Disaster Preparedness: Are you ready?



I have four kids ranging from 7 to 15. Each one has the following in their bedroom:

Backpack:
6 glowsticks
LED Flashlight with spare batteries
Cold Steel Recon 1 knife
3 pair of socks
1 change of clothing
4 water bottles.
1 jar of water purification tablets
Datrex food bars
bag of hard candy
matches & fire starting kit
hot sparks fire starter
pen & paper
plastic sheeting
emergency blanket

We also have a large family kit that contains more of all the things in the individual kits. It's all inside a large toolbox (with wheels) from Home Depot.

For long-term storage:
Roughly 1000 lbs of white rice
600 lbs of flour
200lbs of brown rice
50lbs of dehydrated cheese
roughly 600lbs of various beans
powdered milk
roughly 100lbs of sugar
salt
oil
8 20lb filled propane canisters - i rotate them through the year
50lbs of oats


I am sure I am forgetting something...

1 - Excalibur dehydrator
1 - Mylar bag sealer
1 - Electric #10 can sealer
2 - Fresnel lenses for emergency water or cooking

Water
3 - Berkey Big Bertha water *purifiers*
16 - portable water purifiers
100 gallons of fresh water
Lot's of water tablets


Protection/Hunting:

Sig handguns (mine & wife)
Ruger GSR (mine)
Ruger 10/22 (oldest girl)
Benelli M1 (wife)
Mossberg 500 (oldest boy)
.177 pellet gun

Lots of Cold Steel knives.

Crap-load of camping gear.


While I love military style firearms I am under no illusion of my ability to defend my home against large groups of people. Thinking that I can arm my wife and a few others and hold off even a group as small as a squad of soldiers/people is just a prepper's wet dream. It's not going to happen.
 
Nebraska said:
I have four kids ranging from 7 to 15. Each one has the following in their bedroom:

Backpack:
6 glowsticks
LED Flashlight with spare batteries
Cold Steel Recon 1 knife
3 pair of socks
1 change of clothing
4 water bottles.
1 jar of water purification tablets
Datrex food bars
bag of hard candy
matches & fire starting kit
hot sparks fire starter
pen & paper
plastic sheeting
emergency blanket


blah blah blah.....
Click to expand...

How about some short range frs/gmrs short range radios?
 
Anyone here ever use the lifestraw? Dwight?

LifeStraw-vertical-studio-shot.jpg
 
A natural disaster (Hurricane Sandy) blew through my area this past Oct. I was one of the lucky ones: no power for only 4 days, when many lost much more. Some preparedness on my part kept it from being worse. I did these things:

Filled up the gas tank before the storm came. After the storm, lines went around 2 blocks.
I filled large bags with ice to preserve food. It worked, nothing had to be tossed.
I kept large bottles of water in the fridge. The water supply was unaffected after the fact.
Purchase canned foods and a hand crank can opener. People forget they will need to get those cans opened when the power can opener won't run.
Know where the emergency shelters are. By a hair, my area is located on high ground, so I didn't have to evacuate.

If you're rich, you could buy an emergency generator. But keep in mind they run on gasoline. Many of the people on the gas line that snaked around two blocks were waiting for gasoline for their emergency generators.

I did not see any zombies after Sandy.
 
DewChugr said:
Anyone here ever use the lifestraw? Dwight?

LifeStraw-vertical-studio-shot.jpg
Click to expand...

I don't own the lifestraw, but I own a cheaper little version I bought on Amazon. Haven't used it yet. Going to get this bottle:
[ame=http://www.amazon.com/Lifesaver-Bottle-4000-Ultra-Filtration/dp/B001EHF99A/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1363715239&sr=8-1]Amazon.com: Lifesaver Bottle 4000 Ultra Filtration Water Bottle: Sports & Outdoors[/ame]


Just bought one of these: [ame=http://www.amazon.com/Baofeng-136-174-400-480-Dual-Band-Transceiver/dp/B009MAKWC0/ref=sr_1_2?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1363714867&sr=1-2&keywords=baofeng]Amazon.com: New Baofeng UV 5RA Ham Two Way Radio 136-174/400-480 MHz Dual-Band DTMF CTCSS DCS FM 5W Amateur Radio UV-5R Transceiver - 2013 Latest Version with Enhanced Features: Electronics[/ame]

Want to see how well this cheap little Ham radio works.

Everything that BlueYonder laid out re: Hurricane Sandy is spot on. If you need to get out of Dodge you need a minimum of a half-tank of gas at all times.
 
Dwight Schrute said:
I don't own the lifestraw, but I own a cheaper little version I bought on Amazon. Haven't used it yet. Going to get this bottle:
Amazon.com: Lifesaver Bottle 4000 Ultra Filtration Water Bottle: Sports & Outdoors


Just bought one of these: Amazon.com: New Baofeng UV 5RA Ham Two Way Radio 136-174/400-480 MHz Dual-Band DTMF CTCSS DCS FM 5W Amateur Radio UV-5R Transceiver - 2013 Latest Version with Enhanced Features: Electronics

Want to see how well this cheap little Ham radio works.

Everything that BlueYonder laid out re: Hurricane Sandy is spot on. If you need to get out of Dodge you need a minimum of a half-tank of gas at all times.
Click to expand...
Heard a good idea on gas. Get a 5 gallon gas can and fill it and put it in th e garage. Then next month do the same. Rinse and repeat for 5 or 6 months.

On the 6th month put the 1st can in your car, and then fill it next time you get gas. The second month grab the next oldest can and repeat. By doing this you will always have 30 gallons (after 6 months) of fresh gas. Your rotating it fast enough that you wont need to add any stabilizer to the gas. This will help in short term fuel spikes like on 9/11 when gas went to $8 a gallon over night in some areas.
 
If you need to get out of Dodge you need a minimum of a half-tank of gas at all times.
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Living in Chicago - There is *no* chance to get out of town. It's just too large and the streets will be too jammed. This sad fact was hammered home a few years ago when a large rainstorm took out the power and most street lights. Traffic was gridlocked to the point that it took me nearly 4 hours to make short trip that normally takes 7 minutes. There is just no way I can leave.

My plan is to hunker down and pretend to be struggling like everyone else. Figure if it's bad enough all the dumb/desperate people will kill each other off in the first few weeks.

What I don't have, but need, is a solar system to power two deep freezers. A generator makes too much noise and will be a strong signal that I have "stuff".
 
Nebraska said:
Living in Chicago - There is *no* chance to get out of town. It's just too large and the streets will be too jammed. This sad fact was hammered home a few years ago when a large rainstorm took out the power and most street lights. Traffic was gridlocked to the point that it took me nearly 4 hours to make short trip that normally takes 7 minutes. There is just no way I can leave.

My plan is to hunker down and pretend to be struggling like everyone else. Figure if it's bad enough all the dumb/desperate people will kill each other off in the first few weeks.

What I don't have, but need, is a solar system to power two deep freezers. A generator makes too much noise and will be a strong signal that I have "stuff".
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You should go and listen to these 2 podcasts. Steven Harris is some kinda rainman w/ this stuff.

Steven Harris on Battery Back Up Systems Part 1 of 2 | The Survival Podcast

Steven Harris on Battery Back Up Systems Part 2 of 2 | The Survival Podcast
 
Dwight Schrute said:
I don't own the lifestraw, but I own a cheaper little version I bought on Amazon. Haven't used it yet. Going to get this bottle:
Amazon.com: Lifesaver Bottle 4000 Ultra Filtration Water Bottle: Sports & Outdoors


Just bought one of these: Amazon.com: New Baofeng UV 5RA Ham Two Way Radio 136-174/400-480 MHz Dual-Band DTMF CTCSS DCS FM 5W Amateur Radio UV-5R Transceiver - 2013 Latest Version with Enhanced Features: Electronics

Want to see how well this cheap little Ham radio works.

Everything that BlueYonder laid out re: Hurricane Sandy is spot on. If you need to get out of Dodge you need a minimum of a half-tank of gas at all times.
Click to expand...

I don't have the lifestraw either, it's only 20 bucks and could be very useful to have a hand full even if you're going to use them to trade with. I've got a MSR Miniworks filter and a first need purifier for backpacking that will get me by. I can use my jetboil in a pinch for purifying water or cooking, little noise, no smoke, easy to carry.


dmnEPC said:
Heard a good idea on gas. Get a 5 gallon gas can and fill it and put it in th e garage. Then next month do the same. Rinse and repeat for 5 or 6 months.

On the 6th month put the 1st can in your car, and then fill it next time you get gas. The second month grab the next oldest can and repeat. By doing this you will always have 30 gallons (after 6 months) of fresh gas. Your rotating it fast enough that you wont need to add any stabilizer to the gas. This will help in short term fuel spikes like on 9/11 when gas went to $8 a gallon over night in some areas.
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In a pinch, if you have a length of tubing you could siphon out of your spare cars, lawn mower into the one you need to leave in also.
 
DewChugr said:
In a pinch, if you have a length of tubing you could siphon out of your spare cars, lawn mower into the one you need to leave in also.
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You could do that. Or you could do something crazy and actually keep a small amount on hand. I can tell you, I have been in situations where I wished I had stored some gas.

Shit happens all the time. Anyone waiting for some huge global catastrophe could be waiting for a long damn time. But many people fail to plan for personal catastrophe's. Bad shit happens to people all the time. You could loose your job, or maybe get sick or hurt.

Any number of things could happen that doesn't affect anyone but you and your family. And I have found in my life the stuff I prepare for usually doesn't happen. The stuff that takes me completely by surprise is the difficult stuff to deal with.



As to the water stuff. Any of you guys have or heard anything on the Berkey Water Filter? Have heard some good things about it.

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As to the water stuff. Any of you guys have or heard anything on the Berkey Water Filter? Have heard some good things about it.
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I have three Berkey's listed in my 'supplies' post. I have upgraded to the purifiers so they have even more value for emergency use. I had a friend who borrowed one of my older filters to use on his well water (living in Nebraska at the time). It did everything you would expect. I know someone else who uses one at their cabin. They fill it with creek water.
 
We are not safe. We don't know what will happen next. The events in the next seconds, month, year, century are still questions in our mind. With this, we need to be ready. We should always have Disaster preparedness kits in our homes. So when time comes that an unexpected event happened, we won't be that pitiful because we know that we have something prepared in times of these.
 
I have all of peweps posts backed up on a thumb drive and on laminated hard copies. When the world ends I will march across the hemisphere and spread the gospel of pewep:

qY8jBhX.jpg
 
I'm really glad to see all of you are so prepared, it's going to make it much more rewarding for me when I'm stealing all your dehydrated meals after I rape/enslave your families. Happy hunger games!
 
EricVonDoobie said:
I'm really glad to see all of you are so prepared, it's going to make it much more rewarding for me when I'm stealing all your dehydrated meals after I rape/enslave your families. Happy hunger games!
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[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6UF0BAqWoVg]Kiwiburger Come at me Bro - YouTube[/ame]
 
At the moment, I'm probably the least prepared. Do you think living out of a hotel is a good idea? Probably not. Am renting a house about 5km away though, so maybe that will come in handy if shit hits the fan within the next couple weeks.
 
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