Category: Fuel Storage & Distilling

Two Letters Re: Sources for Gasoline and Diesel Fuel in a Grid-Down Collapse

Mr. Rawles, A good out-of-the-box solution to diesel fuel transfer comes from Northern Tool & Equipment, item #360. I use mine for diesel, waste vegetable oil, and heating oil. One nice feature is that it pumps at 10 gpm. That’s moving a lot of fuel in a short period of time. I usually run mine off a 12 VDC jumper battery. Water often sits at the bottom of storage tanks. You really don’t want to pump that into your vehicle. A quick and cheap modification of the pump assembly solves the problem. I spliced in two feet of 1 inch …


Letter Re: Hunkering Down in an Urban Apartment in a Worst Case Societal Collapse

Hello, In the event of a disaster (I live in New York City) I intend to shelter in place until all the riotous mobs destroy each other or are starved out. I am preparing for up to six months. I have one liter of water stored for each day (180 liters) and about 50 pounds of rice to eat as well as various canned goods. I have not seen on your site anything about heat sources for urban dwellers who intend to shelter in place. I’m assuming that electricity would go first soon followed by [natural] gas and running water. …


Letter Re: Coleman Fuel–Uses and Storage Life

Hi Jim, According to Coleman’s web site, Coleman fuel can be stored for 5 to 7 years. I wondered if a chainsaw with the correct oil additive run on Coleman fuel. So I did a web search, and this is what I found, over at the Timebomb 2000 (Y2K) Discussion Forums, posted back in 1998] – E.L.: Coleman Fuel the Final Word! Boy What did I start? I have seen more rumors and half truths about Coleman fuel since I posted that it did work on engines!! Coleman fuel is a very highly refined version of gasoline! It has no …


Letter Re: Sources for Gasoline and Diesel Fuel in a Grid-Down Collapse

Dear Jim: There have been a lot of posts recently about bug-out vehicles and such on SurvivalBlog. Of course, every car or truck requires fuel, and in a sudden grid-down situation there will be a bunch of fuel in underground tanks at most every gas station, unable to be pumped out due to the lack of electricity. I have observed oil company trucks filling these tanks, and it appears they simply pry up some covers and drop the fuel into the tanks. How deep are these tanks, and can the fuel be pumped out by some kind of lightweight hand-cranked …


Letter Re: Preparedness for Less Than a Worst Case, From an Eastern Urbanite’s Perspective

Jim: In response to “Preparedness for Less Than a Worst Case, From an Eastern Urbanite’s Perspective” your response D.C. for improving his family’s preps is reasonable but I think that your advice can be expanded. So I offer the following to my fellow New Yorkers and to other urbanites. D.C. is right that 99% of the inconveniences we encounter will be of short duration. Preparing for these will put us far ahead of the unprepared. Preparing for a week long event will benefit you no matter how long the event lasts–be that an hour or a month! In the same …


Letter Re: Extended Care of the Chronically Ill in TEOTWAWKI

Hello Jim, I am a 10 Cent Challenge subscriber and have looked at your site daily — great job! I have a medical background and would advise readers to consider what gear they will need if a friend, relative or team member becomes ill, hurt, disabled etc. The basic first aid supplies will not provide the level of comfort et cetera needed. We are talking basic nursing care, not “first aid”. Take care, stay safe and God Bless! – Dave T. JWR Replies: Thanks for bringing that subject up again. Aside for fairly some brief mentions (such as photovoltaically-powered CPAP …


Letter Re: Preparedness for Less Than a Worst Case, From an Eastern Urbanite’s Perspective

Jim, I found the following in a letter posted on your blog: “Barring TEOTWAWKI, it seems to me that we are infinitely more likely to face moderately scary scenarios, like Hurricane Katrina and necessary urban evacuation, some urban 1970s-style civil disturbance but nothing like Mogadishu, high-intensity individual criminal acts, a low-order terrorist event nearby and the accompanying panic, or some other situation shy of the worst case scenario.” Do people realize that New Orleans wasn’t far from becoming Mogadishu-like after Hurricane Katrina? Certainly if the water hadn’t flooded the streets it very well could have been much worse. The flood …


Storm After-Action Report and More Thoughts on Western Washington as a Retreat Locale, by Countrytek

Introduction I’m a life-long Western Washington resident – except for five years in Kansas & two in Berlin while in the U.S. Army. I’m the great-grandchild of Washington pioneers. I love this state – the ocean, mountains and fertile valleys – but what it has become — not so much. This past weekend, (November 30 – December 1, 2007), the Olympic Peninsula of Washington state was hit by an arctic front from the Gulf of Alaska, dropping 3-6″ of snow in our area. The weather folks told us not to worry, that it wouldn’t last long, because we had a …


Letter Re: Preparedness for Less Than a Worst Case, From an Eastern Urbanite’s Perspective

Hello Jim, I am very new reader of your blog and am just now starting to go through the archives. Based on what I’ve read so far, I commend you on putting together a useful, fact-intensive blog on “survivalism” (whatever that means), that isn’t geared towards loony, off-the-reservation, tinfoil hat-type readers, who believe that 9/11 was a plot masterminded by Halliburton. That said, one problem I suspect I will have with your blog is that you consistently seem to be preparing for an extreme, and more-or-less permanent, breakdown of society—or TEOTWAWKI, if you will. In one of your blog posts, …


Three Letters Re: Choosing a BOV

Hello Jim, et al, Reading Choosing a BOV by “Brian B in Iraq”, there are a few inaccuracies that I should mention. Some of the statements are definitely subjective, but I’ll leave those alone and just deal with the factual stuff: Regarding this statement: “These “first generation” Cummins trucks used a Bosch rotary injection pump (called a VE pump)….” This is incorrect. The First Generation trucks used, and use, the P7100 Injection Pump. The “Bosch pump” is the VP44, used in the Second Generation trucks. There’s a huge difference between the systems, and I’m not going to go into that, …


Choosing a BOV, by Brian B. in Iraq

There is something to be said about having a defendable retreat far from society with multiple routes to reach it and the preparations that go along with it. But all of those preparations are for naught if you haven’t considered the best way to get from Point A to Point B. With the ever rising fuel prices that we all are experiencing nowadays, it’s very likely that your Bug Out Vehicle (BOV) will also be your main means of transportation. Unless you are really squared away and have the finances to allow it, many of us simply can not afford …


Letter Re: An Aftermarket “En Route” External Fuel Tank Filling Apparatus

Jim: Have you seen this “Freedom Fill” apparatus? It is for trucks that have extra fuel tanks in their bed and it feeds fuel directly to their main tanks. No need to stop for a refueling at an unsafe location. What do you think? – David K. JWR Replies: Other that its general high level of complexity with multiple points of failure–most notably that it uses EMP-vulnerable microprocessor–it looks captivating. Call me a dinosaur, but I prefer the traditional auxiliary fuel tank plumbing methods. OBTW, just think how long the O.J. Simpson “slow speed pursuit” could have gone on if …


Are You Ready to Get Out of Dodge in Winter Weather?

Here in the northern hemisphere, winter is rapidly approaching. So it is timely that I write about vehicular mobility in winter weather. Every well-prepared family should have one or more four wheel drive vehicles with snow tires or chains. For those of you that have “11th Hour” Get Out of Dodge (G.O.O.D.) plan, I trust that you have pre-positioned the vast majority of your food and gear at your intended retreat. Towing a trailer on icy winter roads is a dicey proposition even in the best of times. In my estimation, piloting an overloaded vehicle with an overloaded trailer WTSHTF …


Home/Retreat Power Generator Noise Reduction by “Jerry the Generator Guy”

This article describes practical methods to eliminate four of the issues surrounding generators and their use. Relatively common objections to home generators include; (1) They are often very noisy. This noise does/would bother both us and our neighbors. (2) This high level of noise can serve as a “vermin attractor”. The vermin may need to be discouraged via your “biped eradicator”. (3&4) Moving a generator inside a building will create both fire and exhaust hazards. I have read that after Hurricane Katrina there were several attempts to perform what we used to call “five finger discount” of someone’s generator. The …


Three Letter Re: The Recent San Diego, California Wildfires

Jim: I have the rest of the day off due to the wildfires in the area so I am at home. The firefighting aircraft have been grounded due to wind until a couple of minutes ago. The evacuation zone is currently a 1/4 mile east of me. My northeastern and southeastern escape routes are currently out of the question. I figure that by the time I get told to Get Out of Dodge (G.O.O.D.), the Northern route will be closed off or too crowded to take. Going South into Mexico is currently not an option due to the makeup of …