January 31, 2005
By Ourselves, For Ourselves: Part 5
Allrighty then!
I was not able to find the particular disk I was looking for with the original post on it, so this is the re-write. It is pretty darn close to the original though so dig in.
Again, we are going on with the fact that we cannot rely on our government to protect us from the common cold, let alone terrorism. So this set of posts is somewhat of a primer on some preparations you might want to take in order to make the bad times not so bad.
******************
We have, in this series, been talking about getting yourself, your family and your home ready for a semi extensive bunkering during difficult times, such as natural disasters and terrorist attacks. Today, were going to deviate from this line of thinking a bit.
You aren�t always at home. You go to work, to the store, to friends and relatives homes, etc and you will need a plan for if you get caught away from your home in a natural disaster or terrorist attack so that you can get back to your home, even if it only going to serve as a supply base.
First though, I must apologize for not covering a very important subject before deviating in this manner. First Aid is something that everyone should know and supplies for aid are something that everyone should have.
I am still searching through First Aid supply houses for the best deals so as to help folks assemble a proper kit. I am doing this because the majority of the kits you can buy at an Army/Navy surplus store or from a magazine are vastly inadequate.
As soon as I find all the necessary links (hopefully in another week or so) I�ll get that post up.
Anyway, back to the topic at hand; the readiness of your vehicle.
Scenario 1: At the mall with the wife. She is wandering in and out of the stores while you�re wishing you were at your local hobby shop. Whether that hobby is the auto parts store, the boat shop or the gun shop, it doesn�t matter, and you�re wondering why she needs another freaking pair of shoes.
Moments later, a moderately large explosion happens at the other end of the mall. A suicide bomber in the KayBee Toys.
Scenario 2: You�re at your local hobby shop and you�re BSing the Saturday afternoon away, as is your want.
Mother Nature acts up and you are now at the boat shop during an earthquake of 7.5. Your wife and kids are at home, 20 minutes away. At least, you're pretty sure they are.
Remember, your vehicle is an extension of your home. George Carlin has an entire skit on �versions of your stuff�. He uses vacations as his example. We�re going to use your vehicle.
First up, for both of the above scenarios you will need a first aid kit (which is why I apologized for not covering those yet). You will want a kit that will cover ten people minimally. Twenty five would be a better idea. Burns, cuts and broken bones will be your most frequently found wounds and you should supply your kit accordingly.
Next, you should already have in your vehicle, emergency kits of tools and parts for minor vehicle repairs, blankets, sources of light and heat, food, water and toiletries. For the last five supplies, you should plan on at least three days for yourself so as to have enough for any extra people you might have with you at any given time.
Your First Aid kit should be kept in a backpack so that you can carry other items with your hands. It would be a good idea to have a large enough backpack so that you can put your water supply in the backpack as well. These will be the two things the wounded will need the most.
Finally, just like your home, you will want to have firearms and ammunition readily available.
Wherever I go, I have my 1911 and 2-8 round mags on my person for a total of 25 rounds. Good enough for stopping a punk robbing a 7-11, but not what you want for dealing with bad guys laden with long arms. So in my truck I have another 100 rounds of 45ACP and either an SKS or a Remington 870 with 200 rounds for each long gun.
While there are risks with keeping a firearm in you vehicle, theft being the largest, there are a number of ways to keep a long gun in your vehicle safely if you do decide to do this. Check with your local statutes about the storage of firearms in vehicles. All I have to do in Washington is store it unloaded and locked in a case or in a different part of the vehicle than the ammunition to be legal. Follow your local laws as I will not be responsible for you breaking them.
The easiest precautions are the ones that you should already be doing and that is parking your vehicle in busy, well lit and open areas and also keeping the firearm out of sight from potential thieves such as in the trunk or hatchback of you car or behind the seats of your truck.
You will want to keep the long gun in a hard shelled, locking case and the bigger the case the better. If the thief has to not only get this big thing out of your vehicle and then haul it around and then cut it open, he may be less inclined to take it. Another thing you can do is to cut the carry handles off. You won�t be carrying this anywhere, so you don�t need them, and it will make the case harder for the thief to heft around.
You do not need to keep a full-on battle rifle in your vehicle. A carbine will do just fine. There was a time I kept a Model 94 Winchester Trapper lever gun in 357Mag in my truck. I bought the SKS to replace it because the Trapper came with walnut stocks and I didn�t like dinging them up. If the S does seriously HTF and you are not at home, you may need to fight your way home. Imagine trying to accurately fire a Garand and drive at the same time.
In scenario #1, you have to do three things: First, protect the wife (especially if she is not a gunny-gal) and yourself, then determine if the suicide bomber has armed friends who are running around to kill the survivors and first responders, then treat the wounded.
You will need to make at least one trip to your vehicle for your supplies and you will have to make the determination as to what to have the wife do. Does she stay hunkered down in the shoe store or follow you out to the truck? If you decide she follows to the vehicle, does she stay there or follow you back in with the water, medical supplies and weapons?
Remember, in Israel they are facing pairs of suicide bombers; one who blows themselves up and another who blows up those who are helping the victims of the previous bomber.
Either way, when you get back into the building, make sure that 911 has been called and start triaging the wounded. Hopefully this is an isolated incident and not part of a combined attack plan and EMT and fire units will be able to arrive soon.
In scenario #2 your first responsibility is to get the wounded out from under debris and triaged. Have those that aren�t injured dig out those that are while you go to your vehicle for your kit.
The power will probably be out, so remember to bring your light source. When you get back, make sure everyone known to be in the building is accounted for. If anyone is status unknown, hand off your light source to someone able bodied and have them go look for others while you�re taking care of the wounded.
Once the situation at your location is under control, you will want to go home and see what the situation there is. But, before you can do that, you may need to drop off the wounded at the local hospital.
Remember, there are probably dozens, if not hundreds of wounded in your area and EMTs will not be able to respond to and transport everyone, everywhere effectively. Know your location in contrast to the medical facilities and plan your route accordingly. The roads will probably be clogged, especially within the vicinity of the hospital and you may need to leave your vehicle and carry or help the wounded into the building.
Now you have to make another decision. Do you stay at the hospital and help or do you go home. This all depends on the situation and you have to make that call. On the way to the hospital, you should try to get in touch of those at your house. If everything is well at home base, no damage, no one running around looting the neighborhood, it might be a good idea to stay at the hospital for a while and help the staff. Otherwise, you can always go, check everything out at home and try to get in touch with family and come back to the hospital.
These are things that we all need to think about in this day and age. While scenario #2 is seemingly more likely than scenario #1, you should prepare for both.
Posted by Nukevet at 04:38 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
January 27, 2005
I�m Glad I Own Firearms
Especially after hearing news like this,
Trained 'jihadists' in Oregon, FBI saysThe FBI knows of "jihadists" who have trained in terrorist camps in Afghanistan and now are living in Oregon, the agency's Oregon chief said Tuesday.
"We don't have an imminent threat that we're aware of. But I will say this: We have people here in Oregon that have trained in jihadist camps in bad areas. In the bad neighborhoods of the world," said FBI Special Agent in Charge Robert Jordan.
Jordan refused to say how many "jihadists" live in Oregon.
He said the FBI knows that "they've trained overseas, taken oaths to kill Americans and engage in jihad," but the challenge is "to prove those things."
So, they�re waiting on evidence. Let's just hope that their 'evidence' doesn't end up being a blown up shopping mall. In the meantime, I have my offensive SHTF gear ready.
Which is why I started writing the �By Ourselves, For Ourselves� series. I apologize to those who enjoy those posts for not having one up these past two Mondays. I have the next entry written up, but I saved it on a disk because I write on my lunch break at work AND at home, and I seem to have lost the disk.
I don�t want to do a re-write, even though it was not a long post. I plan on spending this weekend scouring the Analog House and Truck for the damn thing. If I don�t find it by Saturday night, I will do a re-write and then kick myself for losing the original.
Posted by Nukevet at 05:02 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
January 10, 2005
By Ourselves, For Ourselves: Part 4
And with a fresh new week comes a fresh new post.
If you have not yet read the first three installments, I suggest you do so as it will be of help in understanding just where this is coming from.
This weeks post here will be talking about good neighbors and bad neighbors.
I would also like to thank The Rivrdog for linking to these three posts with his blog on preparedness, Paratus.
When you're done here, stop by Paratus and read his essay about the questions arising from the process of getting yourself mentally prepared for situations such as those we're discussing.
Title and key phrase "Who Will We Fight?"
We are sticking with the scenario from the previous essays of being hunkered down in your home with your family, awaiting the restoration of order.
You need to figure out who is and isn�t on your side. Who in your neighborhood is going to help you defend your shelter and who may try to take it from you, and likewise, who you would be willing to help do the same.
Sadly, a good number of neighborhoods these days are just a bunch of people living next to and barely tolerating each other. This does not make for good neighbors without good fences (which we discussed last week).
So, this may also be a chance for you to get out and meet some of your neighbors, hopefully to good ends if you have not already done so already.
You should probably start with the people living on either side of you, since they are the closest and then move to the people living across the street and then move onto the people in back of you.
Of course, some of us may have exceptions to the location of neighbors. Myself, I do not have anyone living behind me unless you count the little old lady that owns the two acres of rolling hillside between the back of my house and the front of hers. I suppose I could go and be friendly, but I think the occasional wave/returned wave will do for now.
This is not just a question of �Do you trust this person with your tools and/or lawn equipment?� It more follows the line of �Do you trust this person with your wife?� or, possibly more appropriately, �Do you trust them to be alone with your kids?�
The reason for these questions is that, in the event of a disaster or attack, your life and those of your family�s will be put at risk. You may need to depend on this person to cover your respective backs. Not only that, but if you are taken out of commission by an attack, you may need this person or persons to look after your family.
In the event of an attack on your shelter, such as the one we�ve been using, you will need to be able to depend on your neighbor/s to come to your aid in fighting off trespassers. A good, accurate shot is just one of the things your neighbor might need to be, but just getting them to just show up for the fight is usually daunting.
They surely don�t want to alert the trespassers who are currently attacking you that they too are occupying a place of shelter, food and water, and sometimes getting people to realize that once the trespassers get done with your house, they will probably move on to others in the neighborhood.
Of course, while scoping out a neighbor for this duty, not scaring the piss out of your neighbor is essential. You might also want to make sure that they don�t think of you as a loony or some sort of uber-survivalist.
I am not very much of a social butterfly. Nor am I any kind of social scientist, so you will have to just feel your way through these people and figure out if they are good candidates for help. Once you find a neighbor who is like minded, you can make up sort of a mutual agreement to come to each others aid.
Once an agreement has been reached, you can discus preparedness plans including, but no limited to, the things we have discussed in the previous posts. You can then move onto fires zones that with be both effective and also safe for you both so as to lessen the chance of friendly fire.
Hopefully, your agreement can be made with a number of your neighbors who will make these agreements with other neighbors, and so on and so forth until you have an entire unified neighborhood that will be a good, strong defense for any gang of trespassers who decide to venture into your area looking for easy pickings.
This type of coalition of neighbors will definitely lessen the ability of potential trespassers getting very far into your neighborhood, thereby lessening the chance that you will have to defend your home with arms.
Now, go make some friends.
If there are any social butterflies out there who have tips of this sort of neighborly interaction, feel free to share them.
Also, I open to any suggestions of topics for this series.
Next week we�ll cover getting the vehicle ready in the case of a terrorist attack at say, the mall.
Posted by Nukevet at 12:18 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
January 03, 2005
By Ourselves, For Ourselves: Part 3
Well, hello there!
My apologies for skipping the week between Christmas and New Years. I figured that I had left you with $200-$1000 in stuff to get taken care of in the first two installments, so we could take a week off and get caught up. Also, I write these things on Saturday night. I�m sure everyone remembers what that Saturday was and I don�t need to go into why I didn�t feel like writing that evening.
For those new to this series, I started writing it because 1. I think the gov't is doing a crappy job in 'protecting us' against terrorist attacks. Which is good, because 2. I don't know if I'd like to live in a country where the government has that much control over the movements and actions of the people.
I believe that Americans do things best when they do things by themselves, for themselves, hence the title.
It would probably be best for newcomers to start at the first part before going on. Make sure you read the comments section. I am only one guy and, while I would like to be able to think of everything, I can't, and there are some good ideas there too.
Anyway, today we�re going to talk about putting up a protective perimeter around your shelter (AKA: your house) in times of trouble.
We�re going to stick with the same scenario as in the last one: multiple small to medium scale terrorist attacks in and around your home town have knocked out power and water and killed off or injured a number of first responders.
You are hunkered down in your home with your family (wife and/or kids) and are waiting out the storm until order and facilities are restored. You have enough food, water, etc and armaments to make it for a month or so.
We�re going to go about ten to fifteen days into the problem and there are lightly armed gangs of approximately ten people or so who are hungry and thirsty running about, going from house to house in your neighborhood looking for food.
They are mostly on foot, but a couple of these gangs have managed to keep/get a car up and running and are willing to use it as a breaching ram.
Plausible scenario, agreed? OK then, here we go.
First line of defense is a fencing structure. It doesn�t really matter whether it is a live structure (hedge or row of small trees) or man made (wooden or metal). You want something that will provide a barrier so a person will either have to go around, over or through so as to slow them down and give them a place to be pinned.
After you choose and build your alternative, you will want to do two things; know its distance from various points on your property and put it into your head that you CAN shoot through it. Do not let yourself be fooled into thinking that the cover you provide for your enemy is bulletproof. Let them find out that surprise later. Very few fencing materials can stop a 5.56 or 7.62 projectile or even 00Buck pellets, remember this.
For example, I have 5ft tall chain link fencing surrounding 2/3 of my back yard and 6ft slat wood on the other 2/3.
Along the sides and into the front of my house, I have a 2-5ft earth barrier (going up from my yard at a steep angle) along my driveway, between myself and one neighbor and a 2-3ft earth barrier (going down from my yard vertically with a rockery) on the opposite side, running along my other neighbor�s driveway.
The street in front of my house goes uphill from the latter neighbor to the first one and is 35ft from my front door. 3/4 of the front of my house has a 3ft hedge that runs along the street. In between the hedge and the street is a ditch that is 2ft deep and 2-3ft across. Ditches make excellent barriers but are not looked at very kindly by cities or neighbors. The other 1/4 of the front of is my driveway.
The farthest distance I will have to shoot within my property is diagonally, corner to corner, across my backyard. That distance is 70ft, which is still a good distance for my Remington 870 shotgun with a screw-in Turkey choke. Hence my multiple purchases of 00Buck ammo, totaling more than the wife thinks I can ever shoot (that is a quote).
So, I have 4/5 of my house surrounded by barriers that would slow or stop a person on foot, and � of it would slow or stop a vehicle. Now let�s look at the weak points; my driveway entrance and the 2-5ft uphill barrier. We�ll start with the driveway.
I want it accessible for me in day to day movements, which means I don�t want to put up a permanent fence or other structure, but I want it easily blocked in times of trouble.
I can go two different routes here: Large blocking structure or something strong that can be quickly strung across the entrance.
I can put one of the wife�s cars across the driveway. She�s probably got less than 1/8 of a tank of gas in there anyway and it�s fully insured, so what the hell, right?
But that will give anyone who wants to use it good cover. Yes, a rifle round is able to go through both doors, but I�d rather not pay for their cover.
My other option is a cable or chain fence that is strung across the entrance to the driveway. Trespassers will have to go through or around it, hopefully towards the solid looking hedge, where they can be picked off easily.
To make this idea work, I can do two things: concrete permanent posts on either side of the driveway and have the cable or chain fence made up so that it is quick and easy to install. This is most easily done by putting heavy duty light posts on either side of the driveway. They�ll be more functional than even the neighbors know.
Or, I can just have concreted piping in the ground that I can slip my fence poles into. I just have an extra step in putting the posts in before I string my fencing.
Things to think about for the fence option,
You want to make sure that you are the only one able to take it down. If you use the slip post method, you don�t want someone to be able to come along and pull your posts out of the ground. Think of a way to lock or bolt them in their place.
Or if you are using the permanent posts, you don�t want to use something like carabineers to hold you fence up. The easier it is for you to put up the easier it is to take down. I like heavy duty U-bolts with either over-long threads or a lockable cross-bolt. These will also be strong enough to hold the fence together should fence have to try and hold back a vehicle.
Is your driveway two cars wide? If so, you will probably want to have a support post in the middle to help hold the fence upright. You will probably have to have a hole cut in your driveway for a slip post.
Speaking of post holes, you will want your posts to be at lest 2ft deep in the ground. 3ft would be better. You can decide on how tall you want your fence, but 3-4ft is probably enough. Remember, this fence should be made of at least � inch cable or chain and will not be lightweight.
You want to make the lowest string across within 8-12 inches of the ground and then another horizontal cross section every 8-12 inches. If you can, put a vertical string every 3-4ft so as to make it like a net. It�ll be stronger and harder to get through.
Now onto the uphill barrier, that is my neighbors property and I doubt he�d look very kindly on me digging or putting fence posts in his yard. About my only option here is to use vehicles. The barrier is only 20ft from the front corner of my house, so any vehicle that gets up enough speed could bust through any temporary fencing I could construct and probably end up coming through the window. It is probably just best to put a vehicle on the slope, nose first so as to offer as little cover as possible and hope for the best.
I could also park a vehicle facing towards the street across the top of the slope. At my eye level, that would put me looking under the vehicle at the feet of those trying to use the car as cover. I think a rifle round in the ankle would immediately make them take a position that would be more advantageous for me to stop their threat.
If nothing else, the uphill slope can be used as bait for the trespassers to use an entry lane that will look easy, but will actually be a kill zone. Non-militarily trained folks are quite often unpredictable, but they are also generally easy to lure into traps and ambushes.
Most if not all of this exterior preparation will probably make the house look occupied. The trick is to make the placement of things look random or haphazard. Not an easy thing to do. But if I toss stuff like the patio set, the lawnmower, the trash cans and odd junk from inside the house out into the front yard, people passing by might think the house has already been looted and therefore, less inviting.
The next step is to block up the entrances to your home.
With no power gas or water, you have anywhere from 4-6 unusable lumps of metal inside your house. Your refrigerator, stove, washer and dryer to start with, but you may also have a chest freezer and/or a dishwasher.
While none of these is actually bulletproof, they make good door jams and cover. Just move them where you want them any they become useful once again.
For instance, the stove is probably the heaviest and can go behind the front door so that it can�t be forced open easily. The refrigerator is the tallest and thereby also the longest. It can be laid down in front of a sliding glass door for use as cover. Use the rest of the appliances in the same manor, to block doors and to give you added protection in your firing positions.
Now to any bodies that may pile up. This is a legal question and I am not a lawyer. But I do know that a gang of brigands trying to forcibly invade my home is a damn good reason to open fire.
All I can say is to use you best judgment. Do what you want with the corpses. Stack them up or leave where they fell. DO NOT let their friends come back and get them. You then loose the upper hand in any future legal questions that may arise.
Also REMEMBER to always leave yourself an out.
You may need to just un-ass the area and retreat if the attack is too strong and you don�t want to pen yourself in. Figure out which entrance is the hardest for the trespassers to get to and make that one your escape hatch.
I have door that faces out into the back yard. The back yard has the most fencing and is easily defended. An attack could come from that direction but it would easily be put down as there is very open and has little cover for the attackers. If I make that door my escape hatch, I need to put my truck with supplies outside that door in order to make a decent escape. My truck would not like to drive through the chain link fence, but I know where the weak point is and it would make it through.
Now, after all of this, you might also want to add improvised munitions to your defense arsenal, things such as remote directional explosives (claymores) and booby traps.
I WILL NOT advise as to those here, since I do not want to go to jail.
I would suggest that, if you haven�t as of yet, you look into those. They are oh, so handy.
There are hundreds of reference books out there (the P00r Man�s James B0nd is just one of many you may have heard of) for you to peruse, I suggest doing so. Although I would not suggest you buy them online or use your credit card to purchase them, for obvious reasons.
Now that we have covered this topic, I would welcome any additional ideas in the comments section or my e-mail box.
I would also welcome any suggestions as to book titles and/or suppliers of said book titles.
I know I am not the only one who buys these damn things. Although, it has been over a decade since I have had to make a new purchase.
So help a brother out!
Next week we'll cover 'Good Neighbors and Bad Neighbors'.
Also, again, please feel free to put suggestion for future installments in either the comments or my e-mail box.
Posted by Nukevet at 11:28 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
December 20, 2004
By Ourselves, For Ourselves: Part 2
Allrighty then! Last week we covered the minimums on armament for your home during tough times.
Today, we�ll cover nearly everything else, supply wise. Namely: food, water, power, light and toiletries. I am going to stay away from the subject of medical equipment and supplies as that is a whole topic in and of its self. For now, let me just say this, if you bought it as a kit, you quite probably got ripped off.
We�ll cover the assembly of a quality first aid/medic bag in the next couple weeks, both for at home and in the vehicle. I am compiling my links to medical supply houses and looking of deals.
Continuing on last week�s theme, we are assuming that you are able to stay home in this situation. This means we have the �shelter� portion of the equation taken care of.
Also, please remember that we are doing this in a way so as to not alarm your family. These things are being done to keep them safe, and we don�t need for them to get spooked, scared or frightened that something bad is going to happen or that you have fallen off your rocker. For some reason, seeing people get prepared frightens folks. I have yet to figure that one out.
OK, let�s say that there have been multiple terrorist acts in your locale, including a rash of bombings and shootings in public areas and jihadis driving vans filled with explosives into the transfer stations of your region�s electrical supply and the police and fire stations.
Muhammed and Malvo had a section of Virginia in near lock down after a few random shootings. Imagine that, ten times larger, being done by a sleeper cell of twenty jihadis who watched the television during those couple of weeks.
If that is too much to believe, then just imagine mother nature coming through and kicking ass in your region. Earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, hurricanes, tsunamis, tornados or even an extra heavy snowstorm can shut down the system and make it so that your life will suck for two to four weeks.
You and your neighbors are screwed and the Red Cross isn�t coming to help any time soon. Also, your state�s national guard is suffering a 50% �No Show� rate due to the guardsmen and women having decided that staying home and protecting their family is more important than being shipped off to protect yours.
This part of the hypothetical is perfectly feasible. While I do believe that folks in the NG are good and honorable people, can you imagine the head of a household, being told that they have to leave their wives and children at home, alone, in the dark, with looters (or terrorists) running around unhindered, so that they can go protect a town 60 miles away that the Governor has concluded is more deserving of protection than their own.
Personally, I�m imagining a bunch of unanswered cell phones.
Food is the first thing you need to think of because you don�t want to starve. It is also the easiest because you know what you like and where to get it.
You can forget the government�s suggestion about having three days worth of food. Think thirty days of two meals a day for each member of your family.
The only real difficult part about food is storage. The food needs to sit for possibly months at a time, unrefridgerated, and still be safe for human consumption.
Myself, I like canned goods. They�re stackable, there is no need for dishes and you can easily count �one can = one meal�. Also, if the societal troubles continue, you can use the empties to set up a perimeter warning system. Sugary snack foods are also good. Salty ones are better as they instill upon you a need to get water into your system.
Again, I like to use the 105mm Arty boxes for storage as you can fill them with about a week�s supply of food each. .50cal ammo cans are good for food storage since even canned food isn�t as heavy as ammunition and they�re watertight. If you can get your hands on 30mm ammo cans, these are even better.
Where you store it is as important as how you store it. A basement, mud room, closet or corner of the garage is the best since we need to keep the supplies at room temperature or cooler. Putting them in a garden shed or something of that nature is problematic as that space generally heats up and cools down with the elements of day/night and the seasons. You want your food�s temperature to be stable. Also, having to drag your supplies into the house during a time of emergency is a pain in the ass.
Remember to date you containers and rotate them out. If your chosen food comes with an expiration date, use that. Even though canned goods are supposedly good for years, I rotate mine yearly.
Now, on to fluids. You will need at least a gallon a day per person for each member of your household. That is just for drinking. Make it two per person per day if you will have to cook with it.
Unless you buy your emergency water supply in cased bottles, you will find that water is a hell of a lot harder to store than food, since almost anything can make water unsafe to drink. If you decide to keep your water in portable containers, first make sure that it is a safe container, then, when you fill up that container, be sure to put in the appropriate amount of those �safe water tabs� in beforehand. There are also �pour through� filters on the market that you can check out, but I�ve found that sugar takes away the taste of the safe water tabs so I�ve never really looked into them and you�ll want to do your own research.
Rotate and refill your supply every six months. Use the old stuff for something useful, like washing the dog or the car.
You will also want to keep a supply of water bladders for bathing. The quantity depends on your climate. If you live in Texas, you will want more than if you live in Wisconsin.
Also, what does your water heater store? Yep, water. My house has a 48-gallon model. But since I�m still currently a renter, I did not get to select it, so I have one with a drain plug instead of a valve. Another thing to keep in mind is where your incoming water filter is. If it is before the tank, you�re probably OK. If it is after the tank, the contents will have to be boiled before use. I have seen filters after the tank more than once, so, if you didn�t build your own house, check it out.
And don�t forget about your pets!
Rover or fluffy will be wanting to eat too. Make sure you have a source of food for them. If, like most pet owners, you spoil them, they�ll get tired of your scraps after about a week or so. You do not want to fight with them for food, they can be very �no holds barred� when they get hungry.
This next topic is somewhat personal, but since you don�t have to tell me, I�m going to ask it anyways.
What are your medical conditions and do you have a thirty day supply of your medicines available. If you are diabetic, you better have a months worth of testing supplies and insulin handy or you�ll be living at the local hospital.
Folks with heart, liver, kidney and intestinal problems all need to make sure they have spare amounts of their prescriptions available. Even if you can get to the pharmacy, it isn�t guaranteed that they�ll be open during tough times.
You can talk to your doctor about getting some emergency quantity meds if you know him or her well, but you will have to be the judge of that relationship. As of late, doctors have been getting nosy about firearms ownership, going so far as to call the police to have them remove firearms from the elderly and infirm. Their justification is that they �don�t want the person to think of suicide�. So be careful when expressing interest in stocking up on your meds.
The same goes for folks with �allergies�. All of you out there with �Hayfever� know what it is like to be stuck in high pollen season with no meds. Stock up and rotate.
Also, are you addicted to anything, like say, tobacco products? You could use the emergency as a good excuse to quit, but going through a full-on nicotine fit in the middle of a disaster would be horrible.
Now, when night falls, it gets dark and you will need light. There are three easy sources of light: electric based (flashlights and lanterns), fire based (candles) and chemical based (glow-sticks). I suggest all three be partaken of since each of them has their own strengths and weaknesses.
Flashlights are best for portable light, but they don�t light up a room well and they run on batteries, which are finite. Even worse, try to charge up a rechargeable model when there is no electricity. The LED flashlights use batteries more slowly than standard bulbs, but they�re more expensive. Battery powered lanterns work well for lighting up a room, but again, they use batteries.
Candles are good for stationary light, but they themselves are of finite supply and can burn down your shelter if not carefully watched. Since the Analog Wife is a big candle fanatic, I encourage her to buy as many as she wants. At any one time, we have a dozen medium and/or large candles in the main room of the house. Also, IKEA sells bags of 100 tea lights for less than $5 and she usually has two of those around. Keep this in mind the next time your wife/girlfriend goes shopping. She can take part of this job off your hands and go shopping at the same time!
Glow-sticks can be used for either portable or stationary light. Tie a string to one end and hang it from the ceiling and you have a decently lit room. You can walk around with it and not worry about fire (plus, if you drop it, it glows, so you can easily find it), but it does not project a beam, and they too, are finite and are more expensive than candles. Though, if you keep them cold, it slows the chemical reaction and they last longer.
Again, take stock of all three and you should be covered. Four sets of batteries for each flashlight or lantern, one flashlight or lantern per person, six to eight medium-sized candles and a hundred or so tea lights and 30 glow-sticks should be a decent supply of light for thirty days.
Other than the candles, none of these light sources provides heat, and even then, a candle�s heat radiation is minimal. If you have a fireplace, just set yourself up with a spare cord of split wood, and you should be fine. If you don�t have a fireplace, and you don�t live in the southern half of America, then you should start thinking about a heat source.
You can bundle up and be your own heater, but playing Nanook of the North in your own home gets old real quick. There are propane heaters that hook directly to you grill�s propane tank. There are also some very common items used in camping that come in very handy for disaster preparedness. Propane camp stoves and lanterns work well in the outdoors, but I would not suggest using these inside your house, even with a partially opened window, but they are options if it is safe to go outside to cook.
Otherwise, we�re talking electricity.
Now, if you don�t generate your own power via solar panels, wind generators or hydro fans, you need to get a generator. They are little expensive, but they can be quite handy around the house. I don�t like to use multiple extension cords when I�m using power tools on my various outdoor projects, so I just roll out the little Honda. You don�t need one that runs the entire house (although that would be nice), just one big enough to run a portable electric heater or a hot plate/toaster oven.
The main downside is that they run on gasoline and gas is dangerous to store. I have a 5-gallon portable tank that we use for the lawnmower. After that, I�m going to have to start siphoning out of the vehicles (remember to never let you vehicle�s tank get lower than half full).
Generators put out two things besides electricity: toxic exhaust and noise. The exhaust will kill you if you keep it indoors and the noise will alert people nearby that something mechanical is running. As I stated in the last entry, if they know that you have electricity, they�ll probably figure out that you also have food and water and want you to share. To try and negate this, you can try running the thing in a garage and piping the exhaust directly from the generator out a window or door or, if available the heat outlet for your dryer. You will need to have a detachable exhaust set-up fabricated and this will cost money and possibly get you strange looks if you go to Midas Mufflers to get it done.
So, if you don�t weld or have a friend who welds, you might just want to gather your materials and tell them it is an �art project� or something. If you decide that you are just going to use a bunch of use muffler clamps, to put everything together, you need to remember that this thing needs to be totally sealed. Get some sort of heat resistant sealant for the joints. Also remember to test it out before you need it.
Now, if you do have equipment that generates electricity, say solar, panels, you will need to take extra caution to protect it. Those big panels say �I have electricity� in huge neon letters to those without power, so be prepared.
I know we have at least one electrical engineer who stops by RNS regularly. I would more than welcome any extra ideas or filling in where I missed anything on this topic.
Another thing to think about is cordoning off the rooms of your home with something like curtains made from wool blankets.
If you have one of those homes with a �convenient open floor plan�, you may need to shrink down the size of the area you are trying to keep warm by getting a hammer and nails and hanging up some wool blankets over door-less passageways between rooms or dividing a room in half via a curtain of these blankets.
If you have a fireplace in the family or recreation room that is, say, 20ft by 40ft, you might want to cut that room down to 20ft by 20ft in order to only have to use half the amount of fuel to keep it warm.
Make your plans ahead of time as it is a real bitch to be sewing together and putting eyelets in wool blankets so that they reach across a 20 foot wide room in the cold and dark.
You might also want to think of materials to cover up your windows. Looters trying gain entry will break through anything to get in, including windows. If your main living area is breeched by an attempt that includes the breaking of the window or sliding glass door, you�re in trouble if you cannot seal that opening up. Cardboard works well. Wood works better. Either way, make sure you have an extra set of blankets to add an extra barrier of insulation.
Now we have come to the ugly part of living without water or electricity. You will have enough food for thirty days, but what happens after you eat? Yes, you�re body wants to get rid of yesterday�s meal.
Unless you get a good deal on �Depends�, you�re going need something to act as a toilet to dispose of bodily wastes. This is surprisingly simple. Go to the hardware store and buy a 5-gallon bucket and a couple bundles of trash bags. If the bucket lids come separately, buy two of them. One lid to cut a big hole in, and the other to seal the bucket up.
That is, unless you want to keep your �poo-bucket� outside in the cold.
Just line the bucket with two bags and change it every couple of days. Put those bags as far away from your living area as possible, for obvious reasons.
And there we are.
Being prepared is just that easy. Minus buying a generator, you can get away with spending less than a couple hundred bucks on getting yourself ready with what is listed here.
And you may never need it. Or you might need it next 4th of July. Take care of yourself and your family members, give yourself peace of mind and thumb your nose at the Jones�. When their lights go out and they�re eating raw cake mix, sit back, kick up your feet on your porch with a good book and a hot cup of cocoa and wave.
Next week, we�ll cover home safety and security tools that aren�t firearms.
Again, any suggestions of anything I may have missed are absolutely welcome. I can�t think of everything that may be necessary, so if you have anything to add, please feel free to do so.
And if there is a topic that you would like discussed, please feel free to let me know and I�ll see what I can do for you.
Posted by Nukevet at 11:08 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack
December 14, 2004
By Ourselves, For Ourselves: Part 1
First off, I would like to thank everyone for the response to my poll of sorts yesterday.
This will be the first of what I hope will be a long running weekly series titled �By Ourselves, For Ourselves�
While some are satisfied to discuss and/or complain about how poor of a job the fed and state governments are doing to �protect us�, I am not.
I firmly believe that Americans do everything better when they do it for themselves, and I would like to share any knowledge I may have gathered along my way of trial and error by doing things for myself.
And since the current topic is about the �protection� of citizens, I am going to start with the items that the Founding Fathers had the stability of mind to realize was a birthright in order that we can actually protect ourselves.
Firearms.
This will be quick and easy, but possibly not painless.
To start, count the members of your household who are over the age of 12. You will need one handgun and one long gun, rifle or shotgun, for each of these people.
All others 7 and 12 become ammo bearers/mag loaders. The rest learn how to get low and stay there until told.
Next, make note of the calibers and buy a minimum of 500 rounds for each handgun and a minimum of 1000 rounds for each long gun.
I keep mine in crate such as this 105 arty crates like this one.
Done.
OK, maybe not.
While you do not need to train the members of your family to the point of them being expert marksmen, sight function and mechanical function of each firearm needs to be taught. Make it simple and fun if they are kids, make it interesting if they are teenagers or adults.
Not to be a self-linker, but if you click on the picture of the woman with the rifle on the right hand margin, you will find a number of links as essays that cover items that pertain to this topic in the Bellicose Women's Brigade.
Remember, the point here is to prepare the household without frightening the household. All of the measures in this series are �Just In Case� measures. Hopefully, you will never have to worry about turning your family into a combat expedition team, but �JIC�, having the basics down early will make the transition to defending the home fort with arms go a little more smoothly.
Also, I am not going to start a drawn out ramble on which guns you should own or use. Although suggestion of what you prefer to use will, of course, be allowed in the comments for a discussion arena or if you have questions on a make, model or type.
You know what you do best with, and if you haven't already, you should learn what your family members do best with.
Living in a neighborhood such as the one I do, a shotgun or carbine rifle will do nicely for me, which is good because anything within 50yards is going to get a snapshot and never move again. Some folks may have the need for a little more reach and should arm and train themselves appropriately.
I�m going to assume that the situation is safe enough for the hunkering down in the home and an evacuation is not on the list. We will cover that in a later entry. Aside from a land born invasion or a dirty nuke going of close enough to your home to make it hazardous for residence, home is pretty much the best place to be.
This is mostly because the transport of supplies is dangerous and time consuming, but also because random terror attacks at shopping centers, schools and other populated public places shouldn�t cause you to run to the hills, and those are the most likely scenarios that will be faced.
Now, some would say that 500rnds of pistol ammo per pistol and 1000rnds of rifle ammo per rifle may seem a bit much. It may be, but that is how much I have available for immediate use because I do not know how long I�ll have to stay buttoned down. A couple days, a couple weeks, a couple months, who knows?
I do not foresee a �Mad Max� type environment after a few local terror attacks, but you never know and you want to be the one with the extra ammo in that situation. After a week or so of no food or water, people start to do strange things and if you are the one who has readied themselves with supplies (we will speak of this later as well), they will want what you have and be knocking on your door. If ten to fifteen of these hungry folks get together, they probably won�t be very interested in knocking, hence the need for firearms.
Notice: There will be little to no tactics spoken of here or in any future essay. Tactics are very hands-on and nearly impossible to relay via the written word. You can, however, drop me a line and I can try and set you in the proper direction for the type of training you are looking for in your area.
When you do buy your ammunition (AKA 'Buy it Cheap and Stack it Deep) make sure you date either the outside of the case or the individual boxes. You will want to rotate out your ammo supply every two to four years, if for no other reason than 'Just Because'. Yes there is some korean vintage milsurp stuff coming out, but I buy it to plink with, not cover my ass.
Remember, we're talking about being prepared here.
Along with the firearms and ammunition, you will need two other things: Parts and Cleaning Supplies.
When I purchase a new firearm, I not only have to factor in the cost of the gun and a couple extra magazines, but also how much it will cost me to keep the gun up mechanically?
I try to make sure that within a month or so of the purchase, I can have most, if not all, of the parts necessary to rebuild the gun, minus the frame, receiver, slide and barrel. In the case of the 1911, I DO have a couple of extra barrels prefitted so as to be easily installed.
Springs are the most common breakable part. Wolff Gunsprings makes good quality and reasonably priced parts in a good variety of different firearms. I have two complete spring kits for every gun I own, �JIC�. I also keep firing pins, extractors, ejectors, trigger groups, pins, etc, in plastic sorting bins like this one.
Numrich is a very good source for parts for even obscure firearms
While it is true that a gun is nothing but a tool, I do not plan on using mine as a club after it breaks and I can�t fix it.
And cleaning supplies are a must, if for no other reason than to provide you with an activity to keep away the doldrums of being bunkered up. A dirty gun malfunctions. Malfunctions = Bad.
You should have two complete kits that look something like this,
For more info on this, see this post from last June.
*****************************************
And that concludes our advice for today. Next week, we�ll get into some of the other things you need in order to stay home, safe and happy during tough times.
After that, we�ll cover topics like home safety and security tools that aren�t firearms, what supplies you should keep in your vehicle, what to do if you are at or near a suicide bombing and what if the situation is so bad that you do have to leave your house, among other things.
Any suggestions for other topics you might want covered are welcome and will be taken under consideration.
Posted by Nukevet at 02:27 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack