Category: Retreat Logistics

Four Letters Re: A Twenty-Something EMT with Limited Preps Storage Space

Hello, The recently-posted letter “A Twenty-Something EMT with Limited Preps Storage Space” is something that a lot of us apartment dwellers struggle with all the time. I read and re-read the article several times. She never mentioned about space under the bed. I jacked my bed frame up, quietly mind you, with cinder blocks. Not only do I have a whole extra foot of height worth of space. I also have a bed where as I am not climbing out of but am sitting up and sliding off. Makes a big difference in the morning at least for me.. Between …


Letter Re: Retreat Security–Lessons Learned from the Rhodesian Experience

Jim: After giving it some thought [to post-TEOTWAWKI retreat security], I think we need to study many of the homestead/farmstead fortifications used during the [late 1970s] Rhodesian Bush War and to a certain extend in rural South Africa in the present day. Of course, one would need to adjust for legalities so one would not be breaking any laws. – Lame Wolf [JWR Adds: Lame Wolf also sent us a great quote from a letter by “Rhodesian” that was first posted at the Small Wars Journal (SWJ) web site. BTW I recommend the SWJ site–in particular their Reference Library pages–as …


Letter Re: LDS Church Offers Food Storage Starter Kit

Jim, I am a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints [LDS or comminly called “The Mormons”]. I am also the Emergency Preparedness Coordinator for my ward. As you know the leaders of the church constantly speak of preparedness. In April 2007 a talk was offered by Keith B McMullin in the Saturday evening session of conference titled “Lay Up in Store”. This talk proclaimed again all the benefits of preparation. While not every Latter-day Saint is fully prepared, a percentage somewhere in the mid-teens have done at least a 72-Hour Kit (Bug-out Bag). The Church’s preparation …


Letter Re: Thinking Like an Infantrymen or Thinking Like a Frontiersmen

Jim: I read a post about this a while back and it sort of stuck in my head. It did make a lot of sense. What exactly does it mean to plan like a frontiersmen mean versus plan like an infantrymen? The biggest areas that stuck out were resupply, weapons, numbers, static defense, and caches. Infantrymen can almost universally depend on getting resupplied within 12-to-48 hours if they run low on ammo or anything else. Survivalists or frontiersmen do not have this luxury. Which means two things, first stock up on as much ammo as you can afford and use …


Letter Re: Ladies’ Supplies for Preparedness

Mr. Rawles, I’m a woman, and you know what that means – if I’m not currently pregnant, I’m going to bleed once a month. I know, you’re a guy, maybe you haven’t thought of this – but disposable menstrual products can be scary expensive. It can also be hard to discreetly dispose of them while moving fast, and they’ve got to be changed fairly often if you’re a heavy bleeder. It might be a good idea for women concerned about the future to invest in some form of reusable menstrual protection. I’m thinking specifically of a cup, such as DivaCup …


Coping With Inflation–Some Strategies for Investing, Bartering, Dickering, and Survival

Statistics released by the Federal government claim that the current inflation rate is 4.3 percent. That is utter hogwash. Their statistics cunningly omit “volatile” food and energy prices. The statisticians admit that energy costs rose by more than 21% since last December. They also admit that Finished Goods rose 7.2%, and “Materials for Manufacturing” rose a whopping 42% , with a 8.7% jump in just the month of November. When commodities rise this quickly, it is apparent that something is seriously out of whack. Meanwhile, the buying power of the US Dollar is falling versus most other currencies. Not surprisingly, …


Letter Re: A Significant Wheat Shortage is Looming in the US

Mr. Rawles, I found an interesting and alarming article from CattleNetwork.com on grain supplies. Especially note these parts: “In fact, export sales of U.S. wheat are beginning to look like panic buying. Overseas buyers are purchasing ahead anticipating the U.S. will run out of wheat, which is exactly what may happen for hard red winter and white wheat. Wheat exports simply can not be sustained at current levels. Either price will have to increase more to ration the remaining supply or, as was rumored in grain markets this week, the U.S. government will step in to embargo further wheat exports.” …


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 …


Four Letters Re: Extended Care of the Chronically Ill in TEOTWAWKI

Mr. Rawles: Every once in a while, at topic comes up that I feel somewhat qualified to comment on. I’ll offer some miscellaneous comments on Dave T’s letter and your thoughts on medicine WTSHTF, as posted on SurvivalBlog. This is not meant to be exhaustive, and of course may not apply to your particular situation. Since I can’t see you, its hard for me to diagnose you or give you specific advice. Disclaimers all ’round. Chronic renal failure: It may be worth learning to do peritoneal dialysis if you may have to help someone deal with this condition in a …


Two Letters Re: Storing Nails–Crucial for Preparedness

Jim: [You had mentioned in yesterday’s post: “…one of my unfulfilled quests in life has been to find a small hardware store that is going out of business and getting to ask the owner: “How much for all of your fasteners?” (Hopefully, at or below their scrap metal value.) That would be quite a coup.”] FYI, never be shy! Several years ago the local Scotty’s [hardware chain store] was going out of business; after many weeks of slowly reducing the prices.On the final weekend I approached the “soon to be unemployed” manager and offered to buy all the remaining large …


Letter Re: Storing Nails–Important for Preparedness

I was watching a show last night about the Lewis and Clark expedition and something really opened my eyes, Did you know that when the group left a fort or shelter they built they would burn it down when they left do salvage the nails they used. Apparently nails were worth their weight in gold since they were hand made one at a time. This got me to thinking that in the event of TEOTWAWKI or even a couple year collapse that people will still have to build things and repair their homes. So I wondered how many people thought …


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: Thanks for SurvivalBlog!

Dear Mr. Rawles: I am a newly-minted reader and fan of SurvivalBlog. I stumbled upon [SurvivalBlog] by doing a web search on what turned out to be one of your “Quote of the Days” from [the late] Jeff Cooper. All that I can say is that I am mega-overwhelmed at what you and the readers have put on-line. I started out by going back through your current threads, and that seemed like a lot. But then I started clicking on the monthly archive links [in the right hand column] and then I started doing searched on particular topics. Wow! I …


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, …