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About the 2014 Preppers Festival The Prepper's Festival will be held on Downtown Main Street in New Castle, VA on April 19th, 2014. This event will include a wide array of preparedness, homesteading and survivalist-related vendors, local artisans, skill-building workshops and even a Top Chef style Prepper's Cook-Off! Additionally, live music will be provided throughout the day and a large raffle will be held. This event is sure to be fun and very informative for all who attend!

What if you were forced to “register” in order to buy groceries? And what if, through that registration, the food you bought could be tracked and quantities could be limited? That’s exactly the plan in Venezuela right now. The AP reports that in an effort to crack down on “hoarding” that ID cards will be issued to families. These will have to be presented before foodstuffs can be purchased.

To begin with, this article is neither to demean the starting prepper nor launch into my fellow bloggers and authors about their version of what being prepared for the worst case scenario might well be; even though the criticism is valid and should remind everyone of the old adage that NO ONE is totally prepared for a societal collapse. The theory that many of the Pollyanna view of the end of modern convenience then in the end civilization is that indeed, mankind would seek his brother out and be at his best working together to rebuild and save humanity and...

Now that’s theory and it does apply but as we know sometimes things just don’t work out as well. Today my wife was opening a can of chopped tomatoes and as soon as the can was pierced the contents burst out in all directions. While there was no swelling, pressure had clearly built up inside, a clear sign of decomposition. The food inside didn’t smell awfully bad, but it didn’t smell good either.

But a 7.5 quake on the Puente Hills fault could cause the fault to slip for an entire 20 seconds — and the shaking could last far longer. The Puente Hills fault could be especially hazardous over a larger area because of its shape. Other local faults, like the Newport-Inglewood and Hollywood, are a collection of vertical cracks, with the most intense shaking occurring near where the fault reaches the surface. The Puente Hills is a horizontal fault, with intense shaking likely to be felt over a much larger area, roughly 25 by 15 miles. According to estimates by the...

It’s Not If, But When We’ve all heard the reports and seen the tell-tale signs of the storm brewing on the horizon. As a whole, we cannot continue to bury our heads in the sand and ignore the ever-growing issue of our economic instability. Start taking steps to lead a more self-reliant lifestyle and invest into your future wellbeing. The tips provided above can help you gain a greater edge in readying yourself for the uncertain future.

Bicycles offer us a quick way to move around, and if you know what you're doing and where you are going, they can be very stealthy. They give us options for carrying gear on racks and saddle bags, or even in trailers. A good bike will carry you over a variety of terrain, whether paved or not. They are easy to maintain, can be stored in a number of locations, and can be hidden fairly easily, when need be. Most importantly, with a little skill, their maneuverability will help you dodge even the stickiest of situations. Let's suppose I have...

At least 7,000 reservists have been recalled to the colours for immediate exercises lasting between 10 and 30 days. They’re told by the Polish authorities that the call-ups are “routine”: but the men say they haven’t been asked before and they’re well aware of the growing alarm in Warsaw at President Putin’s aggression. Three weeks ago, their Prime Minister, Donald Tusk, called a press conference to warn that “the world stands on the brink of conflict, the consequences of which are not foreseen… Not everyone in Europe is aware of this situation.”

The word got around that cat didn’t taste that bad and in a matter of weeks you just couldn’t find any more stray cats when just a few months earlier they were all over the city. In the country, kids with slingshots and air rifles would go bird hunting so as to bring something home to throw in the pot.

"It was alleged that the food hoarded was sufficient to maintain the family for more than a year and hence far in excess of the requirements for 30 days, the period recognized by hoover as a "reasonable one" for residents of cities."

hey fellow freepers, I need some advice. I'm trying to set up a small solar panel system in case the grid goes down. I know I won't be able to power the whole house, but I want to be able to run a 750 watt deep well pump, a couple of 40 watt lights, a ceiling fan or box fan, cb base station and maybe a small freezer/refrigerator. I've got a 12v 100 watt solar panel, a 2000w 12v pure sine wave inverter and a 200 amp hour agm battery. Plus a 30 amp charge controller. Will this be enough?...

This article is about identifying, stocking, and using the post collapse equivalent of a pocket full of dollar bills. It should be enough that if someone is trading eggs or socks you can buy a pair without having to run back to the house, but not so much that if someone robs you at gunpoint, you've lost a major part of your savings. That's barter. I define trading being qualitatively different, because it involves much higher-value items. Trading involves some psychology on both sides, similar to buying a car or a house, as opposed to daily shopping. Also, it is...

Buy Three Months Of Food Stock Buy A Water Filter Buy A Small Solar Kit Store A Fuel Source Find Alternative Shelter Buy One Semi-Automatic Rifle Buy 1,000 Rounds Of Ammunition Approach One Friend Or Neighbor Learn One Barter Skill Grow A Garden Prepare Your Mind For Calamity

When people talk about "The End Of The World As We Know It” (TEOTWAWKI), it is almost always in ways of how we might prepare for the end, what equipment to have, how much food to store, and what skills we must learn. These are all valid points. Most people can agree on common standards in these areas, but what if the act of preparing for the end can cause danger to yourself and your family? I'm not mocking prepping; I'm a prepper myself. I'm simply stating that a prepper must be in the correct mindset to make choices they...

In late 2010 when we started our food pantry, we took what I would call a “hodge-podge” approach. We read different articles and made lists of what we used and did not use but was recommended by the various publications. There is a tremendous amount of information, and this was a new endeavor for us. So our list would take the following into consideration: rotation of meals; caloric intake/nutritional value; pleasure value (is it something we enjoy i.e. pancakes vs. oatmeal); and last but not least, cost. Before we bought, we went to an Amish bulk store and Costco to...

Electric grid compounds across the country have faced an uptick in unauthorized intrusions by unknown individuals, causing concern that the U.S. grid is “inherently vulnerable” to widespread sabotage, according to a recent oversight report issued by New Jersey’s Regional Operations Intelligence Center (ROIC), which monitors the threat level. Following at least eight “reports of intrusions at electrical grid facilities in New Jersey” from October 2013 until January 2014, the ROIC’s Intelligence & Analysis Threat Unit issued a report warning that the U.S. electrical grid is “inherently vulnerable” to attacks that could wipe out power across large swaths of the country.

This is the story of my family's experience during the ice storm that hit the Central Savannah River Area (CSRA) of South Carolina and Georgia. My family and a network of friends, who live in the area, are reasonably prepared for any problems that may come our way with food and water storage, shelter, generators, et cetera. When the "ice hit the fan" in our area, we had a very real test of our preps that lasted five days, and some families were still without power seven days later.

The regulations would require hospitals, nursing facilities and group homes to have plans to maintain emergency lighting, fire safety systems, and sewage and waste disposal during power losses, and to keep temperatures at a safe level for patients. Those inpatient facilities would also be expected to track displaced patients, provide care at alternate sites and handle volunteers. Transplant centers would need to identify alternate hospitals for patients awaiting organs — a challenge because centers maintain different transplant criteria. Home health care agencies would be required to help patients create personalized disaster plans. Hospices and others caring for frail, homebound patients...

During the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars, the U.S. Army built 28,000 MRAPs (Mine-Resistant Ambush-Protected Trucks). Now the U.S. Army has announced that it is giving 13,000 of them away, for free. Who’s receiving the trucks? Homeland Security and U.S. Law Enforcement. Instead of mothballing these MRAPs, Homeland Security is evidently pre-staging a domestic army of militarized agencies, police and law enforcement. While Police and agencies say that all this military equipment from DHS grants will only be used against crime, the trust in many American alphabet agencies has been broken – now that we know some of the extent at...

I have seen countless disaster movies set 30+ years after the collapse of society where, somehow, people still have gasoline and diesel fuel to run their vehicles. I am a professional diesel mechanic, operating two vehicles retrofitted from their original gasoline engines to run on older mechanical diesel engines. I feel I could stay mobile longer because I would not be dependent on service stations to provide me fuel, and I could make my own