Category: Survival Mindset

The Will to Survive, by Chris H.

The “will to survive” is the most important survival tool you will ever have. It is more important than a year supply of food, a Swiss Army knife, or a Bic lighter. What good would a lighter be if you have no desire to make a fire? How can a signal fire result in a rescue if you have lost all hope that it will and don’t bother building one? How can your next meal keep you alive if you are unwilling to go and find it? The most common factor identified in stories of extreme survival situations is the …


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 …


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 …


Considerations for Disabled Preppers, by Kevin R.

Over the last few years, I have seen numerous articles on everything imaginable . This has been the most informative site amongst “many” others I frequent. I am a Messianic Christian and partially disabled. I once weighed over 500 pounds and was written off for dead with severe sleep apnea. By the grace of God I have since lost 300 pounds. Many years spent in a wheelchair have pretty much weakened me from the knees down. If you see me in the mall I am probably zipping by you, but I cannot stand for long. I will never be able …


Disabled–But Not Helpless, by J.E.

“I would probably die.” my friend responded to the question of “What happens if there is a power failure while you sleep?”  His smile was closer to a grimace.  He was a fragile old man, out of the hospital for just a week, and would be using supplementary oxygen for the rest of his life.  His oxygen concentrator, used at night while asleep, required 115 VAC.  It wasn’t an idle question.  We had, on different occasions, discussed survival situations, including TEOTWAWKI.  (It is similar to deciding how high “up” is.) Within days he had cobbled together an alarm that used …


You’re Ready for the Outlaws, But What About the In-Laws?, by Ellie Mae

I’ve been a daily visitor to SurvivalBlog for nearly three years now.  I really can’t believe it has been that long since that desperate day when anxiety from losing my job took over and compelled me to search for survival information on the Internet.   You see, I was a 20 year mortgage originator.  Not only had I lost my job when my company folded, it was clear to me that I and millions of others had lost any ability to make a living in that crumbling industry.  The music stopped while I was chasing the dollars and it was game …


Three Letters Re: Food Storage Extremes – Avoiding the Expensive Pitfalls

Jim, Although John L.’s article brings up a lot of interesting points, I think his definition of only two archetypes of persons, the clueless yuppie and the deluded urban survivalist is a little over the top.  I truly hope he was using hyperbole to make a point.  The truth at least from my perspective is that there are a lot of prepared persons that don’t fit either of his stereotypes.  Perhaps it’s because I live in a rural community where most of my neighbors could go weeks to months without a trip for groceries if the need arose.  That just …


Affordable Preparedness, by Phil in East Tennessee

I enjoy reading SurvivalBlog each morning as I prepare for my day. I have only been a reader of the blog for six months, and enjoy all the varied insights. So I feel compelled to share some of my experiences. Let me start off by saying I was raised in a Christian preparedness household.  Both my parents suffered through the Great Depression as children and my mother was deeply impacted by the possibility of being hungry and cold again. As a teenager in the mid-1970s I remember we had a basement full of Neo-Life brand long term storage food, thousands …


Letter Re: Being Prepared: A Tale of Two Hurricanes

Dear Sir, After reading A Tale of Two Hurricanes by N.D., I thought I would share some lessons that my family and I learned from Hurricane Ike. First off, I became turned onto the prepping mindset about a year and a half ago. I have been trying to get my father thinking in this mindset and he recently read “One Second After” by William R. Forstchen which seems to have truly sparked something inside him. I plan to let him read my copy of your novel “Patriots” as well. Well we live in the “country” northwest of Houston. Most people …


Prepare and Practice Often, or Pay The Price, by J. in the Great White North

I want to relate a story that happened to me this past week that I think will be instructive for many SurvivalBlog readers. My journey into prepping started about a year ago, when my eyes were opened after reading a contrarian economist’s books about the fragile state of our economy, and the impending implications that will inevitably result if our world continues to operate on tomorrow’s dollar and with a Nanny-state mentality. The very same day I finished his latest book, I went to my local bookstore to find similar titles that could augment what I’d already read.  This is …


The Earthquake in Haiti: First-Hand Lessons From Disaster, by Dr. L.F.

I’m a neurosurgeon, and I had the opportunity to spend a couple weeks in Port Au Prince, Haiti last year, arriving just two weeks after the earthquake in February. This was a great opportunity to serve people in need, but I also benefited from seeing WTSHTF firsthand. I brought in a team of three doctors and two nurses , along with one former Marine turned pastor (for security). When a missionary flight company said: “We can get you in if you can be here day after tomorrow, but we can’t guarantee you a flight out,” a wiser person might have …


The Hard Truth About Starting Your Survival Homestead, by Mitch M.

I have noticed a frightening trend being used by many of the “survival seed” companies that have started up in the past several years. The same trend shows up on many “survival/ prepping” web sites. This is pushing the idea that in TEOTWAWKI one merely needs to open the bucket and have an instant survival homestead. That isn’t necessarily so. Does buying the latest fancy rifle with rangefinder, laser pointer, and fancy toilet paper holder make you a marksman? There is a range of preparations and skills necessary for running a successful farm or homestead. That is why our forefathers …


Survival: The Five I’s That Might Keep You Alive, by Dino

Survival: The Five I’s That Might Keep You Alive, by Dino If you read the title carefully, you’ll notice the word might. Regardless of preparation, situations sometimes spiral out of control faster than we can react to the. In a TEOTWAWKI scenario of indeterminate cause, all the plans in the world go out the window, literally in some cases. Ask any senior military officer about mission planning, and invariably they will tell you that from the time a briefing starts until it ends, the situation has evolved to make the plan need adjusting. The film industry has some of the …