THE TEN THINGS YOU NEED IN YOUR CAR
Knife
Glass breaker
flashlight
First aid kit
Handwarmers
Thermal blanket (or wool blanket)
Facemasks (more for smoke than Covid)
flares or emergency lights (to mark disabled car)
Battery charger (and cables to connect phone)
Multitool

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Saturday, August 21, 2021 - 11:43 pm: Edit

TWELVE SURVIVAL ITEMS EVERYONE NEEDS in their "get home bag" they keep with them for the coronal mass ejection or North Korean EMP attack. In every case, one is minimal, two or three different options improve your odds but remember the three Ds (Don't tell anyone you are a prepper. Don't plan on repacking your getaway bag before you leave your car and start walking. Don't pack more of this stuff than you can carry for long distances.)

1. Cover/shelter. A good hat, a survival poncho/blanket, etc.

2. Cutting: some kind of knife.

3. Combustion: some way(s) to make a fire.

4. Container: something that can carry water. A way to filter water from puddles might be good, too.

5. Cordage: some parachute cord or that cool survival stuff with wire and fishing line woven inside it.

6. Candle: flashlight or other means of making light. A hand cranked light can also be used to charge your cell phone.

7. Cotton: A bandanna. You might even throw a dark T-shirt into the car beside the get-home bag so you can change out of that flashing Hawaiian shirt before you slip away into the night.

8. Compass: easier to find the north pole with this. A map of your city could also be handy.

9. Cargo tape or gorilla tape or duct/duck tape.

10. Communication: Cell phone or radio.

11. Cash: some money, not a lot, but some, small denominations, maybe a silver coin or two if you need to do a trade with a real prepper.

I watched the video and thought he missed...

12. Calories: some power bars, food that is long storage and doesn't need to be cooked. Replace the power bars every six months and eat the old ones. You might also want a can of beanie weenies or something.

13. Crayon: A way to leave a note telling friends who might come looking for you where you went. (Use a pre-arranged code. "I took the ammo stockpile to 123 North Southern Street" may not be a good idea but "I took Andy to Carolina" will be promptly ignored. A small notebook is also helpful when making a fire. (So is a copy of the book written by your least favorite politician.)

14. Care: A first aid kit, get one at Walmart for $10-$20.

15. Carbine: Okay, now I'm just getting ridiculous.

Bonus Prep: Female hygiene supplies and condoms for birth control. People get bored with no TV and the baby boom after the NYC power failure is legendary. You don't need a surprise baby named Apocalypse Night Smith.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Sunday, September 12, 2021 - 11:07 pm: Edit

Things to buy at the dollar store and put into your prepper stockpile. (Note, I focus on prepping for real emergencies like tornadoes, winter storms, EMP/CME, or virus lockdowns, not fantasies the zombie apocalypse.)
The video I am watching emphasizes going to the store once a month and buying a dozen dollar items to add to your stockpiles. The lower quality stuff can be used for barter or to donate to people begging at the door.

1. Matches
2. Plastic tubs to keep stuff organized
3. Candles
4. cigarette lighters
5. toothbrush
6. dental floss
7. hand sanitizer
8. batteries
9. generic meds (tylenol, advil, aspirin, cold medicine)
10. Sharpie pens
11. ziplock bags
12. aluminum foil
13. plastic drop cloths
14. chapstick
15. cleaning supplies
16. canned meat
17. canned soup
18. candy
19. Bottled water
20. Bandaids

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Sunday, September 12, 2021 - 11:30 pm: Edit

Things you can get at Home Depot or Lowes
This tends to include some heavy duty stuff for multi-week survival situations, but I left that junk out.
=======
plywood precut to cover windows
gap and crack sealing foam
empty sandbags
wet-dry vacuum cleaner
a ladder
tie down straps
assorted nails
assorted deck screws
staple gun with staples
plastic sheeting
natural gas shut off tool
voltage tester
extension cords
batteries
storage boxes
fire extinguisher
packs of vegetable seeds
de-humidifier if you life in a flood area
tarp or two
snowmelt
cleaning supplies
trash bags
flashlights
solar lights
snow shovel (handy for volcanic ash)
gas cans with stabilizer (dangerous storage)
bags of charcoal for disaster cooking
gorilla duck tape
electrical tape
various other tape
100 foot good quality rope
six foot pieces of chain
a couple of padlocks
spray paint to cover graffiti
work gloves
tyvek suits if you want to go wild
metal trash can to use as faraday cage
zip ties
small saw
several cheap pocket knives
one or two good camp/combat knives
crowbar
box cutter

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Sunday, September 12, 2021 - 11:56 pm: Edit

Items under $20 you could do well to own for emergency preparation

A metal single-wall water bottle useful to boil water (the double-wall bottles do not boil well as they are insulated). The video guy recommends buying that cheap spring thing used to open the mouths of fish you caught to use to hang the bottle over the fire.

Decent quality fixed-blade sheath knife.

A water filter such as "life straw".

A basic first aid kit.

Some emergency food. Avoid the dehydrated survival food and just buy an extra week of canned food that you already eat. You could supplement this with power bars and protein bars. Lifeboat rations for hard core preppers. MREs if you can find a flavor you like to eat or aren't allergic to.

A mylar survival blanket, the heavier more durable types are actually better

Parachute cord or that survival cord that includes wire, fire-starter, and fishing line. String or rope are a cheaper substitute.

A couple of decent survival books including medical and bushcraft (hard copy not PDF)

The biography of your favorite politician (for quick camp fires)

Ferrite fire starting rod and a cheap cigarette lighter and maybe a magnifying glass.

One of those flashlight radio things with a hand-cranked generator inside and the cord to recharge your cell phone with it.

One of those battery packs that will start your car after you leave the lights on. These are actually for things like lights and your phone or laptop.

A good flashlight and some cheap ones including a hands free head-strap light

Collapsible water bottle which doesn't take up much space until you fill it with water.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Saturday, June 03, 2023 - 04:52 pm: Edit

From the Sensible Prepper channel, 25 cheap things to stock up on for any emergency, apocalypse, or disaster…

Bic lighters
Toilet paper
Wet wipes
Disinfecting wipes
Zip ties
Instant coffee individual packs, tea bags
Socks
Bandaids
Antibiotic ointment
Bar soap
Boot or shoe laces, paracord
Bleach unscented
Batteries of various sizes
Hand sanitizer
Toothbrushes , floss, toothpaste
Duct tape (store at room temperature)
Ziplock bags
Salt
Heavy gauge trash bags
Feminine hygiene products
Candy, hard candy stores better
Chapstick, lip balm, can also be used to start fires
Propane fuel cans, store carefully
Liquor

To that, I would add
Ammo, ammo, ammo
Food
Matches
Cash
Silver coins
Big knife, small knife , scissors
Sewing kit
Power bars
Caned bouillon or chicken noodle soup for emergency water
Deck of cards
Flashlights

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Saturday, June 03, 2023 - 05:30 pm: Edit

From Wicked Prepared channel
Stockpile these cheap things
———————
Beans, rice (beans can be sprouted or planted)
Packs of precooked food intended for microwave
Instant mashed potatoes that do not need milk or butter
Canned vegetables
Pasta (has to be boiled, not my recommendation)
Various sauces for pasta
Flavored coffee syrup
Shelf stable milk, powdered milk
Oatmeal (I would add grits, ramen)
Snack crackers (I would add cookies)
Canned tuna, other canned meat, foil packs
Matches
Nail clippers, nail files
Tooth brushes
Body wash, shampoo
Pet food if you have pets
Dog biscuits even if you don’t have a dog

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Sunday, June 04, 2023 - 06:46 pm: Edit

Common definitions/abbreviations from this field:

EDC: Every Day Carry, the things you make it a point to have in your pocket/purse at all times so no matter where you are when "it" happens you have something to get by with.

SHTL: Stuff hits the fan, a really awful event. Hurricanes are the lowest level of this. Volcanoes, electro-magnetic pulse, coronal mass ejections, asteroid impact.

Get Home Bag: a small backpack you keep in your car/office with enough food, water, and gear to sustain you while you walk to your house where you have supplies.

Prepper Pantry: a stock of food (3 day minimum, 3 weeks optimum, 3 months not outrageous, 3 years not practical).

Prepper Kit: a container of some kind (gallon or two in volume) containing non-perishable non-food equipment (see the lists in this topic). Keep inside the house for climate control, in a back of some closet. Do not store in garage or attic. If space is a premium you might want to store some long-term non-perishable items in attic/garage.

CME: Coronal Mass EJection, a piece of the Sun flies through space and hits Earth damaging lots of electronic stuff. This happened in 1859 (the Carrington Event) and set telegraph offices on fire. A natural causes EMP.

EMP: Electro-Magnetic Pulse. A side effect of nuclear weapons (and other sci-fi equipment) which disables some, lots, most, or all electronics in range. Considered a cheap way to really foul up an entire industrialized country.

Faraday box: An insulated box which could contain small things like a radio which might survive an EMP/CME event.

Your input for this list is welcome. Email me or post in topic.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Tuesday, August 09, 2022 - 12:49 am: Edit

What you could do to survive...

1. Buy a survival book, hard copy not electronic, read it, and put it in your home where you could find it.

2. Buy enough canned food (that you will actually eat) to last your family 3 days and store it somewhere in your home. Replace it every year. (Don't forget pets.) A manual can opener is a must here. DO NOT buy expensive 99 year freeze dried food in assorted flavors you would refuse to eat if starving.

3. Watch one YouTube survival video a month (better, per week).

4. Get some large containers and store at least 3 gallons of water in your home for each member of the family. (Don't forget pets.) It would be a good idea to buy one of those water filter straws or containers.

5. Have, in your home: a first aid kit, a few flashlights with good batteries (test yearly), a few hand tools (hammer, saw, hatchet, screwdrivers, pliers, adjustable wrench, bag of assorted nails), some kind of lighter or other fire making device, a deck of cards (survival cards are good here), a ball of twine or a hundred feet of paracord (a hundred feet of rope is also a good idea), a compass, a local map, a roll of duck/duct tape, a hundred dollars in small bills, $20 in common 1950-64 silver coins, a bag of BBQ charcoal and some metal pan thing in which you could build a fire inside your home to keep warm, one of those hand-cranked or solar chargers for your cell phone, and a battery-powered or hand-cranked radio.

6. Again, I will leave a firearm, cleaning kit, and spare ammo to the individual. People who just don't want to be around firearms should not be around firearms. Neither should people who never took firearms training and haven't been to a shooting range in years. Obey local laws and get a permit.

7. You can easily go insane on Amazon buying survival junk you will never need or signing up for subscription surprise survival boxes full of junk nobody would ever use. But it wouldn't kill you to set aside something ($10, $20) a month and to have a wish list of survival stuff on your Amazon account. You'll get ideas from survival books and videos.

8. I would seriously suggest finding time to take the local Red Cross first aid course. It wouldn't kill you to go to a state park and walk around in the fresh air one day a year. Check the public access catalog of the local community college and see if you can take a few classes in survival. I would start with "survival in the local area." I will strongly suggest that one day a year (or more) you conduct a practice evacuation. Get a ride to a point a mile from your house and walk home. Next time, add a mile until you can actually walk five or ten miles.

9. I would recommend you keep in your car a container of water that will stand freezing, a few power bars, and a local map. If an EMP hits you would want to have a way to walk home. I would also recommend a family plan that every member of the family knows about. For example, our "ADB Family Plan" is to hike from the office to Jean's house in a group with whatever supplies we happen to have at the office. (Anyone not at the office would go to whichever of those is closer.) The second day, review the situation and decide which of us (if any) will walk further to my house. If everybody knows the route you would use, it would be easier for someone who was off on an errand to get to a point you know the others will pass on their way to sanctuary. I might also suggest that if you are in the habit of wearing less than sensible shoes in your employment that you have a good pair of tennies/trainers in your car or a locker or a desk drawer or somewhere.

10. The best defense against any emergency is a healthy body. Lose a few pounds, walk 4000 steps a way, spend an hour a week at the gym doing random machines, see a doctor regularly, and never have less than two weeks of your prescription meds. The pharmacy will love to do refills at the earliest possible date that your insurance will allow.