Category: Vehicles

Shortages Can Induce Deep Drama, and Making Do-It-Yourself Fire Logs, by Heghduq

I live in the Midwest. With the recent snow storms hitting the area there has been an abundance of snow and ice. We have had record levels of snowfall for the month of February. It comes as no surprise that the state was ill-prepared for this. As a result there is a statewide shortage of road [de-icing] salt. The distributors are out of stock and it is unknown how long it will be before they will get more. To those of you who have never had the pleasure of driving on winter roads in the Midwest, you may not understand. …


Letter Re: The Recent Blizzard on I-90 in Wisconsin

JWR, I read the link that was submitted by Craig in Odds ‘n Sods. The Channel 3000 story couldn’t be farther from the truth. As a local first responder, I can attest that we are getting the short end of the stick. The State Patrol didn’t even acknowledge there was any problem on the interstate until hours after our crews were already on scene. They didn’t even know that Dane County had set up an incident command headquarters at the Highway 51 interchange. The first semi trucks started losing traction as early as 10 a.m.that day. Near blizzard conditions had …


Impassable Freeways and Highways in an Eleventh Hour “Get Out of Dodge”

Jim, I found some depressing analysis on G.O.O.D. for those of us near US population centers: Read this PDF. For further information on the ineffectiveness of G.O.O.D. when times get bad, US DOT generated this report: Using Highways for No-Notice Evacuations. In addition, there is no shortage at the US DOT web site of well-intentioned and theoretical research reports on disaster planning. For many of us, last minute G.O.O.D. plans are likely to be characterized by a high probability of failure along with its associated human costs. One might guess that the chance of failure is an exponential function of …


From the SurvivalBlog Archives: Start With a “List of Lists”

Start your retreat stocking effort by first composing a List of Lists, then draft prioritized lists for each subject, on separate sheets of paper. (Or in a spreadsheet if you are a techno-nerd like me. Just be sure to print out a hard copy for use when the power grid goes down!) It is important to tailor your lists to suit your particular geography, climate, and population density as well as your peculiar needs and likes/dislikes. Someone setting up a retreat in a coastal area is likely to have a far different list than someone living in the Rockies. As …


Prepare or Die, by J. Britely

Throughout my life I have been caught unprepared several times and while nothing seriously bad happened, it easily could have.  I have been lost hiking.  My car has broken down in very bad neighborhoods – twice.  I have been close enough to riots that I feared they would spread to my neighborhood, been in earthquakes, been too close to wildfires, been stuck in a blizzard, and have been without power and water for several days after a hurricane.   I managed to get myself out of each situation, I thanked God, and tried to learn from my mistakes.  I could have …


The ‘Perfect’ Bug Out Vehicle, by Crazy Frenchman

Introduction. Not all of us can quit our jobs and live year-round at a permanent retreat. Yet some of us may be able to afford a semi-permanent retreat (e.g. vacation home), at least partly stocked (a.k.a. main supplies), and located within reasonable ‘travel time’ to the city where we work. As a catastrophic event would unfold, you would bug out ahead of the crowds. Otherwise you could begin by staying in your house, assess the situation, and never actually bug out. If the situation would deteriorate besides all hope, then bugging out would become a sound option. As part of …


Letter Re: Anti-Vehicular Barriers for Retreat Security

Dear Jim, I have for some time been meaning to write about vehicular and other counter-mobility obstacles. The dramatic video that you posted yesterday has prompted me. Ever since reading “Patriots”, when the looters simply cut the lock on the front gate with a “universal key” (bolt cutters), it has been on my mind. Coming as I do from a combat engineer background, I couldn’t believe how they could have overlooked such as basic aspect of perimeter hardening. They could have very well lost that fight because some clown had the sense to bring a pair of bolt cutters along. …


Letter Re: Anti-Vehicular Barriers for Retreat Defense

Jim, This video is rather impressive. The video description reads: “How many times have you wondered how strong those cement barriers are that you see in front of military base entrances? From time to time someone asks what the concrete barriers are in front of controlled and secure buildings. When they are told that the barriers will stop traffic, even trucks, from approaching the secure building, they usually get a look of disbelief. In the test, the following parameters were used: Truck weight = 65,000 pounds. Speed at impact = 50 m.p.h. Kinetic Energy = 5.5 Million foot-pounds. Stopping distance …


Letter Re: Switchgrass for Ethanol Production

Dear Jim, I just discovered SurvivalBlog.com in November 2007. I have bought two of your books so far. We are working on our lists, in the meantime I am building FIFO shelving for the canned part of our provisions. We thank God for you, your great work, and The Memsahib’s support of this. I’m not so sure this article will be a fit, but it is good news nevertheless. From Scientific American: Grass Makes Better Ethanol than Corn Does. The USDA and farmers took part in a five-year study of switchgrass, native to North America. They found that switchgrass ethanol …


Letter Re: Thanks to Congress, Ethanol and Biofuel Mandates Cause Food Prices to Soar

Jim, You may have noted the article titled Thanks to Congress, Ethanol and Biofuel Mandates Cause Food Prices to Soar, before and I missed it. The article [by Dana Joel Gattuso a senior fellow at the National Center for Public Policy Research–a conservative think tank] is very interesting. I can’t vouch for the veracity of the report, or the organization, however, it doesn’t do anything to lessen my fears that any congressional involvement in the energy business only makes things worse. Here are a few scary quotes from the article: ” …ethanol requires enormous quantities of water, a valuable resource …


Letter Re: Sources for Gasoline and Diesel Fuel in a Grid-Down Collapse

Jim: Here is a suitable electric pump that will lift fuel from underground tanks. It is 12 Volts DC, Facet Duralift pump , Facet part #40223 / Carrier part # 30-01108-01 SV (available from Carrier Transcold dealers.) They are typically used for commercial truck refrigerators. This pump is self priming to 120 inches (3 meters). Its designed to lift fuel 10 feet straight up. It is not cheap, at an average price of $125 from the dealer, but it works. I have one on my ’88 F250 7.3 IDI Diesel to solve fuel delivery problems. It also has a see-through …


Sources for Free Survival and Preparedness Information on the Internet, by K.L. in Alaska

Recent comments in SurvivalBlog provided excellent advice on using the public library. You can gain lots of knowledge with no expense, then purchase only those books you want to keep on hand for personal reference. Also, many colleges and universities loan to local residents, so you can use them too, even if you aren’t a student. If your local libraries participate, a great resource is Worldcat. It lets you search for books from home, then go check them out, or get them through interlibrary loan. What will happen to the Internet when the SHTF? There’s no guarantee it will survive. …


Two Letters Re: Sources for Gasoline and Diesel Fuel in a Grid-Down Collapse

Hi Jim, I work for a general, solving problems in the Middle East. Fixing vehicles is easy, its fixing the people that’s hard… I love your stuff on SurvivalBlog and thought I’d add: There are plenty of submersible type improvised fuel pumps will fit down into a 3″ pipe. Background is that GM and most other manufacturers’ in-tank fuel pumps are part of a tank ‘module’ which includes the fuel gauge sending unit, pressure feed, return feed, and evaporative emissions sensor. The pump is designed to run when submersed in fuel. I’ll get some part numbers if you would like …


Letter Re: Hardening Gates for Retreat Security

JWR: Since I had some spare time over winter break I re-read “Patriots: Surviving the Coming Collapse”. It is an awesome book, I really like the “survival manual wrapped in a fiction novel” format. It left me with a few thoughts on physical retreat security. I am talking about locks, fences, gates, and so forth –not people. When the gate lock was cut [in the novel] you mentioned the characters welding a 3 inch pipe [section to the gate post] to protect the [new] lock. That is a great idea, except many who live in timber country are aware of …


Letter Re: Sources for Gasoline and Diesel Fuel in a Grid-Down Collapse

Mr Rawles: Would a hand-lever pump like this one or this one work for pulling up fuel from a gas station underground tank]? Thanks, – F. JWR Replies: Both of those hand pumps are designed specifically for pumping from drums with standard barrel bung threads. They should work with underground tank is you add an extension hose with a nice tight seal at the union of the hose. However, this type of pump is less flexible than my preferred 12 VDC pump design, since they cannot be used for one step vehicle-to-vehicle fuel transfers. They are also only marginally faster, …