Category: Survival Mindset

Letter Re: Lessons Learned from the Black Forest, Colorado Fire

Dear JWR; There is nothing like a real emergency to get you checked out in a quick way for your evacuation plan. During the Black Forest Fire, which began on June 11, 2013, at least 511 homeowners completely lost their homes, many more were damaged and are uninhabitable, two people and countless animals perished in the fire. Our family and business were in the direct path of the fire, but a major wind shift the first night, along with hard-working first responders saved us. Sitting at the office ready for our afternoon of work, a friend walked in and sid, …


How to Decide on a Homestead Location and Get There, by Orange Jeep Dad

The intention of this article is to share with you how we decided on a homestead location and how we intend to get there. There are many ways to skin a cat. Whether it’s a hidey-hole in Id-e-ho or a farm in Oklahoma, the choice you pick for a homestead is as uniquely independent as the DNA in your body. Take the time to think it through and you won’t be disappointed. We said several prayers and asked for guidance. Contact Todd Savage of Survival Retreat Consulting if you still need additional help after reading this submission. I’m sure he …


The Mass Casualty Incident: Triage, by Amy Alton, A.R.N.P., and Joe Alton, M.D.

The responsibilities of a medic in times of trouble will usually be one-to-one; that is, the healthcare provider will be dealing with one ill or injured individual at a time.  If you have dedicated yourself to medical preparedness, you will have accumulated significant stores of supplies and some knowledge. Therefore, your encounter with any one person should be, with any luck, within your expertise and resources.  There may be a day, however, when you find yourself confronted with a scenario in which multiple people are injured.  This is referred to as a Mass Casualty Incident (MCI). A mass casualty incident …


Mark Levin: Government Is Simulating the Collapse of Our Financial System, the Collapse of Our Society and the Potential for Widespread Violence

Along with Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity, leading conservative radio host Mark Levin reaches tens of millions of listeners weekly, and what he talked about recently on his nationally syndicated show has sent shivers down the spines of many of them. A few years ago this was fringe theory, restricted only to the sphere of alternative (conspiracy) news. Warnings of a massive economic collapse, government stockpiling of weaponry, and the idea that Americans could be broadly classified as terrorists and then detained indefinitely or killed often fell upon deaf ears. Today, as more information ‘leaks’ into the mainstream, it is …


Prepping For Seniors, by Retired Rev.

I became aware of the need for prepping too late to have the advantages associated with youth.  Seniors are already dealing with issues of declining physical prowess, declining health and a growing sense of mortality.  To add prepping to the list of concerns seemed more than a bit overwhelming but given the realities of our day, prepping slowly became an unavoidable necessity as I began to understand that the economic path on which our nation is traveling is clearly becoming unsustainable and is getting worse, not better. There was also the additional concern – shared by preppers of any age …


Seventeen and Prepping, by Michael on the East Coast

Greetings, my fellow SurvivalBlog readers! My name is Michael, and I am seventeen years old. I live somewhere on the East Coast of the United States of America with my mother and father. To the rest of the world, I appear a normal teenage boy: Glued to my iPad, where I read SurvivalBlog each night before bed, obsessed with both new and old music, and always quoting music lyrics, movies and television shows with my friends. Yet what both the majority my friends and society do not know is for the last year I have been preparing for The End …


Community Building is Critical, by W.H.

A couple friends and I recently talked about the state of ‘things’, and how ‘things’ seem to be getting worse, and how ‘things’ are so bad that ‘things’ simply cannot get better. You’ve had those conversations, right? My friend David is well aware of the sorry state of our political system, and we’ve discussed those ‘things’ several times in the past. However, he was not thinking in terms of societal collapse. David started thinking along those lines pretty quickly, once I pointed out some weaknesses of our system, like the fact that our power utilities are not adding capacity, but …


Letter Re: Loose Lips: No Need to Pump Some Folks for Information

James Wesley, A few days ago I called a local businessman about doing some work on our water well pump.  I also asked him his advice about the possibility of later installing a manual water pump along with the electric pump.  He then began to tell me that he was at that very moment installing a manual pump for another person.  His words though were “for one of these preppers.”  He said, “I guess he’s worried about a zombie attack or something.”  This short interaction made me think about a few things that I would like to pass on. 1.  …


Developing a Scavenger Mindset, by Barry B.

It has been said that the most important thing about prepping and survival is having the appropriate mindset. A strong spiritual mindset will get you through many hardships.  The mindset that your survival is up to you, that the government will not be there to help you is also necessary.  Having a scavenging mindset is also important. Scavenging will be an important skill post SHTF.  A scavenging mindset means that you aren’t embarrassed by scavenging people’s trash piles, and that you see value in items that others deem as trash. Scavenging is not the same as picking in my view.  …


Prepping Saved My Dog’s Life, by L. Joseph Mountain

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Suddenly all chaos broke loose. For a second it sounded like an unknown dog had got inside the fence. I grabbed my staff and was out the door before anyone else could react. I was briefly reassured to see the fence was holding an unknown pit bull out but my pit bull was in full war mode. They were in fact fighting, trying to fight through the fence. Given enough time they would get through it, over it or under it. The hose was called for. Moving quickly but carefully I unwind some hose and return to see the Sheltie …


Surviving the Aftermath, Hurricane Katrina Style, by Frank G.

On the morning of August 29th, 2005 we came face to face with TEOTWAWKI in the form of Hurricane Katrina.  An estimated 92% of our community in Pascagoula, Mississippi was inundated with a storm surge of 20-30 feet and 30-55 feet sea waves.  The surge waters traveled well inland, between 6-12 miles and combined with freshwater flooding from our numerous creeks, rivers, and the runoff from the Mobile, Alabama reservoir that opened its flood gates to relieve stress on the dam.  This basically cut Jackson County in half.  Fortunately the worst of the storm hit in the morning just as …


Three Letters Re: Studying Guerilla Warfare Tactics

CPT Rawles, To follow up on the recent letter son Guerilla warfare: 1.   The most important thing to the success of the insurgent is the support of the people (the fish swims in the sea). The insurgent must maintain support/legitimacy.  Discipline when dealing with the people is paramount.   2.   The insurgent always chooses the location of the fight. 3.   The insurgent never fights when he knows he will lose.  The insurgent wins by surviving. 4.   Advance/retreat; rest/harass; retreat/advance – read Mao. 5.   The insurgent seeks to make the enemy overreact against the people. 6.   In the early phases of …


TEOTWAWKI in a Two Bedroom Apartment at the Edge of Town, by Melanie C.

Making it through a worst case scenario in a two bedroom apartment is not my idea of a good chance of survival.  I read about others who are relocating to the American Redoubt or who have acquired sizeable land out away from town.  Those who have bunkers or cellars lined with shelves of log-term storage foods and an arsenal of weapons and ammo to protect it all; who have chickens and goats and a place to plant those seeds that come in the long-term storage can.  Then I look at myself and think, “Can’t do that, can’t afford that, maybe …


My Prepping Perspective, by Jenny O.

Waking up to the sudden realization that my safe, comfortable world as I have always known it to be was not the result of watching any “end of the world” movies or documentaries, or from reading something about it or from a friend convincing me.  I feel it was a gift, a freebie wake-up call from the heavenly powers that be.   I can’t help but think that I am supposed to be a survivor…..at least long enough to keep my children alive and healthy until they are grown and can then survive without my assistance.  My husband on the other …


The Secret Prepper, by M.D.L.

(Why I prep, and how I do so in a family that thinks I’m crazy.) In the summer of 1977 my mother dragged me to see my older brother’s Cub Scouts meeting.  I was closing in on my sixth birthday and she informed me in no uncertain terms that I would be joining.  My mother was one of the multitudes of single mom’s in my part of Brooklyn.  A neighborhood where at the time crime was high, money was tight, and involved dads were few.   The only place for many boys to find any kind of positive male role model …