Category: Emerging Threats

How to Build a Defensible Single Family Retreat, by M.S.

My parents were part of the “Back-To-The-Land” movement in the 1970’s, so I am no stranger to the principles and techniques underlying today’s prepper movement. Cutting ten cords of wood to heat our northern Minnesota home, by hand with an axe and a crosscut saw, was part of my formative years. Raising chickens; living in the deep woods, which were especially deep during the year that my father moved us to a camp in northern Ontario that could only be reached by float plane with the nearest neighbor 60 miles away and only accessible to us by snowmobile in the …


Guest Article: The U.S. Stock Market: It’s Not As It Appears! by Tim Wood

As equities continued to rise during the advance into the 2007 price top, I screamed from the roof tops that it was a bear market advance and that the efforts to prop the markets up only served to make matters worse. That certainly proved to be the case as those efforts resulted in the worst financial crisis since The Great Depression. Yet, as a result of the worst financial crisis since The Great Depression, the response to that event was the massive bailouts and even more of the same things that created that event in the first place. Seriously, think …


Letter Re: The Real Threats

Hi HJL, I realize that the writer of this article speaks from an area of professional focus, but we actually have more real threats. Also, I agree with your italicized comment about nuclear war. Europe was not nearly rendered uninhabitable, due to Chernobyl. Even if we thought that a nuclear war was non-survivable, not giving-up or quitting is the essence of being a survivalist. Also, terroristic “dirty bombs” are way overrated, and as the author of the article stated himself, most of the casualties would be from public perception and the mass panic. The US Dollar As a collapse theorist …


Letter: Ebola and Hajj

Last year more than two million Muslims from all over the world performed hajj, or travel to Mecca, to participate in the Muslim rituals there. People are in close contact, often shoulder to shoulder and even stepping on each other, for several days as they go through several rituals of hajj. When the hajj is over, these people return to their homes in dozens of countries across the globe. This year 70,000 Nigerians will travel to Mecca, despite that country having more than a dozen confirmed cases of Ebola Zaire, with over 300 suspected of exposure to the deadly virus. …


Letter Re: What Retail Might Look Like at TEOTWAWKI

Dear Sir, I feel like I have some insight to add to Jacob’s post about what retail may look like post disaster. I manage a warehouse for a DSD (direct store delivery) company. Here’s just a little bit of insight into what that is, since not everyone knows how stores get their merchandise: Many items are not stocked by the stores themselves. They never go through their own distribution network. Instead, companies (bread, snacks, soda, beer, pizza, et cetera) manage their own distribution and have their own trucks go to the store. We handle our own product from raw materials …


The Real Threats, by R.S.

There is a lot of conjecture as to what the event will be that “ends it all” and sends the world into complete chaos, causing Americans to go into “survival mode”. Every corner you turn you hear another theory about how it’s “going to go down”. People’s answers include terms like E.M.P., H.E.M.P., nuclear, biological, chemical, economic meltdown, foreign invasion, global natural disaster, space alien invasion, zombie apocalypse, or all the above (for the real dooms dayers). So, what is the more likely or more plausible scenario or scenarios for having to go into real survival mode? Let’s look at …


Letter Re: EMP

I currently keep my backup mini-iPad in an EMP bag. Do I also need to keep my power supply for it there, too? Thanks – A.B. HJL replies: Yes. In fact, it is probably more important that the charger is in the bag than the ipad. Being an electrical engineer with considerable radio technology experience, I have a perspective that is a bit different than most on the subject. The true danger of EMP is in having antennas or things that act like antennas pick up the electrical energy. If the object in question either has wires or parts that …


Letter Re: U.S. Recon Team Assaults Taliban Position Under Fire

James, Good afternoon from somewhere near Fortress Bragg. Regarding the video you posted https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pq1wqs1oY8M of the U.S. recon element combat engagement, I viewed the video and come away a bit disheartened. I was especially troubled to see the soldiers not responding to the patrol leader, most using very poor fire and maneuver, IMT (individual movement techniques), and generally a mundane approach to combat. While there is some “cool gear”, there is nothing exceptional in the kit that I was able to spot. What the video tells me, as a regular army officer of 27 years of service (and as a …


Quarantine Procedures for Ebola and Other Diseases at Your Bugout Location, by F.C.

With the most recent outbreak of Ebola in West Africa, causing the deaths of close to 900 people as of this writing in August 2014, along with reports that some people infected with the disease are now arriving in the U.S., many of us should now be asking this question: In all of my preparedness procedures, how do I protect myself, my family, and others in my bug-out or bug-in location from Ebola and other deadly diseases? What do I do if family and/or friends show up weeks after a full-fledged pandemic has broken out? Do I welcome them instantly …


Letter Re: Potential Bioterrorism Agent Found in Colorado

Hugh, In the 19 July 2014 entry by Dr. Koelker, she brought up the potential for use of weaponized plague. Many years ago when I was in the Air Force, my tattered old shot record says I was inoculated against “Plague”. Is there currently any vaccine available that works to prevent pneumonic and/or bubonic plague? And how long is/was my ancient (1968) inoculation effective? Thank you for the excellent heads-up, Doc. BUFF Driver Cynthia Koelker, MD Responds: In my recent article on pneumonic plague I stated that no vaccine is available, but to answer this reader’s question, let me address …


June In Precious Metals, by Steven Cochran of Gainesville Coins

Welcome to SurvivalBlog’s Precious Metals Month in Review, where we take a look at “the month that was” in precious metals. Each month, we cover the price action of gold and silver and examine the “what” and “why” behind those numbers. Precious Metals Market Drivers in June Gold started the month under $1,250 an ounce, and climbed over $70 to above $1,320 by the end of the month. Silver gained steadily throughout June, from under $19 an ounce to over $21. Platinum and palladium saw peaks and valleys, due to the on-again, off-again labor negotiations in South Africa that had …


SHTF Lessons From Venezuela, by CSR

I am an avid reader and have not attempted to contribute to this fine blog because I personally had little to offer from the perspective of knowledge or skills that many more knowledgeable individuals have already contributed. However, as I have been closely monitoring the current events in Venezuela I realized that this is an area where I have knowledge and skills that many others don’t. Also, there is a great deal about these events that,in my opinion, correlate to the United States’ political and economic directions and possible outcomes. The people of Venezuela are learning lessons the hard way. …


Letter Re: EMP

Hi Jim, Do you know if we have a EMP attack or if the grid goes down weather we will still have internet service? – GLB HJL Replies: Since the vast majority of the Internet depends upon the power grid, it really depends on how much of the power grid survives an EMP event. The long hauls of the infrastructure would probably survive due to the fact that most are based on fiber optics, which are not affected by EMP. The hubs, connection points and routers all have to have power though, which is affected by EMP events. If the …


Letter: Social Media Intel During an Emergency

HJL, I am a long time reader and understand JWR’s recommendation against the use of social media. The recent snow storm that has crippled the roads in major southern cities has proven a positive of social media that I hadn’t fully realized. With a “friends” list of over 1,000 (who are mostly just acquaintances) I was able gain valuable intelligence down to the neighborhood level. Friends reported on road closures, traffic jams, people in need of help and their location, people providing help, and businesses that were open and taking in those that were stranded. This sharing of information undoubtedly …


Guest Article: EMP Myths and FAQs, by Joel Ho

Q: Do Faraday Cages need grounding? A: No. A Faraday cage designed against EMP, if properly constructed, will keep any charge outside the shield. The shield interior is separate, so anything inside, even though it touches the inside of the shield, is safe. However – if the cage is improperly made and there are wide holes in the mesh exceeding the size of wavelength to be blocked, grounding could help. As an example, this Youtube video link is of EMP testing my company has done with another firm’s professional EMP simulator. You can see a shielded laptop on the left …