It seems you depend on others for quite a bit sir. Will this kid be there to fetch you things in an emergency situation? If you’re counting on that then, well…I don’t like your chances. I’m glad nothing has really happened to you in your life, hope that continues. But to depend on that is folly and I will submit, not a wise move.
I prefer to enjoy the benefits of technology, put have a sound back up plan with the knowledge, experience and gear to prevent or mitigate a situation should it happen. I like the idea of working toward self reliance and not having to depend on someone else to do something I really should have done myself. Or depending on them being there in a situation where frankly they won’t be there.
Actually, yes I have. In the majority of emergency situations the three most common means of death, beside the actual possible trauma of the event itself, are hypothermia, hyperthermia and dehydration. I have these three things covered in addition to other contingencies.
If you want to discuss health related matters, which isn’t part of the purpose of this or the other threads then you’re making an apple and oranges comparison. Personally, I work out, eat a good diet (which means I don’t drink sodas, don’t eat fried food or pork, don’t smoke, don’t drink, don’t do drugs, don’t eat things with hydrogenated fats/trans fats, have my own fruit and vegetable garden and purify my water). Will everyone do so? Nope. Just as not everyone will prepare themselves for an emergency situation. Basically it is prudent life choices and not everyone will make them.
Emergency situations happen to real people, in real life on a daily basis. One can ignore that and depend on others to supply their needs or one can make a choice to have a basic plan in place. If one feels they don’t need to prepare then they simply don’t need to read and/or participate in the threads I’ve started or linked. It would be a pointless waste of their time since as I’ve mentioned, this isn’t a debate. It is information provided to those that are interested.
i have a pack with most of the above in it.
space blankets
energy granola bars.
2qt water bottle.
meds.my specific prescriptions and ibuprofen,diphenhydramine antihistamine,triple antibiotic,immodium,aspirin,iodine,ect.
3 assorted mre.
several swiss army/multitools
an arc-aaa and several energizer lithium aaa.
an arc-ls and 8 energizer lithium aa.
4 aaa and 8 aa eneloops.
55w folding solar panel.folds about 10”square.morningstar charge controller velcroed in the wrap.
7ah agm battery.
duracell 30 minute aaa aa charger.
12v cellphone charger.micro and mini usb cable.
an icom q7a 2m/70cm transciever.has general coverage recieve and can do frs,gmrs,murs as well as amateur.runs from 2 aa.
so same stash of batts serves it too.
a compass.
fire starter kit and several 35mm film cans of tinder and vasilene soaked cotton.a bic lighter to cheat.its still flint and steel ;-).
cheap raincoat that can fit in ones pocket.
now not everyone is going to want all this to carry in a pack but i have no problem.
only items here that need periodic attention is water,agm battery,and the energy bars.
rotate/recharge,refill as needed.i find that the water is ok if i add 2-3 drops of unscented bleach as i fill it.
energy bars are handy anyway and get grabbed regularly so replenished often.
every 2 months i plug the battery into the anderson powerpole outlet on my ups and let it float overnight.
these connectors are standard for ares/amateur radio emergency services.
all 12v stuff i own has these.
My post was sarcasm, i am a bit of a prepper as well, though ironically i moved into a new place, it was the beginning of winter and i thought about the biggest emergencies being no heat, no electricity and no water. I always have some potable water available, always have food, lights and laptop (and car) for electricity, but lighting is the most important, charcoal and natural gas for cooking (in winter though thats tough, i would avoid cooked food especially meat in an emergency because monoxide is deadly and cooking outside is too cold), food can be stored outside in animal safe locations so frozen food won’t spoil, but no backup for heat. 3 months later the furnace dies so the only thing i didn’t have a backup for was toast on the tail end of –30ºC.
Fortunately it was only about –10ºC for the 4 days it took to get it repaired. Heat in winter is a hard to store commodity.
I like your list. The fire starter kit caught my eye as that is an area I’m really drawn to. We do a lot of remote camping and I like to be really redundant in the area of fire starting and tinder. If it’s of any interest to you, our groups been using this for quite a while and it is outstanding:
And for the vasaline and cotton, here’s a neat idea that we also use that is a bit more compact than the film cans (which I use to use prior to these other ways).
I beg to differ. Emergency situations only happen to clueless people who refuse to consider Risk Assessments and wander past the “Here There Be Dragons” lines without paying attention to their surroundings or situation.
To the rest of us, Crisis Situations are merely entertaining diversions from the day-to-day drudgery of Life.
As for me, one of the most rewarding things I do is to take little buckaroos out & show them how to kill, cook and eat the dragons.
And why doesn’t anybody hear about us?? Because “… and then he solved all his problems with the stuff he had brought along ”just in case” & saved himself and his family” makes for a boring-ass news story!
But of course that just concurs with all you’ve said…
Not shilling, but consider making your lanyards, zipper pulls and key fobs out of Tarred Hemp, (or Tarred Cotton if you’re a hater and believe hemp is evil)…
It smells WONDERFUL and can be teased apart to make some very dandy Tinder…
Also, Rayon cloths (“dew-rags”) in your BOB make dandy fires, even though they suck at everything else you’d want a cloth for…
Mine has a cotton bandanna as well. I finally got the whole thing documented and posted today. I’ve put a lot of time, effort and money into mine, so I welcome comments on my build.
I see you’ve really put some thought into your pack. Couple of comments; I see where you’ve said you’ve tested most of the contents of your pack. Big thumbs up on that! That’s why I favor building a pack rather than just buying one premade. That way you’ve got experience with it and know exactly what’s in it. Last year our SEP group did a series of deep woods trips. First and foremost it was for fun, fellowship and just getting out in nature. But it also provided the opportunity to put our gear to the test and allowed us the opportunity to tweak the gear/contents when necessary. Many adjustments were made over the course of the fall/winter.
Secondly, I like your choice of Sawyer for filtration. I have several of their products such as the squeeze bottles and the plastic quart cup. You’re exactly right in your writing that water preps aren’t the sexiest prep, but right on top of the list of most important!
Thanks for the feedback, guys! My bag has been camping a couple times but the plans to strap it onto my back and do the final test of living off the bag for 72 hours has been foiled by my neck injury.
One thing I noticed taking it camping was that my camp mates were into the first aid kit every day at least. So I’ve been trying to buff out the medical supplies. It still has a little ways to go.
@DeputyDave: I will probably add a Katadyn hiking filter so that I can drink sludge if needed. The Sawyer filter assumes that I’ll be drinking mostly clear water since I live in the northwest. But for now I’m still good since I have water treatment tabs and I can boil, too.
Looking on Ebay for different bags for my nephew at the moment. They have a TON of bags there of all different types at really great prices. I have several Maxpedition product, but also have ATG, Condor and other clone bags that frankly are just about as good. If Maxi is a 10 then these bags would be a 9 and for about a fourth of the price of a Maxi, well, I like to be frugal when possible. I have a bunch of them reviewed in this thread;
Personally I’d say AA batteries are not the best choice, if there’s no power and it’s all gone to sh*t,every man and his dog will be after AA, C, D etc batteries
But one thing that suddenly wont be top of people’s get at any cost list is the now completely useless laptop computers.
an almost endless source of relatively high powered 18650 batteries that few people know about or have a torch (or 50 torches) that can utilise them, or the skill set to make them work in radio’s etc
I specifically recommended Rayon (e.g. a colorful ladies’ skirt or cheap “Hawaiian” Shirt) to save the Cotton for the uses Deputydave described. Rayon seems to keep me cooler when wet, and it dries quickly, ignites easily and burns fiercely when used as Tinder.
Plus, it’s usually VERY loudly colored (for signalling/being Seen).
If you wear bleached-white “T-shirts”, they’re usually 100% Cotton, which seem (to me) to work better than “dew rags” for most of that list of uses — due to no dye. That “muck” you’re filtering and any blood, is easy to spot on a bleached-white T-shirt… Plus, the bleaching (not good for colored handkerchiefs) helps keep germs away.
But these are all pretty-much “last-ditch” ideas anyway. “Fortune favors the Prepared”.
Dittos on the reality of off-the-shelf ANYthing when the Zombies show up!! TheFlasher had a Good Question there. Dittos on the free 18650s, and to answer the End-Of-The-World-As-We-Know-It question, who has a Solar Cellphone Charger ?
The sun usually shines enough, in most places, to keep your flashlights working for emergencies at night…
Works for me, anyway.
Dim
PS: Even if you prefer “smart” phones, a laptop is an excellent source of 18650s!
I’m starting a series of discussion on the SEP forum designed to look at various scenarios and ways to address, mitigate or even prevent (if possible) certain situations. Some scenarios are specific, some more wide open. They range from light and fluffy to worse case situations. The purpose is for folks to detail how they view the scenario and what they’ve done to address/mitigate/prevent the situation. Different people have different priorities based upon location, local weather, experience, skill sets, health and physical abilities etc. In this way these scenarios/situations can be looked at from many view points and perhaps bring something to light someone else hasn’t thought about or planned for. We can often learn from other’s experiences. Feel free to view, participate in, pass around etc.
I like to be prepared for most situations but i want the coles notes versions, what to keep in house, in car and traveling, thats small (car/travel), cost effective and light (car/travel)
The two threads I linked in post #41 above have proven interesting and fruitful. Additionally, I moderate on several different forums, two of which involve this topic i.e. emergency preparedness and self reliance. I started a poll that has proven rather interesting. The premise of the poll question was that electricity has stopped flowing (for whatever reason, long term or possibly permanently) and what level of preparedness the voter felt they had currently. There were four categories to vote in overall.
Currently;
3.75% feel they’re pretty much screwed and have not taken any steps at emergency preparedness.
46.25% felt they’d be okay for up to a week.
36.25% felt they’d be okay for up to several months, perhaps even several years depending on the situation.
13.75% would survive and thrive regardless of whether electricity was restored or not.
Interestingly, a couple just didn’t see the sudden lack of electricity on a large, or even regional scale as being detrimental. I offered this for consideration;
I can’t quite agree with your list, panic, looting and rioting did not happen during the power outage of 2003, it only lasted 24 hours but little harm was done. Longer outages may cause these problems but lets hope social progress brings up far enough along that we are past this type of behaviour (perhaps not quite in our lifetime)
The first 24 hours did not have massive deaths, but it was warm august weather. In –40 winter weather its a different story, if its a localized outage then people are evacuated to functioning centers, if its half of North America you would have a problem since most people have natural gas heating which needs electricity to pump and the furnace needs electricity to run. Only people with wood heating would survive more then a day or those with passivhaus buildings.
I assume they will leave the criminals in the jails, they will just have to bring them food and water and pass it through the bars until they run out. One would imagine they have such a scenario in mind, power outages are infrequent but not unheard of. I assume outdoor exercise will be cancelled and no internet, video games or conjugal visits will be available.
