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Despite the best efforts of the World Health Organization and Doctors Without Borders, Ebola is expected to rage on in West Africa for another 12-18 months, with 20,000 cases predicted. Without coordination of relief efforts, the ability to contain the disease is limited and has been labeled a “failure” to date. Countries are sending supplies and equipment in piecemeal fashion. The U.S., for example, is setting up a 25 bed hospital for its part. Unfortunately, it’s far too little to make a dent in the epidemic. It’s difficult for a person in a developed country to believe that medical systems,...

I am a single mom with a ten year old daughter, a Christian Constitutionalist, and a prepper. I grew up very poor, both physically and emotionally. However, my grandmother gave me a tremendous spiritual foundation for which I am forever grateful. Life is about making choices– choosing to put one foot in front of the next and keep going, regardless of the circumstance; choosing to prepare for whatever comes; and choosing to trust in and follow God in all ways.

Communications is a key element in our everyday lives. If you don’t believe me, try going a whole day with no cell phone, Internet, television, or any other means of communications (COMMS). So it stands to reason that having COMMS, when SHTF, is essential to gaining intelligence (COMINT), the safety and security of your family, keeping informed, and keeping at least one step ahead of anybody with bad intentions. Like any skill, it is essential to practice; that means practicing before SHTF, so that you have the necessary skills. While most of the communications methods discussed in this article are...

When it all hits the wall, one thing you should be sure of is that someone is listening to every communication you make within reception range. Many will use scanners to try and find you or your group. If they hear radio activity, especially activity on the short-range radios, they will know you are near. Some will use direction-finding antennas to get your exact location. The idea with radio comms is to use the least power and radio with the least range that will get you reliable comms. If all has gone south, you will want to use radio only...

He monitored how telephone lines went out, electricity and water too. Later he was trying to „catch“ some news over his radio that he used before for football (soccer) games broadcasts. His son later told us that they ate a lot of some old jam because they had eaten everything else. And then one day he simply was forced to go out, they delayed that moment as much as they could, but when you watch your kid and wife go hungry it is very hard to just do nothing. You see those who are close to you slowly get worse...

Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback wants his state to be ready when zombies arrive. And to make sure Kansas takes the zombie apocalypse seriously, Brownback plans to officially declare October "Zombie Preparedness Month" during a ceremonial event Friday at the Kansas Statehouse. Zombie Preparedness Month, however, is not actually about planning a defense for viral reincarnate flesh eaters. Instead, Brownback's administration wants to capitalize on pop culture's zombie obsession to raise awareness about disaster planning and response.

By Thursday, 15,000 tourists had been airlifted out of the area, Mexico's Ministry of Transport and Communications said. But just as many remained trapped and bottled water was being rushed in with other emergency supplies.

Another thing to point out is the amount of time it takes to get back on track following a disruption in supply. Take a blizzard that shuts down a distribution center for a day. The way things work is that shipments are coming in constantly, but they are timed so that basically only the items projected to be necessary are delivered. There are not warehouses full of every item imaginable that can just be run out to a store. Now a blizzard not only shuts down the warehouse and its delivery vehicles, but it shuts down the trucking that supplies...

This morning as I was trying to catch up on my email (I get a massive amount of email each month, last month over 3,000), I opened a great one from John W. In a nutshell John, is new to prepping and hasn’t really done anything prep-wise yet, but he has been thinking and making plans. John said that he has his home on two acres paid-off, and that he has a job and works to support his wife and two children (one 6 and the other 9 years old). He said that he knows from all of the news...

Recently, a small firestorm was ignited by Valerie Lucus-McEwen, a government Emergency Management employee, who had the temerity to accuse preparedness types of “selfishness.” While your immediate reaction may be – as mine certainly was – “Are people really and truly this thoughtless?” – this question does deserve a proper answer, particularly as those who are easily influenced by the leftist media, or who believe the state really and actually is the omniscient, omnipotent savior of our personal and corporate lives, are actually asking this question. So, let’s examine the issue: First, many preparedness types have, as part of their...

I would like to share some of my observations, feelings, and plans for dealing with the current and future difficult times that we face. As I have read and studied the survival plans and strategies of the fine members of the SurvivalBlog community, as well as other sources, I have frequently been overwhelmed and discouraged about my ability to deal with the inevitable trouble that is barreling toward us faster every day. I read the stories of people moving to a fully-stocked and well-equipped retreat with their ex-military buddies, who are also master gardeners, trained medical personnel, and have every...

Pry provided details of recent attacks on electricity systems and said that ISIS could easily team with Mexican drug cartels to ravage America. He told Secrets, for example, that the Knights Templar drug gang blacked out the electric grid of the Mexican state of Michoacan in 2013 to provide cover for killing those fighting the drug trade. “The Knights Templars and other criminal gangs in Mexico will do anything for money, and ISIS, the richest terrorist organization in history, has hundreds of millions of dollars at its disposal,” said Pry. “ISIS could hire one of the Mexican cartels, or one...

One of the great mysteries of the post-financial crisis world is why the U.S. has lacked inflation despite all the money being pumped into the economy. The St. Louis Federal Reserve thinks it has the answer: A paper the central bank branch published this week blames the low level of money movement in large part on consumers and their "willingness to hoard money."  The paper also cites the Fed's own policies as a reason for consumers' unwillingness to spend. Though American consumers might dispute the notion that inflation has been low, the indicators the Fed follows show it to be running well...

I had friend who was cop. Actually he was police inspector (detective) when SHTF in first few weeks he simply used his badge and authority in chaos and „confiscate“ gold from people in the name of „cause“. The cause back then was to support our fight against the enemy troops who have surrounded our city. But the cause can be anything of course. At first it was story about how it is not secure to have gold inside home because bad security state in town, so it will be kept in safe in town hall. Sounds stupid maybe, but people...

Vespignani has analyzed the likelihood that Ebola will spread to other countries. Using data on millions of air travelers and commuters, as well as mobility patterns based on data from censuses and mobile devices, he has built a model of the world, into which he can introduce Ebola and then run hundreds of thousands of simulations. In general, the chance of further spread beyond West Africa is small, Vespignani says, but the risk grows with the scale of the epidemic. Ghana, the United Kingdom, and the United States are among the countries most likely to have an introduced case, according...

President Obama on Friday turned prepper, with a proclamation regarding National Preparedness Month that warned emergencies, “from hurricanes and wildfires to cyber and terrorist attacks, can strike anywhere at any time.” In his proclamation, he said each household should have its own plan. “Before emergencies occur, we must make sure we are ready to respond, and it is every American’s responsibility to be prepared. There are simple but important steps we can all take to ensure we know what to do and have what we need in the event of a crisis. National Preparedness Month is an opportunity to talk...

With Ebola in the news, there are some that have pointed out the possibility that some nations may attempt to weaponize the virus. This is a concern that deserves discussion, so let’s talk about something that few consider a likely cause of a collapse scenario: biological warfare. Biological warfare is the use of infectious agents such as bacteria, viruses, fungi or their by-products to wreak death and havoc among a specific population. The user’s goal is to achieve control over an area or a segment of the population by weakening the ability to resist. Biological weapons don’t necessarily have to...

They also say that there is no way of some doomsday scenario of sick person getting onto regular flight, contaminating everyone, because it spreads through body fluids only etc. All good info, but somewhere at the end of article there is one sentence that goes like this: „… so there is clearly no reason for panic…“ As I said few times before, whenever someone from government, law enforcement, or similar says „no reason for panic“ I get strong urge to buy more ammo (food, water, gas masks…). OK, I’m a burned man and had bad experience from listening to similar...

The situation is very bad. It seems that water in the area is contaminated due to algae in the area, mostly in Lake Erie, which releases a toxin called microcystin when it decays. The algae grows best in warm, shallow waters like those of Lake Erie. It can’t be boiled, boiling only concentrates the toxin. What about filters? Even filters such as Berkey filters have their limitations. They are capable of filtering pathogens and microorganisms, but getting rid of a cyanotoxins is a different story. The way I would deal with the situation would be this: I’d drink the water...

Despite concerns around the globe that the Ebola virus may continue to spread and mutate into something even more deadly, the director of the CDC attempted to assuage fears about the possibility of an outbreak on U.S. soil. “It is not a potential of Ebola spreading widely in the U.S.,” director Thomas Friedman told reporters on a conference call Thursday. “That is not in the cards.” But while the CDC downplays the potential threat, emergency planners behind the scenes have been getting ready since as early as April of this year. In a report presented to Congress while the virus...