Survivalists 2.0: Regular people get ready for the worst

chron.com ^ | April 12, 2009

[appleseed]

FORT WORTH — Jack Spirko owns a media company, is married to a nurse and has a son in college. He has two dogs and lives in a nice house with a pool in a diversified neighborhood in suburban Arlington, Texas.

Spirko, 36, considers himself an average guy with a normal life.

But for the past few years, Spirko has been stockpiling food, water, gas, guns and ammunition. He also has a load of red wine, Starbucks coffee and deodorant stashed away.

“I refer to myself as a modern survivalist, which means I don’t do without,” Spirko explained. “I have a nice TV; I have nice furniture. We are not living in the sticks, but I take all of these things very seriously.”

Spirko, an Army veteran and self-described “stark-raving-mad Libertarian,” is part of a growing movement of people who are preparing for a disaster natural, economic or man-made. Referred to as “modern survivalists” or “preppers,” they are taking steps to protect and provide for their families should something bad happen.

Theirs is a different breed of survivalist, far from the right-wing militants or religious extremists who hole up in bunkers, live off the land and wait for the apocalypse.

Preppers are regular people with regular jobs who decided after Sept. 11, after Hurricane Katrina or when their 401(k)s tanked that they can’t rely on someone else to help them if something goes awry.

[Tammy8]

marked to save links.

[PowderMonkey]

"...regular people with regular jobs who decided after Sept. 11, after Hurricane Katrina or when their 401(k)s tanked that they can’t rely on someone else to help them if something goes awry."

There you go. I'm not obsessed with it, but if we lose power, water and contact with emergency responders for a week or two, I won't need outside help. You'd think folks would appreciate and support that, but they don't. The problem is all those preparations are disturbing the sheeple. They're a reminder of how fragile society really is; how quickly that thin veneer of civilization can be stripped away by natural disaster or political upheaval. It's like holding up a mirror. They don't like what they see. It scares them. Given a sack of rice, a few gallons for potable water, and fire making skills, you could survive just about anything. But I know folks who stedfastly refuse to even stock a little extra rice, canned goods or water.

[GeronL]

I think there is a sailing supplies website that sells sailor boy crackers, canned bacon, cheese, butter, bread and such.... designed to last 10 years if stored properly.

[GeronL]

Yummy... designed to last 10 years.... canned bread, canned butter, canned bacon....

cruisingsupplies.com

[appleseed]

Spirko is an Army veteran. I'm sure he's handling things the way he has to. It's just those diversified suburban neighborhoods just outside the city that would probably be a target of those who didn't prepare. Hence, the guns and ammo. comment.

[PugetSoundSoldier]

I have the shirt for you:

[editor-surveyor]

"He also has a load of red wine, Starbucks coffee and deodorant stashed away."

The man has no hope! - The Starpuke drinkers will be the first to perish!

[jazminerose]

Has anyone read One Second After yet?

I never gave preparedness a thought before that. DH has worked many disasters, including Katrina, so he was more into that.

But after reading the book, you stop thinking in terms of a few weeks.

I am still freaked out.

[PugetSoundSoldier]

That diversity crap is not what it is cracked up to be!!!

My guess about the diversity in his neighborhood (given the description of items and lifestyle).

He had guys with MBAs from Stanford, Harvard, Yale, a few PhDs from MIT, maybe even from Duke!

You know, REAL diversity...:)

[editor-surveyor]

A berkey cannot remove dissolved toxins, just embolisms.

[editor-surveyor]

"I figured the red wine was for drinking, the starbucks was for trade with people who had no clue as to the value of anything, and the deodorant was so he could have his pick of the remaining chicks."

Sounds like a pretty good analysis!

[Starwolf]

I live a long way from any large urban area. Keeping a good supply of stuff on hand is just good thinking out here.

[Freedom56v2]

Thanks for the post and great links :)

[mountainbunny]

Where can the podcasts be found? Thanks!

[DocRock]

bookmark

[appleseed]

Question: I’ve only used the Berkey a few times, using pond water. The filters are dang expensive and I’m saving the extra ones for emergencies. When I did use it I put a few drops of bleach in it and let it set for awhile. I have drank some rank water in the past and had some bad effects.

I found this site on using bleach for emergency drinking water.
http://www.bae.ncsu.edu/programs/extension/publicat/wqwm/emergwatersuppl.html

Would bleach remove dissolved toxins? Or is a better filter system needed?

[Southack]

First of all, keep in mind that no matter how bad things get, Mugabe is still in charge of Zimbabwe. Governments just won’t die on their own. There was no Weimar Revolution in Germany. Hyper-inflation, if it even happens (hasn’t in Japan), is no guarantee of a government falling or even of a stock market going to 0.

Naturally, prepare first for the idea that a societal meltdown won’t happen. That’s right. The good times might just edge out the bad no matter what. So...

Good job/business, education, strong family ties, no debt, positive savings, etc. Cover the basics. I’d hate for a good person to so over-invest in TEOTWAWKI that she gets crushed instead by society functioning normally. That would be tragic irony.

That being said, this is an awful time to be taking chances in major investment categories likes stocks, bonds, and real-estate.

Get into cash. Sell whatever you can. Drop your asking price to sell fast. And renting is better than owning during these sorts of deflationary downturn panics.

The time to invest is later, after the dust settles. Until then you want ca$h. Trust me, I’m an expert!

With the basics covered, you need to be prepared for a short-term emergency like all banks being closed for an extended period of time. Do you have enough cash on hand if your ATM card won’t work for a month?

Really? Banks are closed. ATMs won’t work. You’ve still got bills. You’ve got that much ca$h on hand? You better.

Checks and credit cards (bank cards!) may be unusable for a while, too.

At the next level, can you survive inside your home without going to a public/government food/shelter depot if a hurricane/tornado/tsunami/volcano/avalanche/earthquake or other natural event renders all stores closed for a month? What if society has a hiccup? Roads aren’t being cleared of downed trees/powerlines. Goods aren’t moving from the country into town, or between towns.

You’ve got your meds? Water? Safe canned food (#10 cans keep food fresh for 25 years). A certain way to start a fire, even in the rain? Winter clothes?

Do you have a 72-hour “bug-out” bag to grab and run if a wildfire or medium-sized meteor puts your home in an unsafe region? Or a plague (e.g. terrorist infection in your area)?

Does each member of your distributed family know how to call you if cell lines are working, and know where to meet up if they aren’t?

Do you have basic first aid available (painkillers, asprin, hydrogen peroxide, bandages) and know where to find a doctor/hospital?

Pause...

Surviving for longer periods of time is an order of magnitude more difficult than preparing for any of the above...and most people won’t come close to having the water or cash handy to handle even expected outages of the comforts of civilization (e.g. sanitary).

A few tips if you are in a longer-term survival situation:
#1: avoid all contact, especially violent, with military and paramilitary groups. You won’t have the firepower of a Destroyer or B-2 bomber, and you won’t have acces to their level of medical care. You want to survive. This is not about starting or winning a war. You’ll likely end up like one of the 3 dead pirates off the coast of Somalia if you violate this rule.

#2: stay put if you can. Once you leave you will become a forager, and that’s a very difficult way to survive.

#3: if you have to leave (e.g. to avoid contact with paramilitaries), then leave. F’in go! A stocked sailboat would be nice at that point. Go fishing. Come back when the crisis is over.

#4: announcements on loudspeakers, radio, TV, posters, and handouts, are not to be believed. But they’ll be out there.

This is important because in a desperate situation various bad actors will have incentive to tell you what you *want* to hear in order to manipulate your behavior.

Also, weapons, dogs, and body armor are great things (get them!)...but they aren’t going to help you against paramilitaries and they won’t sanitize your hands before eating or after septic disposal. The daily grind can kill you dead.

Likewise, while a gun is nice (and better to have one than not), shooting a deer in a nation that is starving will bring *large* numbers of people toward what they hope will be a deer kill. Drawing attention to yourself by firing a weapon or turning on lights at night...perhaps even a campfire, may be contrary to improving your survival odds.

This might be a great time to have a simple slingshot for squirrel hunting. Very quiet.

Now, just remember that the worst is unlikely to happen. Being prepared for the plethora of catastrophies that are possible is difficult. Moreover, you don’t want to scare yourself silly *or* become so invested in the mental idea of a crash/disaster that you begin *wishing* for it.

It’s unlikely to happen. Many a 1980’s “Reagan nuclear war” survivalist wound up disappointed. So too did the Y2K nuts (e.e. World Nut Daily).

What’s more likely is higher unemployment, limited riots/arson attacks near colleges and ghettos, and some inconvenient bank failures that tie up some access to capital.

You might also consider some redneck car armor for your family/commuter vehicle. Used police surplus ballistic body armor panels (soft armor) can be found online for as little as $25 each. Stuff them behind your door and rear hatch interior panels, plus in front/under your driver instrument cluster pod.

Lower your windows on your doors, remove your interior panels, and insert old phone books. Duct tape them out of the way of the glass windows and electric window motors. This can be done by an amatuer with as little as 1 hour of your time per door.

Lighter calibers of street-thug firearms such as .22, .38, and 410 shotguns won’t penetrate into your interior through your metal outer door panels plus through phone books.

This is a very quick and inexpensive way to help protect your family from small domestic riots where some bad actor in the crowd is likely to have a small pistol.

You can do the above without even alarming your family that an elevated level of threat exists. The windows will still work, after all. Your car will appear normal. If you want to go the extra step, pick up on-line some Llumar or C3 bulletproof window film for your windows.

You aren’t Rambo. You aren’t going to be machine-gunning down whole crowds of rioters before one of them can shoot your car from behind or from the side. TEOTWAWKI is *not* Hollywood! A little armor can thereby improve your daily sense of security without running up a big bill.

Obviously the above is worthless against more powerful handguns, but a rioter is less likely to be carrying around heavy artillery without being picked off by whatever police/national guard forces are still in existence.

For trading materials under riot conditions or TEOTWAWKI, I’m a bigger fan of dual-use materials like liquor.

Cheap Vodka, Everclear, and Moonshine have sanitizing uses, firestarting capabilities, painkilling uses, as well as trading and entertainment value. They also store for longer periods of time than you and your children and their grandchildren will live.

In contrast, you might find that single-use materials like gold hold no luster during actual panics.

[appleseed]

This article has some good links:

Should Americans Prepare for a “Summer of Rage”?

April 14, 2009 | From theTrumpet.com

http://www.thetrumpet.com/index.php?q=6097.4501.0.0

[varina davis]

save

[manapua]

Where can the podcasts be found? Thanks!

Spirko's at www.thesurvivalpodcast.com - for being a self-proclaimed bugeyed libertarian, he has a very reasonable approach to survivalism.