Category: Survival Mindset

Letter Re: An Earthquake Wakeup Call in Australia

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 …


Six Letters Re: Suburban Survival

James, In response to “Suburban Survival, by The Suburban 10” posted on April 10th: I expect that the author will receive a lot of feedback on what he considers ‘Security’. Based on his erroneous assumptions on the role and proper use of a firearm in a suburban TEOTWAWKI situation, I can conclude that he is among the anti-Second Amendment crowd. Living in New York under the Bloomberg/Schumer cloud has obviously affected him. That being said, I shouldn’t have been so surprised when he wrote: “8. I have friends who are police officers and have never fired their weapon in the …


Advice for New Members to the Survivalist Camp, by Ken in Ohio

A couple of years ago I took the “red pill”. Media led propaganda and the tales of success from my elder peers led me down the path of blindness. No problem there, it was, and still is, the norm. All of us are led until the day we decide to take flight on our own. Sometimes its one incident that starts us down that new path of enlightenment; Haiti, Chile, Southern Louisiana, 9-11-01. Sometimes it is a series of unfortunate events; loss of the head of household, halving of investments or retirement funds, cut in pay or hours or loss …


Kids and Sleep During a Crisis, by AK. in Texas

We live in Tornado Alley which means we’ve had more than a few opportunities to break out the 72 hour kits and find out what works and what doesn’t. However, one thing we were surprised to find was that we hadn’t figured out what to do when the crisis extends through bedtime, or when it occurs while the kids are asleep. If you have to “hunker down” during a crisis, it’ll take a while for you or the kids to get sleepy. For the adults, this isn’t that big a deal, but when children miss sleep, they have a tendency …


A “10% Test” Survival Trip by C.J. in Helena Montana Edited by Capt. Barr

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 …


Who is On Your Team?, by G.

In the last year, I have been on my latest “life journey”, wherein I have rediscovered preparedness. During my college years, my friends in engineering school and I discussed Y2K and possible outcomes. Obviously a bunch of electrical engineering students had no idea what would happen. But it did give me pause. What if the worst case situation occurred? What would my parents and I do? (I lived at home throughout college to save funds.) On a limited budget, and even less knowledge, I did recognize two primary needs: water and firearms for self defense. Working at an internship gave …


Survival Mindset: Being Ready for a Violent Encounter, by AK in Tulsa

Most of us who spend any time at all thinking about “Survival” or “Preparedness” have probably spent some of that time considering the subject of Self Defense. If you’ve spent enough time thinking about it, you’ve probably spent more than time on the subject. Like many of your survival-minded brothers and sisters, you’ve likely spent some of your hard earned dollars on a weapon or two. Perhaps you have a small arsenal at home. Owning a weapon may save your life but not if it’s not with you when you need it or if you’re not prepared to use it. …


Your Survival Readiness Level–A True Self Assessment, by Gina W.

By definition survival preparedness means attaining the state of having been made ready to outlive another person, thing, or event. Years pass by reminding us that life is short and meant to be enjoyed. People concentrate on material items but often overlook factors involved in determining the comfort level of a new living situation. A true self assessment now will determine whether life is barely survivable or comfortable. People forget how the mind body element affects lifestyle changes. It is important to assess your actions before a situation takes away your ability to feed the habits that control you. Reflect …


Letter Re: Tsunami Evacuation, Kauai Style

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, …


It is All About the Means of Production, by Mark. B.

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 …


Letter Re: Confronting Kleptocracy–Identifying the Looter Mentality

Dear Mr. Rawles, I would like to make a few comments on your post titled “Confronting Kleptocracy – Identifying the Looter Mentality”. Although my education and profession are in medicine, I have been long interested in social anthropology particularly as it applies to the average “citizen” confronted with a breakdown in modern society. As you are well aware, our society exists by means of a fragile web of precisely balanced interconnected dependencies. This web was not created overnight but has developed over several generations. At present we enjoy life at a time where the poorest people in our modern culture …


Lest Any Man Should Boast: A Christian Survivalist Perspective on Race, Religion, and Reason

I often get letters and e-mails, chastising me for being an anti-racist. I call these “nasty-grams.” I get several of them each week. Some folks, it seems, are deeply offended that I look upon everyone as equals. The truth is that people should be judged as individuals. (That is one of my core Precepts.) Anyone that makes blanket statements about other races is ignorant that there are both good and bad individuals in all groups. There is no inherent superiority in any skin tone or facial feature, any more than there is in any particular hair color. I have accepted …


Letter Re: Confronting Kleptocracy–Identifying The Looter Mentality

Dear Mr. Rawles, To follow up on your recent blog article, it is sad that we live in a society where people will lower themselves to such activities as crime on the streets. That crime is regrettable, but in the aftermath of TEOTWAWKI, looting will be an absolute unacceptable crime. It will become rapidly, a capital crime. Just as in the 19th Century, horse theft was punishable by death, so will be looting in the aftermath of any societal breakdown which results in any of the scenarios envisioned by either you, or your readers. Essentially, “Rule .308” will apply in …


Confronting Kleptocracy–Identifying The Looter Mentality

A recent opinion column The New York Times was titled: The Moral Ambiguity of Looting. Ambiguity? There is nothing ambiguous about it. Let’s have the moral courage to be forthright and uncompromising on this issue: Looting is the theft of property that lawfully belongs to another. There are no “ifs, ands, or buts”. Looting is unconscionable and cannot be tolerated in a civilized society. Once looting begins, it soon devolves into: “You have it, I want it, I’m taking it.” And once looting is sanctioned, then where is the dividing line on “acceptable” plunder? Do you draw the line at: …


Letter Re: Experiencing the Recent Hawaiian Tsunami Evacuation Alert

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 …