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 most creative minds in the world (and some that are not so creative), so the gamut of post-apocalyptic possibilities runs from Mad Max to Waterworld, from The Postman to Dawn of the Dead, from Outbreak to Armageddon. My interest in this genre of these movies (and books for that matter), led to my need to prepare for almost any eventuality. This article can only hope to give you my concepts for saving myself and my family.
The five I’s mentioned in the title are initiate, instruct, improvise, isolate, and invisible. Most of you, who are reading this, have the inclination to live this lifestyle on an everyday basis. You’re already interested in keeping yourself and your family out of the coming storm, in whatever form it takes. Four years ago, when I met my wife (a widow with five children) she laughed at what I jokingly call my “zombie kit”. You would call it a bug out bag. Today, after only four years together, she takes it much more seriously, and we have one for all seven of us, one at my place of business, one at her office, plus smaller versions in each of our five cars. Witnessing the crumbling of the US economy has given her a better understanding of the possibility of social upheaval, or as I love to call it, “the coming of the zombies”. It really is only a matter of time until the costs of food, clothing, and shelter, force everyday people to drastic, violent measures in an attempt to keep their families alive.
Step one: Initiate.
It’s your plan, so now is the time to initiate it. Wait until those first news reports of violent riots breaking out in the cities, and you’ve waited too long. It’s not like you aren’t already planning for your future. With saving up to buy a house, for your kids’ college tuition, or your retirement, you plan for the day that you should eventually need these things. In the past ten years, we’ve witnessed just how helpless the authorities can be in time of dire need. Terrorist attacks, unprecedented natural disasters, extreme weather, banking failures, and escalating economic collapses sound like the preface to a science fiction thriller, but are really just today’s headlines. Your reaction may well define how you survive the next decade. If you initiate a good plan today, and that really means today, you just might get your people through in one piece.
Once started, you’ll notice how easy it becomes to work your preparations into your everyday life. Things that seemed impossible, or difficult, will become second nature, and the boost to your self-esteem and skill sets will serve you even if worst case scenarios never occur. Okay, so maybe you were never planning on growing your own food, but even a windowsill planter in the smallest urban apartment will give you an idea of how difficult it might be to just feed yourself, while providing tasty berries or cherry tomatoes. Try hiking. Your health will benefit, and you can break in a great pair of boots before they are needed. It’s a great way to explore parts of your area for the necessary materials you may need on very short notice, whether you live in a rural area, or in a large urban setting like Manhattan.
Where I live, in Nassau County, just outside of New York City, my escape options are very limited because of the size of my family and the nature of the bottleneck created by needing to cross a bridge to get off of Long Island. So my wife and I were forced to institute some rules for the five kids, whose ages range from 23 to 12. We must know of their whereabouts at all times (a good idea anyway), so should the worst-case occur, we could get them and get out. Without giving away any details, I am confident that I could get my family away from almost any trouble should the need arise.
Step two: Instruct.
As human beings, we have the ability to learn new things on an ongoing basis, while retaining knowledge previously mastered. Now, imparting that knowledge to your family should be a priority, while continuing to learn new things yourself. Its best if you all try to learn new, diverse things, as the width of your communal know-how is just as important as the depth of your specific information. The greatest gift that I was able to pass along was my thirst for knowledge, learning new things, sometimes just for learning’s sake. With seven very different and distinct personalities to satisfy, there have been some surprising additions to our family well of knowledge.
Our 16 year old daughter has embraced my philosophy totally, and has taken French in high school (should Canada become an option), became a Certified First Responder, the precursor to being an EMT, and begs me to teach her how to drive our newest addition, a 2003 Ford Excursion. The eldest boy, aged 14, wrestles in High School, and is a sponge for knowledge. His brother, at 12 years old, knows his way around a tool box as well as I do, and believes, in his heart, that there is nothing he can’t repair. These were all skills they were cultivating long before I met their Mother, but when shown how they could pool them together to form a team, the incentive to grow further became evident.
Step Three: Improvise.
MacGyver. That name brings a flood of memories to my generation. A television show based on the improvisational abilities of the lead character to get himself out of trouble. Some of the solutions seemed absurd at the time, but looking back, the concept was purely survivalist. With a short list of basic supplies, a prepared individual should be able to not only survive, but thrive in a post-apocalyptic future. With a family of seven, the going could be harder, or easier, depending on the situation, but my imagination has kept me ahead of the curve in most cases. With very little financial investment, we have based family vacations around learning to adapt, trying out outdoor living in the form of camping. By “forgetting” an important item or two each time, lessons were learned, and solutions were found.
Thinking on my feet is one of my greatest assets, and something you can’t teach. The old saying that “Necessity is the Mother of invention” will hold true more than ever should society fold up.
Step Four: Isolate.
Getting out of reach. A world wide cataclysm will not let anybody go untouched, but there are certain cases where “away” is where you want to be. Just because you don’t have a rural retreat, doesn’t mean you can’t isolate yourselves. Barricades and boarded windows could save your lives, as the rioting masses would choose the low hanging fruit first. Surviving the first hours, days, or weeks of an incident may be the time you need to gain an advantage.
Be prepared to spend that time out of touch with the world, something the current generation may have huge problems with. We have phone free days, in an attempt to teach our kids just how much time they waste texting, tweeting and emailing. Being out of touch for the first time rattled them a bit, but they are growing used to the idea. Try out “blackout Sundays”, where you kill the main power breaker to the house. Extreme? Maybe. Eye-opening? Positively. Funny how seven people in the dark have trouble getting along, even if the alternative is surely fatal. A few tries at this went horribly wrong, but we seem to have gotten it right the last few times.
Step Five: Invisible.
I’m lucky. Twenty years ago, when I was flush with money and stupid enough to spend it, I bought a huge chunk of upstate New York land. [Because of building restrictions] I can’t do anything to it, just hunt, but the vast size makes it a perfect retreat. No dirt trails, hiking trails or easy access, make it key for isolation, but it’s the terrain itself that make it invisible. It’s entrance is in a deep rock cleft, barely two hundred yards from the Thruway, my refuge has come to be invisible. I dragged two forty foot shipping containers, two twenty foot shipping containers and a collection of old stockade fencing panels from a fencing company that was only too happy to let me have them. All this was no easy feat, it being almost a mile through the woods with no trail. We used just a few power winches and steel fence poles for roller logs. Now I have covered the tops of the containers, angling the fencing to provide roofline, and planted creeping ivy vines to hold the whole thing together. From twenty feet away, the cliff top looks like a solid mass of granite covered with native growth, and the access is a maze of transplanted shrubbery.
Being prepared means understanding that others who aren’t prepared will want to take your safety. Invisible solves that problem. At my home, you’d never know it, but the drywells that I had sunk in my backyard are all connected to each other, and by entering through a hidden manhole beneath my deck, I have access to my entire bunker system, and the dry wells double as water cisterns. In five years, only once did the water fill the first four drywells, leaving two between my shelter and rain water. The guys who installed the drywells saw only the connected drywells, and I did the bunker work myself, converting the last two (of eight) drywells for my own purposes.
Plan well ahead of need, and you’ll have a fighting chance at survival. If it’s never needed, that’s a good thing, if it is needed; it’s a great thing you did. Many of the things I’ve done cost little or nothing, and some even earn me back some cash. Inexpensive solutions, like getting the garbage fencing from new PVC fencing jobs made me money, and the company lets me use their equipment in exchange for disposing of all their fencing waste. Piece by piece I have added to my hoard. Many times these items were collected with permission during community curbside pickup days. These have included a cast iron wood burning stove, a chainsaw, lawnmower parts, and shelving units.
