Posted on 05/12/2012 2:48:24 PM PDT by blam
I think it is VERY dangerous to be a prep "evangelist".
The article didn't mention the single biggest danger to preppers (or anyone else who is not starving) is the starving masses themselves. If you have a cache, and anyone outside of your immediate family knows about it when TSHTF someone outside will find out about it. It doesn't matter that the masses aren't prepared. They will be numerous, motivated and probabaly armed and organized. If you are located within a 3-day march of a population center it may not be possible to defend your cache unless you maintain absolute secrecy-starting last year.
The first rule of prepping should be that you don't talk about prepping. With anyone. The only exception is if you are working with a like-minded network who you know well (and by sight) to organize beforehand.
Family members shouldn't be automatically "clued in", especially ones that don't live with you and especially children, who love to boast (when I was 10 I was told all about my friend's dad and his safe full of guns and ammo within an hour of meeting my friend). Trust no one until they are proven. Paranoia is a survival skill. Use it.
Churches, associations, clubs, etc. sound like a great place to organize efforts, but if TSHTF they will be OBVIOUS targets. In fact, once te store shelves are bare they will be the very first places the horde will turn to.
Don't buy supplies from people who know you. This sounds counterproductive and hard-assed, but when TSHTF someone is going to say to the wrong person, "I sold this guy down the road X amount of Y, I bet he still has it!"
Save or scrounge empty juice bottles or soft drink bottles. Rinse and fill with water a few at a time.
Store out of the light.
If your water is from a municiple supply that is already chorinated it should keep okay with no additional treatment.
If your water is not pre-chlorinated add 8 drops pure bleach per 2 liter bottle for long term storage.
Use PURE beach only - do not use scented bleach.
See additional info here:
STORING WATER IN 2 LITER POP BOTTLES
We also use old 1 gallon milk jugs but they are harder to clean. Non-fat are easier to clean than others. We use cold water and rinse well. If you do use milk jugs let them sit a week or two after cleaning to make sure there is no sour smell. If they stink toss them out.
Next time don't hold back so much.
I look at the need to prep and plan in two ways:
Short Term disaster - Most likely (Duration - maybe up to 90 days)
Long term disaster - Least likely
In either case my general thinking is that the immediate priority is to make it through the crisis at hand until we have some idea of the magnitude and likely duration of the larger impact.
If the crisis is short term we may see some sort of recovery begin or might see the neighborhood and/or community coalesce and organize within a period of weeks or months. To get through that period I think of staying in place (if possible) and my preps are more along the line of canned beans rather than pallets of 50 pound sacks of dried beans and rice stored in a bomb proof bunker(although both are good to have!).
If the immediate disaster is a hurricane, forest fire (or tsunami) heading my way there is no doubt we'll load up the vehicle with canned food, water and other supplies and leave earlier rather than later. In storm season we always have a load of necessities ready to go.
If we are facing a long term scenario we still need to get through the immediate crisis, then we will need the long term stored food (if any). But even more we will need vegetable seeds, tools to grow, harvest and hunt food and a stable, secure place to live. It will be hard to accomplish that for one family living in a remote cabin. Someone pointed out that if you can get to a location so can the bad guys who want your supplies.
The idea of living in the field for extended periods with just a rifle, a bag of salt and a tin cup isn't practical for 99% of us.
One word on storing seeds and gardening tools for “just in case”.
If you rely on your “instant gardening skills when TSHTF”,
you’re gonna starve.
Garden NOW.
Good point.
Applies to most other skills necessary to survival as well.
We have been trying out/practicing/learning as we go along.
Many simple sounding ideas are not so simple to master and it will be much more difficult under duress.
When the NP show up at my door, they will see me with a plastic bag with 2 cups of rice and a bottle of water in one hand and a 9mm cartridge in the other. I'll tell them that today they get the bag. Tomorrow they get the 9mm.
Cold? Perhaps. But it will be the only way....IF things get reaaly bad.
I heard JW Rawles interviewed a short time ago. He said that if the grid goes down due to fuel shortages caused by hyper-inflation, we could see an entire generation without electrical power. Once these grids go down, you just don't flip a switch and turn on the lights. Cold start up is a hugely complex procedure and requires all resources and infrastructure to be hitting on all cylinders.
A very small caliber round?
I would LOVE to do that. But the tanks are so bloody expensive. 30 bucks for a tank and ~17 bucks to fill. And the new ones need to be purged first...requiring an additional fee at most places.
If I could get them cheap enough, I'd convert my generator to propane and I'd be set. But 50 dollars or more per unit. Too much. Check the date of manufacture on the pair you got for 15 bucks. After 12 years they won't refill them.
I use a rain catchment system that shunts rain water from the downspout to a 50 gallon poly tank in the cellar. Overflow is handle by the same system. When it is full it backs up and goes down the spout. I can drain what I need, filter it with a silver impregnated ceramic filter and start cooking. No need to go outside to look for fresh water. I also have other large stores of water but this is the main utility source. I fear only a drought.
Was suggested to me today, after a recitation of my original list (to which you all have been so kindly and expertly editing) that the B necessity is:
Music.
I have a guitar, violin, fife, bodhran drum and a couple of Kenyan tamorines. Must get a harmonica.
tamorines are the same as tambourines when edited properly
I check all that now before buying...I made a mistake on the first couple tanks I bought.
I checked these two, both are full of gas, one is refillable and one isn't. At $7.50 a tank...that's a steal.
I've never paid more than $8.00 per tank, empty or partially full. I have a local guy who will 'top-off' my partial tanks for $1.00 a pound.
I can also refill the one pound Coleman lantern bottles from these tanks...just requires a special fitting.
Mobile is the rainest city in the US, I often hit water digging fense posts holes.
I have had good success burying things in big diameter PVC pipes here. I keep my eyes open at garage sales and areas where people illegally dump (usually construction guys) there trash. I found the PVC pipe illegally dumped, short 3-4 foot sections and then I found the caps for them at a garage sale for $1.00 each. Everywhere I go, my eye is searching for a survival item, kinda fun actually.
What do you do when his/her three children start crying and begging for food?
Not at all...even younger well conditioned guys are gonna run into other desperate guys like themselves and have to fight over what is available out there.
I have all my short and long term supplies at this location. At worst case, I can move it down the street a short ways to a better fortified neighbor's house. Because I'm in 'hurricane alley', all my food supplies are packed to survive a category 5 hurricane. Everything can blow down but they'll still be dry, etc.
My son lives in LA County, Sierra Madre.
He has three days of supplies and never expects to use them. He is a PhD and of course knows everything, lol.
He says all my doomsday scenarios (always) has him down here in my garden at the end of a hoe. I told him not to worry that as atuned as he is (ahem), I'll have to phone to tell him his neighborhood is being over-run and that he'll be eaten before he gets here anyway.
Good luck Red.
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