How to Survive the End of the World as We Know It

by James Wesley, Rawles

  • Martial law

  • Invasion

  • Climate change

  • Major volcanic and/or earthquake events

  • Major asteroid or comet strike

  Suffice it to say, we live in an increasingly dangerous world, with a fragile and highly interdependent infrastructure. In recent years we have witnessed accelerating threats of terrorism and economic instability. It is prudent to prepare. In this book, I will focus on specific criteria for choosing the location for a place to live, and once you have it—or even if you decide to prepare right where you are—how to stock up and equip for self-sufficiency. With the right preparation, you can protect your family from numerous threats—so you can not only survive, but thrive.

  Because I strongly believe that you will stand the best chance of survival if you are able to live in a retreat location year-round, most of the information in this book is geared toward that ideal scenario. It may sound extreme, but When the Schumer Hits the Fan (WTSHTF), you will thank me. There is no single ideal retreat location, because everyone’s needs are different. For some, their work requires that they be near a major airport or university. Others, for example, might have chronic health conditions that require proximity to a specialized medical center. So everything that I put forth herein must be tempered by your own particular requirements.

  The Golden Horde

  Because of the urbanization of the U.S. population, if the entire eastern or western power grid goes down for more than a week, the cities will rapidly become unlivable. I foresee that there could be an almost unstoppable chain of events:

  Power Failures, followed by

  Municipal Water Supply Failures, followed by

  Disruption of Food Distribution, followed by

  Collapse of Law and Order, followed by

  Fires and Full-Scale Looting, followed by

  Massive “Golden Horde” Out-Migration from Major Cities

  As the comfort level in the cities rapidly drops to nil, there will be a massive outpouring from the big cities and suburbs into the hinterboonies. This is the phenomenon that my late father, Donald Rawles—a career physics research administrator at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, in California—half-jokingly called “the Golden Horde.” He was of course referring to the Mongol horde of the thirteenth century, but in a modern context. (The Mongol rulers were chosen from the “Golden Family” of Temujin. Hence the term Golden Horde.)

  The Thin Veneer

  In my lectures on survival topics I often mention that there is just a thin veneer of civilization on our society. What is underneath is not pretty, and it does not take much to peel away that veneer. You take your average urbanite or suburbanite and get him excessively cold, wet, tired, hungry, and/or thirsty and take away his television, beer, drugs, and other pacifiers, and you will soon see the savage within. It is like peeling the skin off an onion—remove a couple of layers and it gets very smelly.

  Here is a mental exercise: Put yourself in the mind-set of Mr. Joe Six-pack, a hypothetical but fairly typical suburbanite. Visualize him in or near a big city close to where you live. He is unprepared for a crisis. He has less than one week’s food in his kitchen. He has a 12-gauge pump-action shotgun that he hasn’t fired in years, and just half a tank of gas in his minivan and maybe a gallon or two more in a can that he keeps on hand for his lawn mower. Then TEOTWAWKI hits. The power grid is down, his job is history, the toilet doesn’t flush, and water no longer magically comes cascading from the tap. His wife and kids are panicky. The supermarket shelves have been stripped bare. There are riots beginning in his city. The local service stations have run out of gas. The banks have closed. Now he is suddenly desperate. Where will he go? What will he do?

  Odds are Joe will think: “I’ve gotta go find a vacation cabin somewhere, up in the mountains, where some rich dude only goes a couple of times each year.” So vacation destinations like Lake Tahoe, Lake Arrowhead, and Squaw Valley, California; Prescott and Sedona, Arizona; Hot Springs, Arkansas; Vail and Steamboat Springs, Colorado; and the other various rural ski, spa, Great Lakes, and coastal resort areas will get swarmed.

  Or, Joe will think: “I’ve got to go to where they grow food.” So places like the Imperial Valley, the Willamette Valley, and the Red River Valley will similarly get overrun. There will be so many desperate Joe Six-packs arriving all at once that these areas will degenerate into free-fire zones. It will be an intensely ugly situation and will not be safe for anyone.

  The Linchpin: The Power Grids

  The level of severity for any survival scenario will be tremendously greater if the power grid goes down (“grid down”) for a period of more than a week. Consider the following:

  If there is an extended grid-down scenario . . .

  • Most towns and cities will be without municipal (utility) drinking water.

  • There will likely be huge outflows of refugees from cities.

  • There will possibly be mass prison escapes.

  • Virtually all communications will go down. Telephone-company central offices (COs) do have battery backup. These are huge banks of two-volt deep-cycle floating batteries. But those batteries will last only about a week. Backup generators were not installed at most COs, because no situation that would take the power grid down for more than seventy-two hours was ever anticipated. (Bad planning, Ma Bell!) Thus, if and when the grid goes down, hardwired phones, cell phones, and the Internet will all go down. When both the power grid and phone systems go down, law and order will likely disintegrate. There will be no burglar alarms, no security lighting or cameras, and no reliable way to contact police or fire departments, and so forth.

  • There will be no power for kidney-dialysis machines or ventilators for respiratory patients, no resupply of oxygen bottles for people with chronic lung conditions, no resupply of insulin for diabetics, etc. Anyone with a chronic health problem may die.

  • Most heaters with fans won’t work, even if you can bypass the thermostat. And pellet stoves won’t work at all.

  • Piped-natural-gas service will be disrupted in all but a few small areas near wellheads.

  • There will be no 911 to call, no backup, no “cavalry coming over the hill” in the nick of time. You, your family, and your neighbors will have to handle any lawlessness that comes your way.

  • Sanitation will be problematic in any large town or city. Virtually everyone will be forced to draw water from open sources, and meanwhile their neighbors will be inadvertently fouling those same sources. With the grid down and city water disrupted, toilets won’t flush and most urbanites and suburbanites will not dig outhouse or garbage pits. A grid-down condition could be a public-health nightmare within a week in metropolitan regions.

  Chains of Supply: Lengthy and Fragile

  When I give lectures or do radio interviews, I’m often asked for proof that we live in a fragile society. Here is one prime example: The kanban or “just-in-time” inventory system was developed in Japan and became popular in America starting in the 1970s. It is now ubiquitous in nearly every industry. The concept is simple: Through close coordination with subcontractors and piece part suppliers, a manufacturer can keep its parts inventory small. Kanban is a key element of lean manufacturing. Manufacturers order batches of parts only as needed, sometimes ordering as frequently as twice a week. Companies now hire Six Sigma consultants and Kaizen gurus, they buy sophisticated data-processing systems, and they hire extra purchasing administrators, and these expenses actually save them money at the bottom line. Just-in-time inventory systems have several advantages: less warehouse space, less capital tied up in parts inventory, and less risk of parts obsolescence.

  The downside is that lean inventories leave companies vulnerable to any disruption of supply. If transportation gets snarled, or if communications get disrupted, or a parts vendor has a strike or a production problem, then assembly lines grind to halt. Just one missing part means that no finished products go out the door.

  T
he kanban concept has also been taken up by America’s retailers, most notably its grocery sellers. In the old days—say, twenty years ago—grocery stores had well-stocked back rooms, with many extra cases of dry goods. But now in most stores the back room has been replaced with just a pallet-break-down area. Merchandise comes in from distribution centers and it all goes immediately to the consumer shelves out front. Thus, what you see on the grocery-store shelf is all that the store has on hand. What you see is what you get. The bar-code scanners at the checkout counters feed a complex reordering system. If Mrs. Jones buys three jars of pasta sauce, that could trigger a reorder for three more jars. As long as communications and transportation work smoothly, then the entire system hums along like a Swiss watch. But what happens when the transportation infrastructure gets disrupted?

  Panic buying can clean out supermarket shelves in a matter of hours. The important lesson in all this is to get prepared in advance. DO NOT count on being able to buy anything to provide for your family on or after TEOTWAWKI Day. So stock up.

  Consider the fact that there are only about fifteen large long-term-storage food packers in the country, and even fewer firms that sell non-hybrid (heirloom) gardening seed. How long do you think their inventories will last once there is news that there is a lethal, easily transmissible, human-to-human strain of flu? Prices are currently low and inventories are plentiful. It is better to be a year too early than a day too late.

  This book will help you get started with your preparations for WTSHTF.

  Just How Rawlesian Are You?

  Before we begin, let me tell you a bit about my background. I grew up in the Bomb Shelter era of the 1960s. I was born in raised in Livermore, California, the home of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. Living there, with one of the highest per-capita numbers of home fallout shelters in the nation, gave me an appreciation for global threats that had personal implications. I have a bachelor’s degree in journalism, and minor degrees in history, military science, and military history. I’m also a former U.S. Army Intelligence officer, where I worked at both the tactical and strategic levels. As an intelligence officer, I monitored the global geopolitical situation very closely. This study helped me appreciate just how fragile all societies can be. I observed that economic and sociopolitical tipping points don’t happen often, but when they do come, they are dramatic and often appear to occur overnight. I also observed that it was refugees who became casualties, so I vowed never to be a refugee.

  Even as a teenager, I decided that through training and prudent preparation, I could greatly increase my chances for surviving traumatic times. More recently, as a novelist and as a blogger, I’ve been given a bully pulpit, with the opportunity to encourage hundreds of thousands of people to get prepared. It is my hope that my writings will convince you to substantively increase your preparedness. You, too, can beat the odds and avoid being a mere statistic.

  The folks who read my blog, SurvivalBlog.com, regularly refer to themselves as Rawlesian survivalists. To fully understand Rawlesian survivalism, it is important to distinguish it from the numerous quasi-survivalist schools of thought. Some pundits overemphasize primitive wilderness and outdoor survival, while others overemphasize high-tech gadgets. Still others dismiss any planning for self-defense. And many don’t give any thought to charity and assisting your neighbors in the aftermath of a disaster. The following is a general summary of my survivalist philosophy, in addition to the tenets I’ve already discussed:

  Lightly Populated Areas Are Safer Than High-Density Areas

  With a few exceptions, lower population means fewer problems. WTSHTF, there will be a mass exodus from the cities. Think of it as an army that is spreading out across a battlefield: The wider they are spread, the less effective they are. The inverse-square law hasn’t been repealed.

  Show Restraint, But Always Have Recourse to Lethal Force

  My father often told me, “It is better to have a gun and not need it than to need a gun and not have it.” I urge readers to use less than lethal means when safe and practicable, but at times there is not a satisfactory substitute for well-aimed lead going down range at high velocity.

  There Is Strength in Numbers

  Rugged individualism is all well and good, but it takes more than one man to defend a retreat. Effective defense necessitates having at least two families to provide 24/7 perimeter security. But of course every individual added means having another mouth to feed. Unless you have an unlimited budget and an infinite larder, you will need to strike a balance when deciding the size of a retreat group.

  There Are Moral Absolutes

  The foundational morality of the civilized world is best summarized in the Ten Commandments. Moral relativism and secular humanism are slippery slopes. The terminal moraine at the base of these slopes is a rubble pile consisting of either despotism and pillage, or anarchy and the depths of depravity. I believe that it takes both faith and friends to survive perilous times.

  Racism Ignores Reason

  People should be judged as individuals. Anyone who makes blanket statements about other races is ignorant of the fact that there are both good and bad individuals in all groups.

  Skills Beat Gadgets and Practicality Beats Style

  The modern world is full of pundits, poseurs, and mall ninjas. Preparedness is not just about accumulating a pile of stuff. You need practical skills, and those come only with study, training, and practice. Any armchair survivalist with a credit card can buy a set of stylish camouflage fatigues and an “M4gery” carbine encrusted with umpteen accessories. Style points should not be mistaken for genuine skills and practicality.

  Plentiful Water and Good Soil Are Crucial

  Modern mechanized farming, electrically pumped irrigation, chemical fertilizers, and pesticides can make deserts bloom. But when the grid goes down, deserts and marginal farmland will revert to their natural states. The most viable places to survive in the midst of a long-term societal collapse will be those with reliable summer rains and rich topsoil.

  Tangibles Trump Conceptuals

  Modern fiat currencies are generally accepted, but have essentially no backing. Because they are largely a by-product of interest-bearing debt, modern currencies are destined for inflation. In the long run, inflation dooms fiat currencies to collapse. The majority of your assets should be invested in productive farmland and other tangibles such as useful hand tools. After you have your key logistics squared away, anything extra should be invested in silver and gold.

  Governments Tend to Expand Their Power to the Point That They Do Harm

  In SurvivalBlog, I often warn of the insidious tyranny of the Nanny State. (There is a predominant trend in First World countries to regulate nearly every aspect of daily life. These regulations have become so pervasive and annoying that the “Nanny State” moniker was developed to describe it.) If the state where you live becomes oppressive, then don’t hesitate to relocate. Vote with your feet!

  There Is Value in Redundancy

  A common saying of my readers is: “Two is one, and one is none.” You must be prepared to provide for your family during a protracted period of societal disruption. That means storing essential “beans, bullets, and Band-Aids” in quantity. If commerce is disrupted by a disaster, at least in the short term you will have only your own logistics to fall back on. The more you have stored, the more you will have available for barter and charity. Just as important as redundancy are the attributes of versatility and flexibility. For example, a Rawlesian survivalist who is wealthy likely owns as many as four vehicles: one powered by gasoline, one by diesel, one by propane, and one that is electric. The same individual probably owns a tri-fuel backup power generator that can run on gasoline, propane, or utility natural gas. But even folks on a modest budget can have considerable multi-fuel versatility by making their one and only vehicle a diesel. (I’ll talk more about that in Chapter 12.)

  A Deep Larder Is Essential

  Food storage is key. Even if you have a
fantastic self-sufficient garden and pasture ground, you must always have food storage that you can fall back on in the event that your crops fail due to drought, disease, or infestation.

  Tools Without Training Are Useless

  Owning a gun doesn’t make someone a “shooter” any more than owning a surfboard makes someone a surfer. With proper training and practice, you will be miles ahead of the average citizen. Get advanced medical training (MedicalCorps.org). Get the best firearms training that you can afford, at a place like Gunsite or Thunder Ranch. Learn about amateur radio from your local affiliated American Radio Relay League (ARRL) club. Practice raising a vegetable garden each summer. Learn how to weld, and buy your own oxyacetylene rig. Some skills are perfected only over a period of years.

  Old Technologies Are Appropriate Technologies

  In the event of a societal collapse, nineteenth-century (or earlier) technologies such as the blacksmith’s forge, the treadle sewing machine, and the horse-drawn plow will be far easier to reconstruct than modern technologies.