An Eclectic List of
Survival/Preparedness Tips and Ideas
By
Kevin S. in Alabama
The
word eclectic means “selecting or employing individual elements from a variety
of sources, systems, or styles”. Thinks
of this article as a Thanksgiving time cornucopia of tips and ideas
in which you can take the tips and ideas that are useful to you and disregard
the rest.
1.
In
all things relating to survival and preparedness, DO THE BEST YOU CAN
WITH WHAT YOU HAVE NOW.
Any amount of preparedness is better than no preparedness. Money is the major limiting factor in most
individual’s preparedness plans. Prepare
as best you can given your financial position.
2.
Look
into Ziploc Slider storage bags.
These bags come in storage type and heavy duty freezer type. Both types are available in quart and gallon
sizes. I suggest purchasing the heavy
duty freezer type if money is not an issue.
The price difference between the storage type and freezer type is not
great.
Unlike some of the lesser quality “zip lock” bags, these bags
have a slider that you pull to seal the bag.
With this slider, you know you have a good seal and you know the bag
will stay sealed.
One can use these bags to organize the items in your bug out
pack. You can put fire making equipment
in one bag, signaling equipment in another bag, etc. Also, by putting all the equipment in your
bug out pack into the Ziploc slider bag, you have turned your non-waterproof
bug out pack into a waterproof bug out pack.
I also suggest you take one of the one gallon size slider bags
and stuff it full of as many slider bags as possible. In a survival situation, the potential uses
for these slider bags are almost unlimited.
You can use the bags to collect water to be purified at a later time. You can use them to store food you
collect. If you had to do a river
crossing you could fill the bags with air and tape them to an injured adult, a
non-swimmer, a child, or even an infant and use them as a flotation device. You could even get creative fill some bags
with air and some bags with water. By
taping the bags in the right position you could make an improvised
self-righting devise to keep the person face up in the water. Bags filled with air could be put into your
bug out bag or taped to it to get it to or close to neutral buoyancy when river
crossing.
3.
Keep a Ziploc Slider bag full of rock salt in your bug out
kit. Salt creates an environment in
which it is hard for infectious bacteria to thrive. For puncture wounds, a little water can be
added to rock salt to make a paste to put in the wound, to suck out
toxins. You can add a lot of water to
rock salt to make a saline solution.
This saline solution is good for washing out wounds. A warm saline solution is good for rinsing
out the mouth when oral infections are present.
This is also good for rinsing the mouth after meals if you cannot brush
your teeth.
This is especially important if you keep your bug out pack in
your vehicle. None of your
over-the-counter or prescription antibiotic creams and powders will survive the
heat level inside your vehicle on a sunny day.
Salt will last essentially forever.
4.
Keep a cylinder of sugar (sucrose), like the
ones you buy on the coffee and tea isle in the grocery store in your bug out
pack. Sugar can be used to treat
infected wounds and was once sold in combination with providone-iodine
solution (Betadine) as a product called Sugardyne. To treat an
infected wound you simply pack the wound with sugar crystals. Check the wound at regular intervals. When the sugar crystals turn liquid, it’s
time to re-pack the wound with more sugar crystals. Why do you do this? The sugar kills the infectious agent by
osmotic shock. In simple terms, it sucks
the water out of the infectious agent, dehydrating it. If you leave the liquefied sugar crystals in
the wound, the infectious agent can use the water in the liquefied sugar
solution to begin the growth process again.
5.
Keep a roll of aluminum
foil tape in your bug out pack. It
has numerous uses, but the most important use relating to bugging out is
protecting you from frostbite and hypothermia.
Imagine TEOTWAWKI has come and you have to bug out in a
hurry. Its winter and it’s very
cold. You have to travel on foot and you
don’t have waterproof socks or shoes.
There is a foot of snow on the ground.
If you travel in the snow on foot your shoes and socks are going to be
soaked in short order. Then come’s
frostbite and possibly trench foot.
If you have a roll of aluminum foil tape in your bug out pack
you’re covered. Before going out you
simply wrap your socks with a layer of aluminum foil tape. Like the space blankets made of aluminum,
the aluminum foil tape reflects your body heat back onto your feet and keeps
out the water.
Imagine a situation even worse. You have to bug out in a winter storm and you
don’t have adequate clothing for the cold.
You could wrap the upper part of your body (the area around the heart
and lungs) with aluminum foil tape. This
would help keep your core body temperature from dropping into the hypothermia
range. Using a pair of scissors like
those on a pocket knife or multi tool you could cut small pieces of aluminum
foil tape to go on your face, nose, and ears to prevent frostbite.
6.
Get Gorilla
Tape. This stuff puts the best duct
tape to shame. It comes in several sizes
and is available in camouflage. Keep a
roll of it in your bug out pack. Get as
much of this product as you can.
7.
There is a lot you can do with the metal coat
hangers you get from the dry cleaners. This
little tool from Duluth Trading will help immensely in bending coat hangers
into the shapes needed for whatever preparedness project you are working on. It bends mild steel up to 3/16” diameter and
lets you bend “S” hooks, fishing rod eyes, curtain rod rings and more. Get a large plastic garbage can and save all
your metal coat hangers. They can be
very useful.
8.
There is a huge amount of survival and
preparedness information on the internet.
Unlike Survival Blog many web sites are here today and gone tomorrow. (And they don’t have the funds to make an archive CD like Survival Blog.) So if you find useful information on a
site, it’s very important to capture that data.
I suggest copying and pasting the data with Word Pad. Why Word Pad?
It is not that great of a word processor but it is on virtually every
computer that uses Microsoft Windows as its operating system.
Word Pad has its drawbacks.
The program is hit or miss when it comes to capturing graphics. I prefer to use the special paste option
unformatted text. Sometimes you lose the
graphics, but this is not a big deal with many articles.
If you want to capture and entire web page the newer versions
of Microsoft Word or Adobe Acrobat 10 can do that.
Whatever method you use to capture survival and preparedness
data from the internet, it is very important that you print out a hard
copy. Print the data out onto 8
½ x 11 inch paper with three holes and put the papers in three ring
binders. That way, if you lose your
computer to EMP
or other threats you still have the data.
You might even consider purchasing a gun safe rated to take a 1500
degree Fahrenheit fire for 30 minutes to store your three ring binders (and
survival and preparedness books) in. To
give your survival and preparedness information even more protection you could
wrap your binders and books in several layers of aluminum foil before putting
them in the gun safe.
9.
When stockpiling 12 gauge shotgun ammo stockpile
only 2 ¾ inch shells. Why? Depending on the make and model of the
shotgun it may shoot 2 ¾ inch shells, 3 inch shells, 3 ½ inch shells, or all three sizes. Let’s say you have a 12 gauge shotgun that
shoots all three sizes and you stockpile 3 ½ inch shells. Let’s say you lose that shotgun in a
firefight defending your survival retreat.
You scrounge and find another 12 gauge shotgun, but it is only chambered
for 2 ¾ inch shotgun shells. You’re out
of luck.
10.
When
stockpiling pistol ammunition, stockpile the heaviest grain weigh non +P
ammunition. Why? You may have a pistol that can take the
pressures produced by + P ammunition, but you lose it. You scrounge and find a perfectly good pistol
in your caliber that was produced before the introduction of + P
ammunition. Again, you’re out of
luck.
11.
Get to know the herb andrographis. It is a very effective treatment for
bacterial and viral infections when professional medical care is delayed or
outright unavailable. You might consider
getting the
seeds and growing it yourself. Native
to India, some claim the use of this herb kept India relatively free from the
1918 flu pandemic. If you have bleeding
disorders or autoimmune disease do not take andrographis. If you have any serious problem with your
heart, lungs, liver, kidneys, or immune system check with and M.D. or D.O. who
has knowledge of herbal medicine in addition to standard medical training
before taking this herb. When I feel the
flu coming on, 4 capsules every 4 hours knocks it out. I like the Nature’s
Way brand.
12.
There are times when you might have to drop your
bug out pack and run. You need something
to go on your belt to keep your most essential items. The Nite Ize Hip
Pock-Its Utility Holster is a good option to wear on your belt. With two of these on your belt, filled with
your most essential items, even if you lost you bug out pack you would not be
totally naked in terms of survival equipment.
13.
When
bugging out, you are going to run into the “Golden Hoard” leaving the cities en
mass. A few of them will be civil but
most will act like savages. Have
something to give them that they can use like these emergency ponchos
from Coghlans. It may help, but you will eventually meet
some with whom you will need to exchange gunfire.
14.
With # 13 in mind, get some serious medical gear
designed to help you survive combat. Tactical Medical
Solutions is a good supplier.
Request their print catalog. They
make some very good medical products to treat gunshot wounds, such as:
Celox
Hemostatic Agent with syringe style applicator for deep wounds Note: The active ingredient in Celox is
chitosan, which is made from shellfish.
If you have ever had an anaphylactic
reaction from eating shellfish DO NOT USE THIS PRODUCT.
15.
Get a copy of the Tactical Survival Specialties Inc. print
catalog. It has some really hard to find
and uncommon survival equipment.
16.
Since
fire is absolutely essential for survival, you need to exceed the Nez
Perce Rule of Threes.
Have the following on your person in a small hip pack on your
belt like that listed in item # 12. In
it you will have:
1. A Zippo type wind proof lighter
2. Several
Bic lighters still in the plastic
3. At
least 4 boxes of waterproof matches
6. Another
fire starting tool or method of your choice
7.
Still another fire starting tool of your choice.
Remember, you keep this kit on your belt, not in
your bug out pack. The ability to make
fire is survival itself. Without fire
there is no heat to boil water to purify it.
There is no heat for cooking.
Every individual in your group should have a kit like this of their own
on their belt. All the items in the hip
pack on your belt should be duplicated in the bug out kit of every member of
your group.
17.
Since
water is absolutely necessary for life for your bug out kit consider the
following:
3.
A small metal cup (stainless steel or copper)
for boiling water.
1.
5 of the Ziploc Slider bags-heavy duty freezer
type-1 gallon size to collect water in.
2.
Katadyn or other brand of chlorine
dioxide tablets. These tablets take
4 hours to work, but they claim they kill giardia and cryptosporidium
18.
If you’re
planning on bugging out in a group and you are thinking something like
this: “person 1 will carry survival
items A, B, and C. Person 2 will carry items D, E, and F. Person 3 will carry
survival items G, H and I.” I have two
words for you. FORGET IT. Each person in your bug out group must
have all the essentials for survival (water purification, fire making
equipment etc.) on their person.
Why? You could get split up,
captured or killed. If you did the
scenario described above some of your essential survival equipment would be
gone.
19.
If you want a handgun to put in your bug out
pack or to wear concealed while bugging out, I suggest the Glock 26. This is one of the “baby” Glocks. With its standard 10 round magazine, it is
hard to hold. But put in one of Glock’s
extended magazines, and it handles great.
It will accept the Glock 9mm 12 round magazine, the 15 round magazine,
the 17 round magazine, the 19 round magazine, and even the 33 round 9mm
magazine. You could wear it in a
shoulder rig under a dark shirt with the 17 round magazine in it. You could have 4 to 8 of the 33 round magazines
in a hip pouch if the stuff hit the fan
20.
Remember
to protect your eyes, hands, and feet. If you have any major problem with any one or
all of these three, your efficiency will drop dramatically.
For eye protection, wear the military type goggles that seal
out dust and sand. If you have
corrective lenses some companies will make these goggles with your prescription
ground into the lens.
For hands, get gloves that are cut resistant, fire resistant,
and provide good grip.
For footwear, get something you can walk in for a very long
distance (this will require testing) comfortably. Steel toes are preferred.
All of these items can be found in the Grainger catalog. Order a print copy of it today. (The Grainger catalog is loaded with safety
equipment, survival equipment, medical supplies and just about anything one
would need for their survival retreat, wire, fasteners, etc.)
21.
Do you know how to haggle? Would you know how to work the black
market during crisis and/or martial law to get the things you and your
family need to survive? If not, start
studying up. If and when TEOTWAWKI
comes, the only economic system operating will be the barter system.
22.
Have something in your bug out pack to keep you
motivated. If you’re a Christian, a copy
of the Holy Bible Old and New Testament in the King James Version or the
English Standard Version would be good.
If you’re a religious Jew, a copy of the Old Testament and some of the
other sacred Jewish texts.
In addition to religious material, a copy of the United States
Constitution would be good. Also, some non-fiction books that motivate you
would be in order. I would have any or
all of the Pocket
Ref books. They contain vast amounts
of useful information.
23.
In your bug out pack, keep a map of your state
and maps of every state that borders your state. After and EMP attack the GPS system might be
down as well as your hand held GPS devise.
Topographic maps can be useful as well.
24.
If you’re
looking for a hobby, why not learn how to use the sextant and the slide rule? If the GPS system goes down, both of these
items would be useful. You can buy slide
rules here. You can buy sextants here and here.
25.
When you get to your survival retreat, if you
don’t have some fun from time to time you’ll go crazy. You need recreational activities that people
of all ages can play. K-Mart sells some
low priced, good quality bocce ball sets (in the south we use these sets for
lawn bowling). In bocce ball (lawn
bowling) you have a small white ball. The
two players are on opposite sides at equal distance from the small ball. The players then take turns rolling their two
larger balls toward the small white ball.
The player that gets closest to the white ball without touching it
wins. If a player hits the white ball
that player automatically loses. You can
play a cut throat version of this in which one player can roll his ball into
the other players ball, causing it to hit the white ball, thus the other player
loses.
Games like chess and go are good as well because they teach
strategy, something you will need in defending your survival retreat. This is especially true for the game go in
which you try to control the largest amount of territory with the least number
of pieces.
26.
Remember, no one has this whole
survival/preparedness thing figured out yet.
As such, it would benefit us to drop or at least fall out of love with
our preconceived notions of how TEOTWAWKI may happen. If and when TEOTWAWKI comes, it will most
likely come in a form few of us expect.
27.
Consilio
et animis. Latin By wisdom and
courage.
