it. You may feel wrongly for what you see possibly happening in this scenario, due to your religious convictions or any other beliefs you may have.  You have to let it play out in your mind to see what you will have to face and prepare for.  This prepares your mind slightly for the stresses of serious events, and the actions of others during these events. It’s like a toughening of the mind. This is a form of active meditation.

Allot of possible events have the same parameters for preparation, but there are some variations that you may find useful from your mental exploration.  This may sound strange at first, and some people may call it fantasizing, but the imagination is responsible for a great many inventions that have enhanced our everyday lives. A mentor of mine taught me to walk myself through any decision I was going to make.  It has served me well ever sense I adopted this principle of mental preparedness.  I have taken what he taught me and expanded it to serve a greater purpose than just myself.  My preparation is not just for me, but to lead others to survive if something drastic happens. Many people may have to rely on each other, as it was in the beginning, and they will need guidance.  They prepared people will be their guides in this possible future of chaos.

PHYSICALLY:

No matter what you feel your capacity of physicality is, I challenge you to challenge yourself.  Even if you have a disability or handicap, I challenge you to challenge yourself.  Don’t do it for anyone but yourself.  Kick your own butt, and love yourself the right way, in a healthy way.  Do what you can and build on it daily.  Build your health and strength, a little at a time.

Eat healthy and organically. A recent study showed that conventionally, chemically grown produce was equal to organically grown and raised produce.  This is not true and word plays were made.  Right away, when you eat organically, you don’t get all the synthetic pesticides, herbicides, and fungicides you get with chemically grown produce.  You also get more nutritional value, because the soil has more naturally occurring minerals and other nutrients in it, which are taken up by the plants and into the produce.  The study was done to show a few specifics of nutrition and not the entirely complete truth.  If you don’t eat healthy and nutritionally, you will not build strong tissues, muscles, or have healthy organs.  Synthetics stick in your tissues and organs, causing most of the “conditions” people suffer from today.  The pills you are given treat the condition, not the cause.  The cause of the condition is the food you are eating. Stay away from processed foods.  These foods will have oils, flavorings, and additives that can cause pain, inflammation, and organ failures.  They can also cause mental and hormonal issues.

You should workout regularly.  Between workouts you can do squats anywhere, push ups on the kitchen counter while dinner is cooking, and even push on one arm against the other while pulling the other up.  If you are carrying a case of bottled water, curl it a few times, and do some lifts over your head with it.  Stand when you watch TV as much as you can, in a martial arts horse stance.  Maybe just turn the TV off and go do something physical, like going for a walk, or working in the garden.  Stay moving and physical in every aspect of your life.  Someday, it may be a normal part of your everyday life, working to feed yourself, from sun up to sun down.  If you are already doing it, the transition will be minimal.

SPIRITUALLY:

No matter what your beliefs, practice them daily.  Hopefully they are beliefs of good and righteousness towards others and yourself.  Meditate on your beliefs at least 20 minutes per day.  If you practice them in every aspect of your life, then you are doing this all day long.  For me, spiritually is active.  It is in everything I do.  I do my best to stay in service of myself and others.  If I am not taking care of myself mentally and physically, then I limit my ability to be of service to others. If I do not practice my skills of survival, then I am not preparing to help myself and others around me.  For me, spirituality is a constant positive action and mindset, free from judgment and resentment, always moving forward. The past is only useful to learn from and offer others, to show them my own humility, or to humble myself to my own imperfection. I must stay in the reward of giving of myself at all times, or all other deadly influences have room to grow and prosper in my heart, mind, and spirit.

If you have a healthy, active spirit, there will be no situation that you cannot handle or tolerate.  No matter where you are, it is where you are supposed to be at that moment.  You are neutral, ready, and capable of overcoming any adversity that confronts you without any excessive amount of stress. There will always be some amount of stress.  If you feed it, it will grow.  Face your situation, use you tools of preparation, mental ability, physical capability, and spiritual strength to enhance your situation.

SURVIVAL SKILLS:

There are many skills needed to survive without grocery stores, medical facilities, electrical power, running water, and natural gas, as well as heating and cooling systems.  A person needs to know how to grow and process food, as well as to safely cook it.  Sushi in the wild can kill you.  In society, this fish for sushi is quick-frozen to kill parasites.  If those parasites get inside you, you have a week maybe, at the most, to live.  Cook everything well done.

You need to learn how to grow food and identify wild plants that are edible.  You should also learn how to identify medicinal plants, and learn their many uses.  Foraging for food is the way it is in nature, for every species.  If the stores close down, you will be in competition for this food.  You need to know the nutritional value of different vegetables so you can have a balanced diet that keeps you healthy.  Dandelion is the most nutritious green in the world, and yet the western world spends millions of dollars to kill it.  The greens are high in nutrition, and the root has many uses as well. This is just one example of a plant that everyone knows, and can be used for nutrition and calories, as well as a diuretic and even making a caffeine-free coffee substitute.

You should learn to trap and snare game animals.  There are snare traps, capture traps, dead fall traps, impelling traps, and others you can create from your own mind and knowledge of how game moves and lives. A high powered pellet gun is a good item to add to you tools of preparation, because they are strong enough for small game and quieter than conventional firearms.

You can learn to make hunting tools, too.  You can learn to make fishing spears, fishing traps, bows, arrows, and allot of other useful tools.

Learning to make shelters is essential for survival.  There are simple ones, and more elaborate ones you can learn to make from whatever you find.  It is also essential to learn to make fire without matches or a lighter.  There are many ways to do this, and it takes practice to master this important skill.  This is something your can practice in your own backyard.  Please be safe with fire at all times.  Just because it looks out, doesn’t mean it is.  It is a chemical process that can settle down and then rise up again.  You should always drop your projects in a bucket of water too soak after practicing making fire. Leaving them lying around can lead to tragedy.

A person’s ability to survive some situations depends on their ability to defend themselves.  Right now there are police officers to come to your aid, and they are overloaded as it is, normally.  Even calling the police may not happen if you are caught off your guard, not paying attention or wearing loud headphones while you are out and about.  Imagine what it would be like if all hell broke loose after a major disaster, where power was out, and you couldn’t reach 911.  Can you defend yourself?  Are you prepared to take the life of another person that is going to harm or kill you, or your loved ones?  You should be.  You should be practicing martial arts, to learn striking, close combat fighting, and grappling/wrestling.  You should learn choke holds, and how to break bones.  You should learn pressure points and take down methods. You should learn weapons use and weapons capture or take away. You should mentally train in the martial arts to win a fight at all costs.  You may die if you don’t. Your entire family should learn this.  If you do not do this, you put your entire family at risk of harm or death, even in today’s modern society.  Prepare to kick-butt!

If you are going to learn to take a life and cause harm to others wishing to cause you harm, you should also learn how to safe lives and fix damaged bodies. Learning to treat illnesses, heal and fix wounds, and use medicinal plants, is a priceless skill.  There are plants that can serve as bandages, and many substances in nature that serve as sterilizers, antiseptics, and even antibiotics.  Just two of these are the Lemon, and Honey.

Your abilities mentally, physically, spiritually, and in your survival skills, can potentially save your life and the lives of others.  If a catastrophic event happens, you can be a leader to help others survive and make a better world, perhaps, someday.  You can easily be accepted into a group with good skills and abilities.  The amount of effort you put into these areas, increases your value, if society’s conveniences go away.  This may not seem serious now, but it will be, if a catastrophic event occurs, and we are set back a hundred years. Increase your future and present value by preparing yourself mentally, physically, spiritually, and in your survival skills.

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Chapter 8, Having a Code

If you want to be consistent in your preparation for whatever life throws your way, you must have a code you live by.  Whatever your beliefs or principles, the more you live by them by applying them to every part of your life, the more consistency you will have in everything your do.  Doing what works for you over and over again creates a continuity and serenity within yourself.  You then know exactly who you are and what you are all about.  This can help you in making better choices of the people you accept into your life or preparation group.  The more continuity you have together, the less the drama there will be.  In a survival situation, you want to avoid as much drama as you can, especially in your group. You may have others to protect yourselves from, so you don’t need to be fighting each other.

One aspect of life that is almost impossible to fully prepare for, is other people’s choices and actions. There is absolutely no way to know how people will act or react in any given situation, until you have actually seen them in that situation.  People are the most unpredictable part of preparation.

There are some people that can be trusted to come through with what they say, and get done what has to be done, but the majority of people will eventually let you down if you set any expectations for them based on assumptions about them. You have to make sure that you can rely on them through thick and thin. Some people are time tested, but there will always be some like or dislike that can be unexplored for years, that can pop up and cause disagreement when you least expect it or want it to. This usually happens when everything is moving smoothly, or in a situation where you need to depend on them without any confrontation or hesitation.

Those of honor and code, always keep their word and come through with what has been agreed upon or promised by them, unless to do so would harm them or their loved ones. You can count on them no matter what may happen. They are bonded to you in their promises, which are bound to them by their code and honor. They come through with what they say and do what needs to be done.  Thiers’s are not empty words of empathy.

Many people though, have a code of self. They have been programmed that way by television, radio, and other media sources. No matter what they promise, or whom they make the promise to, they cannot be relied on to come through with an action to honor that promise.  They only live for number one, themselves. They can’t help themselves, they have not been taught honor and code.

People you are investing your life and future in, have to be tested for trust, character, and reliability. You have to discuss all variables of decision making and actions. This should cover any actions that may have to be taken in an emergency, life threatening situation, or catastrophic disaster situation.  Your life and the lives of your loved ones, depend on the choices you make for whomever is part of your group. You should have a list of character traits, and also of character flaws, that you use to assess a potential member, in order to make a sound decision on whether or not someone is part of your group.

It is essential to have a code of behavior and ethics that reflects the beliefs of your group in your life style, spiritual beliefs, political beliefs, strength of character, and overall values of action towards others.  No matter what these are, they should be the common ground for the foundation of your bonding to be based on, so that your entire team works as a well-oiled machine of sorts.  Your group or preparedness group should be as one.

Right now would be a good time to start writing down what you believe in, as far as a code that you will adhere to in your everyday life, so that you have a consistent set of principles that carry into emergency situations.  It is best for everyone in your group to take an oath to live by these principles, so there is less confusion with each other in the event that a serious long-term disaster occurs.

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Chapter 9, Learning Self-Defense

I cannot stress enough how important it is to learn to defend yourself from attack by one or more persons.  This is necessary in everyday life now, and will be even more important if emergency services like police are not available. For this, you have to train, not just your body, but also your mind and spirit, as well.  Your body has to be in good physical shape, and be able to absorb or block an impact of an attacker or attackers, while mounting a counter offensive against the attacker that is without compassion for their well being. Your mind must be free from fear, anger, or hate.  All three of these are debilitating, and will retard your abilities, mentally and physically.  Spiritually, you have to believe that it is acceptable and righteous to defend yourself and others being attacked.  It is a natural right to defend yourself and remove any threat of attack against you. You must also, spiritually understand and agree that it may become necessary to harm others that have made a choice to harm you or your loved ones.

It is important that a person trains their mind to fight, as well as their body.  Kindness and compassion for your attacker is equal to surrender.  You should have absolutely no compassion for the person or persons that are attacking you.  They made a decision to attack you.  You have not brought this upon yourself by provoking it. You also don’t want to hate.  Hate can’t be debilitating, as it takes allot of focus and energy away from your main goal, which should be to win at all costs.  If possible, you want them to lose their will to fight, stop their attack on you, and run away.

You have to learn an offensive mindset, as well as a defensive mindset. You do not want to become aggressive through anger and walk into a blow.  You need to train yourself to be hit, and not become angry or afraid. You also need to learn to duck, bob, and weave, in order to avoid being hit, without constantly giving up ground.  You need to learn to avoid blows, take blows, and deal return blows.

Many martial arts are available to choose from, but I suggest one that encompasses striking, grappling, and submission skills.  Weapons’ training is extremely useful, because you can pick up something off the ground and possibly use it against an attacker with a weapon.  Weapons training will also teach you to remove the attacker’s weapon from their possession, thus removing the threat of being cut, hit, or shot by it. You can also train in a number of different martial arts and combine them into your own free-style of fighting.

A style that teaches submission skills is very valuable for people that are still going to be against seriously harming someone else, even though they are going to harm them. If you can put your attacker into submission, then you may not have to take their life or harm them severely. Many martial arts studios offer private training, also.  Let me say again, that this is essential to your safety and survival.  It is essential to the safety and survival of your entire family and emergency preparedness group.

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Chapter 10, Emergency Pack/Bug-out Bag

You should have an emergency bag or pack that you can “grab and go”.  These emergency packs, as I like to refer to them as, are also called a B.O.Bs(bug-out bagcJxS), Go Bag, and 72-hour Pack.  They are normally set up for 72 hours of food and water, as well as being equipped with tools of different kinds, first-aid kits, and other essentials of comfort and survivability.

I will list below some of the items that are found in these Emergency Packs, and allow you to add anything else you would want to have with you, if you found yourself having to leave your car, your workplace, or your home in a hurry in order to remove yourself from danger and move to a safer location.  Bear in mind that these are basics for me, and you have to take weight into question as to what you are capable of carrying.  I can carry more than some and less than others. If you cannot carry the basic weight of the pack, then you need to become capable of doing so.

Emergency Pack/Bug-Out Bag/72-Hour Pack/Go-Bag:

-Six bottled waters, two per day. Add more if you can carry it.(Bare minimum)

-Nine nutritional food bars,three per day.

-Raw nuts of some kind.  No salt for reasons of thirst.

-One water filter bottle.

-Toilet paper in a sealed plastic bag.

-Baby wipes with aloe.

-One or more knives.  A multi-tool is excellent.

-One small lighter, one long-neck lighter, and one magnesium fire starter.

-One flashlight and extra batteries.  Use sparingly.  Windup flashlights make noise and attract attention.  Solar flashlights may not be reliable.

-Sewing kit.

-First-aid kit.

-Toothbrush and toothpaste.

-Small roll of duct tape.

-Para cord or other type of cord or twine.

-Super glue.

-Extra pair of socks.

-Extra pair of underwear.

-Extra shirt.

-Light gloves.

-Wash cloth and small towel. Small of soap or liquid soap

-Deodorant

-Hat with bill.

-Sun Screen, hand cream, and lip balm.

-Rain poncho or black trash bag.  You can make the trash bag into a rain poncho by making a hole for each arm, and one for your head.

-Pull-over sweatshirt with hood, preferably dark color.

-Condoms.  For collecting water or to seal something in to keep it dry.

-Compass and/or GPS device

-Magnifying glass

-Pain and/or inflammation reducing pills

-Anti-diarrhea pills

-Dust masks

-Goggles

-Eye drops

-Benadryl

This is what I would consider a good start for a small Emergency Pack. Your Go-Bag, for long-term survival, should have much more in it, as far as tools and water filtration, cooking, fire wood cutting, etc.  You may add anything you like to your Emergency Pack, as long as you can carry it.  You should have one wherever you go.  Gear up and prepare for your comfort and survival.  You’ll be happy you did, when you need it to be there.

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Chapter 11, Finding or Building Shelter

If you have to leave the shelter of your home to escape danger or because your home has been damaged, you will need to find or build new shelter.  If you have prepared, you have a tent of some type in your vehicle. You should have emergency packs, that all have Para cord or some type of cord or twine in them.  With this, you can collect materials to tie together, and make yourself a make-shift shelter.

It is wise to have something to use as a pry bar, readily available inside your house, in order to escape a collapsing structure where the doors are wedged shut, and blocking your path to safety. This tool will also serve as a method of gaining shelter in an emergency.  Sure, you don’t want to break they law, but if you and your family need shelter from whether extremes, then survival comes first.  You can make restitution later with the owner to fix whatever is broken or replace what was used.

If you have a tent, you will need to select a safe location, away from falling debris and preferably with some way to block the wind.  You may be spending the night, or longer, on your own front lawn or a neighbor’s.  If your neighborhood has suffered damage, work together for your mutual well being and survival.  You should band together as a team to protect and help each other. Set up close to each other, not in separate areas away from each other.  Just like a herd of animals group close together for protection and warm, so should you and your neighbors. Individuals can get picked off.

If you have to leave civilization for good reason, like a major devastation event or societal breakdown where lawlessness prevails, then pick your campsite wisely.  Take as many good people with you as you can.  It’s true that there is strength in numbers, right? There’s no need to elect a leader.  Just work together for your mutual benefit, and get along, no matter what your differences. You have survival in common right now.

In picking your campsite, you should look for a place that is sheltered from the wind.  Higher ground is best for defensive purposes, and it is harder to access by intruders and animals.  Somewhere close to a water source is best, but not on the normally travelled road.  Do not set up close to a trail or road.  Off the beaten path is best for safety and stealth. Set up watch posts at all four points of your camp, whether you are in the wilderness or in your own neighborhood.

If you have to, close off your street by blocking it with vehicles or whatever else you can use.  Make it difficult for anyone else to enter easily.  There will be people that will use a disaster situation to gain your valuables and possibly harm you and your family.  This is not an assumption, but a well known fact by people that have already lived through a disaster event.

Please remember that shelter is not just a material structure, but a bond of protection and mutual assistance that people can share with each other.  Look out for one another, serve one another, and get through whatever situation arises together. Shelter each other from harm.

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Chapter 12, Stealth Living

I am going to get very serious here in my words and meaning.  This chapter is serious, and the information that it contains may save your life someday.  At the least, it may extend your life for a period of time, until things get better after a very devastating event occurs.  I suggest that you take this seriously, also, as people can become very dangerous if infrastructure and commodity services are not available for an extended period of time.

When you have to survive, you may have to stay small, like a mouse or a bug.  You have to act like them and live like them, or you can get trapped, smashed, or even tortured.  If you have ever played a competitive sport or competed in the workplace, then you understand the concept of having an opponent.  Some are equally matched with you, some are more qualified, and some are less qualified.  Some play fair, some cheat or look for advantages, and some are just plain vicious.  The same goes for survival against the elements, animals, and other humans in a disaster situation.

You have to look small, smell small, act small, and be seen as little as possible to avoid confrontation or harm.  This will give you the element of surprise in many ways and at many levels, also.  Looking small will limit your opponents ability to judge your strength, and the number of people in your party.  They may under estimate your ability to defend yourself or of the capabilities of your party.  They may think that with not much noise or smell that your party is small and easily taken advantage of.  Make them pay for that mistake if they attack you. In this situation, you have to remove the threat at hand, and any future possibility of them threatening you and your party ever again. You should not show compassion for those that attack you in a survival situation.

When you have to travel out of your campsite or compound, stay small and move as quietly as possible.  Stop and listen for other sounds frequently.  Smell the air for smoke, food smells, and even human body smells. Most people will give their presence away in this way.  You don’t want to walk right up on another compound and get shot or taken captive.  You may want to observe them and assess if they are good people like you and worth joining ranks with, in order to strengthen your numbers.  Be cautious on common paths, roadways, streets and such.  Stay to the side of travel areas so you can get low and hide fast.  Have a way of hiding the path that leads up to your campsite, so it is not easily discovered by chance. Set up warning traps that are not obvious, like rocks in a can, or a small trip line to make any intruder’s presence known, before they get close to your camp. This gives you more time to react and defend yourself if necessary.

When you are moving outside your compound, always be patient.  Always take the time to stop and observe, before moving forward if you are unsure or sense something.  You have many senses that are deeper inside you than just smelling something, hearing something, or even touching something.  Your mind will register something that is so small that you won’t know it exists, but your brain registers it and sends you a notification called a sense.  Trust this sense, and pause when it happens.  This may save your life someday.

When being stealth, you have to smell as neutral as you can.  For this reason, and to accomplish this, you have to continue to rub yourself down with your surroundings.  Rub leaves, brush, and even dirt on your clothing.  Not the poison oak type.  You’re not going to die being dirty, but you may die if someone with evil intentions smells you, or a hungry animal smells you.  For me they are the same, except for that a human may reason the situation, where as an animal will not hesitate to strike.   When a human has lived long enough in the wild, that hesitation goes away, and they become more instinct than reasoning. They react based on what they need, not what they think.

If you do all this, and live this way, your chances of being detected are smaller, as you have stayed small.  This decreases your chances of being harmed and being taken captive and owned by a stronger force.  Yes, owned.  Humans have a preponderance to want other people to do their work for them, and to act superior.  It’s just the ways some people are made.  No judgment, personal, or political statement being made here.  Just a fact that can be substantiated by historical accounts, throughout recorded time.  Some humans will always have a goal of rising above others and dominating, to alleviate their own fears and insecurities.  You must avoid these people.  If such a force rises up, you must be ready to defend and conquer them, or evacuate to a new campsite, far away from that area.

Stay small, be small, act small, blend in, and be patient at all times, and you may not be seen.  Make your actions, and your spirit neutral, and you will not be known to be there.  Be a bug or a mouse, until you are forced to be a lion.  At that time have no compassion or reservation.  Win at all costs and survive another day, but if you are going to die by their hands, make them pay for it.  You have done everything you could to be nice, and stay out of their way, and they attacked you.

Stealth Living   165

A Perception On Preparing

Chapter 13, My Personal Thoughts For You

I hope what I have shared will help anyone that reads this book to see the importance of being prepared for whatever life puts in front of them. If someone already prepares, may this book enhance your course, and motivate you more in your methods of preparedness.  May you pass this on and share it with others you care about.  May something here create more of a social environment of preparedness, and a mentality of awareness of how vulnerable we are if we are not prepared.  I want certain things for all of you, because I truly care about you.....

I want for you to be able to survive whatever you face.

I want for you to be able to excel in your personal and professional life.

I want for you to be as healthy as you can be, and live a long, happy life, even if all the conveniences we share go away.

I want for you to have love and give love in every part of you life, everyday.

I want for you to be able to defend yourself and your family from any attack that is perpetrated against you.

I want for you to experience a feeling of security and comfort, knowing that you are prepared for any situation that confronts you, wherever you are, at   anytime.

I want for you to have the mental capacity to decide on whatever you need in life, to make whatever you need in life happen, and face whatever confronts you in life.

I want for you to be physically capable to do anything necessary to move through live, and conquer any adversity that confronts you, no matter what disability you may have.

I want for you to be as spiritually connected and spiritually strong as you can be, so you are shielded from any negativity or psychological attack to comes your way.

I want for you to have any skills you need to succeed in everyday life, as well as survive any type of disaster, be it personal, professional, natural or unnatural.

This book is just a beginning of what I would like to share with you of my experience, strength, hope, knowledge, and perceptions.  I always wish everyone the best of life, happiness, courage, strength, hope, and resolve, to do what is necessary to have what you would like to feel, experience, acquire, and share with others you love or just meet along your path through life. Be as prepared as you can be, mentally, physically, spiritually, and in your skills.

Imagine a world where every person considered how their actions or inactions would affect others......perhaps they might be more apt to prepare?

Preparing with Dave

My Personal Thoughts For You   175

Table of Contents

Chapter 1, Why Should I Prepare?

Chapter 2, When Should I Start Preparing?

Chapter 3, How Should I Prepare?

Chapter 4, Essentials

Chapter 5, Types of Disasters

Chapter 6, Should I stay or should I go?

Chapter 7, Training Yourself To Survive

Chapter 8, Having a Code

Chapter 9, Learning Self-Defense

Chapter 10, Emergency Pack/Bug-out Bag

Chapter 11, Finding or Building Shelter

Chapter 12, Stealth Living

Chapter 13, My Personal Thoughts For You