Making The Hard Decisions Somewhat Easier- Part 3, by Old Bobbert

We are in the midst of the third example in our consideration of making hard decisions whether to go or not go in a crisis situation. I am using scenarios to illustrate the decision processes.

Scenario #3: Small Town, Patriotic Family (continued)

This time we are looking at a small town, patriotic family that works together to run an Internet-based business from home. Let’s get to know them and their circumstances in this scenario better.

Work and Finances

The sons were taught by example to work hard and to be a deliberate saver first and only then to be a spender. Henry, the father, worked diligently at being aware of the ever-changing twists and turnings of the financial markets as a regular part of his work. Those efforts to stay aware of market trends for the book re-sale business also created an important point of knowledge concerning alertness toward national and area potential SHTF situations. Being preparedness minded was a daily condition through the entire family.

The Community

When Chicago followed New York and Washington into the sudden power outage darkness, Henry and Mom became very concerned. Their little (imaginary) town of Masonville, Utah was considered to be top level, semi-rural good living. The community college was basically a solidly conservative bastion of so-called over-achievers who were mostly believers in strong moral values with a strong dash of country style, common sense, and good ethics to boot.

The college student community was a growing good source of quality used books to buy for resale, and of students who needed his good quality used books. Most of their neighbors had been raised to put up stores and things for future usage.  They spoke the “be prepared” language  to children and to one another.

Sincere preparedness and charity to the needy was generally a community way of life. Being a college town made the national news a regular conversation topic, especially when the terrorists were thought to be responsible for the current power grid shutdowns.

Power Failures

Chicago was more than a thousand miles away, and yet Henry easily saw it as a forerunner of a cascade of Dominos power failures spanning the country. The outages were in locations that should not have triggered the three area series. It has to be a series of well planned disaster events.

A Family Council

Henry and Mom called a family council for Monday evening family time after supper to discuss the power outage situation. With a single mindset, the family agreed to get ready immediately for the unavoidable financial system cascade failures. Current event news highlighting Wall Street stoppage in New York and the Chicago commodities markets having shut down within 24 hours of one another had already begun the domino drop offs with most people still being totally unaware of the growing disasters.

The News

The national news media were playing games with the truth as fast and furious as they could. The local news were quoting the European news sources concerning the American financial debacle honestly.

A Well-Stocked Bathroom and Laundry

Mom and Karl took a large part of the families reserve cash and stormed the local big box Super Market, the dollar store, and filled the truck bed with everything needed in a well stocked bathroom and laundry. The list of items needed and the differing amounts necessary to restock the partially used items made her task much easier and quicker.

Para-Support Group

ROTC Tim has the responsibility of contacting his Military Science professor and selecting a few of his classmates who have expressed a serious interest in a more intense level of personal preparedness. The family plan is to stay in touch with those few Army-trained individuals who the family may want to contact again later to discuss a secure cooperative defense response effort– a quiet, very discrete home-grown para-support group.

Medical and Herbal Remedy Items

Your family had always practiced the powerful preparedness concept of ”having just enough is never enough.” And this is how Mom and Karl worked to complete her list of OTC medical items and herbal remedy list items. The local “Dollar Tree” store was a great dollar saver for them, all year every year. They had more than just enough.

Solar Lights and Dry Ice

Karl’s first responsibility was to shop the store for metal base ***solar driveway lights***amazon.com/SURSUN-Outdoor-White-Landscape-Driveway-Stainless/dp/B076K27JL8 and loaded two dozen lights into Mom’s carts. His second chore was to secure a large supply of dry ice, enough to fill the plastic storage bin they had brought with them. He had to get the store manager to help with the sorta-dangerous dry ice. Mom showed Karl how to use large double wrapped ***zip lock bags***amazon.com/Hefty-Slider-Freezer-Gallon-Count/dp/B00OUJ5UZC to secure the dry ice going into the bin.  He lined the bin with many copies of the store ads to protect the sides of the bin from freezing and then cracking.

Ready to Sustain the Family

On their return to home base, they found that everything was ready to sustain the family during whatever came their way. Then the extras for the exclusive gift of helping others in need were listed and put up in storage until needed. Afterward, they prayed for themselves to be strong and to be kind to one another and to others. Their prayers were for peace and plenty for the folks they knew and those families.

They were able to determine that their preparedness lists were fully completed and they could rest. They did their good nights and dreamed happy dreams of plenty in a land of love and peace, and it was good for them.

Teaching Points

Now is the time to consider seriously what teaching points have been explored and how to include the generalities into our personally more specific circumstances, enabled by whatever changes may be necessary. Let’s begin with the learning points section of this essay by first seeing which attributes of correct preparedness are common items in all three examples.

In all three examples, we find the following:

1. Family togetherness in purpose, effort, performance, and concern.
2. Lists of lists of lists of everything.
3. Continuous communication within the family or the group.
4. Teens actively participating in both the planning and the labor.
5. Prayer isn’t a “denominational” item and was used in each example.

In our first example, there was emphasis showing:

1. How hasty decisions can be made,
2. Creating differing solutions to specific action-response needs,
3. How to make better decisions based on the proven process of listing the “pros & cons“ of the situation, begging  a decision,
4. Idea of how to protect the most probable simple security areas– the RV window curtains and aiming the RV at the exit routes, and not leaving the RV unattended,
5. The preparedness mindset must exist before the necessity occurs,
6. The family/group had planned and drilled the varying action steps of the hasty exit plan,
7. How wordage is changed from “bugging out” to the “hasty exit plan”,
8. That failing to write the plan is planning to fail.

Here we continue onward to our same play Act Two. Scenario #2 demonstrated that:

1. The family/group had determined, well in advance, that they are going to automatically execute their “hasty exit plan” based on a single triggering event,
2. There is a specific “code word sentence” concerning everyday life that has a specific action notification within the plain language wordage,
3. Each family/group member has a prepared duffle bag containing ample, long-term absence, comfort items and other necessities,
4. The “hasty exit plan” has specific items concerning notification of departure to other family members and a specific required time schedule for those others,
5. The family/group is concerned about their absence being a problem for those being left behind and called to say their goodbyes to provide a reason to be gone,
6. Most importantly for many of us, they had a specific place to go with supplies already stored there for their future use, and
7. That location was with loved family and had room enough to provide comfortable housing and other features.

Now, let’s look at Scenario #3. This, our final example, is most likely to be the actual situation for most prepared families. It showed us:

1. They will be continuing to maintain a home-based response to the SHTF event,
2. They were ready well before a specific actual event, or the expected triggering incident(s),
3. There is cash available to complete the stocking up for the eminent hard times, and
4. The ROTC son, Tim, has the responsibility for security because he has some military training and is the most capable to be in charge of security.

Have Your Plans In Place For Emergency Events

Be ready and have your plans in place because an emergency SHTF event could occur at any time. Even natural disaster events are occurring in parts of the world. On May 22, 1960, a 9.5 earthquake, the largest ever recorded, hit southwest Chile, generating a tsunami that struck the Hawaiian Island in about 15 hours. Hilo Bay area on the island of Hawaii was hit hard by the 35-foot wave, which destroyed or damaged more than 500 homes and businesses. Sixty-one people died. This I know to be true. I was there, in Schofield Barracks, 25th Inf Div, Div Arty Hq communications section.

The earlier 1959 eruption of Kīlauea Iki Crater was a relatively short-lived event and still produced some of Kīlauea’s most spectacular lava fountains.

Thanks for your attention and most especially for your comments, pro or con.

See Also:

• Making The Hard Decisions Somewhat Easier- Part 1, by Old Bobbert
• Making The Hard Decisions Somewhat Easier- Part 2, by Old Bobbert

SurvivalBlog Writing Contest

This has been part three of a three part entry for Round 79 of the SurvivalBlog non-fiction writing contest. The nearly $11,000 worth of prizes for this round include:

First Prize:

1. A $3000 gift certificate towards a Sol-Ark Solar Generator from Veteran owned Portable Solar LLC. The only EMP Hardened Solar Generator System available to the public.
2. A Gunsite Academy Three Day Course Certificate. This can be used for any one, two, or three day course (a $1,095 value),
3. A course certificate from onPoint Tactical for the prize winner’s choice of three-day civilian courses, excluding those restricted for military or government teams. Three day onPoint courses normally cost $795,
4. DRD Tactical is providing a 5.56 NATO QD Billet upper. These have hammer forged, chrome-lined barrels and a hard case, to go with your own AR lower. It will allow any standard AR-type rifle to have a quick change barrel. This can be assembled in less than one minute without the use of any tools. It also provides a compact carry capability in a hard case or in 3-day pack (an $1,100 value),
5. Two cases of Mountain House freeze-dried assorted entrees in #10 cans, courtesy of Ready Made Resources (a $350 value),
6. A $250 gift certificate good for any product from Sunflower Ammo,
7. American Gunsmithing Institute (AGI) is providing a $300 certificate good towards any of their DVD training courses.

Second Prize:

1. A Model 175 Series Solar Generator provided by Quantum Harvest LLC (a $439 value),
2. A Glock form factor SIRT laser training pistol and a SIRT AR-15/M4 Laser Training Bolt, courtesy of Next Level Training, which have a combined retail value of $589,
3. A gift certificate for any two or three-day class from Max Velocity Tactical (a $600 value),
4. A Three-Day Deluxe Emergency Kit from Emergency Essentials (a $190 value),
5. RepackBox is providing a $300 gift certificate to their site, and
6. Two 1,000-foot spools of full mil-spec U.S.-made 750 paracord (in-stock colors only) from www.TOUGHGRID.com (a $240 value).

Third Prize:

1. A Royal Berkey water filter, courtesy of Directive 21 (a $275 value),
2. A large handmade clothes drying rack, a washboard, and a Homesteading for Beginners DVD, all courtesy of The Homestead Store, with a combined value of $206,
3. Expanded sets of both washable feminine pads and liners, donated by Naturally Cozy (a $185 retail value),
4. Two Super Survival Pack seed collections, a $150 value, courtesy of Seed for Security, LLC,
5. Mayflower Trading is donating a $200 gift certificate for homesteading appliances.

Round 79 ends on November 30th, so get busy writing and e-mail us your entry. Remember that there is a 1,500-word minimum, and that articles on practical “how to” skills for survival have an advantage in the judging.