Prepping

By: Matt in the Midwest

I enjoy prepping. I value independence, self-sufficiency, and taking responsibility for myself. I consider it a hobby with perks. I like growing my own food, canning, hunting, shooting, reusing or repurposing materials. I love reading apocalyptic fiction as well as survival nonfiction; homesteading (free homesteading guide), organic gardening, Mother Earth News, Outdoor Life, Guns and Ammo.

But I also live in the “real” world of having a wife, 2.5 kids, full-time job, a mortgage, car payments, vacations, soccer, baseball, and gymnastics. Trying to find a balance or better yet an “integration” of the two worlds is what I try to achieve. Not everything can fit in both worlds. But I use this as a guideline. The more integrated I make prepping into my life the more I can work towards being prepared. Here’s how I do it.

Where to start? That depends on you, your family, cash flow, and interest. I’ll describe my situation and where I’m at. I’m not saying this is the only way or the right way. Just saying this is how one man and family is doing it.

I consider our basic needs and multiply to broader situations or applications. Some categories to consider Water, food, shelter, security, communication, medical, transportation. Get the basics in place then add to each area. Look for ways to work on preps as you go about your “normal” life.

I avoid putting too much emphasis on long term, unlikely to use, hope I never have to use it items or supplies. I don’t own a bulletproof vest, Geiger counter, or gas mask. Hard to justify this as useful in my “normal” world.

When I consider a purchase, I often ask myself, “will I use it now? (meaning in the next 6 months or so). And would it come in handy in 5-10 years if “bad things happen?” I don’t dwell in the doom and gloom issues, but at the same time, a little preparedness goes a long way. If you have the money or see a great deal, by all means, add something off your wish list.

I didn’t think I was really prepping for many years. I had hobbies I enjoyed like hunting, fishing, hiking, and camping. I like to reuse things, save money, buy used, repair what I can repair. I also buy bulk when I can. Two for one deals, coupons, dented cans, day-old donuts, whatever.

Along the way, I realized the combination of these activities, and the mindframe of preparedness meshed with what is known as prepping. Adding on to activities you already do is one way of making more progress with your preps.

Thriftiness: I’m a sale shopper. Goodwill, resale shops, yard and estate sales are my favorite places to shop. I once found a new Blackhawk tactical pack at Goodwill for $5. Sold! Saved me $80-100 that one time. Kevlar chainsaw chaps for $8? Sold.

I often walk away empty handed which is fine by me. Buying to just buy isn’t for me. I’m not a big shopper, but if I’m at a pharmacy to get something, I take the time to walk through looking for clearance or sale items.

I’m happy to buy two for one of something I already use like soap, toothpaste, deodorant. Is this prepping? Yes in two senses. I’m purchasing bulk supplies of things I need and will use and second, I’m saving money that can be used for other purchases. One thing I am careful of is not buying things that will go bad before I use them. Check expiration dates. This is the integration or blending of habits or hobbies that I’ve described.

Will I get rid of our old bike trailer even though the kids are too big? Nope, it’s useful for getting groceries or hauling wood on a camping trip. And it folds up pretty flat in the garage. Also good long term to bug out if needed. Again, think short and long term, daily living as well as doomsday living. This item has applications in both worlds.

I try to balance short term and long term gains. Immediate use versus hope to never need. I can’t afford a bunker on 40 acres. But I can make sure our 21’ camper is adequately stocked and maintained, all the time. I don’t store 500 gallons of stabilized gas. But I do keep 5-10 gallons on hand for the lawnmower, chainsaw, truck, and generator if needed.

Do I have 2000 watts of solar panels with batteries? No, but I do have a portable panel and battery charger for my phone, and many sizes of batteries. Also a 20-watt panel for trickle charging our camper batteries. Look for ways to expand what you’re already doing.

Think about what activities you did this week, stores you shopped in. Try to brainstorm ways you could have worked on your preps as you did those same activities. I’m guessing you can come up with some ideas pretty easily.

Family: As I mentioned, I am married with young kids. Does my wife think I’m crazy? Yes, many times. Does she support my interests? Yes, indirectly. She has gone shooting with me, but usually only if we go with friends and she can choose where to eat afterward.

Does she wince when she sees another box on the stoop from Amazon or Midway? Certainly. Do I show her the tool or book I ordered? Yes, kind of. But only after I put away the new mags or Hogue grips in the same box.

If she asks, I can call all those things “hunting supplies,” an innocent synonym for survival supplies. She would go nuts if she looked through all the Rubbermaid tubs in the basement and garage. I hope to avoid that day.

She sees the benefits of growing our own food, reusing or repurposing old materials, camping, canning/freezing our harvest or product of hunting, buying bulk and on sale. These are the easy sells with her.

We do many activities that I consider part of my preps together as a family. We shoot occasionally, garden regularly, fish, go canoeing, camp quite often, cook outdoors, bike, and hike. I consider these great family activities, as well as having additional side benefits of fitness, building skills, food production, navigation, survival skills.

Do I feel that going on a vacation, out of state or out of the country, plane tickets, nice hotels, car rental, etc. is a waste of money? Sometimes. Let’s be honest, most of the time. But my family’s happiness, my wife being happy, us having experiences together, makes us stronger as a whole.

And for short and long term survival, I need us to care for each other, love each other, work together, have fun together, have common experiences.

At times I do feel paying $100 for a dinner out with my wife is an extravagance. And if given a choice, I’d spend it at Cabelas or Natchez. But my wife wouldn’t have it so I accept it and move on. Save in other ways.

Organization of consumables: We use a two pantry system – the first one is what we use daily, weekly, basic ingredients. The second one is more of the same but in quantity, bulk purchases. I don’t buy long term storage items, like # 10 cans of dried corn or MREs.

I might get there eventually but for my family right now, this is not where we’re at. I won’t have the shelf life, but my family will eat what I have because our bulk purchases are an extension of our regular purchases.

We stock the upstairs pantry from the basement pantry, then restock the basement/tier 2 pantry with new purchases. Same system with batteries (a big drawer upstairs and the spares are in a tub downstairs), cleaning supplies, medical supplies.

Same with our freezers. A few items in our fridge freezer. Home frozen meat, fruit, and veg in the deep freeze. In our basement, I just built shelves for store bought and home canned food. Build them strong; food weights a lot. You can adapt this for your situation. Keep food visible, easy to get at and you’ll be more likely to use it, keep it up to date.

I would recommend using this two-tier system for all consumables, not just food. Anything that has a shelf life should be rotated with the oldest used first. Batteries, vitamins, some medical supplies all can go bad over time. Hate to lose money by having to throw it out.

One method is to keep a shelf or cupboard in a bathroom or linen closet for your medical supplies. Then surplus/bulk purchases can be stored in the basement or in a tub somewhere else. Then when you buy 3 tubes of antibiotic cream or 10 toothbrushes, put them in the tub and rotate up to the bathroom the oldest.

A posted inventory list is also very helpful. Just update it as items leave or are added to your designated storage area. Here are some other activities that help me balance or integrate my immediate personal and family needs with possible long term prepper needs:

–chickens – we’ve had between 4 and 20 at different times. Mostly layers but sometimes meat birds. I am no expert, just learned by having them. We’ve lost a fair number to predators but overall I consider them a good investment.

Fresh eggs, compost/fertilizer for the garden, and to be honest, they’re just fun to watch. Very entertaining, quite funny at times. The kids love them. having chickens integrates food source, gardening (chicken poop), and family fun.

–go bags – bug out, get home, 72-hour bag; call it what you will. But should have one for each family member and include the basics: water, food, shelter, security, medical, communication, transportation. Each might be different, should be different, but the basics need to be covered.

We live in the midwest and have 4-5 months of winter with feet of snow and below freezing temps for weeks at a time. I add a winter go bag in addition to my basic one that lives in the truck. It contains mostly extra clothes, candle, pot, hand warmers, snacks. I also add extra tools like two shovels, tow strap, jumper cables. Is this prepping or just being prepared?

–garden – integrates food production, healthy eating, family activity, lifelong skill. Canning and freezing gives us more food on hand in the offseason.

–hunting – fun, kids are beginning to try it out, add food to the pantry as well as a possible barter item. My wife never had wild game before we met but now it’s more normal to eat venison than beef. I have handheld radios to communicate with the guys I hunt with which would be valuable in other situations. An example of blending hunting and communications into my normal life.

–shooting – ties into the hunting, as well as personal defense, family activity, and fun to do with friends or other couples. We will meet up with a few other couples to shoot for an hour or two, then go out to eat. Combines a “prepper” activity with a common social outing.

I guess to some it might seem weird, the shooting part on “date night.” But to us it’s just a social outing and could as easily be a movie or hike in the woods before we go eat.I guess to sum it up, prepping has become part of our lifestyle, not a separate activity. My “normal” life includes work, family activities as well as shooting, canning, gardening, hiking, etc.

I have “blended” or “integrated” those prepper hobbies/activities into my normal life. My wife would never call herself a prepper but loves to garden and camp and is happy I hunt and shoot. I can accept that. Overall I see prepping as one more way for me and mine to be responsible for ourselves.

Personal responsibility is a value I hold dear. Will I ever be done prepping? Not a chance. Because it is not only a list of supplies or a set of skills, but more so a lifestyle I have adopted. So as long as I’m living, I’m prepping.

The family disaster communications plan… by Moira M

You are at home waiting on the cable guy on a drizzly Monday morning. You relax in the quiet house since your spouse is at work, older kid away at college and younger kid in school. You settle in with a nice cup of coffee and the paper when suddenly the TV show is interrupted for a breaking news bulletin.

There have been terrorist attacks in your state capital and two other cities nearby. You grab your cell phone and get a polite message that the system is experiencing technical difficulties and to please try your call again later.

Your home phone has the same problem because it uses Voice Over Internet Protocol (VOIP) and the internet is down. This means no emails either. What do you do? Do you try to pick up the child at the local school? Do you try to make the hour drive to the college to pick up your older child?

What will your spouse do? Would you make it to the college only to find that your child had left for home or that your spouse had already picked her up? The best solution in this case would be to have a plan already in place for how to handle the situation and how to communicate when conventional methods fail.

In an emergency, whether it is a deliberate act or act of nature, communications can be disrupted. Not only can an increased load on the system cause failures, but the emergency at hand could damage the infrastructure. Storms take out towers and lines all the time.

Terrorists could intentionally target communications infrastructure. Not only does it cause a panic when people can’t contact loved ones, but it also prevents people from coordinating to resist them.

In the case of the famous and courageous resistance of the passengers of Flight 93 who tried to retake the plane on 9/11, crashing it in the process, but preventing it from being used against targets such as the White House and other occupied buildings communications played a major role.

The people on the plane were able to talk to loved ones to say goodbye. They were able to talk to emergency personnel and get news of the planes that crashed into the Twin Towers and the Pentagon.

Obviously, we can’t speak for them, but if they had thought the plane would land somewhere safely in a ransom demand, the passengers may have reacted differently than they did knowing that it was highly likely the terrorists planned to crash the plane into a populated target. The next time, the terrorists may prevent such opportunities.

We live in the age of instant communication. At any given moment you can contact people by phone, text, email, video chat and instant messaging. You can get information on news, current events, and any conceivable topic under the sun via the internet, from your wireless device that works almost everywhere. What if that changed?

I used to think it was a convenient plot hole when a movie character was out of cell service at an interstate rest area. That was based on my experience living in Florida. Since then, I’ve lived in Vermont and Tennessee.

There are plenty of stretches of interstate highway in those two states without cell service, let alone the remote boondocks locations we would explore. If you have a car accident or breakdown in those places you either walk to find help or hope someone comes along.

Your personal emergency may be affected by lack of communication. This can be avoided by letting someone know where you are going so that if you don’t arrive there or get back safely in a reasonable time, then they can search for and potentially rescue you.

In a short term emergency, such as a hurricane, ice storm, blizzard, or terrorist event, there may be more people trying to use cell phones and landlines than the available resources will allow. The nature of the emergency might also knock down transmission lines and towers that provide the services.

Many people these days have VOIP phone service (via internet) which requires both electrical power and internet service to work. Long term emergencies, of an apocalyptic nature, would likely be the end of these services forever. We would have to turn to other methods of communication.

In the scenario above you could have a plan where one spouse always collects the older child and the other spouse always collects the younger. You could have a plan where you establish which route (and backup route) would be taken so that you could go from the other direction and meet the person, whether it be the college child or the other spouse. You could establish a central crossroads type location where a message could be left that would let other family members know your plan before they go miles in another direction.

There are many alternative methods of communications that we don’t normally use because cell phones are easier to use. If you had a CB radio or long-range walkie talkie, then you could communicate with each other when you were close enough. For emergencies, we should consider setting up some of these methods and including a generator or solar powered method to run them and recharge batteries.

For short term emergencies, it is a good idea for all families to designate one or more people who live far away to be the communications hub. If an ice storm hits Tennessee, then my brother in Florida would be our hub.

If my family was shattered when an emergency happened, instead of each of us trying repeatedly (and maybe unsuccessfully) to reach the others, we call my brother to let him know whether we are ok, where we are sheltering and/or how we plan to travel to the others. He could prevent each of us from traveling to where we thought the others might be sheltering.

That would help us to get back together more quickly. The hub person could also serve as a news center if the people in the disaster area had spotty access to news (such as road closures and storm paths), and let extended family know you were safe.

Depending on what had happened, CB radios, long range walkie talkies, and ham radio sets could be useful. These radios don’t require the infrastructure as landlines and cell phones. Ham radios require a license and training to use legally.

For long term emergencies, communication plans would be more difficult. By long term emergency, I’m referring to anything that disrupts society on a national or worldwide scale. This would include revolution or foreign invasion,  a massive EMP, anything that takes down the power grid, a pandemic or an apocalyptic event.

Again, CB radios, long range walkie talkies, and ham radio sets could be useful. These communications methods could allow you to talk to family and also to get information about what is going on in the disaster.

However, the Ham radio license would mean that your name would be on a list. Depending on the emergency at hand, that could make you a target of any group wishing to control the flow of information. Any large antennas could make you the target of anyone looking for a prepared location to raid for food, weapons, and other supplies.

If you don’t have a way to communicate, you would need to have a prearranged plan to meet up. If you’ve ever separated at a Wal-Mart Supercenter and then tried to regroup without cell phones, you can imagine what it could be like. You take the front aisle from produce to pharmacy.

Your spouse takes the left aisle from pharmacy to sporting goods. In this fashion, you could walk for miles inside the store without catching a glimpse of each other. Imagine this on a statewide or multi-state scale with various difficulties in place caused by the disaster.

Without a plan, you may never see each other again. Depending on the distance, you may decide not to try. If you do want to try, consider setting up a system in advance to improve the odds that you’ll find each other. This is even a good plan to establish with family members living in the same area. If communication is down, but the disaster destroyed the entire neighborhood where the home was located, how would your family get together?

Family homes or other landmarks could be designated in a particular order as meeting points. Meet first at Grandpa’s house. If it is destroyed or in an unsafe area, go to the big tree by the Baptist church, then mom’s house and so forth until the group could meet. In each case, messages could be left in some agreed upon fashion, such as painted on the house or driveway, nailed to a tree, or hidden under a particular rock.

In disaster movies we often see people trying to get together with loved ones and don’t know if they are dead or alive. If your group gets separated at some point or if you have family members living in other areas, you could meet at a central location at a fixed time.

An example could be to meet at the eastern end of the Trammell Bridge over the Apalachicola River in Florida at midday on the full moon every month. If that is too much travel, pick one specific time, such as December. The system isn’t perfect because, without a calendar, people may have trouble keeping up with months.

Since December includes the winter solstice, hopefully, people could keep track of when the days were shortest. In that part of Florida, December would mean colder weather and less chance of meeting up with a poisonous snake. In northern climes, a summer meeting time would be best.

Any place or time would do as long as the area would be relatively safe and the date and time could be calculated without a calendar. It could also serve as a place to leave a message without meeting up. You or your relatives could leave a message in code or plain English that gave information or instructions for meeting up.

Talk to your family and set up a plan. Test it occasionally so everyone is familiar with it. Be prepared. Remember that communication is an important step in being prepared.

by Victoria S

Intro:

Like many of us, I’m sure you have relatives and friends who are not into the whole preparing for disaster thing. There has always been a debate in the prepping community about what to do about those non-prepping friends and family if they show up at your place after a large-scale SHTF situation.

Some schools of thought are to turn them away, perhaps with a bit of food or equipment. Other schools of thought are for bringing them in, even if they scorned your preparing before the SHTF.

The point of this article isn’t to debate the rights and/or wrongs of deciding either way. In the end, that’s a decision everyone has to make for themselves.

For ourselves, we have decided to take in our friends and family, if we can at all manage it, even if it means eating meagerly for a while. However, we have also put some thought into what to tell our family and friends if we have a chance to give them a warning (and directions). It’d be nice if they didn’t show up with absolutely nothing, after all!

With that in mind, I’ve drawn up some instructions and some lists for our family and friends, setting out some thoughts on both what to bring with them as well as how to pack it up for travel. Included with this information are a short cover letter and the various lists.

Letter:

The letter reads:

Dear family and friends:

As I’m sure you’ve noticed, things are going to hell in a handbasket. As some of you know, we’ve been increasingly concerned about things for a while now, and have spent some effort preparing for various disasters and situations that could cause severe disruption and chaos.

This basically means that we hope we’re in a better position than most folks are in. We don’t want to even think about our friends and family being refugees or worse, so understand that you have an open invitation to come to join us on our property.

This means without any strings but with an understanding that with the direction things are going, we’ll need to band together and agree to live under some general rules. Nothing onerous, just the general undertaking to follow common sense rules (avoid fighting, agree to follow community-made decisions, understand that sometimes it’s not possible to explain everything in a crisis, etc) as well as understand that we cannot possibly accept everyone in the country into our property. Feel free to bring members of your family, and that includes serious boyfriends/girlfriends/best friends IF you are prepared to make sure that they obey the community ground rules also.

We have some supplies stored, but mostly we’ve worked to become more self-sufficient. This means that anyone joining us will need to be prepared to work to grown and raise their own food as well as any other tasks necessary for the defense and growth of the community.

Understand that we welcome ALL our friends and family, regardless of race, creed, gender, political affiliation, etc. This will mean that sometimes you’re going to have to interact with people who have different religious beliefs or political beliefs. Toleration is the word of the day (and week and month and year!). Nor are we pacifists – we do own weapons and will be prepared to defend what we have. This does not mean we’ll tolerate random violence or theft – just that if people try to take what is ours (and ours includes what is yours if you join us) we will fight to keep it.

Obviously, it would have been better everyone in the country had prepared also for situations like this. But, most people didn’t. We’re not going to watch our friends and family suffer because you chose differently than we did – thus our invitation now to you to come to join us.

On the other hand, if at all possible, it’d be great if you didn’t show up with nothing to your name either. So, we’ve included, along with directions to our place, some suggestions for what you possibly have around your house/apartment/etc that would be useful to bring. Also some suggestions on how to pack yourself and your stuff for traveling to us. Hopefully, you find these lists and suggestions as an aid to further thoughts on how best to get to safety – because we very much want you to be safe and here with us in this time of danger.

(end of letter)

Directions of several approaches to our place are also included.

We have the letter and lists available in plain text files on our computers in case we are able to email them. I also plan to print everything out and leave packages of these printouts with family and close friends in case there isn’t an opportunity to email.

I’m mulling including CDs and thumb drives of the files (and some other emergency files, including maps) being included with the printouts, but haven’t decided either way yet. I suspect that the decision will be that it depends on the computer literacy of the recipients – some of my older relatives are not exactly safe to be around computers.

The following are the various sheets included with the packet. I also have the EPA’s sheet on emergency water purification saved and printed to go with the information. (file from the EPA is at https://www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2015-11/documents/epa816f15003.pdf)

Suggestions on packing: (file/sheet 1)

These lists are arranged in four sets, and then by priority within each set. You can roughly consider the priority of the four lists as: carry on your person, emergency bag, car, trailer. Obviously, most people won’t have a trailer, but if you can beg/borrow/steal/etc one and have the car to pull it, do it.

The absolute essentials should be on your person at all times. That should cover emergency items to make a fire, defensive items, sturdy clothes, and well broken in and sturdy footwear. If you have a way to secure money/valuables to your person and have them NOT visible, that’s a good thing. If the weather is bad, include outerwear as person-essential.

Then you should select the sturdiest/strongest backpack or similar pack for EACH person and pack it with more essentials. Do NOT overpack this bag! This is the bag you grab if the car breaks down/runs out of fuel/is carjacked/etc. Every person should have one, even children, although what is inside them will obviously be different for children.

Then the car or cars. If you have bicycles, first secure them to the vehicles and if you can, add any spare bike parts. Ideally, you would have these in a bike rack, but chances are good you don’t have one. Use rope/bungies and secure to the roof of your vehicle, running the rope/bungies through the doors to the inside.

A bonus is that you can then stuff lightweight items into the space between the ropes and the roof of your car! Blankets/etc are a good way to pad between the bike and the roof. If you have tarps, secure them over the bikes – or in a pinch plastic sheeting will work – the heavier the better. Be sure to tuck as much as possible under so that it doesn’t flap in the wind – not only will it be annoying as all hell, it will also fray the tarp/plastic/blanket/etc to shreds.

If you have more than one person who can drive and you have more than one vehicle, bring both – even if you’re not sure how to get fuel. If you’re worried about fuel and are more than a tank-distance away from us, pack one vehicle with the more important stuff and the second/third/etc vehicle with less essentials, so that you can abandon the other vehicles if you can’t get all of them fueled up.

The bikes are in case you cannot get ANY vehicles to our place … biking is better than walking. If you have any sort of fold-up cart/bike cart/etc … bring it if at all possible. Walking with a cart is better than walking with a backpack and allows you to walk with a lighter backpack AND the stuff in the cart/etc.

If you have access to a motorcycle and can spare a driver for it (after drivers for all the vehicles you can get), bring it. Pack it lightly but with stuff similar to that carried in the emergency packs. Bring helmets if you have them.

Important note! If you have a camper of any kind – make it a priority to bring with you to our place. We will NOT necessarily have space at the start for everyone to have their own house/cabin/etc…. if you can bring something to live in, so much the better.

The one exception to bring every vehicle you can is true sports cars. Miatas are not exactly noted for their packing space, so unless that’s the only vehicle available, it’s probably not worth the hassle to bring a two-seater sports car.

Diesel vehicles are slightly preferred over gasoline cars because diesel can be made from biological stuff and it stores much longer than gas.

If you can, make sure your spare tires are in good shape and filled up. Same with all fluids and oils. Take ANY gasoline/diesel cans you have (or can find along the way)!

Actual packing:

Try to make sure any food and/or valuables (including farm animals/etc) are NOT in sight from outside the vehicle. Covering those things with clothes, etc, is a good idea. Make sure you still have good vision of all sides of your vehicle so you can keep track of what’s going on around you.

When packing, try to avoid letting everyone watch you pack up. Less chance of confrontations/trouble if your neighbors aren’t aware that you’ve got valuables and/or food.

But if you make the car look like its full of useless items, it might prevent incidents where folks try to steal your car or your items. The less likely it is that you have anything that is food/firearms/valuable, the less likely people are going to try to steal what you have (and, more importantly, hurt YOU in the process.

If ya’ll turn up totally empty-handed but alive, we’re ahead and happy. Lives first, then stuff, people). The same goes for trailers – if you can make it look like there is nothing valuable in the first foot or so of all openings, you can make things easier.

Stuff valuables in out of the way places – inside the spare tire space, under the mats (if things are flat – but put them in ziplock bags before putting them under floor mats. If you can take off the panels of your doors (AND get them back on and looking like they were never removed!), you can secure valuables in there. This would include prescription drugs and spare firearms and ammo!

If you have things tied on top of your vehicles (like bikes, etc), and have run the rope securing them through your car – you can use the ropes to also secure light things (clothes, coats, etc) to the ceiling inside also.

Anything you put on the outside of the vehicle (on top, on the trunk hood, etc) needs to be protected from weather (tarps are best, then heavy landscape plastic – only use trash bags if you have nothing else that will work and double/triple/quadruple bag things in trash bags.) You don’t want to let others see what you have if you can avoid it.

Stick things like plates/silverware/pencils/small tools, etc in any door bins. Things like that also work well under seats.

If you have an SUV/Minivan – consider taking out the back row of seats unless you need them for seating. Leave them behind if you take them out. If you are bringing more than one car though, consider keeping the back row seats in even if you don’t need the seating right then. You might need it later if you have to abandon other cars. The ideal situation would be to have one vehicle with enough seating for your entire group if possible – that would let you get here safely if you were forced to abandon other vehicles.

Stuff things everywhere you can find a spot. Pack around the seats – just allow enough space for your passengers, and crowd them a bit.

Fill a (one, not many) cooler with any perishable foods that you can eat in the first day or two. Unless it’s winter and you have a sure way to get more ice (or have a plug-in electric cooler) don’t bring more than a few days worth of perishables as without ice/cooling they will go bad. Obviously, eat these items first (and then put stuff in the cooler to free up space).

Figure out how long you think you’ll be on the road to here, double that estimate, and only bring bulky foods (breads/cereals/fresh fruit/fresh veggies) for that amount of time. Avoid bringing too many bulky canned goods (except canned meats) in the cars … canned goods do keep well, but they also take up a lot of space. Obviously, if you have space for more bring them, but canned veggies especially are low priority.

Pets:

One last word – pets. Bring them if you can, but make sure you bring leashes/cages/etc for them too. Bring feeding bowls and food – as much as you can. But, unless you can figure out a way to safely transport them, fish are probably not a great idea, nor are more outlandish pets such as spiders or snakes. In fact, we’re going to have to insist on no spiders at all – since at least one of the residents on our property is deathly afraid of spiders.

Small rodents are also probably not that good an idea – except for ferrets (as they can help keep down pests). Cats and dogs are welcome – especially larger dogs that can help guard. In fact, if on your travels you can acquire a suitable guard dog safely, it wouldn’t be a bad idea to bring with if you can. The same goes for any chickens/goats/rabbits/other farm animals. The important caveat here is “safely”.

Maps:

Hopefully, you have good quality maps. Do not rely on GPS or similar – if things get really bad they may not work. (Or worse, they may not work before you leave to travel if the grid has gone down). If you can, print out maps of the route – a set of maps for every single person. Get alternate routes if possible.

Driving here:

There is no good way of knowing what road conditions will be like. It could be simple and easy or it could be Mad-Max like. Prepare for the worst, hope for the best.

Some advice – avoid big cities. Avoid choke points like bridges/tunnels/etc unless you absolutely MUST go across them (The Mississippi is a major pain in this instance). If you must cross a river, choose a small town or barren stretch if you can. Be careful approaching overpasses, underpasses, crossroads, and hills. If you are traveling with two vehicles – one can scout (ideally the one with less important items) and the other can follow.

Set up some sort of signals between the vehicles for common outcomes – such as “all safe”, “avoid”, “Danger”, “run away”, etc. You may have to run without lights if things are very dangerous at night – so bear that in mind when setting up signals and have some that do not use the lights or the horn. (Colored cloths waved out the window might work).

Before leaving, plot out at least two likely routes to your destination and make sure all adults and teenagers know the routes. If you can, set up meetup points in small towns or crossroads where you can meet back up if separated AND leave notes if need be.

If you stop along the way – try to get off the road out of sight – ideally in a deserted area. Avoid lighting a fire unless you absolutely must – light travels a very far distance at night, and smoke is very visible.

Be careful what you burn – some wood lets loose nasty fumes and furniture/building materials often have been chemically treated. If you make tracks while getting off the road to camp, try to cover them up or sweep them away … best would be to scatter leaves/etc over the tracks. Remember that the smell of cooking and/or fires carries a LONG way.

If you get a chance to fill up your water supplies – do it whenever you can. You can live a good bit of time without much food, but going without water is difficult past a day or two. Be careful to purify/filter/boil any water from streams/etc as you have no idea what’s actually in the water. Most streams in the US are not free of harmful bacteria – boiling will often rid water of them, but best is a combination approach. Diarrhea is NOT a joke.

Treat ANY wounds as soon as possible. This includes blisters, cuts, scrapes, bites, etc. This goes doubly if you’re hiking/biking … it’s very easy to get a wound infected when traveling, especially in less than optimal conditions. Try to wash your hands often also.

If you end up walking or biking – railroad tracks are a good way to avoid crowds while still having relatively level travel routes. Also useful are utility right of ways or pipeline right of ways, as these are kept clear of brush but yet aren’t on most people’s radar. The main problem with these will be that they are often not marked on maps.

There is a chance that if a disease is rampant, we may have to insist on a quarantine when you arrive. This is not only for our safety, but yours also. This would apply, not just if there is a pandemic raging, but also if the disorders are widespread enough that diseases are spreading in their wake.

This is one reason for bringing tents/etc if you have them. We’ll try to avoid the necessity for a quarantine, but we wanted to let you know its a possibility. This is yet another reason to avoid cities – in any widespread disaster, disease is more likely to occur in cities where people are crowded together.

This also brings up the problem/issue of operational security. Please please please remember that “loose lips sink ships”. Do NOT tell people you are traveling to a safe place or that you are going to where you have friends and family that are preppers.

Feel free to lie about where you are going. In fact, ALWAYS lie. Decide on a story of where you are going and make sure everyone knows it AND that they are to use THAT as the location/place/people that you are driving too. Pick a place 40 or 50 miles away from our location (at least).

Make sure you never let on that you’re going somewhere where there might be supplies. Do not leave directions/maps/etc out in plain sight in your vehicles or flash them around outsiders.

Remember that anyone you bring with you will be vouched for by yourself. Chances are good you’re going to be spending long periods of time living cheek-and-jowl with whoever comes with you. Don’t bring people who you can’t handle being with that much.

This also goes for people you meet along the way. We’re not opposed to helping others, but we must make sure that our friends and family are safe first. And disaster situations bring out the worst in people who are just trying to survive. Be charitable and helpful, but keep yourself and your group safe first and foremost.

Carry on your person at all times: (file/sheet 2)

Note that it is extremely unlikely you’ll have ALL of these items, so don’t be discouraged if you don’t.

Waterproof bag with maps and directions to us, some strike anywhere matches (or a matchbook or regular matches with box), a couple of coffee filters, some bandaids, some cotton balls, and some spare socks.
Cigarette lighter
Long sturdy pants
T-shirt
Long-sleeved shirt
Water canteen or small non-breakable bottle for water
Some money (include silver/gold coins if you have them)
Compass
Can opener (smaller the better)
Firestarter (flint and steel or the more modern magnesium and steel)
Watch
Any REALLY valuable jewelry (wrap up and stick into coat or somewhere else it will NOT get lost)
Any identification (passport, drivers license, etc)
Vital papers (or copies)
Fishing line and hooks (wrap hooks carefully)
Bandana/handkerchief
Flashlight with batteries (or the headlamps on heabands if you have them)
Small windup radio (if you have one – key is SMALL)
Cell phone and charger
Any absolutely required prescription medicines
Small bottle of aspirin/advil/benadryl/any anti-diarrheals/antacids/multivitamins
A couple of family photos
Outerwear to match weather – sunhat in summer with rainjacket that is waterproof, sweater with winter coat and gloves/hat/scarves in winter.
Sturdy well-broken in shoes suitable to hiking/walking long distances. Waterproof is a bonus.
Thick socks
Pocket knife
Multi tool
Any dried food with high caloric content – jerky, nut packages, etc
Hard candies
Small bottle hand sanitizer
Small tubes of antibiotic ointment (if you have any)
ANY body armor or other protective items (even stuff like lightweight baseball helmets or catchers’ chest protector and masks)
Sunglasses
Any prescription glasses

If you don’t have these items, you can improvise – this is a good starting point. The idea is that you have at least something on your person that will help you survive a bit longer if you have nothing else but what you are carrying.

Also – defensive items. Ideally, this would be a handgun and a shotgun/rifle. However, most folks aren’t going to have enough of those to give every adult capable (and trustworthy with firearms) a handgun AND a long gun. If you have handguns and carry them, make sure they are safely carried and carry some ammo on yourself.

If you don’t have firearms (or aren’t comfortable with carrying them) … mace/pepper spray/bear spray is a good substitute. A baseball bat or something similar will also be useful, if you can’t find something else. If you have a hunting bow or target bow – carry that any time you’re away from the vehicle. Slingshots also work. BB guns or air rifles also work. Worst case, a long kitchen knife in a makeshift scabbard is still better than nothing.

Ideally, much of this would go in a small bag – fanny packs are ideal. Some of it should be in your pockets. Wear long pants, and if it’s at all chilly, layer your shirts – wear a t-shirt with a long sleeved shirt over it and a sweatshirt/sweater over that. This list is not the ideal “can live off the land” list – but it at least is better than having nothing. The key is to dress well and be ready for anything.

A quick explanation of items:

Coffee filters are to filter water. The can opener is in case you find cans – it would really suck to not have a good way to open them. Cigarette lighters are handy ways to start fires. Having multiple ways to start fires is a good thing! Extra Ziploc bags would be great – they are wonderful for protecting paper and other things you don’t want wet – like spare socks and electronics.

Hard candies are a good source of calories in a small package that keeps well. If you can, put any food in a waterproof container/bag – to help hide odors.

Obviously, if you have small/light camping/backpacking tools (cable saws, etc) carry them either on your person or in the emergency bag.

IF you have time – you can make handy fire starting tinder by taking cotton balls and soaking/dipping them in petroleum jelly (until they are well coated) and then putting the balls into a small pill jar. This makes a handy and light way to carry something to light fires in damp conditions.

Feel free to add to this list but remember, worst case you would be carrying whatever you have on you, so carrying too much is as bad as carrying too little.

Emergency bag: (sheet 3)

Matches (ideally strike anywhere but strike on box will do)
Cigarette lighters
Coffee filters
ANY backpacking equipment – backpacking stoves, backpacking cookware, backpacking silverware/plates/bowls, backpacking water containers. Make sure you bring fuel for stoves. I know most of you won’t have these but if you do – they are high priority for your emergency bags
Water purification tablets, if you have any
Sturdy lightweight plate/bowl/cup and one set of silverware. Plastic or aluminum is best. If you bring aluminum (which actually lasts better than cheap plastic), wrap it in some cloth to prevent rattles
Important papers (wills, insurance policies, titles, deeds, vital records, bank records, etc) – in at least one ziploc bag, better if you double bag them.
Boy scout manuals/how to live off the land/etc books. Include anything on traps/etc. Don’t overload yourself with books, but if you have these type of books, bring them in the emergency bag
First aid books – same as above
Any books on foraging for wild plants or on medicinal wild plants
Spare pocket knives.
Any hunting/fishing knives, especially with sheaths. Failing that, make a sheath for a couple of kitchen knives by cutting out heavy cardboard and duct taping the heck out of it. Make sure your makeshift sheath doesn’t stick to the knife blade though!
Any sharpening items for knives – you may have one for your kitchen knives. Better are true sharpening stones.
Can openers
Flashlight and batteries
Radio – small. Windup is better but battery powered works too
Any walkie-talkies – spread them out between the adults and teenagers. Batteries for same
ANY backpacking foods – if you have them
Peanut butter – very nutrious, and keeps pretty well
Dried soup mixes
Dried milk
Other dried foods – jerky, etc.
Prescription medications (all of your supply except what is on your person, especially for anything you must take)
Any leftover antibiotics you have lurking around your medicine cabinet
A small amount of first aid supplies – band-aids, ointments, etc. If you have some first aid kits around the house, those are perfect.
Over the counter painkillers
Antacids, antidiarrheals, anti-nausea drugs
Muscle rub ointments
If you have a good quality sleeping bag, tie it up tightly, wrap it in something waterproof, and hang it from your bag. If you don’t have a good quality sleeping bag, get the best quality blankets you can and do the same. Wool is better than cotton, if possible.
Sheet plastic and/or trash bags
Sunscreen (not tons, but some)
Insect repellant (if the season)
Lightweight rope – paracord if you have it is ideal
Fishing line and hooks (make sure to wrap the hooks well or have them in something that will keep them from hooking you)
Extra socks (at least three pair – five or six is better) Sturdy well made and thick.
Extra t-shirt (at least one, two is better)
Extra long-sleeved shirt
Extra sweatshirt
Duct tape
Super glue or gorilla glue (put in baggie if possible) Small tubes
Extra underwear
Any gold/silver coins
More cash if you have it
Some small jewelry pieces
Pool shock (see EPA directions for using it to purify water – need specific type)
Bible or other religious items
One favorite book you won’t mind re-reading
One favorite toy for children
Family photos (in Ziploc bags) – ideally you’d have photos of everyone coming with you, as well as any real special memories.
Any solar charging items for your electronics – such as cell phones and tablets
Tablet (such as iPad/etc)
A couple of pens – sharpies or other waterproof best
A couple of pencils
A small notebook for recording things
A small pad of paper for leaving notes
Spare pair of sturdy shoes
Spare sunhat
Spare winter outerwear if the season
Rain ponchos if you have them
A small set of basic tools – Phillips head and regular screwdriver, small hammer, a small hacksaw if you have it, etc.
Something to use as a water bottle – at worst case use a cleaned out soda bottle
Something to cook in – a small pot is perfect.
Granola bars/etc – high caloric small weight food items. Wrap in plastic to disguise odors.
Small packages of kleenex or a Ziploc bag with a stack of them
Spare bandanas and handkerchiefs
Work or garden gloves
Tweezers and/or fingernail clippers
A small pair of scissors
Small mirror for signaling – ideally non-breakable but a small makeup compact will work in a pinch.
Small sewing kit (even those cheap ones you get from hotels sometimes)
Bar of soap and a case/bag for soap
Chapstick
Toothbrush and toothpaste
Space blankets (those silvery emergency blankets that help reflect heat back to yourself)
Eyeglass repair kits, if you wear glasses

And … firearms. And ammo for them. Even if you’re not comfortable carrying it, it’s better to take it with you and have it close. The defensive items mentioned in the list to carry on your person also work well here – and add any hunting bows you might have.

You may not have all of these items. Don’t despair. It’s meant to be a helpful guide to things you might have that would help you if you lost everything but what you’re carrying on your own person. The guiding principle is to keep it light but focused on items that will help you reach us. The Bible and fiction books (and toy for children) is for comfort.

Things to pack in the car: (file/sheet 4)

First a few words on priority. You may not have all of these things but the priority on categories of what you bring should be:

1. Items to purify water and fuel to get you to us
2. Medical items
3. Food items and things to make food, preferably lightweight
4. Firearms and ammo and other defensive items
5. Clothing for all weather
6. Footwear
7. Bedding
8. Shelter and power
9. Personal care items
10. Instructional books
11. Family mementos
12. Tools
13. Valuables (all important papers should be in the emergency bags)
14. Household supplies
15. Entertainment items
16. Bulky foods

Some things will be a higher priority than they would be just based on their category – pressure canners are much higher on the list to bring than most anything but seeds and firearms, but there are no real hard and fast rules.

1. So – first, water purification items.

Pool shock – IF it’s granular calcium hypochlorite (ideally 100%, but 80% or even 50% works). Other types of pool shock are NOT suitable.
Bleach
Water purification tablets (typically used for backpacking)
Water filters that filter out bacteria and chemicals
Coffee filters (every single one you have – they are used to pre-filter water for dirt/etc)
Tincture of iodine or household iodine
A pot to boil water in
Water bottles, especially sturdy ones

On how to purify water, see the EPA sheet attached.

2. Medical items:

This one’s simple – anything first aid related (band-aids, gauze, cotton balls, alcohol, etc) and any medications in your medicine cabinets should be packed. Any ace bandages. Any medical equipment – thermometers, blood pressure devices, canes, etc should also come if at all possible. Any old prescriptions in your medicine cabinets. Any pet medications – INCLUDING fish meds (fish antibiotics are usable by people!). If it can treat something whether it’s over the counter or through a prescription, bring it.

Or, in a nutshell, take everything in your medicine cabinets and any other medical drawers and dump them (okay, not dump, but pack carefully) into something sturdy and bring it. If it LOOKS medical, bring it.

Also, include:

Medical gloves
Face/dust masks
Sunscreen
Insect repellant

3. Food items:

These are HIGH priority:

Seeds for EDIBLE items – herbs, veggies, etc.
Hand gardening tools.
Any lightweight foods that are NOT in your emergency bags
Empty out your spice racks and cabinets – bring them all.
Any powdered drinks – milk, kool-aid, etc.
Teas
Coffee – beans and instant
Any condiment packages from restaurants
Crisco
Nuts
Cooking oils (pack carefully)
Dried pasta
Dried beans
Canned or dried meats
Hot cereals
Pudding and jello mixes
Extracts – vanilla, lemon, etc. Pure ones are better, but any are good
Dried yeast
Dried Grains
Cocoa mix
Honey
Potatoes

Farm animals:

IF you have things like rabbits or chickens or goats – BRING THEM

Animal care supplies – leads, halters, etc even if you don’t have the animals anymore

If you have space later (but AFTER items under numbers 4 through 11):

Sugar
Salt
Gravy Mixes
Vinegar
Flavoring sauces – sirracha, ketchup, etc
Hard liquors

Equipment for food (pack any of these as the same priority as food and firearms):

Pressure canners – and any supplies for same
Canning lids (don’t bring the glass jars unless you have a LOT of space)
All your kitchen knives – bring them all.
Any sturdy non-breakable plates, bowls, cups, glasses
Silverware – bring at least a set for every person – more if you can find ways to stuff it in
Can openers, manual
Aluminum foil

Cooking equipment (pack AFTER items numbered 4 through 13)

Frying pan
A couple of pots
Cast iron cooking gear

After all the rest of the items here, you should consider manual cooking equipment (bring these after everything but items under number 16):

Manual egg beaters
Manual pasta makers
Whisks
Metal cooking utensils – spoons, ladles, etc.
Thermos bottles
Coolers (pack items inside them)
French press coffee makers
Teapots
Apple corers
Biscuit cutters
Bottle openers
Manual Juicers
Vegetable peelers, manual

4. Firearms and defensive items:

ANY firearms.
Any air rifles/bb guns/etc
Ammo for the above
Gunpowder and/or other reloading supplies
Hunting Bows
Arrows
Slingshots
Blowguns and darts
Any edged or similar weapons that can stand up (not that cheap tin sword you bought but replica weapons, etc)
Anything that can be used as a weapon – metal or wood baseball bats, a heavy golf club, etc.

Binoculars – any you have

Make sure your defensive items are in easy reach.

5. Clothing

Sturdy clothing – and not just for the current weather. Bring winter clothes as well as summer. Thick socks. Underwear. Especially warm clothing – bring plenty. Include outerwear. If its summer – bring a winter coat for everyone. Bring mittens, gloves, winter hats, scarves and earmuffs. Bring wet weather gear – good waterproof jackets and boots. If you have wool sturdy sweaters – bring them. You can always pack clothing around items that would rattle or that are fragile. At least two full sets of winter and summer clothing are best. If you have more and can bring it, so much the better (but only bring sixth or more sets after bringing other items). Bring as much underwear as you can… the chances of us having any extra are slim!

If you have space, bring baby/infant/toddler supplies and clothes, especially blankets and bottles

Handkerchiefs and bandanas are also useful
ALL spare shoelaces – strip them out of worn-out shoes, etc.
ALL belts that are practical
ALL sports bras, whether they fit or not
ALL thermal underwear
Pajamas and a robe
Diaper pins

6. Footwear

Bring every single sturdy shoe or boot you have. No high heels, and only one pair of sandals or flip-flops, but slippers are more useful. Again, not likely we’ll have spare shoes in your size.

7. Bedding

Any sheets in good shape
Pillowcases – all that are in good shape
Blankets and quilts – as many that are in good shape as you can manage
Air mattresses (and pumps for them) – because it’s likely that any you bring are what you’ll be sleeping on
A pillow for each person
Two bath towels and face towels for each person
All your washcloths
Kitchen towels

8. Shelter

Good quality tents
Tent equipment – stakes, etc

Don’t bring kid tents that can’t at least keep out the rain

Any weatherproofing items you might have – that spare can of Scotchguard, etc.
Tarps – all that you have

Also – power supplies

Batteries
Any camping lanterns – Coleman, etc that use fuel or are rechargeable
Candles
Any oil lamps, etc
Supplies for lamps/lanterns – wicks, etc.
Refillable lighters and fuel for same
Disposable Lighters
Sterno/etc cans
Propane Tanks
Fuel cans and fuel – kerosene, diesel, gas
Matches that don’t go in the bags
Battery powered radios
ANY CB radios or other communication devices such as walkie-talkies
Marine radio if you have one for a boat

The rest of this is stuff to bring in the car if you have space after getting items 9 through 15)

Camping Stoves
Propane for camping stoves
Any fuel stabilizers
Bike pumps, manual
Solar car (or other) battery chargers
Cargo straps (use for packing!)
Road flares
Ice scrapers
(if winter) Snow chains

9. Personal care items

Bring these first:
Soap – all you have
Any travel toiletries items – shampoo, soap, etc
Toothbrushes – all you have
Toothpaste – all you have
Dental floss
Combs, brushes, hair bands, bobby pins
Spare sunglasses
Spare eyeglasses, even if the prescription no longer fits – someone might be able to use them

Bring these after filling in stuff from items 10 through 15:

Safety razors and blades for them
Condoms
Folding hand fans
Sanitary pads
Tampons

Do not bother bringing makeup/curling irons/hair dryers/etc. If you ABSOLUTELY must bring some makeup, keep it minimal, but it’s really wasted packing space.

10. Instructional books

Especially for handicrafts or school instruction if you have kids.
Gardening books (for veggies, not flowers)
First aid books
How-to books – train animals, build things, etc.
Sewing, knitting, etc.
Anything you can build/make/repair/etc
Field guides to animals/plants/etc
Animal care books
Age-appropriate children’s books – a selection

11. Family mementos

Photo albums, etc. Don’t go overboard, but bring some.

12. Tools

Especially hand tools or tools for hobbies. Don’t bring your electric saw or anything really large, but especially bring small tools or specialized tools. We probably don’t need a lot of basic screwdrivers, but if that’s all you have and you have space… bring them.

This includes sewing equipment and other hobby supplies

Needles
Sewing pins
Buttons
Knitting needles
Yarn, especially wool yarn
Crocheting supplies, including hooks
Scissors – every single pair
Magnifying glasses
Mousetraps
Twist Ties

Also includes:

Rope
Tapes, especially masking or duct tape
Glues
Zip ties
Work gloves
Gardening gloves
Saw blades
Razor blades
Plastic sheeting
Carabiners
Bungee cords
Twine
String
Electrical tape
WD-40
Sandpaper
Rubber cement
Cotter pins
Solar powered calculators
Spare eyeglass repair kits

13. Valuables

Gold, jewelry, sterling silver flatware, cash, etc. Bonds, etc. Don’t go overboard but if you can stick it in a corner, do it.

If you have time, backup all family photos and documents from computers (as well as any important files) and burn them to CD/DVD. Put one copy of the info in each emergency bag as well as a couple in each vehicle.

14. Household supplies

Toilet paper – flatten and you can fit more in
Paper towels – flatten and you can fit more in
Concentrated disinfectants
Bleach
Vinegar
Window cleaners
Pest supplies – insect sprays, boric acid, etc.
Pest traps – ant traps, etc.
Any insecticides
Moth balls
Metal whistles (used for signaling)
Pet supplies – bowls, leashes, crates, etc.
Duffle bags and other “stuffable” luggage
Leather care supplies for shoes, etc.
Mechanical clocks and watches
Fishing tackle and rods
Safety goggles
Outdoor thermometers
Trash bags
Ziploc bags
Pantyhose
Steel wool pads
Dishwashing soap (not dishwasher soap, but the liquid stuff)
Hand sanitizer
Saran wrap
Mechanical pencils and lead for same
Laundry bags
Laundry baskets (pack stuff in them)
Cooking thermometers

15. Entertainment items:

Favorite fiction books
Religious items
Favorite music CDs
A few favorite movies on DVD or Blu-ray
Crayons
Colored pencils
Fountain pens
A few favorite toys
Tablets/kindles with chargers
ONE laptop per vehicle with chargers and the like.
Playing cards
Books on games – card, board, etc
Board games (NOT Monopoly/Sorry/etc)
Chess pieces/checker pieces

Don’t bring game consoles or other similar items.

16. Bulky food

Well preserved foods – things like canned fruits or canned veggies. Avoid bringing green beans, they have little calories. Try for high-calorie items.

Trailer stuff: (file/sheet 5)

If you can secure a trailer or other towed vehicle, obviously that greatly increases your ability to bring stuff. Prioritize by the categories for the packing of the car(s).

First and foremost – bring more canned foods and clothing and household goods. Especially towels, sheets, and clothes. Keep the clothing practical, but a nice dress or suit is certainly something worth bringing if you have space. Extra pillows, any fabric, any shoes except for totally impractical items like high heels.

Any food that isn’t immediately perishable is worth sticking in a trailer. This includes baking soda, gum, candies, etc.

Any Rubbermaid tubs or similar containers along with any laundry baskets – pack things in them.

Outerwear such as spare coats and jackets are well worth bringing. Children’s clothes that are still in good shape but no longer fit your children would be useful.

More kitchen utensils – metal mixing bowls, metal canisters, metal/wooden spoons/spatulas, etc. Manually operated kitchen gadgets also. ALL your trash bags – including those paper yard waste bags. Cookie sheets and metal bread pans

Brooms and mops. Manual carpet sweepers if you have one. Dustpans. Dish racks for drying hand-washed dishes

Any cleaning products not already in the car – pack them carefully.

Also, include:

More instructional books
More fiction that you would want to reread
Maps, road or atlases

More movies and music on CD/DVD. If you have vinyl records that’s not a bad option either.

And personal care items: shampoo, disposable razors, etc. Spare combs, brushes, hair care products, lotions, deodorant, etc. Still, avoid makeup.

Weirdly enough – bring your toilet seats – they are useful for making outhouses/etc.

This is also where you can include bulky items.

If you have a generator, put it on the trailer if you have one.

Winter sports gear like snowshoes or cross-country skis are a good option.

If you have folding cots, they are perfect for a trailer.

Garden tools – shovels, hoes, rakes, etc. make good things to bring on a trailer. Also tools – saws, hammers, etc. If you have nails/screws/etc bring them. Any gardening/farming items that are large are useful. Gas powered cultivators if you have space.

Inflatable rafts, oars, paddles, life jackets are other items that might be useful.

Folding tables, folding chairs, other portable furniture items that pack down. Hammocks.

Entertainment items: cards, games, etc. More of them if you have them.

If you still have space after all of the above are packed – office supplies. Paper, pens, pencils, staplers, etc. Manual typewriters if you have one. Metal or wooden rulers and yardsticks. Anything non-electric that makes life easier.

Any “antique” items you might have that still work – including things like ox yokes, old horse tack, egg baskets, old bushel baskets, scythes, hay hooks, butter molds, washboards, etc.

Things you MIGHT have around that would be good if you have space:

Abacuses
Slide rules
Cigarettes
Tobacco
Disposable earplugs
Garden fencing or wire
Garden Hoses
Garden nozzles
Sprinklers
Cat litter
Dog kennel panels
Buckets
Small step stools
Folding ladders
Sausage Stuffer
Manual meat grinder
Watering cans
Wheelbarrows
Garden fertilizer
Plastic garden pots
Blackboards or small slates
Chalk
Typewriter ribbons
Grease guns
Hydraulic jacks
Levels
Sawhorse brackets
Tool belts
Camping toilets
Solar garden lights
Pruning shears and saws
Rain gauges
Chimney cleaning equipment
Small Rugs
Hard hats
Safety Vests
Roll-down escape ladders
Chemistry sets
Animal Traps
Window film
Anvils
Caulk and similar supplies – sealants, oils, graphite
Flexible plastic tubing
Weatherstripping
Wire, especially copper or electrical
Stream waders for fishing
Swim goggles
Water wings and inflatable inner tubes
Baby bottles and nipples
Baby care items – including toilet training items
Children’s books – including coloring books and instructional workbooks
Metal colanders
Metal graters
Food dehydrators
Double boilers
Manual grain mill
Manual food mills for canning
Canning supplies such as funnels, etc
Nut-cracking equipment (crackers and picks)
Mortar and pestle
Muffin tins
Plastic pitchers with lids
Cooling racks for cooking/baking
Tea balls
Cork-boards
Clipboards
Mimeograph machine and supplies
Treadle sewing machine
Wax – beeswax, paraffin, soy, candle
Duffle bags and other sturdy bags
Small safes
Flyswatters
Borax, laundry
Toilet plungers
Air horns
Barometers
Boot jacks
Bullhorns
Microscope and equipment
Draft blockers for doors
Pedometers
Metal trash cans with lids (pack stuff inside)
Telescope
Brewing equipment and supplies
Toboggans
Sleds
Kayaks and paddles
Spare parts for cars, even not yours
Car fluids – brake fluid, oils, washer, etc.
Jumper cables
Light bulbs (pack carefully)
Spare bike equipment
Snow chains
Small bells, metal or otherwise sturdy
Sturdy candleholders
Mosquito Netting
Power inverters
Lighter fluid
Propane line converters
Charcoal briquettes
Fire extinguishers
Plastic water jugs
Weaving Looms
Spinning wheels
Other textile tools
Plastic garden pots
Small plastic/etc starting seed pots (those ones you got those garden plants in)
Potting soil
Barometers
Rain gauges
Padlocks (with keys)
Combination locks (with combos!)
Flypaper and traps
Spare key rings
Metal and plastic pitchers
Metal candle holders
Dust pans (I don’t know about you, but ours seem to walk off all the time…)
Old phone books
Old newspapers

If all of this looks like a gigantic hodge-podge, well, yes, it does. But most of this is very useful in the right conditions. Although we’ve tried hard to anticipate needs, it’s actually impossible to stockpile enough stuff for an extended period of time. And we’re also only human – we will make mistakes and forget things.

Things to acquire along the way, if possible (and safe): (file/sheet 6)

Seeds – especially heirloom varieties, but any vegetable seeds are worth acquiring
Matches
Firearms and ammo for same, even if the ammo is in a caliber you don’t have
Reloading supplies for firearms – gunpowder, primers, shotgun shells and wads
Medical supplies
Rechargeable batteries
Farm animals – if you can take care of them!
Large dogs that can guard you
Pool shock (calcium hypochlorite only)
Bleach
Water purification tablets
Coffee
Tea
Powdered drinks with vitamin C
Spices
Binoculars
Candles
Lanterns – camping or oil or kerosene
Fuel for lanterns
CBs/walkie talkies/wind-up radios
Toothpaste and toothbrushes
Tampons and sanitary pads
Instructional books – especially on farming, animal care, woodcraft, building, other crafts

Basically, any other item on the various lists are also useful but the above are priority items. You’ll note there is little food on the list – obviously if you can get more food, try for it, but the chances of it being available are not high.

This does NOT mean you should rob, steal, and loot your way to our place. For one thing, it’s wrong. For another, it’s dangerous. But if you can buy something you’re lacking, it’s worth considering. There is a moral aspect to this, however. Is it moral to take advantage of someone who doesn’t see the situation as dire? This is a concern you’ll have to face yourself and decide for yourself.

This also applies to bringing along others you meet on the way. Only you can judge if the situation is dire enough to take in others and bring them with you. It’s always possible that they will turn out to be bad people who are a danger. Remember that in survival situations and disasters, even good people will do bad things to provide for themselves and their family.

Note: To get a nice free printable of this article, as well as three other printables, subscribe to my email newsletter (also free). After you confirm your subscription you will be sent an email with links to where you can download the free printables… enjoy.

by Mary in GA

I’m sure that most of the readers here are already aware of the foods that are called “Forever Foods”.  You can find the list many places, but for anyone who isn’t aware of them, they are:

Sugar, pure vanilla extract, white rice, corn starch, honey, hard liquor, salt, corn syrup, maple syrup, and distilled white vinegar.

The problem with this list is that other than rice, none is a stand-alone, substantial food.  I’m not discounting the importance of the other items.  We all know that vinegar and salt are priceless for helping us preserve foods such as pickling cucumbers and other vegetables, or salt for curing pork and storing fish.

I use corn starch in gravies and count on it as a thickener.  For baking; sugar, honey, corn, and maple syrups are vital and vanilla extract adds much too.  Hard liquor has its place, but each person can decide if it’s for stress relief or barter, LOL!

Many of us store rice and dried beans as the mainstays of what our after TSHTF meals would be.  Even though beans didn’t make it on the list, if stored properly, they will last for many years.  Most of us also have long-lasting condiments, ie:  Tabasco sauce, soy sauce, and other seasonings to help break the monotony of endless meals of rice and bean dishes.

Most of you, like me, have probably stored freeze-dried vegetables to further add to and give diversity to bean and rice dishes.  With all of that being said, many people would crave proteins that aren’t from beans (and other legumes) and that aren’t dependent on hunting and fishing skills.

A while back, while having lunch with a great friend and fellow prepper and blog reader GA Mom, we were brainstorming about additional food storage.  Imagine that!! I relayed something that I had thought about, but just never saw through.

I was at a local grocery store, about 2 years after I had started prepping, when I noticed some country smoked hams.  Having worked at food storage very hard for 2 years, I had accumulated most of the typical items.  I had canned goods, aforementioned rice, legumes, and freeze-dried vegetables, ditto for Ramen Noodles, coffee, sugar, condiments, etc.

I was at the point of looking to expand.  I had read about food fatigue, picky eaters and knew that I would need more variety than what I could grow, or my husband could shoot.  I noticed that these hams were not refrigerated, just out on a table in a wide aisle.

I remembered things I had read about the pioneers and old-timers who didn’t have refrigeration smoking and curing hams.  Actually, one better, when I was a child we lived on a mini farm for a while that still had the original old smokehouse.

My Dad always wanted to learn to use it, but sadly, never did.  I picked up one of the hams and started looking for an expiration or sell-by date, and there were no dates on it at all.  I asked to see the Manager of the Meat Department and when he came out he knew about as much as I did, in other words, he really didn’t know how long you could store them.

He was middle-aged like me though and said, “Didn’t people used to store them for years, hanging in their cellars?”  I told him that was my understanding, but neither of us really knew, so I bypassed them, thinking I would go home and do some research.

The fact that this happened between Thanksgiving and Christmas ended up with me just never getting around to following up.  I recounted this to GA Mom at lunch and she made a note, promising to look into it and let me know what she found out.

Later that night she emailed that she had looked online and contacted a couple of companies that sell country hams.  She at first got an answer of 2 years, I believe, but after pursuing the question, was told that it was probably much longer, but they guaranteed two years.  She and I both ordered some right away.  Before I wrote this article, I felt that I should look for some references and did find a few.

One company is in Tennessee, so M. D. may be aware of them,

http://www.countryhams.com/ediblememphis.htm

Two quotes from this site are worth mentioning.  One is “Mold-ham’s badge of honor-just wash or trim it away.”  I have read this other places as well, sort of like cutting mold off cheese which I’ve done many times.

The other notable quote was, “Such preservation makes the shelf life of a country ham practically unlimited…”  I have read that it is important to leave them in their original wrapping, keeps insects off them and to hang them so that rodents can’t get them.

I also found a site with very simple directions for curing a country ham at home.

http://www.ehow.com/how_8116489_cure-country-ham-home.html

In the email from GA Mom, she asked a great question, “How about fruitcakes, don’t those things last forever?’  Actually, they pretty much do.  I accept that you can’t discuss fruitcakes without the typical frowns and “ughs”.  That goes for me too.

My grandmother made these things for years and I hated them.  Fruitcakes are definitely like Martha Stewart, people love or hate, no in between!  Still, it was worth some research, and I found some interesting facts.  Fruit cake aficionados will NOT consider eating a fruit cake until it has aged for at least four years.

Some people eat fruit cakes twenty-five years after they were baked.  Wow, this gave some respect for the old red-headed step-child when it comes to long-term food storage.  I researched how to store them to get that 25-year shelf life and it is like most things, how you store it. 

For the longest storage, you simply wrap it in liquor-soaked cheesecloth, then coat it with powdered sugar, put it in a cake tin and store in a cool, dry place.  Every 3 or 4 months, take it out and re-soak the cheesecloth with liquor, recoat with powdered sugar and put in the cake tin and restore in cool, dry place.

I received the 4 fruitcakes that I had ordered yesterday and picked up more cheesecloth and powdered sugar today.  Most people soak them in brandy, rum or bourbon.  I intend to soak 2 in some of my husband’s Jack Daniels and 2 in Grand Marnier.

I think soaking them in Grand Marnier will give some added flavor and I may actually like them!  At any rate, I figure they’ll last a long time, and if they don’t, I won’t be the first person who ever snuck one to the trash can!!  Some references for the fruitcakes:

http://www.eilenbergerbakery.com/Articles/Tips-for-Storing-A-Fruitcake-25.cfm

http://www.ehow.com/how_6961512_age-fruit-cake=brandy.html

The last thing I’m going to mention is bog butter.  I just don’t know about this one, but felt it was worth mentioning.  Apparently before refrigeration people made and stored butter in bogs to make it last.  It apparently does last, and last, and last…..

This butter has been found and eaten many years after it was stored.  Some scientists say it is between 2000 and 3000 years old.  People would wrap the butter in burlap, animal skins, or store it in hollowed out wood and bury it in a bog.  Students at a school were given some that were ancient and the students tried it.

They said that it looked and smelled like butter but didn’t taste very good. Please share your thoughts, comments, and suggestions in the comments section below… Thank you all…

http://www.show.me.uk/site/news/ST0269.html

by Biff Brannon

There is some good literature out there regarding setting up a survival retreat location.  In fact, if you were not aware, MD Creekmore, the owner of this blog site has a book out called “Dirt-cheap Survival Retreat: One Man’s Solution” (click here to find out more about this awesome guide) that goes into some detail regarding setting up a survival retreat location for very little cost.

I do go into some of that in this particular blog post as well, but mostly this article is about the importance of having a retreat location to fall back to.  Especially for those who live near cities.

We should consider ourselves lucky that large scale disaster events are few and far between.  Most survival situations run for a short duration with many lasting less than ten days and are what I refer to as ‘green’ events (a disaster lasting 1-10 days). Most green events can be handled by hunkering down at home with an ample supply of survival food and water and some alternative cooking means such as a camp stove or even your back yard gas grill.

Throw in some other basic survival gear (here is a link to MD Creekmore’s favorite gear) that can be easily found at any outdoor camping store, some common sense thinking regarding prepping, and you will be set to face a green event.  However, larger disaster threats are out there, and such events that fall into the ‘yellow’ and ‘red’ event category (yellow event 10-90 days, red event 90+ days into years) typically spell bad news for entire regions and sometimes entire countries.

You can pretty much count on a yellow or red event having a complete breakdown of society at some point.  Water service might not be operating, electrical power may not be available, stores will not be getting resupplied from distribution centers, people will start to starve and panic, looting, and rioting will take place, people will die, people will get sick from poor hygiene, some will contract otherwise controlled diseases, the government will not be able to keep control…  it will be basically everybody fending for themselves.  And the worse place you will want to be is anywhere near a city or large town.

Hunkering down at your apartment or home is not always going to be a good idea in the case of yellow or red events, as bands of looters will eventually end up going from house to house or apartment to apartment.  This is where the survival retreat location comes into play for people who are serious about being preppers.

Some of us are lucky enough to already live far away from cities, however, most of us are not.  Those of us who are not that lucky will need and want to have a retreat location.

When it comes to survival retreat locations, like any other piece of real estate, the mantra is location, location, location.  A thirty-minute drive from the outskirts of a city to a friend’s farm is not going to be a good retreat location, but nor is it necessary to buy a place in rural Idaho where the population is as low as two people per square mile.

The Golden Horde Theory

When looking to set up a retreat site you want to try and be at least one full tank of gas plus a minimum of another fifty miles away from any major city/suburb center.

That comes out to about 300-350 or more miles.  And you certainly want to also be at least fifty miles away from any major highway or interstate.  The reason for this is because when things really start to go bad in the cities people are going to start to leave them in a massive exodus.

Once people notice other people loading up their cars to leave town there is going to be a domino effect.  When exactly that will happen is hard to say.  Some people will have enough smarts to see where things are headed and get out ahead of everybody else.

That is the kind of person you need to be.  Others will keep on thinking things will get better and try and ride it out, only deciding it may be better to leave the city once they are down to having hardly any food or water and no way to get more.  By then it may be too late to safely leave.

Those roads and various other travel routes such as railways and river-ways are called ‘channelized areas’.  You can expect these channelized areas to be jam-packed with people fleeing the cities.  The highway, in particular, will be a very bad situation as people stop to try and get supplies along their route.

Eventually, gas stations, other retail centers, and even small communities along the major roadways will run dry of gas and supplies.   Cars will run out of gas or just breakdown along these channelized areas.

This will clog the highways and bring travel to a stop.  People who fled the cities will get out of their cars at that point and load up as much of their belongings as they can carry and start walking on foot.

At that point, they may stop following the highway and just spread out from their location in all directions.  People are either going to have what they need to survive for a few days or they are not.  The people who don’t have what they need and do not have skills to find food and water in rural zones are going to prey on those that do have food and water.  It will be a very dangerous situation.

People leaving in the mass exodus will probably think to go as far away as possible hoping that things will be better in another part of their state or region in the country.  However, in a red level event that affects the entire country or the world, things are going to be bad everywhere, and probably for some time.

Some will try to head to a relative’s home far away.  Others may think they should head towards where there is lots of water.  Some will want to head to farm country.  Other may decide they will head to the wooded and forest regions to try to lay low by camping.

It is safe to assume that people spreading out from the cities will not get very far without food, water and survival gear, and skills.  That is the reason why you want your retreat location to be as far away from cities and their channelized areas as possible because the refugee situation will be devastating.

Anything within sight of a group of desperate refugees, be it a house, store, landmark, barn…anything, will be traveled to and searched for supplies.

The more desperate the refugees, the more dangerous they will become.  Starvation and thirst will make people do things they would not normally do, not only for themselves but especially for a loved one.  So you need to be far away from such threats as possible.

The further away you are from channelized locations the less interaction you will have with desperate people.  But still, count on having such interactions, and be prepared for when they do occur.

So when looking for a retreat location what kind of place do you want to search for?  Some people will look for real estate such as a cabin on a lake or a secluded hunting cabin in the woods, others will look to purchase property in farm country and perhaps buy a small hobby farm, others may think to load up their camping gear and head into the backwoods where they have gone camping before.

And there are others that will look for an in-town retreat, meaning a small community of less than a few thousand people. All are viable options, and some may be better suited for certain regions of the country.  Of course, it also depends on what you can afford.

Of the few options, I mentioned above let’s take a look at the two defining differences: Secluded survival retreats and in-town survival retreats. Both have their own pros and khans.

Survival Retreat – In Town:  Pros

1. You will be part of a community, hopefully where people help people.
2. You will benefit from having lots of community people you can barter with.
3. You may benefit from the security precautions the community takes, especially if law enforcement remains intact.
4. You may benefit from any local hospitals or clinics.
5. You will benefit from a greater skill pool off all the people in the community

Cons

1. Greater risk of being burglarized.
2. Increased risk of communicable diseases.
3. Greater risk of your prepping lifestyle being noticed and your supplies confiscated for the “good of the community”.
4. Limited privacy.

Survival Retreat – Isolated:  Pros

1. You will have better privacy.
2. Easier to hunt from right outside your door.
3. More room for gardening.
4. More control over your own supplies.
5. Better control of overall sanitation.
6. Batter able to keep livestock close and easier to feed.
7. Much lower risk of communicable disease.
8. Lower land and house prices.

Cons

1. The more isolated you are the fewer opportunities you will have to barter for needed items.
2. Probably will require more than one family unit to provide adequate security.
3. You should not depend on much help from neighbors or whatever law enforcement may be left if attached by looters.

Personally, for my own retreat planning I have two locations; a primary location and a secondary location that is about a 2-day walk from the first.  Both I would classify as isolated, though they are located less than a day’s walk from small communities of 400 or fewer people where I and my family are well known.

A few other things to think about when choosing a retreat location:

1. It should be 350+ miles from major cities.
2. It should be located 50+ miles from major interstate freeways and other channelized areas.
3. Good local resources for wood, wild game, crop growing, and of course water.
4. Good source of surface water (saying this again a different way because water is important) and year-round precipitation.
5. No risk of flooding, major earthquakes, hurricanes, forest fires that would burn your retreat home, etc…
6. Some natural defenses like hills or berms that make prepping for defenses would be preferable.
7. Low population, as fewer people around will mean fewer problems.

Now that we have broken down the isolated retreat against the in-town retreat, lets take a look at the preppers who want to head off into the wilds all alone and survive on bugs, chipmunks, deer, and living in man-made stick shelters under a blown down tree versus a prepper who plans to hold up with family or friends.

As for the lone prepper, personally, I do not think that is a very good idea.  I have the utmost respect for people like Les Stroud (read this article written by Les Stroud for M.D. Creekmore.com).  The skills of the man are amazing, and while such skills will keep you alive for a few weeks and possibly a month, surviving in the wilds like that long term can have devastating effects on a person.

Trying to survive on such skills as demonstrated by the TV show survivalists for many months to a year or more is going to be very difficult.  Even if you know how to build a log cabin and sustain yourself with food and water and scrounging wild roots and veggies, you are taking a big risk just by being alone if you get hurt.

If you get hurt or even sick bad enough to keep you from maintaining your food and water stores you are going to die.  If you break your tools that you brought with you and have no way of fixing them or bartering for new tools you are going to die.

If your hunting rifle breaks or you run out of wire or thread suitable for snaring or hunting game, you are going to get very hungry and could die.  For me, going out alone into a survival situation for extended periods like a yellow or red event is just asking for trouble.

You need to know how to do everything for yourself, you need to know how to do it well, and you need to make sure you are always healthy enough to maintain camp and supplies to be able to keep alive.

Being part of a family unit or a group of like-minded friends, or a combination of the both is a safer way to prepare when planning a survival retreat location.  For example, I am part of a small group of like-minded family and friends.

Some of us have paramedic and nursing work experience, some of us are former military including military police, combat medic, and a force recon marine.  Some are avid outdoors-men who can hunt and are familiar with woodland survival techniques, others know how to plant and grow food and how to preserve food for storage…  the knowledge and skills spread out over ten different people are not only diverse but amazing.

Also, think about all the knowledge that can be cross-trained from members of your survival retreat group.  If somebody takes a class on soap making or maybe animal trapping and all you need to do is hold a class for the group and cross-train that new knowledge.

Another good thing about being part of a group of preppers is that it can really help bring costs down.  Think of a retreat location more like a vacation spot out of the hustle and bustle of city life, and maybe go a step further and look at the retreat as a timeshare property or a membership managed LLC that owns a lodge open to use by members only.

Of course, it may be easier if just one person owns the property and is open to work and tools contributions from the group.  Either way, if you set up a prepper group you need to know you can absolutely trust the people you are forming up with.  This may be less important when dealing with just family members.  Either way, there will be arguments over things.  Be prepared for that as well.  But remember the ultimate end goal you are trying to achieve.

The fact is that if you are facing a yellow or red event than you can almost certainly expect the power grids to be down and then eventually everything else that society provides is going to fail as well.  You retreat will need to be ready for the kind of living our forefathers experienced before electricity and motorized equipment.

You need to be ready to get back to the basics such as growing your food in a garden, using an outhouse, digging a well, patching threadbare clothing, making your own soap, tending to livestock, sharpening axes and saw blades, canning preserves, making candles, smoking and salting meat for storage, etc…

Not only does a retreat location require money for equipment and tools you may need, but it will also require to you to be prepared with a whole new set of skills to be able to live comfortably, or at least as comfortably as you can.  Depending on the climate your retreat is located in will largely depends on some of the tools and skills you will need to have, but mostly I think you will find that most skills and tools will apply in most regions.

Of course your retreat is going to need to be stocked with the usual items such as eating utensils, plates, glasses, furniture – it is a second home, after all, assuming you are not able to relocate and live at your retreat location year round, so you will want to make things as comfortable as possible and get enjoyment out of it even if it never needs to serve its purpose as a survival retreat.

But let’s take a look at some suggested things in the list below that you may want to consider having or planning for.

Survival Retreat Prepper List:  Above and Beyond the Usual

Water:  You will need to know how you will be able to get water for survival at your retreat.   There are many different ways to secure water.  Once you have it, you will need to be able to store it safely for short periods of time until consumed. (click here to read MD Creekmore’s detailed article on water).

Food:  Store more canned foods, MREs, bulk rice, bulk wheat, bulk beans, bulk salt.  Learn to can and preserve your own foods that you grow or harvest from wild plants.  Your canned and stored foods may not last as long as the disaster event does, so be prepared to learn some skills such as farming, hunting, fishing, and foraging for wild foods. (click here to read MD Creekmore’s detailed article on prepper food storage).

Fitness/health:  Before a major survival event strikes you should seriously think about getting done any elective surgery procedures you have been putting off.  Take care of any dentistry work.  Stay in shape.  If you are not in shape, get in shape or at least better shape. (click here to read MD Creekmore detailed article on medical preparedness for preppers).

Personal Items:  You should make a separate list for each member of your family or person who is expected to stay at your retreat during survival event.  Things to think about; spare glasses, prescription medications, birth control, and feminine products all come to mind right away.

Chemical and Nuke Defense:  Geiger counter, HEPA filters, potassium iodate, means to shower outside your retreat.

Pandemic Defense:  Hand sanitizer, disinfectants, antibiotics, and antiviral medications, N95 masks, expectorant.

First Aid:  It would be a good idea to get advanced first aid training, possibly EMT or Paramedic level if possible.  Have a first aid kit on hand equal to or greater than your level of medical aid ability, and have extra supplies of everything.

Hygiene: Soap – lots of it.  It would be a good idea to learn how to make it.  Suggest that you have bottles lye on hand to help you make soap.  Toothpaste or powder, floss, toilet paper, sunscreen, alternate toilet paper for when the good stuff runs out.

Gardening:  Learn to garden and look into buying and storing non-hybrid seeds.  There are so many numerous gardening tools out on the market that to list them all here would take up too much space.

Start out by keeping it simple and buy the basic rakes, hoes, shovels, tillers and hand garden tools.  If you don’t know a thing about gardening you better find out right away and start learning.

Being able to plant your own garden and raise your own crops could mean the difference between starvation and living.  Aside from learning how to grow food to eat, you should also look into growing your own medicinal herbs.

Livestock:  It wouldn’t hurt to have a dozen chickens, a couple of cows, and some goats.  Being able to have some fresh eggs, milk, and make your own butter would be a great benefit to any survival retreat.  Of course, having such animals will take some work and possible new skills.  How far you want to go with keeping livestock is up to you.

Hunting and Fishing:  Being able to hunt and fish could help greatly towards keeping you well fed.  Look into what wild game is located in your region and learn how to hunt and trap it.  Learning to smoke meat can help in long preservation in any large game animals you harvest.

Fuel:  Buy plenty of extra fuel.  Gasoline, kerosene, propane, diesel…whatever.  If you have something that runs on fuel, make sure you have extra of it and don’t let your primary tank fall below half full.

Gasoline does not keep for a long time, but diesel stores better than gasoline – either way, keep some additives such as STABIL that will help extend the life of gasoline and diesel fuels.  Rotate out any old fuel you have stored when you buy new fuel.

Security:  Fences, locking gates, locking road cables, reinforced doors, night vision gear, guns and ammunition, razor wire, black plastic to cover windows (keeps light from inside being seen outside at night), security patrols. (click here to read MD Creekmore’s detailed article on retreat security)

Firefighting:  In a green, yellow or red event the fire department may not be able to respond.  So be ready to fight your own fires as best as you can.  Keep fire extinguishers inside your retreat, replace your roof with a fireproof metal roof, keep trees, hedges and brush at least fifty yards away from your retreat house.

Maintain smoke and carbon monoxide detectors inside, and have fresh batteries on hand to make sure they are always working.

General Tools:  For gardening, gun-smithing, auto-mechanical, woodworking.

Communication:  Having a handful of two-way radios is a great way to stay in contact with people who are out working in the yard or field with those that stay behind at the retreat house.  Communication is actually a part of your security list as well.

Don’t have the means for a hardcore survival retreat location?

Now, not having a good retreat location can be a problem depending on the type of event you are facing.  A green event is probably not going to be a problem where you need a retreat location, but then again it may be easier on your life and that of your family to still leave home for a while.

Depending on the type of yellow event; perhaps a tornado, earthquake, massive flood, or thermal nuclear terrorist event to name a few possibilities that affect only your immediate area, you may be able to go live with extended family 500 miles away for a few months.

A red event is truly the worst-case scenario, and more than likely it is going to involve something on a grand scale that not only affects the country but could affect the world and certain to involve a total collapse of society.

As mentioned before cities are going to be something to avoid, and the suburbs would be overrun with looting and scavengers as people flee the cities.  Having a good retreat location is going to help any prepper survive that normally lives near or around a city.

So what can a prepper do if they do not have the means for a secluded hobby farm, hunting cabin, or even just a second piece of vacant property out in the middle of nowhere away from channelized areas?

My first suggestion is to possibly try and meet like-minded people with the prepper mentality.  There is certainly better security to be found with good people and forming a ‘prepper group’.  Perhaps somebody in the group has a retreat location that everybody can use.

It may mean helping out with chores around the property to help keep it at the ‘ready’.  It may mean helping secure provisions and cross-training skills with the rest of the group.  Maybe it even means helping pay taxes or insurance on the property.

The key thing to remember is to be very selective with any such group you may look to join or form on your own.  Make sure you are 100% comfortable with the people and your interactions before getting involved too fast.

Another suggestion is to find a remote campground run by private mom & pop owners.  These campgrounds tend to be off the beaten path, so to speak, and are more than likely used by ‘regulars’ throughout the year.  Avoid the larger campgrounds like State Parks and KOA campgrounds, as these are at the foremost of people’s minds and are more commonly known and thought of, and are more than likely to be flooded with refugees from nearby cities and suburbs.

Possibly get familiar with a couple smaller campgrounds and find one that is a good fit for you and the family by going there to camp a few times or more a year, preferably one that has good pit toilets already in place and has water sources close at hand.

Get to know the people in the community around the campground.  You can be sure that other people will show up at a campground during a yellow or red event.  But the odds that the people that do show up are going to be people who are regulars at the campground and there will possibly already be a sense of community at such a location.

Now, if deciding to use a small remote campground as a retreat, the key to survival will be learning a variety of camping skills, having extra camping gear that is made of good quality materials and possibly even having extra backups of things like tents and clothing.

You also want to be able to organize with the other people who show up at the campground.  Organization means getting the group of campers together to work towards the greater good of the larger group by forming a solid community.

That means taking care of sanitation requirements for a large group, managing water sources for a large group, finding food either by hunting, foraging or maybe battering with nearby farms, growing food, and generally the sharing of some resources.

As for growing food, it would be a good idea to have a wide variety of seed bank seeds available, not only to meet your family’s needs but also extra to help provide for the larger needs of an entire campground.

An extremely negative reason to retreat to a campground is if the event that is forcing you away from the city is a deadly pandemic.  In the case of a pandemic, you will want to try and limit the amount of contact you have with people until the pandemic burns itself out, which the CDC (Center for Disease Control) says could take 90 to 120 days during the first outbreak.

By limiting contact with people outside your family or prepping unit, you will also want to keep anybody you come across at least several yards away from you just in case they are carrying whatever pandemic bug is out there.  Of course, limiting yourself and your group from people would be hard to do if retreating to a campground.

Of course, don’t forget to read the book “Dirt-cheap survival retreat: One Man’s Solution” written by the host of this web blog page.

by John Herzig

I have read so many excellent and relevant articles on this site about prepping and survival that I am a little sheepish about submitting my own for your consideration.  I just would like to contribute some knowledge that might enhance someone’s life or help them develop a skill that they can barter or make life easier in the event of a collapse.  Here goes.

Having spent time (8 years) teaching woodworking (click here to get over 16,000 woodworking plans), drafting, metalwork, and leather work; I thought that I might have some advice on what tools one might gather in the event of the SHTF.  Perhaps the first question might be “electric vs. hand powered” tools.

The obvious answer is both as there is likely to be a few services available and what are will be able to charge “whatever’ the market will bear.  Being able to fix and construct projects makes you more valuable as a barterer or to a community of preppers.

In the event of a collapse, electricity will very likely be a luxury that many might not have so one may think that it would be much better to go heavy on the hand-powered tool side.  Granted, there are some obstacles to overcome with power tools.

Even if you have a solar/ battery system you will need some sort of conversion to AC current to allow the use of the corded tools.  A better solution might be the battery-powered tools that are very common these days.  These can be recharged at your home and taken out to the field or outbuilding for use.  Buy commercial grade if at all possible.  Some of the warehouse tools may be cheaper but the life of the batteries will fade over time and with repeated charges.

I recommend Milwaukee brand (click here to see what is available on Amazon.com) but that is just my preference.  I have a corded Milwaukee drill that I’ve used for over 25 years and it has performed flawlessly.  I’ve used it for everything from mixing paint to drilling concrete.  The cordless variety come in “kits” that contain multiple tools (more later) and batteries so one is always charged up.

Another advantage is weight.  If you have ever wrestled with 50 feet of extension cord while on a 12’ ladder with the drill over your head you’ll know what I mean. Be sure to think about accessories for the tools.  These can collect over time.

At any rate, regardless whether you have corded or cordless be sure you know how to properly use them.  Dealing with a nasty circular saw cut with no medical services could be life-threatening.  Any power tool can make short work of fingers or hands.  Steel Vs. Flesh – guess who wins?  Here is a list of the power tools I would recommend and I’m sure others will complete the list.

• Commercial Grade 18V Lithium-Ion Battery Multi-pack –

These come in several configurations but should at least have:

1. Drill- Impact or Standard – Don’t forget drill bits and screw driving bits (check garage sales).
2. A “Saws-all” This is a tool that has a reciprocating blade from 4”-8”. It’s excellent for cutting pipe, pruning trees, drywall, demolition, and metal (if it’s not too thick) Blades for this tool are disposable and depending on what you’re cutting will determine their life.  Remember a dull blade is a dangerous blade.
3. Circular Saw- Standard size is 7 1/4” but some come with smaller blades. These are used primarily for construction, framing, and cutting plywood.  Remember, blades, blades, blades.
4. Other tools that may come in these kits are
   1. Radios
   2. spotlights
   3. angle grinders
5. Small Contractors Table Saw – You can spend as much as you want on these. Sears makes them and there are some extremely expensive Swiss made saws that will exceed the capabilities of much larger saws.  This tool is used for making straight cuts from dimension lumber (2×4’s etc) and plywood.  They are almost mandatory for cabinet work (although some of the finest furniture ever made was done with hand tools)
6. Angle Grinder – An angle grinder is used to smooth metal of any thickness or cutting large pipe. With a wire brush bit is can prepare rusted metal for painting or smooth metal cut with a cutting torch. I even recently used one to cut off the barrel of a .22 rifle to make a more “convenient” size weapon. Remember, blades, blades, blades.
7. Palm Sander or belt-sander – Used to smooth wood and metal. Remember, paper, paper, paper.  Sandpaper comes in 8”x12” sheets.  Cut to fit on the palm sander.  In belts for the belt sander (think small treadmill).  They come in varying GRITS.  The larger the number, the finer the grit.  40 grit paper looks like it has sharp pebbles glued to the paper.  600 grit is almost smooth to the touch.  To get wood smooth you start with the low grit papers and work up successively to the larger numbered grits.  Belt sanders can also be clamped down and used to sharpen a variety of hand tools (good use for the angle grinder as well).

As I mentioned before, the really great furniture was made with hand tools.  Hand tools are IMHO absolutely mandatory in a SHTF scenario.  Personally, I almost always choose power tools over hand tools if power is available, but in skilled hands, man-powered tools are every bit as effective as power tools.  Two things need to be remembered about hand tools.

One, they need to be sharp (a dull tool is a dangerous tool), and two they are tiring! The first makes the second even truer. If you have ever tried to cut through a 12 “diameter tree trunk with a bow saw you’ll know what I mean.  Even cutting a 1×12 with a hand saw is a workout.  A properly sharpened plane saw, or chisel will be much easier and produce a better product with less effort when used properly.

Using hand tools takes skill and as with any survival, technique skill requires practice.  The more you use them the easier they become.  Start with small projects and work up to bigger ones.  Make a wall shelf (basically 3 boards) and concentrate on getting the edges square (90 degrees) and the board smooth.  Don’t be discouraged by your first efforts.  No one makes Queen Anne furniture on their first try.  These are some hand tools that I recommend but is by no means complete:

1. Screwdriver set – both flat and Phillips’ head. You can add the star, square and other types of drivers as you go.  Try to collect as many different sizes as possible.
2. Socket set- get a set that has metric as well as standard size sockets. I use S&K but I also have many Sears Craftsmen sockets as well.  The good thing about them is they will replace any broken items no questions asked (as long as there is still a store).
3. Hand saws- Get a cross cut (for cutting across the grain) and a rip saw (for cutting with the grain or length of the board). Remember, you are powering the saw. Using the wrong saw for the job just makes it that much harder.
4. Bow saw- Think of a very coarse blade where the string on a bow is. These are excellent for cutting firewood or demolition.
5. Hand drill with an adjustable chuck- Yep, for making holes.
6. Several crescent wrenches- get as many different sizes as possible. They fit every size nut and bolt.  The older the better.  The steel and fit of the moving parts are so much better than today’s tools.
7. Hand planes- Get a small jack plane (4-6” long) for rounding off sharp edges and smoothing edges of lumber. If you can find one, get a jointer plane.  These are up to 2 feet long and are for planning the faces of lumber for say a table top.
8. Axe & hatchet- for felling trees and making kindling. Again, keep them sharp.
9. Clamps and vises- there are many different kinds. Bar, C-clamp, pressure, and tabletop.  Collect as many as possible as they have a multitude of uses.
10. Squares- Get a framing square that has an etched table for cutting common and hip rafters. Small squares to carry in your tool belt.  They allow you to mark a line square (90 degrees) to an edge.
11. Levels- Try to get a 4’, 2’, and pocket level. They have small glass vials embedded in them with a trapped air bubble.  When you lay the level on the project and the bubble is between the two lines on the vial you know its level.
12. Plumb bob- This is a brass or steel cone-shaped tool (think of a top) with a string attached that when you need to mark a spot directly beneath a roof (for a column).
13. Crowbar- The come in many sizes and lengths. Two of the handiest are a “Wonder bar” it is made of flat iron (2” wide) and has v-notches cut on both ends to help remove nails.  Handy for reclaiming dimensional lumber.  The other is made of an octagonal solid steel bar with a hook on the end.  They can also be used to remove stubborn nails and their shape makes them great for leveraging and lifting a great weight.
14. Hammers – Again many sizes. Usually sold by weight of the head.  I recommend a 20 oz. framing hammer, a smaller cabinet hammer, and a tack hammer for small nails.

Obviously, these are just a few of the many different tools that you can collect (pack members will no doubt add some suggestions) and use.  Collecting double gives you barter material and replaces broken ones.  The great thing about tools is that you can pick up many of the hand tools for next to nothing at flea markets and garage sales.

Learn to sharpen and maintain your tools and they will provide many years of service.  I have tools my great-grandfather used.  Having skill in producing and maintaining your bugout location or just your current home is a skill that will make you a valuable team member in troubled times.

You can “sell” your skill for other necessities as well.  As with any craft, making or maintaining items is a rewarding and satisfying pastime that might just save your bacon (or buy you some) in the future.