Jim; Blog reader N.R. recently mentioned using storm drain pipes under cities for escape routes. This article shows the potential danger of sewers [which can be even more dangerous than storm drains]: Middletown city worker dies after falling in manhole. Be safe! – Philip R.
Beneath many of our very feet are hundreds of miles of underground piping which utilized correctly can provide valuable resource in the event of a TEOTWAWKI situation. Storm drainage pipe siphons rain water from urban areas into surrounding streams and rivers. Accessed through manholes and curb gutters water runs off the street into basins and concrete piping. (Concrete piping varies in size, however most urban areas use diameters 36” and upward.) In the event of a G.O.O.D. situation slipping into some form of drainage would at least allow stealth movement for a decent distance (remember water always flows toward the …
Dear Editor: I have been reading your blog for a while but until Saturday, I never saw how a disaster could unhinge some people so quickly and what lack of preparedness can do to some people. I went to deliver a chainsaw, some gas and water to a relative in Yazoo City and what is usually a 45 minute drive took over 2 hours. Land lines and cell towers were down, and if you had a phone with a certain carrier, the service was very spotty. The traffic was bad and the roads into the town were blocked and we …
Survival planning can be overwhelming and a lot of the advice you get is not practical or compatible with our lifestyles. A lot of us choose, or are forced to live in the crowded East Coast far too close to cities to survive TEOTWAWKI. I dare say, a lot of SurvivalBlog readers live in suburbs just outside medium to large population centers. Many of us have jobs that don’t migrate to small towns and would face a substantial loss of income if we moved away from our livelihoods. Some of us like our current lives and feel that hunkering down …
Greetings! I’m a SurvivalBlog addict who lives in the coastal suburbs of Adelaide, South Australia, and last night at roughly 11:25 p.m. my shower was interrupted by an earthquake! It wasn’t strong enough to move furniture. In fact, as earthquakes go it was pretty weak (later revealed as a 3.8), but since we’re near the coast I wasn’t taking any chances, and neither was my wife! Seconds after it was stopped I was drying off and we were both getting dressed. We locked the doors, shut the windows, grabbed our phones and our boy, put the dogs in the car …
When I think on the “Bug out Bag” I am not thinking of a basic survival kit. The survival kit is designed to be small, portable, and with you whenever you venture out into the woods. The bug out bag is a larger version of the same but designed for a totally different scenario. When you know you are going to be on your own for an undetermined amount of time. First off it will be larger than a survival kit; usually a small backpack or duffle will suffice to carry all you will need for an extended stay away …
In a “Schumer hits the fan” (SHTF) scenario where you need to get out of Dodge (G.O.O.D.), will your vehicle be up to the task? Is your cooling system robust enough to handle unusual demands? Are your fancy new wheels hurky enough to withstand off-road conditions? Is your vehicle ready to tow a trailer over rough terrain and for long distances? Is the trailer ready? We don’t get to pick when the SHTF, so keep your vehicle ready! Here are some of my suggestions based on over twenty-five years in the automotive maintenance and repair business. Catastrophic failures often begin …
James, As a wife and mother of a pre-teen daughter, how important is it to hide the fact that we are female in a G.O.O.D. scenario? In considering this idea I realize that in the “flee natural disaster” situation it would be less of a concern. Perhaps it only applies to a bad TEOTWAWKI evacuation. What are your thoughts, ideas on this? When would it be necessary, how far would we need to go to disguise our female appearance, etc? We have thought of everything from mildly sticking to athletic/hiking clothing that are form fitting but don’t show skin, to …
I work as an independent hospital contractor. Our home base is in Montana, but I am independent. I work as temporary health care staff at hospitals, being licensed in about 5 states. I usually make pretty good money traveling, but I miss having a fixed point in case of crisis. My wife and I really enjoy living in Montana, we were having a good life: hunting in the mountains panning for gold and camping. While working at a good paying contract, the hospital I was with had asked about renewing the job for another several weeks. I accepted the renewal …
James, I read with great interest the piece by Jeff M. on building kits. I was kind of taken aback by his statement “I just won’t be one of those guys who carries a purse”. I guess in these days I need to understand what a purse is because I am a professional person who goes to meeting all over the state in a suit and tie and I always have what my family calls my purse with me. I carry an old trusted backpack that contains my laptop, but also carries all of my immediate survival needs (knife, first …
Howzit J.R., I’m a newbie groupie to your site, now on a daily basis. I’m going through the archives, year by year, and am compiling useful info for my situation. I’ve realized that at some point, due to the number of visitors to your site, [voluntary] membership dues may be necessary, just to support the technical requirements of having it. No problemo. I’ve never seen anything like the SurvivalBlog site, so my dues are in-bound. I’ve seen previous posts about the tsunami warning in Hawai‘i, but not from a local resident perspective. I’ll give you mine. I live on Kaua‘i, …
From the beginning of time, ownership and control of quality farm land and raw materials have been closely associated with wealth creation and prosperity. What can you grow or raise? What resources and commodities do you own and control? How much metal, stone, glass, and wood do you own? Do you have the means, knowledge, tools and skills to produce valuable items from this land and these raw materials? As America was settled, the pioneers knew very well the fundamentals of non-electric, independence away from the city and just how critical natural resources were to survival. If a parcel did …
One of the skills that has served me best in life is my tendency to make everything modular. I think I learned it in the Army, but regardless of where I picked it up, it has saved my rear end at home, at work, in emergencies, and even in my hobbies. Let’s pick on Average Joe for a second. Average Joe is exactly that. He likes a beer now and again, listens to classic rock and some country, and works in a job that just barely pays the bills. He has a commute of about 50 miles round-trip every day …
Dear Jim, Greetings and thank you, to you and all your wonderful contributors of the past. As most of us live in the ‘City’ or suburb of the ‘City’, there is a feeling of when TEOTWAWKI occurs, we will grab our G.O.O.D. bag get in our vehicle and head out to our personal retreat, hidden from the Golden Horde. One quick question – when will the TEOTWAWKI occur? What date? What time? And how will we know it has occurred? As I have read most of the writings from the beginning until now, I seem to have missed that date, …
Jim, I had the recent somewhat surreal experience of going through the Hawaiian costal evacuation during the most recent tsunami alert. It was a near-miss natural disaster scenario that unfolded in slow motion because of the distance from the Chilean earthquake and the presence of tsunami alert sensors and monitoring officials. There are a few observations that I’d like to share. I managed to stay ahead of the Golden Horde phenomena by a few hours and it was interesting to just acknowledge some of the predictable elements: most people were not alerted to the risk of the tsunami until 0600 …