How to Survive the End of the World as We Know It
Page 4
Gardening List (For details, see Chapter 7.)
• One important item for your gardening list is a very tall deer-proof and rabbit-proof fence. Under current circumstances, a raid by deer on your garden is probably just an inconvenience. After the balloon goes up, it could mean the difference between eating well and starvation.
• Topsoil/Amendments/Fertilizers
• Gardening tools and spares for barter/charity
• Long-term-storage non-hybrid (open-pollinated) seed. Non-hybrid heirloom seed assortments tailored to different climate zones are available from The Ark Institute.
• Herbs: Get started with medicinal herbs such as aloe vera (for burns), echinacea (purple cone flower), valerian, etc.
Hygiene/Sanitation List
• Sacks of powdered lime for the outhouse
• TP in quantity
• Soap in quantity (hand soap, dish soap, laundry soap, cleansers, etc.) I have used four-ounce squeeze bottles of Dr. Bronner’s peppermint castile soap for many years, mostly on backpacking trips. A little bit goes a long way.
• Bottled lye for soapmaking
• Feminine-hygiene supplies
• Toothpaste (or powder)
• Floss
• Fluoride rinse
• Sunscreen
Livestock List
• Hoof rasp, hoof nippers, hoof pick, horse brushes, hand sheep shears, styptic, carding combs
• Goat-milking stand, teat dip, udder wash, Bag Balm, elastrator and bands
• Swat fly repellent, nail clippers (various sizes), Kopertox
• Leads, leashes, collars, halters
• Hay hooks, hay fork, manure shovel, feed buckets, bulk grain, and C.O.B. sweet feed (store in galvanized trash cans with tight-fitting lids to keep the mice out)
• Various tack and saddles, tack-repair tools, etc.
• If your region has selenium-deficient soil (ask your local agricultural extension office), then be sure to get selenium-fortified salt blocks rather than plain white salt blocks—at least for those you are going to set aside strictly for your livestock.
Hunting/Fishing/Trapping List
• “Buckshot” Bruce Hemming has produced an excellent series of videos on trapping and making improvised traps.
• Night-vision gear, spares, maintenance, and battery charging
• Salt. Post-TEOTWAWKI, don’t go hunting. That would be a waste of effort. Have the game come to you. Buy twenty or more salt blocks.
• Sell your fly-fishing gear (all but perhaps a few flies) and buy practical spin-casting equipment.
• Extra tackle may be useful for barter, but probably only in a very long-term crunch.
• Buy some frog gigs if you have bullfrogs in your area. Buy some crawfish traps if you have crawfish in your area.
• Learn how to rig trot lines and make fish traps for non-labor-intensive fishing WTSHTF.
Power/Lighting/Batteries List (For details, see Chapter 6.)
• In the event of a grid-down situation, if you are the only family in the area with power, it could turn your house into a “come loot me” beacon at night. Make plans and buy materials in advance for making blackout screens or fully opaque curtains for your windows.
• When possible, buy low self-discharge (LSD) nickel-metal hydride batteries.
• If your home has propane appliances, get a “tri-fuel” generator—with a carburetor that is selectable between gasoline, propane, and natural gas. If you heat your house with home-heating oil, then get a diesel-burning generator. And plan on getting at least one diesel-burning pickup and/or tractor.
• Kerosene lamps; plenty of extra wicks, mantles, and chimneys
Fuels List
• Buy the largest propane, home-heating-oil, gas, or diesel tanks that your local ordinances permit and that you can afford. Always keep them at least two-thirds full.
• For privacy concerns, ballistic-impact concerns, and fire concerns, underground tanks are best if you local water table allows it. In any case, do not buy an aboveground fuel tank that would be visible from any public road or navigable waterway.
• Buy plenty of extra fuel. Don’t overlook buying ample kerosene.
• Stock up on firewood or coal.
• Get the best quality chain saw you can afford. I prefer Stihl and Husqvarna, but you might want to buy your regional favorite, to have better availability of spare parts. If you can afford it, buy two of the same model. Buy extra chains, critical spare parts, and plenty of two-cycle oil.
• Get a pair of Kevlar chain saw safety chaps. They are expensive but they might save you a trip to the emergency room. Always wear gloves, goggles, and earmuffs. Wear a logger’s helmet when felling.
Firefighting List
• You should be ready for uncontrolled brush or residential fires, as well as the greater fire risk associated with green-horns who have just arrived at your retreat working with wood stoves and kerosene lamps.
• Upgrade your retreat with a fireproof metal roof.
• Two-inch diameter water line from your gravity-fed storage tank to provide large water volume for firefighting
• Firefighting rig with an adjustable stream/mist head
• Smoke and CO detectors
Tactical-Living List
• Gradually adjust your wardrobe toward sturdy earth-tone clothing.
• Dyes. Stock up on some boxes of green and brown cloth dye. With dye, you can turn most light-colored clothes into semi-tactical clothing on short notice.
• Two-inch-wide burlap strip material in green and brown. This burlap is available in large spools from Numrich Gun Parts Corporation. Even if you don’t have time now, stock up so that you can make camouflage ghillie suits post-TEOTWAWKI.
• Save those wine corks. Burned cork makes quick and cheap face camouflage.
• Cold-weather and foul-weather gear—buy plenty, since you will be doing more outdoor chores, hunting, and standing guard duty.
• Don’t overlook ponchos and gaiters.
• Mosquito repellent
• Synthetic double-bag (modular) sleeping bags for each person at the retreat, plus a couple of spares. The Flexible Temperature Range Sleep System (FTRSS), made by Wiggy’s, of Grand Junction, Colorado, is highly recommended.
• Night-vision gear and IR floodlights for your retreat house
• Subdued flashlights and penlights
• Noise, light, and litter discipline
Security—General List
• Locks, intrusion detection/alarm systems, exterior obstacles: fences, gates (five-eighths-inch diameter or larger), locking road cables, rosebush plantings, “decorative” ponds (moats), ballistic protection (personal and residential), anti-vehicular ditches/berms, anti-vehicular concrete “planter boxes,” razor wire, etc.
• Starlight electronic light-amplification scopes are critical tools for retreat security. A starlight scope (or goggles, or a monocular) amplifies low ambient light by up to 100,000 times, turning nighttime darkness into daylight—albeit a green and fuzzy view.
• Range cards and sector sketches. If you live in the boonies, piece together nine of the USGS 15-minute maps, with your retreat property on the center map. Mount that map on an oversize map board. Draw in the property lines and owner names of all of your surrounding neighbors’ parcels in at least a five-mile radius. Get boundary line and current owner name info from your county recorder’s office. Study and memorize both the terrain and the neighbors’ names. Make a phone number/e-mail list that corresponds to all of the names marked on the map, plus city and county office contact numbers for quick reference, and tack it up right next to the map board.
Security—Firearms List (For details, see Chapter 11.)
• Guns, ammunition
• Web gear
• Eye and ear protection
• Cleaning equipment, carrying cases, scopes, magazines, spare parts, gunsmithing tools, targets and target frames, etc.
• Each rifle and pistol should have at least six top-quality (original military contract or original manufacturer) full-capacity spare magazines.
Communications/Monitoring List (For details, see Chapter 9.)
• When selecting radios, buy only models that will run on twelve-volt DC power or rechargeable nickel-metal hydride battery packs (which can be recharged from your retreat’s twelve-VDC power system without having to use an inverter).
• As a secondary purchasing goal, buy spare radios of each type if you can afford them. Keep your spares in sealed metal boxes to protect them from EMP.
• If you live in a far-inland region, I recommend buying two or more twelve-VDC marine band radios. These frequencies will probably not be monitored in your region, leaving you an essentially private band to use.
Tools List
• Gardening tools
• Auto-mechanics tools
• Welding equipment and supplies
• Bolt cutters—the indispensable “universal key”
• Woodworking tools
• Gunsmithing tools
• Emphasis on hand-powered tools
• Hand-crank or treadle-powered grinding wheel
• Plenty of extra work gloves in earth-tone colors
Sundries List
• Systematically list the things that you use on a regular basis, or that you might need if the local hardware store were ever to disappear: wire of various gauges, duct tape, reinforced strapping tape, chain, nails, nuts and bolts, weather stripping, abrasives, twine, white glue, cyanoacrylate glue, etc.
Survival-Bookshelf List (For details, see Appendix B.)
• You should probably have nearly every book on my blog’s Bookshelf page.
Barter and Charity List (For details, see Chapter 13.)
For your barter list, acquire primarily items that are durable, nonperishable, and either in small packages or easily divisible. Concentrate on the items that other people are likely to overlook or have in short supply.
• Ammunition
• Feminine-hygiene supplies
• Salt. Buy lots of cattle blocks and one-pound canisters of iodized table salt.
• Two-cycle engine oil
• Gas stabilizer
• Diesel antibacterial additive
• Fifty-pound sacks of lime for use in outhouses
• One-ounce bottles of military-rifle-bore cleaner and Break-Free (or similar) lubricant
• Waterproof duffel bags in earth-tone colors (white-water-rafting “dry bags”)
• Thermal socks
• Semi-waterproof matches from military rations
• Military web gear. Lots of folks will suddenly need pistol belts, holsters, magazine pouches, etc.
• Pre-1965 silver dimes
• One-gallon cans of kerosene
• Rolls of olive-drab parachute cord
• Rolls of olive-drab duct tape
• Spools of monofilament fishing line
• Rolls of ten-mil Visqueen (or similar) sheet plastic for replacing windows, isolating air spaces for nuke scenarios, etc.
• Strike-anywhere matches. Dip the heads in paraffin to make them waterproof.
• Playing cards
• Cooking spices. Do a Web search for reasonably priced bulk spices.
• Rope and string
• Sewing supplies
• Candle wax and wicking
• Lastly, any supplies necessary for operating a home-based business. Some that you might consider are leather crafting, small-appliance repair, gun repair, locksmithing, etc. Every family should have at least one home-based business (preferably two) that they can depend on in the event of an economic collapse.
• Stock up on additional items to dispense to refugees as charity.
As time goes on you’ll have the opportunity to expand and refine your lists. But don’t get too caught up in just the planning. There is the risk of planning endlessly and accomplishing nothing.
3
THE SURVIVAL RETREAT
Your First Big Decision: A Demographic Dilemma
Probably the most important decision you’ll make in your preparations for a crisis is the location of your retreat. The best choice is a dedicated safe haven—a family survival retreat. A retreat is not just “a cabin in the mountains.” Rather, it is a well-prepared and defensible redoubt with well-planned logistics. A proper survival retreat is in effect a modern-day castle able to provide for its inhabitants and protect them from any outside danger. You will have to weigh your options carefully as you decide whether to try to establish your retreat in your current home or whether you should consider relocating. I realize this may sound extreme, but my goal in this book is to provide you and your family the best chance for survival should the worst happen.
Ideally, a survival retreat is located in a region with most or all of the following characteristics:
• A long growing season
• Geographic isolation from major population centers
• Sufficient year-round precipitation and surface water
• Rich topsoil
• A diverse economy and agriculture
• Away from interstate freeways and other channelized areas
• Low taxes
• Nonintrusive scale of government
• Favorable zoning and inexpensive building permits
• Minimal gun laws
• No major earthquake, hurricane, or tornado risks
• No flooding risk
• No tidal-wave risk (at least two hundred feet above sea level)
• Minimal forest-fire risk
• A lifestyle geared toward self-sufficiency
• Plentiful local sources of wood or coal
• No restrictions on keeping livestock
• Defendable terrain
• Not near a prison or large mental institution
• Inexpensive insurance rates (home, auto, health)
• Upwind from major nuclear-weapons targets
This list should help you to narrow your search for potential retreat regions. You should also keep in mind that in troubled times fewer people means fewer problems. In the event of a social upheaval, rioting, urban looting, etc., being west of the Missouri River will mean a statistically much lower chance of coming face-to-face with lawless rioters or looters WTSHTF. Look at a population-density of map of the United States, or the “Satellite Photo of Earth at Night” images available on the Internet (snipurl.com/hokhx). The difference in population density in the western United States is immediately apparent.
Americans live in a highly urbanized society. Roughly 90 percent of the population is crammed into 5 percent of the land area. And most of that is within sixty miles of the coastlines. But there are large patches of the West with population densities of less than ten people per square mile—particularly in the Great Basin region that extends from the eastern slope of the Sierra Nevada mountains to Utah and Eastern Oregon. The average population density in this region is less than two people per square mile. It is essentially an empty quarter of the continental United States.
If you are an eastern urbanite you might come to the conclusion that you need to buy “a cabin in upstate New York “ or “a brick house in New Jersey’s Pine Barrens,” but this would be a mistake. A rural area that is within an overall heavily populated region is not truly rural. It lacks real isolation from the basic problem—population. You will need to be at least one tank of gas away from the big cities—preferably no less than three hundred miles, if possible.
The northeastern states depend on nuclear power plants for 47 percent of their electricity. (South Carolina is similarly dependent.) This is an unacceptable level of high-technology-systems dependence, particularly in light of the emerging terrorist threat. You must also consider that virtually all of the eastern states are downwind of major nuclear targets—most notably the U.S. Air Force missile fields in the Dakotas, Wyoming, and C
olorado. If for one reason or another you are stuck in the Northeast, then consider New Hampshire or Vermont. They are both gun friendly and have a more self-sufficient lifestyle. But unless you have a very compelling reason to stay in the East, I most strongly encourage you to Go West!