Category: G. O. O. D.

Letter Re: An Approach to Medical Supply Storage

Mr. Rawles, I thought you might want to mention a product with your readers. I must admit that I am kind of a gear head and am constantly trying  to come up with better ways to organize and store my preparedness supplies. The one storage issue that I have always been indecisive about was how I wanted to store my medical/trauma/surgical supplies. There are lots of great professional bags and military medical cases out there, however their cost just didn’t seem reasonable to me or my budget.  One day while checking out the latest and greatest tools in my local home improvement store I came across what I …


Sailboats as Alternative Bugout Vehicles, by StudioMan

As we have all seen, the last few months has seen its share of really large natural disasters, on all of our major continents. Thru the Internet I was able to watch the hurricane that hit Australia via the numerous surf cameras available along the coast. It was amazing to see them drop out one at a time, while some of them that were on the edge of the storm never went down. A few of the web cams were attached to buildings overlooking breakwaters, or in marinas where you could see the sailboats and yachts being tossed around by …


Lead Your Family Out or Stay?, by Richard G.

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With all the scenarios that can happen in a social meltdown, I would like to take the moment and relate to everyone what actually happened in my mother’s time, a short 70 years ago. At the time, no one could foresee or plan for the catastrophic events that awaited them. Millions were displaced forcibly or by choice. Many lessons can be learned and in my case are being applied in my own preparations for a collapse, or worse yet, a collapse of society as we know it. The key is “as we know it”. An eastern European refugee who lived …


I Thought That I Was Prepared, by G32

I really enjoy the wisdom and wealth of information that is in your daily blog. I know the importance of listening to your inner voice as well as wise council and being prepared. Living in a developing nation is never easy but being missionaries in a West African country known for its relative safety was a joy so we were a bit relaxed in our thinking and our perception of potential danger.  But then we began to hear and see things that made us a bit unsettled and we began to have that inner feeling that things were not going …


Reloading On the Run, by David L.

Your house might be secured. In your basement or workshop you have your reloading outfit, your press, your scale and all of your dies. You can load thousands of rounds in a couple of days if you choose. So what if you have to leave your home in case of the proverbial excrement hitting the rotating circulating blades? How will you pack up your reloading outfit? How much ammunition can you possibly carry if the need arose? Ammunition runs out, especially if you can’t get to the store to replenish that supply and you are away from home.   In …


Letter Re: Preparedness at Your Workplace

Mr. Rawles, As a regular reader of your blog, I have seen little mentioned about one obvious “bug in” solution that most people overlook, which would be their office or work site. This will not work for everyone but please allow me to provide you with my own experience. We have a small warehouse/office operation of about 2,000 square feet. There are 2 offices, a basic bathroom, and a small room previously used as a lunch room for the employees of the other tenant. These rooms take up about 400 square feet of space from the total 2,000 square feet. …


Three Letters Re: The Earthquake in Japan and its Aftermath

Dear James,   I just wanted to alert you to the possible impact of what is actually happening at Japan’s Fukushima nuclear power plant.  The grid has gone down, and it appears that the emergency diesel generators have failed.  There is apparently no off-site or on-site AC power.  This is very similar to the scenario that I outlined in my article posted last September in SurvivalBlog (except for the precipitating event for my article described an EMP event).  We have a potential disaster worse than Chernobyl in the making.   In fact, even the mainstream media is now taking note.  Here is …


Letter Re: Minutes Mean Miles

Sir: Depending upon your vehicle, even a small sedan can have a tow hitch installed. If the need arises all you have to do is hitch up a trailer and go.  Think of it as the ultimate grab and go bag, on wheels.   Granted, depending upon resources and vehicles one can expand upon this any number of ways.  Our solution has been to remodel a horse trailer to hold an extensive amount of preps, provide for sleeping space if needed, propane cooking, lighting and heating capabilities, bench storage and fold down tables, etc.  The fact that it appears to …


Letter Re: Some Observations From a Texas Winter Storm

Jim, In late January-early February of 2011 Texas got hammered two weeks in a row by serious cold temperatures and dangerous ice. The cold was so severe that many power plants went offline and we had rolling blackouts that lasted up to 45 minutes in some places (not at the Super Bowl however!) Over 50 power plants in Texas shut down at some point because they could not take the record cold temps on Feb. 2. While my home seemed to have missed the rolling blackouts, the place where I work had to go to emergency generator power for a …


Minutes Mean Miles, by Jerry the Generator Guy

Most of us do not have the option of being able to live in our “bug out” location.  I have noticed that there are several common limiters for being able to quickly exit a locale; Time spent deciding on and gathering items to take. Time spent physically loading the vehicle(s). This sort / load time issue is the same regardless of the quantity of stuff to be loaded. The same issues apply whether this is “the big one” or if the need is strictly for a local issue. The “prep” time, if done now, is a no dollar or low …


Letter Re: Suburban Preps on Long Island, New York

Hi All, I’d like to contribute some details on my preparations in a region where tricky geography, difficult society, and extremely difficult legal issues can make planning difficult. As for tricky geography, Long Island is essentially a 100-mile long 23-mile wide (at its very widest) ‘no outlet’ roadway prison stuffed with nearly 8 million people. Take a peek at the Wikipedia page about the island to get the idea. We are east of New York City with its 50 million people in the immediate 35 mile radius. When things get Schumeresque – there is very little most residents will be …


Letter Re: A Vehicular Get-Me-Home Kit

I recently took a job that requires a short automobile commute of about ten miles into a nearby small city of 60,000. After a few months I finally got around to packing a ‘get home’ kit to store in my car. The city in question has very few routes out of it. My normal commute is on a highway that travels through a marsh/wetlands area. The other possible routes are along surfaces streets that lead out of the downtown area through very bad neighborhoods until breaking into suburban areas. In the event of a large scale emergency or ‘unrest’ in …


Being Prepared: A Tale of Two Hurricanes, by N.D.

Hurricanes Katrina and Rita In August of 2005 Hurricane Katrina had slammed into the coast of Louisiana and Mississippi.  I really don’t need to tell you the destruction and subsequent aftermath of that storm as it is well documented for all to see.  We had lived in New Orleans for sixteen years and had moved to Houston five years prior to Katrina so were used to living in hurricane alley. We thought…. September of 2005, a month later, the Houston area was threatened by Hurricane Rita.  Rita was the fourth most intense Atlantic hurricane ever recorded. The paranoia at the …


Letter Re: Escape From New York

Dear Jim:   Dino’s home in Nassau County (Long Island) New York could prove to be where he will stay during the difficulties that “might” descend upon us. It might be impossible to bug out to his upstate property. Here’s why.   The only connections to the US mainland from western Long Island are the following: • The Throgs Neck Bridge to the Bronx • The Whitestone Bridge to the Bronx • The Triboro Bridge to Manhattan Island • The Queensboro Bridge to Manhattan Island • The Queens Midtown Tunnel to Manhattan Island • The Brooklyn Battery Tunnel to Manhattan Island …


Two Letters Re: Prepping Pays Off in Midwest Winter Storms

Hello, I just wanted to write you about an experience I had recently. First of all I own a very dog eared copy of your novel “Patriots“ that was given to me by someone who I look up to a lot. This individual was the first person to expose me to the “bug out” bag concept. As a result I’ve always been a preparedness type of girl. In high school and college I always kept provisions for myself wherever went and as a result I’ve been able to rise to the occasion many times when things got tough. As a …