We’ve had a big spike in SurvivalBlog site visits, after Yahoo News picked up this article from the AFP news service in France about me and SurvivalBlog: Thought things were bad? US survivalists await worse. This in turn inspired a lively discussion at the MetaFilter blog. Many folks there are having a outsider’s hypercritical heyday, complete with cliched caricatures of survivalists as racist, ignorant hicks. You can see the diatribes (as well as a few well-reasoned posts) at: What if things just keep getting worse? Largely posted by entrenched unprepared urbanites, the majority of those posting obviously are not willing to accept that there may come a day when incivility will go beyond just someone cutting ahead of them in a movie theater queue, or talking too loudly on their cell phone and spoiling the ambience at their favorite eatery. And the whole concept of private civilians owning guns for self defense sends some of them into paroxysms of apoplectic horror.
To all the newcomers: Welcome! Please take the time to look at SurvivalBlog objectively, rather than just dismissively deriding the blog as a gathering place for misfits and malcontents. You will find that the vast majority of those posting are well-educated and well-adjusted. SurvivalBlog is inclusive and anti-racist. Once you start looking through the archives (now nearly 6,000 posts), you’ll also see that SurvivalBlog has a wealth of well-reasoned articles and letters on practical preparedness, largely from intelligent, articulate and common-sense viewpoints.
Sometimes newcomers are overwhelmed with the scale and complexity of the training and logistics that they see described by more seasoned SurvivalBlog readers. Just take a deep breath and think through the basics: Food, water, and shelter. Make the best preparations that you can afford, take advantage of low-cost training, and rest assured that in the event of a disaster you will be able to provide for your family far better than most of your neighbors. You can start by evaluating your own locale and situation and then develop a list of lists. Whether it is just a storm that knocks out utility power for a few days, or The End of the World as We Know It (TEOTWAWKI), you’ll be way ahead of the power curve. – JWR