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Back to the Forum Archives Ridge is not talking about the inconvenience of a snowstorm. He is talking about a major national disaster and he is pulling numbers out of his odoriferous parts. He is no expert. He is an unimaginative politician who cannot think outside his comfort zone. He is definitely outside his. If we suffer any kind of sustained attack we may be under siege for weeks or months. How do we handle that? I dare say, not with a couple of boxes of crackers and a can of beans; probably not with a box of plastic wrap and a roll of duct tape either. This kind of silliness borders on the surreal. First, let's get past this nonsense of three days. What we really need for survival is enough supplies to keep us alive until we can adapt to a new reality. That is not three days, It could be months. You may need enough stuff to survive until you can plant and harvest crops. Perhaps Ridge and his cronies are afraid they will cause a panic if they tell the truth. It's possible they believe that. I think it is more likely that they just don't know the truth. They don't know what to tell us. They are completely outside the confining box of their background. That background is political expediency not life and death survival. My philosophy has not changed since the Y2K scare. It is to be prepared for the worst possible scenario and hope for the very best possible scenario. I did that for the Y2K scare and I am doing it again. This is not about panic. It is about being prepared, the venerable old Boy Scout Motto. For us folks who live in rural America, it is not as mind boggling as it may be for the cliff dwellers among us. Out here, we are always prepared for some kind of extended inconvenience. What should we be prepared for? How about the classic example? What happens if our power grid fails? That was my biggest concern for the Y2K scare. For this time around, it is still my biggest concern. What if our capacity to produce electricity is interrupted or destroyed? I don't care if our banks fail. We don't need banks. We never have. Banks are for the business community, not for real people. If I was going to attack another country, the first thing I would hit, if they had one, is their power grid. For a modern civilization, that is a crippling blow by itself. It is true of any nation in NATO. If you destroy their power grid, you render them dysfunctional. In that case, the population would be without any civil organization. The people will be on their own. For all practical purposes their government would cease to exist because their communication would cease. That is the point. If our power grid fails we are out of business. We are all on our own. It is not just that we lose our electric stove and our lights. We will not have anything that depends on electricity for its deliver. The biggest of those will be potable water. It will also include all of what we think of as our essentials. Among them are groceries, gasoline, and fuel oil. That is why I have disaster insurance in the form of essential supplies. Most of us pay thousands of dollars per year for auto insurance. What I'm talking about here is life and death survival insurance at a cost of less than one grand. The best part of this is, most of the stuff will eventually get used with or without a disaster. It is stuff we normally use. We must keep in mind that we are dealing with religious fanatics. They have no problem dying for their cause. I am all for accommodating them before they do us damage. In the meantime, let's be prepared. If you don't feel you need all of this stuff, fine, but look it over. Go as far as you think is prudent. Lets just not pretend that this enemy cannot get to us. They can, and they can do considerable damage. So here is my current list. It may grow as I notice other things. Let's start with water. Without it, your life expectancy is measured in days, not weeks. Even out here, where it comes from a well, we tend to take our supply of water for granted. We use and squander it reckless. We shower in it, flush it away, and spray it on our lawns and gardens. Our water supply is totally dependant on our power grid. Without electricity, there is not even drinking water for our kids. The authorities tell us to put in some bottled water. That is irresponsible in the extreme. You cannot store enough bottled water. Each person needs as much as three quarts a day just for drinking. Sure, buy bottled water for short term, but for long term we need a better way of getting or producing drinkable water. I know of two ways off the top of my head. The best one is a well with a hand pump. That will work in many rural areas, but probably not in the cities. In the cities, the best method may be a still. With a still, any body of water can be made into drinking water, even the ocean. Outside of trying to find a chemistry lab supply store, I wouldn't know how to buy one. Most country boys could probably make one, but city folks may not know how. So, I would suggest going on line and finding out how to build one. When you do, you may discover that you already have everything you need to build it. A still is one of the simplest devices around and quite easy to improvise. The next most important thing is food, especially for children. Most adults I know could go a month without food, much to their own betterment. Most kids can't go a week without permanent damage. So what foods do we need First, dried beans, rice, and canned meat are key items. We don't want canned beans. For the food value, they take up too much space. As to canned meat, Spam is a favorite. With just water, beans, rice, spam, and firewood you can live better that any peasant in any other part of the world. In addition to those basics, I would have lots of pasta, powdered milk, powdered eggs, flour, yeast, baking soda, baking powder, sugar, and brown sugar. For flavoring I want herbs and spices, especially salt and pepper plus onion flakes and garlic powder. For quick energy foods, we can add dried fruits like dates, raisins, peaches, and apricots. Nuts of all kinds would also be nice. How about accidents? They are sure to occur. For that we don't want just a first aid kit. We do want adhesive bandages for sure. We also want big bandages, compresses, tape, splints, peroxide, alcohol and aspirin. Add whatever Pain medication you can get and as much as you can get. Any antibiotic available would help, however mild. Also anti-itch ointments. And, if you take medication, try to have a six month supply or a way of getting a six month supply. Surgical instruments may be useful if you can get them. What else? A source of heat is essential. Snuggling together can get real old when you have not had a bath for a couple of weeks. If we have a fireplace, we should have a lot of firewood. If not we can buy some kerosene heaters and lots of kerosene. For cooking we need a camp stove with plenty of bottle gas. For light get a lantern with extra wicks. One good rifle and a lot of ammunition. We will hope it is
only for hunting. Learn to shoot it accurately. don't waste bullets.
Read Che Guevara's "Guerrilla Warfare." It is full
of good survival information. For the worst disaster, we will need to plant and harvest crops. We may even need to build things. For that we will need tools. The tools are shovels, rakes, spades, hoes, garden trowels, a pickax, a splitting ax, and a bucksaw. Hand tools are a hammer, saw, drills, pliers, and at least one multipurpose knife. Some may say, "What's the use in living if it is going
to get that bad?"
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