Category: Personal Preparedness

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72 Hour Kit Rotation

Many products and services bill themselves as a “set it and forget it” way of getting things done. Adequate preparedness, however, clashes with this approach. Knowledge fades, food spoils, and medicine expires. One of the most important aspects of preparedness, then, is a refresh or rotation of your supplies or knowledge.

I’m a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (like many people in Utah). Why do I mention that on this blog? Well, every six months our Church has a huge conference over two days. Since it’s such a frequent and expected event, I (like many others of whom I’m aware) have used the weekend as an easy reminder for me to rotate my supplies. Specifically, I rotate the food in my 72 hour kit (I refer to it as a “bugout bag” since it’s got more goodies than your average kit) and one of my water tanks.

This may be fairly basic for many, but here’s what I did for our bugout bags:

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Protection Planning for Family and Property class

The city of Salem, Utah has begun offering Emergency Preparedness classes on various topics. October’s Emergency Preparedness Class is on Protection Planning for Family and Property. It will be held on Saturday, October 10th, from 10 a.m. to 12 noon at the Salem Community Center, 151 West 300 South in Salem Utah. We are fortunate to have Dave Acosta come and teach this class.
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A Liberal’s View of Preppers

gunsI’m writing this in response to a blog post by a liberal blogger that appears to live in Oregon and calls Barney Frank her hero!

She recently blogged that:

“Preppers Scare the Crap Out of Me”

In a post which is loaded with prejudice, falsehoods, slander and other good stuff.   I’m writing this response for a couple reasons.  First, to try to explore the thoughts and mindset of those who are dead-set against being prepared for hard times.  Second, to look at some of the falsehoods presented in her post.  Third, to rant a bit about crazy people who believe that everything is peachy in the world.

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Electricity During an Emergency: Solar Power Generation


photo credit: twentyeight

For several months I’ve been exploring different options for generating electricity in a TEOTWAWKI scenario. My initial search revolved mainly around gasoline generators, and I decided that I would get a Honda EU2000i. This is a great unit that can also be converted to accept not only gasoline, but propane and natural gas as well. This makes it a versatile unit worth considering if you have a source for any of these three fuels.

However, the more I thought about it, the more I realized that this was not a good option for my needs. I ultimately decided not to buy the generator for a couple reasons. First, generators are loud. If you are in a crap-hit-the-fan scenario and are using your generator, then you are likely the only one in the area making that much noise. You will stand out and attract unwanted attention very easily. Second, the usefulness of this generator is directly dependent upon the source fuel. When your supply runs out, then the generator becomes a heavy paperweight. You could barter for additional fuel, sure—but in a dire emergency, the general supply of oil-based fuels will likely quickly deplete. Prompted by Wade’s post, I had been considering acquiring a propane tank for long-term emergency use. But even still, the usefulness of this item has a hard limit that acts as a barrier for utility.

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Lightning Safety and Preparedness

“When Thunder Roars, Go Indoors!”

National Lightning Safety Awareness Week 21-27 June 2009

This week is National Lightning Safety week so let’s take a few minutes to talk about lightning and how it affects preppers.  There isn’t much you can do to prep for lightning to hit you, if that happens you better be right with God.  But what about lightning hitting near you – your home, your neighborhood, etc. The biggest impact of a lightning strike for us is usually the power being out.  It turns out that there are plenty of things you can do to try to encourage lightning to not hit you.

There are an estimated 25 million cloud-to-ground lightning flashes each year in the U.S.   So far in 2009, there have been 15 fatalities due to lightning. On average, there are 400 people hit by lightning each year, resulting in about 80 deaths.

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Final call for orders on water storage tank option 2

We are excited about those that have been able to participate in the high-capacity water storage tank group buy. We will soon have a lot more people prepared water-wise. The last orders for option 1 were collected Saturday. That option is complete. The window to submit orders for option 2 has been extended to Tuesday, 30 June. We will place the combined order the next day. Those that have already placed their orders should have already been contacted by the distributor to arrange for payment. Additional orders (between now and the end of the month) will be contacted after the order is closed.

The product is a high-capacity residential water storage tank. It holds 275 gallons (the equivalent of five 55 gallon water drums) and is being sold for $345 (includes shipping). The unit fits through a standard doorway so you can place it in a back room or a basement. Please note the SureWater tank also comes in a 525 gallon option. While we did not include the larger size in the original announcement, it is available for the same discount at $470.

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Survival Book Review: One Second After

I’ve just finished reading One Second After
by William R. Forstchen – I received it two days ago – I couldn’t put it down.  This is an excellent book that I fully recommend every Survivalist/Prepper/Anyone Else read.  Seriously, this book is one of those that will help to open people’s eyes to just how fragile we are and just how stinkin’ hard it is going to be to survive TEOTWAWKI.

The book is based on an EMP event and most of the things in it are pretty close to all the research I’ve seen on EMPs.  The survival story is quite well researched and explored as well.  The book covers the time period from when an EMP event occurs to one year later and includes several of the same type of survival scenarios we read in Patriots.  The great thing about this book is that it makes you think broadly about survival and just how prepared you really are for it.  Reading it made me think of some areas where I can improve my preps but also made me feel that I was well prepared in several areas.  The saddest part of this book is the realization of just how bad it will be for the wholly unprepared, which is a large majority of our population.

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Evacuation/Emergency Combat Readiness

Paris rioters in 2008
Paris rioters in 2008

This is the seventh installment of the Evacuation Preparedness Kit Series.  The first post, on Evac Prep Basics is here, and the second post, which introduces the Evac Prep Master List is here.  The third post, and the first post on the list review is here.  This post will cover Combat Readiness.

Contrary to the belief of some, being a Prepper is NOT synonymous with being well armed and ready to protect yourself and your preps in a violent situation.  However, this article is specifically about being prepared to defend yourself, your family and your preps if it comes down to it.

History shows us that when things go bad we can expect riots, looters, roving gangs of marauders and plenty of random acts of armed violence.  We have witnessed this just this week with the riots in Iran that ended in violence.  Or we can look at the looting during Hurricane Katrina, rioting and looting during the L.A. Rodney King riots, the French riots (pictured above) and several others.

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Evacuation Kits – 72 Hour Kits/BOBs/G.O.O.D. Bag Management

72 Hour Kits - Serenity

This is the sixth installment of the Evacuation Preparedness Kit Series.  The first post, on Evac Prep Basics is here, and the second post, which introduces the Evac Prep Master List is here.  The third post, and the first post on the list review is here.  This post will cover 72 Hour Kit management.

It seems that every time I inventory my preps I find things that are missing.  It’s usually something like that one time when my wife needed to send a couple water bottles to school and the easiest thing to grab was a couple out of a 72 Hour Kit, then we forgot to replace it.  Or you needed some batteries, or a flashlight, or whatever.  When something can’t be found, it’s hard to not say “Oh, there’s one in the preps somewhere”.   Every time it happens there is always good intent to replace the removed item right away – and invariably it is forgotten about.

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Survivalist Blog Carnival

We’re part of this and fully support it – we recommend checking out all the awesome posts in this carnival! (the rest of this post is a re-post from the carnival)

Welcome to the first Survival and Disaster Preparedness Blog Carnival. I would like to thank everyone who took the time to submit their work. I had a lot of fun looking over all the entries and learned a thing or two in the process!

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Evacuation Preparedness List Review part 3

This is the fifth installment of the Evacuation Preparedness Kit Series.  The first post, on Evac Prep Basics is here, and the second post, which introduces the Evac Prep Master List is here.  The third post, and the first post on the list review is here.  This post will pick up where we previously left off in reviewing the categories on the Master List.

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