Emergency Essentials Disaster Preparedness

 

The above link provides useful information that is free to learn on the following topics and more.

Flood
Fires
Economic
Earthquake
Winter Storm
Tornado
Drought
Hurricane
Power Failure

For additional information see the following links:  
Blog Table of Contents

Prepper Gift List

Giving the right gifts at Christmas or for birthdays can help the entire family’s level of preparation. For example, giving:

1. A good set of MURS Walkie Talkies for the nephew, kids or grand kids so they can play in the neighborhood and communicate. Play with the new toys with them. Pick “our channel” so they will know what to use in the future if an emergency occurs.  Pretend a hurricane has taken out all communications.
2. Water distiller, good filter, dispenser for the refrigerator and spare filters to “help save money on bottled water… or drink healthier water” but also have the ability to filter rainwater, pool or creek water if necessary.
3. Crank radio with flashlight “for those power outages like we had this spring.”  One that has the NOAA Weather channel available for emergencies.
4.  Camping gear to take the “family to experience the great outdoors.” Things like sleeping bags, water filter bottle, water treatment, and tent, and emergency whistle, fire starting equipment, backpack, and a compass.  Even if you only practice in the back yard, its good experience.
5. Outdoor solar powered LED lights, to "highlight the landscape" but also provide a source of lights and charges AA batteries when the power grid is down.  Some use AAA batteries.
6. State or US Map for getting where needed when there is “no cell signal,” Google or even GPS.
7. Gas can for reserve fuel “extra for the lawn mower” so we always have a full one. Be sure to include some gas stabilizer as gas has a limited shelf life.
8. A good 12 VDC to 120 VAC inverter for your car so you always have a plug to power things.
9. Motion lights solar powered for around house / yard. Ideally they use common replaceable rechargeable batteries (like AAA, AA, and 9V, C or D). These are very useful as a deterrent to intruders and alerts residents.
10. Medical or First Aide hand book or family First Aide Kit.
11. Ammo for shooting practice; you can't have too much. See: The right amount of Ammo 
12. Prepper Books and Movies are good gifts. 
13. Silver Dollars for collector coins
14. Security Lights and Alarms to protect the home. 
15. Thermal Vision for hunting at night or detecting heat loss in your home.
16. Rechargeable Batteries are another good stealth prepper gift.  

Convincing your family, friends and neighbors that preparation is important can be difficult if not impossible in today’s busy times. A gradual approach will be required if you are to be successful. Otherwise, you should keep your preparations confidential and not let others know about them (as much as possible). But also plan on providing help for skeptical love ones & even neighbors.

Supplies like gas masks or razor wire should be concealed until things get bad…..when the skeptics stop thinking you are crazy and wish they had listened to you.  The Prepper Handbook on Amazon offers about 50 such gift ideas and can be previewed free. You can also down load a free Kindle reader to your phone or computer.

J Ray

For additional information see the following link:

Blog Table of Contents

 

Why we are all Preppers

There are things in life that occur which are beyond our control; “Events” as we will call them, that can put you and your loved ones in danger. However, your level of preparation IS within your control.

The risk of your home catching on fire is small, but the consequences can be severe. Being prepared can greatly improve the chances of survival for you and your family. This is why we have smoke detectors and likely a fire extinguisher in our home. To do otherwise is potentially negligence or even illegal. But guess what most people die from during a fire? Smoke inhalation. Remember this later as we talk about the rule of 3.

Our government through FEMA (www.fema.gov/ ) and several other agencies (www.CDC.gov  www.Ready.gov www.Flu.gov  www.hhs.gov and www.redcross.org ) say that everyone should have some basic preparations. Things like a minimum of 3 gallons of drinking water stored per person and a lot more that you may not know about. Everyone, especially those of us who are responsible for others should have some level of emergency preparation.

Most Police Officers never fire their gun in the line of duty. Despite this, they still wear a bulletproof vest because the consequences of being shot can be severe (death) even though the likely hood of it happening is very low. The chances of a crisis or life-changing “Event” occurring are small, but the consequences could be fatal if not prepared, much like the Police Officer not wearing a bullet proof vest.

In these examples, we see preparing as just good sense, not prepping. But it IS Prepping. However, we are less likely to have any preparations for more severe Events & consequences. So what happened to good sense now? Shouldn’t we have our own “bullet proof vest” (figuratively speaking) or some sort of low-cost insurance for serious events? Perhaps we should have a few basic preparations like extra food, water and ammo?

So how do we start prepping? The answer is by reading this book or blog, assessing your current level of preparedness, and then developing a sensible plan that will help protect you and your family from potentially real Events that are beyond your control. The Beginner Prepper List offers a good starting list of how to prep.  Next look at the Prepper Incremental Strategy.

Take this test by National Geographic’s Dooms Day Preppers as a starter. http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/channel/doomsday-preppers/interactives/how-prepped-are-you1/

Remember your initial score and make a list of your findings, and then read on and remember:
The Rule of 3 – you can die in:

1. 3 seconds without security
2. 3 minutes without air;
3. 3 hours without shelter (in hostile weather);
4. 3 days without water &
5. 3 weeks without food.

This rule will help us set our priorities.

For additional information see the following links:

Blog Table of Contents

Beginners:

Beginner Prepper List

The Rule of 3 (set priorities by this)

US Government Recommended Preparations

US GOVERNMENT Recommended Preparations

Our federal government gives us a list of “Events” we should be prepared for and how to do so. It includes things like:

Natural Disasters

A.     Hurricanes

B.     Floods *

C.     Earthquakes

D.     Wild Fires  *

E.     Tornadoes

F.      Home Fires  *

G.    Black Outs (power outage) *

H.     Biological threats *

I.        Pandemics (1 – 2 week quarantine; see CDC Pandemic Flu Preparedness)*

J.      Drought

K.     Extreme Heat

L.      Severe Weather  *

M.    Space Weather (solar flares) *

N.     Thunderstorms and lightening *

O.    Tsunami

P.     Volcanoes

Q.    Winter Storms and extreme cold

Man-made hazards

R.     Hazardous Material incidents *

S.     Nuclear power plants (radiation leaks)

T.      Chemical Threats or weapons *

U.     Cyber Attack (computers, ATMs & store registers down) *

V.     Explosions (terrorist bombs) *

W.   Nuclear blast *

X.     Radiological Dispersion Device (dirty bomb) *

 
All of these are covered in the Prepper Handbook in detail.

These are not Chicken Little (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henny_Penny) saying the sky is falling, but rather our federal government (http://www.ready.gov/be-informed) telling us what we need to be prepared for.  The government even has “National Preparedness Month.”

These are Events that often happen. Obviously some are more of a risk than others are, depending on where we live and our situation. Those identified by * are “Events” that could happen to most anyone.

In addition to this list, I would add:

Riots, gangs, and looting that might occur for a number of reasons including something as simple as the LA Lakers winning the NBA Championship or as complex as an economic meltdown from hyperinflation (read Wikipedia on this subject).

These “Events” as we will call them can cause a wide range of event consequences. The degree of severity depends on the Event AND our level of preparation for it. The range of Event consequences broadly includes:

1. No problems
2. Minor inconvenience for a few days
3. Serious hardships for a few weeks.
4. In the worst cases, they pose a threat to well being, life, limb, and property for a long time.

How prepared you are will determine how you fare. For example, being prepared for an Event can easily move you from serious hardships (#3) to minor inconvenience (#2).

But there are real risks of far more serious Events. Is there any doubt that one of the many suicide bombers would not discharge a weapon of mass destruction in the USif he could get one? Only 5% of the millions of daily import containers are inspected. Getting something smuggled into the US would not be hard. When Terrorist attacked us using airplanes on September 9, 2011 or 9-11 they did so with 4 different airplanes and totally successful with 75% or 3 out of 4. If they tried to smuggle in 4 nukes from North Korea, Iran (formerly Persia) or lost ones from Russia through our normal import shipping channels to attack us with, our chances of catching all four is about 6 out of 1 million. Of course, they would test our different ports (if not already in progress) to see which ones were the easiest to smuggle illegal products into and would use those, reducing our chances even further.

The US has a Billion plus dollars per day trade deficit (over spending) with much of it going for foreign oil which has a little more cost than pumping water from the ground and transporting it. This provides a lot of disposable income for the oil rich countries to buy nukes from India,Pakistan,North Korea, or the former Soviet Union countries, most of which hate the US.

Sure, North Korea missiles only have 2,000-mile range, but the EMP caused by a nuke launched from a fishing boat or submarine in the Gulf of Mexico and exploded 250 miles over the central US would take out a majority of our electronic and electrical systems for many years. A solar flare from the sun could do the same thing. Expert testimony before Congress in 2014 warned us that an electromagnetic pulse attack on our power grid and electronic infrastructure could leave most Americans dead and the U.S.in the dark ages. Google “EMP Attack On Power Grid Could Kill 9-In-10”

Think of the consequences from having no electricity for years especially in a country where farmers representing 2-3% of the US population are feeding the other 97 – 98% (300 million Americans) and much of the world. Or what if honeybees continue to die off and even perish? The food supply will quickly be disrupted from not being pollinated. People will do what ever is necessary to eat and feed their children. First they will ask for food, even beg. Then they will try to sneak and steal it, then eventually organize into groups (gangs) and take it by force if necessary. They will have no problem killing “greedy people who won’t share” to feed their children.

Without electricity, city water supplies will quickly dry up. Hoards of desperate people will flee to the country in search of food, water, and shelter.

The US Government has a Continuity of Government plan (COG) called Continuity of Operations (COOP) that believes the highest value terrorist target would be to detonate a Washington DC nuclear bomb while the President was addressing joint sessions of congress. So clearly, they recognize there is a real risk, if they are developing plans on what to do in such an Event. An Event that most people are not prepared for I might add. Some of their plans for different Events are shocking, expecting mass casualties of unprepared citizens.

There are a large number of Events with a low probability of occurrence, but severe consequences. A major volcanic eruption or limited nuclear exchange could spread enough dust through our atmosphere blocking out the sun and inducing a multi-year winter and disrupt the food supply. Read about 1816, the “Year Without a summer…. was an agriculture disaster.”

Fortunately for us, the basic preparations are generally the same for most of the Events, with a few specialized additions for each Event.

This is another excerpt from the Prepper Handbook  by JR Ray on Amazon.  You can download their free e-reader and read it on your computer, iPhone or iPad.

For additional information see the following links:

Blog Table of Contents

Here is another good story on EMP:
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2015/05/04/military-eyeing-former-cold-war-mountain-bunker-as-shield-against-emp-attack/