Odds ‘n Sods:

Jason in Central New York mentioned this PDF from the NRC : High-Impact, Low-Frequency Event Risk to the North American Bulk Power System (regarding the risks posed by Cyber or Physical Coordinated Attacks, Pandemics, and Geomagnetic Disturbance / Electro-magnetic Pulse.

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The folks at J&G Sales in Arizona noted in their latest e-newsletter: “Starting the end of January no ammo dealers including J&G Sales may continue to ship handgun ammo to individuals that live in California. This is a new law, now passed and signed by Governor Arnold [Schwarzenegger] called AB962. All handgun ammo sales in California will have to be face to face with a thumbprint provided and a log entry made of the sale. Mail order pistol ammo will be a thing of the past, with exceptions only for deliveries to FFL dealers and C&R holders if they have a COE. We encourage everyone to stock up now to avoid being cut off!” JWR Adds: I further encourage all California gun owners to vote with their feet. Get out of that Mickey Mouse state!

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From Nanny State New York: Bad Driver? In Debt? Proposed NYC Law Would Ban You From Owning a Gun. Thansk to both J.V. and B.B. for sending that link.

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Failure Shuts Down Squadron of Nuclear Missiles.That was 50 ICBMs, a significant portion of the US nuclear arsenal. Thanks to Jim P. for the link.)

Note from JWR:

Today we present another entry for Round 31 of the SurvivalBlog non-fiction writing contest. The prizes for this round will include:

First Prize: A.) A course certificate from onPoint Tactical. This certificate will be 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 between $500 and $600, and B.) Two cases of Mountain House freeze dried assorted entrees, in #10 cans, courtesy of Ready Made Resources. (A $392 value.) C.) A 9-Tray Excalibur Food Dehydrator from Safecastle.com (a $275 value), D.) A 500 round case of Fiocchi 9mm Parabellum (Luger ) with 124gr. Hornady XTP/HP projectiles, courtesy of Sunflower Ammo (a $249 value), and E.) An M17 medical kit from JRH Enterprises (a $179.95 value).

Second Prize: A.) A “grab bag” of preparedness gear and books from Jim’s Amazing Secret Bunker of Redundant Redundancy (JASBORR) with a retail value of at least $400, B.) A $250 gift card from Emergency Essentials, and C.) two cases of Meals, Ready to Eat (MREs), courtesy of CampingSurvival.com (a $180 value).

Third Prize: A.) A copy of my “Rawles Gets You Ready” preparedness course, from Arbogast Publishing, and B.) a Royal Berkey water filter, courtesy of Directive 21. (This filter system is a $275 value.)

Round 31 ends on November 30th, so get busy writing and e-mail us your entry. Remember that articles that relate practical “how to” skills for survival have an advantage in the judging.

A Rude Awakening, by Ruth E. in Hawaii

Power outages are quite common here in Hawaii. It seems like a couple of times a month, the lights flicker, get dim, and then go out. Sometimes they stay out for an hour or longer. We recently had a blackout on one whole side of our island, which truly woke me up to the possibilities of an endless blackout (worse-case scenario).

Usually I come out of an anxiety session unscathed, but since I currently belong to an emergency preparedness group, I have been reading tons about the many scenarios that could happen to our island home including tsunamis, earthquakes, flooding, volcanic eruptions (we live close to the Big Island), terrorist attacks and many others. This time, when the lights went out, and stayed out for longer than I thought they should, my worrying just would not stop.

What if the lights never came back on? How prepared was I to deal with it? What if this was really the beginning of the end of the world as we know it? Sure, I had a few cans of Spam and tuna, a couple of gallon jugs full of water, oh, and a first aid kit. In fact, I even have a 72-hour kit for my husband and I. But what if I was unable to dry my clothes that were now waiting in the washing machine. I don’t even have a clothesline or clothespins! (Pretty trivial, right?) Going further, where was that recipe of how to make my own soap when it ran out? Mental note: Get a clothesline and learn how to make laundry soap.  That was just the beginning of my worries.

Surely, if the electricity went out for an extended time, or indefinitely, it would cause pandemonium. A majority of the food we eat is brought in from the mainland, New Zealand or Asia on ships. Would we be isolated from the rest of the world?  It would be a dog-eat-dog scenario, seeing who could get to the stores the quickest – that is if they were even open. If it was a worldwide disaster, we could not expect others to help us for a long time, if ever.

And, if I was one of the lucky ones to get a supply of canned foods, did I know where my manual can opener was, since the one we use every day would be useless? As our freezer would no longer keep our meat frozen, how were we going to cook it? We could have a big feast, at least until the food spoiled – unless we knew a way to preserve it.  Mental note: learn how to preserve meat, and purchase a couple more can openers, and put them with my emergency kits.

Thanks to a garage sale, I have a tiny little barbeque grill. Also, since living in Hawaii, we have learned how to make an underground oven. My husband can start a fire with the husk of a coconut (lucky me, right?). We are saved, I gloated to myself thoughtfully! Also, as an artist, I have quite a bit of artwork with frames that I have spent hours on. I wondered how long it would be before all of the art became fuel for a fire to cook our dinner. Mental note: Get an ax to cut up art for firewood, and store it safely

If it truly was TEOTWAWKI, I tried to think of the good things about living on an island, as well as the bad. The good part is that it never gets very cold here, so we will not freeze to death (highly unlikely).  We can go fishing in the ocean, which is vast, although we don’t even own a fishing pole or fishing net. Mental note: Get a fishing pole and fishing net, and learn how to fish with both.

Another thing that is beneficial about living in Hawaii is that we have temperate weather. It is not too hard to grow certain types of food all year round. Luckily, I have a little square-foot garden going in the back yard. Black-eyed peas, lettuce, beetroot, and Swiss chard are doing well; at least we would not starve to death right away. But, I could not just run down and buy more seeds, so I would need to know how to harvest seeds Mental note: Learn how to harvest seeds.

Water – what about water? Luckily in Hawaii it rains quite frequently, and I have a bucket that catches the runoff from the roof. I have also purchased some water purification tablets, which is a start in the right direction, but it would be beneficial if I obtain knowledge of how to distill and filter water. Now that water is packaged and sold, there really is no reason not to have a supply of on hand, except perhaps storage space. Mental note: Learn how to distill and filter water, and store more drinking water.

Fortunately, my husband manages a small farm plot near our home. Certain crops grow here in the islands better than others. I have become accustomed to eating many different types of food. Being from Utah, I used to be a meat and potato, white bread, white rice girl, (which we now know is not healthy), so I am glad that my tastes have broadened to include taro, poi, tapioca root, green bananas, pele (wild hibiscus), and many other island foods. We also have experimented with many different spices, and I can stand my food pretty “hot”. I am thankful that I have been able to adapt to many different types of cuisine.

Also, I have recently learned how to sprout beans. This knowledge has helped me realize how easy you can grow a miniature garden in your own home with mung beans, clover, fenugreek, alfalfa, barley, sunflower and wheat. I also learned that when sprouting, the seeds, grains or legumes provide a large amount of nutrients. With these small seeds and beans, we can store quite a bit of food in a small amount of space.

I love candles, so I have quite a few decorative ones, but they are not the long burning emergency candles, and obviously won’t last very long. I also have a kerosene lantern and a flashlight, but am very unsure how long the matches, kerosene, and batteries I currently have will last. Yet, another mental note: Purchase humidity proof matches or lighters, emergency candles and safely store a supply of kerosene.

I realized how dependent we have become on technology, which may never work again if things go downhill. My biggest worry is that we will be unable to communicate with our children and grandchildren who live miles away. No e-mail, no cell phones, no Facebook. Would we even be able to find out what was going on locally? Where is that old radio? Do we have enough batteries to keep it running? Do I know which frequency emergency instructions would be broadcast over the radio? Maybe we will have to rely on a ham radio operator. Do I know who in the neighborhood is trained in this skill? Mental note: Find a ham radio operator and make friends. Meantime, purchase a small emergency radio and a generous supply of batteries, or get one that you can crank, or even better, get both.

Another worry that snuck into my mind was how well did we know our neighbors? Would we be able to share with them? If we ran out of something, could we ask for it without them scoffing (or worse, shooting) at us? Online banking would be impossible, and there would be no way to withdraw all the money we have been so carefully saving each month to pay for anything. If things should get really bad, we may be forced to barter our possessions for necessities. Memories of Mad Max surfaced in my mind. Would we be survivors like Max himself with the new world order, or be annihilated by the gangs that no doubt would surface? Mental note: Be kinder to our neighbors.

I realized that it is a given, we all must die, but would we prefer to die of starvation, or by our own ingenuity be able to help ourselves and others delay the inevitable? Could we keep our minds focused – which led me to another worry ­– my medications.  Since I take a few prescription medicines on a daily basis, what would I do when they run out? I cannot stock up on my medications because the insurance won’t allow me to get more than a few months supply at a time. Do I know enough about natural remedies to offset the lack of medication? I have quite a few herbs in my garden. Would I know which herb was for which ailment? I also have an essential oil family emergency kit that I am learning how to use.  Mental note: Learn which herbs and oils help which ailment.

How long would it take for us to get used to the new normalcy? Would we have to experience a severe mental shift, or could we just stay calm and take things as they came? Would we feel afraid, become dismayed or lose faith and feel betrayed? My husband and I are Latter Day Saints and have had a lifetime of warnings from our church leaders telling us “if ye are prepared, ye shall not fear”. How seriously have we taken their advice? Mental note: Heed their advice, now!

Worrying can be a good thing. It can move us to action.

Luckily, the lights finally came back on, I said a prayer of gratitude, and went down and cooked myself a delicious breakfast.

Letter Re: A Closer Look at Bank Closures–Failed Banks Without Buyers

James Wesley,

You recently posted this article: Seven banks closed in Fla., Ga., Ill., Kan. Remember something we’ve been trying to focus on?

Watch closely for banks for which the FDIC cannot find a buyer.

Read closely… in that article there were a couple banks that were only partially purchased by other banks. The FDIC held on to some of the liabilities of some of the banks.

The real zinger is the First Arizona Savings bank – completely shut down, no buyer, no more bank. The FDIC is sending checks to those customers (hope you didn’t have more than $250,000 in an account there).

I mentioned before on the blog that the FDIC in Illinois is having more and more trouble finding buyers. I do not know about other states but Arizona has been one of the hardest hit so it doesn’t surprise me that we’d see one of the earliest indications of a cracking foundation there.

Thanks for the great effort that you and yours put out to keep this blog on top of everything effecting us. – Tanker

Two Letters Re: The Tire Shop Option for Nitrogen Packing Food Storage Buckets

JWR,
Concerning the article titled “The Tire Shop Option for Nitrogen Packing Food Storage Buckets”. My dear friend said that I should let everyone know that a much easier way to use nitrogen for your buckets is to pick it up at your local welding supply. You could then do 1,000 (who really knows how many) or more buckets in the privacy of your own home. – Steph in Colorado

Jim,
I’ve been packing buckets and other containers for years without the use of dry nitrogen, but I’m pretty sure the contents are actually nitrogen packed. If we look at the major constituent gases that make up our atmosphere we get primarily: Nitrogen (78%), Oxygen (20.9%), Argon (0.9%), and all other gases excluding water vapor (0.04%). Water vapor makes up from 1% to 4% depending on the humidity. Adding these numbers may look like more than 100%, but when there is more water vapor in the air, the percentage of the other gases is slightly smaller as an overall percentage. Given these numbers, when food or other items are packed with a sufficient quantity of oxygen absorbers and desiccants, within a few days the oxygen is removed (actually converted and sequestered as iron oxide). Likewise, the water vapor is absorbed and sequestered in the desiccant. If you take the normal atmosphere and remove the oxygen and the water vapor, you are left with dry nitrogen and a tiny bit of trace gases, nearly all of which are inert. I’m not sure if using nitrogen helps, but I’ve never used it, relying instead on larger oxygen absorbers and additional desiccant. – LVZ in Ohio

JWR Replies: Yes, oxygen absorber packets can be effective, but the nitrogen wand method is more reliable and less expensive. The biggest problem with oxygen absorber packets is that there is no sure way to know whether or not a package of packets has been compromised. Once they are exposed to the atmosphere for a few hours, they are “used up”, and rendered useless. Thus, we have to depend on the honesty of everyone in the chain of ownership of the packets from the manufacturer, to the wholesaler(s), to the retailer. In many instances, large bags of 1,000 packets are resealed into smaller bags, for retail sales. All it takes is a minor slip up, and they become useless. These days, I don’t put a lot of trust in the integrity of worker bees. Few are willing to own up to their mistakes.

Using a CO2 or nitrogen “wand’ (or “probe”) to displace air from buckets is far less expensive than using oxygen absorber packets if you pack more than 20 per year.. It can also useful for re-sealing a single bucket, if you only need to use part of a bucket’s contents. I highly recommend the wand method for anyone that plans to pack more than ten buckets. If you want to buy your own CO2 cylinder then all you’ll then need is a valve, a three foot length of plastic tubing (1/4-inch inside diameter), and an 18″ long piece of stiff copper tubing (1/4-inch outside diameter) for use as a wand. With a nitrogen cylinder, you will also need to include a pressure regulator to drop the pressure from 2,100 p.s.i.! If you are uncertain about how long you should leave the valve open with your particular cylinder and bucket size, you can use a lit fireplace (long) match or the stub of a candle, as test. Position it inside the bucket, just under the lip. Simply observe the sweep second hand of a wristwatch. The count you take from when you open the valve fully to when the flame is extinguished is the count to use for subsequent buckets. Add two or three seconds, just to be sure. One word of warning: if the contents have been stirred into an airborne dust, they may form an explosive atmosphere in the container (think grain elevator explosion). If this condition exists, the oxygen has not been displaced yet, and an ignition source (match) is introduced an explosion may occur. This could make your day very interesting. Flour, dried milk, and even household dust are explosive if they are airborne and in the right concentration.

Economics and Investing:

City drowning in rubbish: 10,000 TONS of waste pile up on streets of Marseilles in chilling echo of British ‘winter of discontent’

Items from The Economatrix:

Pension Age Increases to Get Far Worse

Default or Hyperinflation: The US’s Only Two Options (The Mogambo Guru)

In 15 of Last 25 Months, The Treasury Needed to Borrow Money for Social Security Benefits

Gold Advances as Dollar’s Decline Spurs Demand for Alternative Investments

Soc Gen’s Albert Edwards: The US Public is About to Revolt

Jim’s Quote of the Day:

"Why is it so difficult to explain survival to family and friends? Well, for starters you first have to explain that the country they think they live in simply no longer exists." – SurvivalBlog Reader Roger D.

Notes from JWR:

I’m happy to report that “How to Survive the End of the World as We Know It” will soon be published in Portuguese by Sextante Publishing of Brazil. There are now eight foreign publishing contracts in place, for editions in seven languages.

—

Today we present another entry for Round 31 of the SurvivalBlog non-fiction writing contest. The prizes for this round will include:

First Prize: A.) A course certificate from onPoint Tactical. This certificate will be 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 between $500 and $600, and B.) Two cases of Mountain House freeze dried assorted entrees, in #10 cans, courtesy of Ready Made Resources. (A $392 value.) C.) A 9-Tray Excalibur Food Dehydrator from Safecastle.com (a $275 value), D.) A 500 round case of Fiocchi 9mm Parabellum (Luger ) with 124gr. Hornady XTP/HP projectiles, courtesy of Sunflower Ammo (a $249 value), and E.) An M17 medical kit from JRH Enterprises (a $179.95 value).

Second Prize: A.) A “grab bag” of preparedness gear and books from Jim’s Amazing Secret Bunker of Redundant Redundancy (JASBORR) with a retail value of at least $400, B.) A $250 gift card from Emergency Essentials, and C.) two cases of Meals, Ready to Eat (MREs), courtesy of CampingSurvival.com (a $180 value).

Third Prize: A.) A copy of my “Rawles Gets You Ready” preparedness course, from Arbogast Publishing, and B.) a Royal Berkey water filter, courtesy of Directive 21. (This filter system is a $275 value.)

Round 31 ends on November 30th, so get busy writing and e-mail us your entry. Remember that articles that relate practical “how to” skills for survival have an advantage in the judging.

Medical Asset Evaluation, by Dr. C. in Flyover Country

The evaluation of “Medical Assets” depends greatly upon the evaluator and the mission. For the purpose of this discussion, I consider people, places and things collectively and individually as “assets”. This discussion is meant for a group of non-medical personnel who need to assess whether a person, place, or thing will further their short and long term goals (mission). But how do you make that assessment or know when it has been done properly?

Base assumptions:
1) The group has little to no medical knowledge.
2) The needs include general medicine, surgical procedures, veterinary medicine, and dentistry.
3) The most important asset is the person with their knowledge and experience, then items and equipment.

Background:
Our group contains three medical asset personnel: one primary medical asset, two as secondary medical assets. Of these three personnel, two are physicians and one a first responder with combined 25 years of experience in urgent care, primary care, wound care, triage and multiple site/multiple personnel management. We are now in the early phases of putting together a group of 19-to-23 individuals for TEOTWAWKI purposes. We have been increasingly interested in preparation for two years, and frequently reference SurvialBlog.com as well as other sites.

What this is:
This is an attempt to clarify and describe our group philosophy towards the medical component of our group. This approach, we believe, can be used for most other group components (mechanics, security, agriculture, etc.). Our hope is that responses to this article by other readers will help improve our approach. What this is not: Within the confines of this article, we do not propose to give a list of supplies, instruments, books, courses, and medicines – that has mostly been done on this site and others; however, a brief description of what our group is working towards will be offered. Although a much more detailed discussion is good and necessary, it is large and beyond the scope of this article. Additionally, there are no one-size-fits-all solutions and flexibility in planning is important.

Mission: This is perhaps the first critical assessment. The mission is the task or job that must be done. The mission dictates the personnel, supplies, and equipment. The mission can be as simple as basic wound care for a group of a dozen or so while tending an herb garden, versus multiple trained medical personnel running a clinic or hospital for a town of 2,000 people. Different missions may have completely different supply, equipment and staffing considerations. The U.S. military has a long history of thought on these issues and scalable units, each with it’s own supply and equipment lists. Army Field manuals provides a framework that does not require reinvention and many manuals can be found in digital format on the Internet.

Personnel:
Within the context of personnel we think terms of knowledge, experience, and functional capacity.

Knowledge and experience are two concepts are interrelated and cannot be separated. The day after TEOTWAWKI where an individual trained and what initials they put after their name is secondary (at best) to what they know and can do. In other words, give me an experienced fleet navy corpsman over any M.D. doing research at Harvard, a good large animal veterinarian over most freshly trained primary care physicians, or an experienced ER nurse over a radiologist. Their initials, race, gender, or language can never matter as much as what they have in their hands and head. The paper a nursing/medical/dental/veterinary license or diploma is written on can substitute for toilet paper if supplies run low.

Where the rubber meets the road you want a tire that can roll; however, most modern medical providers in developed countries are trained to function in highly complex and fragile environments that are far from austere. When the electricity goes away and the tertiary care structure collapses leaving us without many diagnostic and treatment tools, your favorite internist or psychiatrist may be more of a liability than an asset. Take away the operating room, support staff and surgical instruments and many modern surgeons may not be as valuable to a small group as an experienced and trusted EMT with multiple survival skills. A modern medical provider that is willing to seek further training should more quickly become an asset than a layperson without any formal training. Knowledge and experience can be gained through: 1) formal non-university courses such as wilderness medicine, BLS/ACLS/ATLS as well as 2) rigorous long-term academic courses such as a medical, nursing, veterinary or dental school 3) less rigorous academic courses at your local vo-tech or community college in EMT or nursing fields (think task orientation for selection), 4) volunteering, which could include overseas medical missions (excellent practical experience), many rural fire departments, and more rarely, stateside emergency rooms. The discovery channel is not very helpful in this regard.

Knowledge via reference material should be carefully maintained in a dry, safe area. Most medical providers have quite a collection of books in their area of expertise, but a well-rounded collection of both digital and non-digital format is required. We value the digital format for storage and carry, but are concerned with vulnerability to damage and catastrophic loss. Without specific recommendations, we value many of pocket-sized manuals meant specifically for training as well as many of the military manuals. Procedural references need good illustration. These reference materials may be used by the primary medical asset to help train the rest of the group to perform in an assistant’s role. Many high-level specialty references require frequent updating, but most basic references do not since human anatomy and physiology have changed little in recent years. In digital format we have stored many texts from the 19th and 20th century that do not involve a great deal of modern technology.

If you plan to share a pot of soup with your “docs” when the lights go out and count on them for medical treatment like they count on you for experience and knowledge in agriculture, blacksmithing, or perimeter defense then you must identify what you expect them to be able to do, both medically and non-medically. Beyond skill and knowledge these expectations should include functional capacity. Functional capacity can be degraded by a lack of equipment and medicines as well as their physical, emotional, and mental capacity. A poor survival attitude, refusal to contribute in non-medical roles, or a severe physical handicap might also affect their secondary and tertiary job assignments as well as their ability to perform medically. A small group should not be able to keep them busy all day applying Band-Aids (hopefully), so be mindful that many medical personnel often do not posses many other secondary skills to offer a group due to their focus and long hours in their profession. Make very few assumptions and ask if they can pull weeds, sew a sock, shoulder a weapon, or mend a roof. Our Plan: The needs of even a small group encompass so many areas that a single traditionally trained individual will not be “ready to go” off the shelf. Additional training and skills are almost certainly needed. If we did not already have medical personnel, we would search for an individual(s) who had or could gain the ability to perform most of the following:

  • Basic assessment of ABCs
  • Airway control
  • Hemorrhage control and I.V. access
  • Rudimentary chest needle decompression and tracheotomy
  • Basic wound care and dressings, including suture/staple placement
  • Basic labor and delivery skills, pre and postpartum management
  • Dental preventative care, evaluation, extractions and fillings
  • Reduction and immobilization of dislocations or fractures
  • Basic preventative medicine (where to place the latrine, sterilize water, etc.)
  • Evaluate and treat infections
  • Basic veterinary care (some basic care may be common to most species)
  • Have knowledge of herbal medicine and be willing to establish an herb garden
  • Evaluate and treat pelvic and abdominal conditions (+/- surgical intervention)
  • Basic supportive and nursing care, including temporary catheter placement
  • The willingness and ability to teach all of the above as a force multiplier

Place:
How much area to dedicate to the medical component depends, again, on expected tasking. For a small group that is relatively healthy and in a peaceful locale, only an interior room is needed for temporary periodic isolation of infectious diseases and routine recovery. A larger group under fire would seek a larger room or multiple rooms with protection from projectiles, perhaps below grade. In all cases, the ideal would be an area that is clean and well lit with running water, a heat source and space to perform procedures.

Our plan:
For a group of two dozen who are relatively healthy in an area expected to have good OPSEC, we allocate only a smaller interior room for a 2-3 week, 2-3 person isolation or recovery need. If a larger need arises we can hang sheets from 550 cords to separate out space in a larger open shop area, ward style – this is less than ideal in terms of environmental control or security. Longer term, we plan a below grade basement area that would be an improvement in most all ways.

Supplies and Equipment:
As a recurring theme, supplies generally follow from the defined mission. The caveat here is that the mission may change in ways you cannot predict. You may start out with an EMT as your primary asset for fifteen people during an expected three month event and two years later find yourself part of a larger community that includes a surgeon and ER physician, still partially grid down. Like beans and bullets, you need to be deeper in Band-Aids than you might expect. If you consider the list of tasks you need your medical asset to perform, the equipment list becomes clear: airway control requires bag-valve-masks and ET tubes; lacerations are repaired with suture material as well as forceps, scissors and needle drivers; for a bad tooth dental extractors are needed. Splint material, coban, gloves, scalpels, a host of different needles and dressing material will make it to the list. The list can be enormous – worse without defining what your group actually needs or what your “doc” can actually use. We won’t even touch on use of conventional and traditional (herbal) medicines in this article. Supplies, whether consumable or non-consumable (stainless steel retractor versus gauze), perishable or non-perishable (medicines versus cotton balls) must be stored properly. Stainless steel instruments can rust, mice will love to nest in gauze, and isopropyl alcohol burns. Certain supplies, such as pain medicine and “medicinal Everclear” will need to be secured from people (including the “doc”) as well as the environment using a rotational two-party accountability system. Medical supplies, like any other, should be pre-positioned if possible. They are better than gold when you need them – treat them as such. Beyond direct use, there is always the potential to use as a barter item, although (much like now) medical support and supplies are devalued until they are needed. In a rapid collapse scenario (EMP, etc.) expected die off should go parabolic, leaving many non-perishable supplies available for many years. In a slow, stair-step multi-generational decline (i.e. peak oil, resource depletion, chronic conflict) many consumable perishable and non-perishable supplies will eventually be used up, but not adequately replaced thereby creating chronic shortages.

Sources and Storage:
The Internet is a game changer for supplies as well as information. eBay is a really good starting point for instruments and supplies, like Amazon.com is for printed material. Most supplies are less expensive via eBay than we can purchase from traditional medical vendors and with better OPSEC. The quality is fine as long as you keep to top rated sellers, and many sellers also have a separate web site. Being successful on the Internet often means that you know exactly what you need and what the item should cost through other vendors. Many non-perishable supplies (surgical instruments, etc.) are relatively inexpensive for now and store well, so we stack them deep. In our case medicine is not difficult to obtain, but legal restrictions apply to many medicines, nonetheless. I generally agree that veterinary supplies can often be substituted without much difficultly and that, again, the web is a good source. Several good articles on this and similar topics apply. Because of perishability, relatively good group health, and our relatively good access we do not stack medicines as deeply. We store much of our non-perishable items in five gallon non-food grade buckets. They stack well with our food pails and can be stored in the same area. Perishable items (medicines) do best in a refrigerated environment; most perishables like hydrogen peroxide need to be stored away from light.

Letter Re: Our Experience with a Chimney Fire

Dear James,
I have been a Survival Blog reader and Ten Cent Challenge subscriber for about a year or so. Thanks for all you do. The advice I read in SurvivalBlog from a rural firefighter — to keep on hand a 10 pound bag of baking soda to throw on the fire in case of a chimney fire — just came in handy!

My husband and I were just enjoying our first fire of the year in our brick masonry fireplace. We have our chimney cleaned about every three years. I was upstairs and my husband called out “we’re having a chimney fire!” — he had heard roaring despite a small, calm fire in the fireplace. We looked outside at the flue to see fireworks, threatening to set a nearby tree on fire.

We almost called the fire department, then I remembered about how to put our a chimney fire from SurvivalBlog by throwing baking soda on the fire in the fireplace. The chimney fire went out immediately! We were spared an embarrassing visit from the local fire department, our tree catching on fire and possibly setting our house and neighborhood on fire.

Now we are facing an expensive flue relining job because the creosote burning at 2,500 degrees cracked all the flue tiles. The cracked tiles exposed the frame of the house to fire risk. We are told that insurance may help pay for the repair.

Bottom line: It is wood burning season, have you had your stove or fireplace checked and cleaned? Do you have trees and shrubs trimmed properly around your house? Do you have 10 pounds of baking soda handy? We consider ourselves lucky. Keep up the good work on survival blog. Thank you, – Louise in Colorado

JWR Replies: Thanks for that reminder. Chimneys should be cleaned at least once a year, or even more often if you burn wood often, or if you burn wood that creates copious creosote. It is important to learn how to clean it yourself, and buy your own chimney rod sections and brush. After all, chimney cleaning tradesmen won’t be available in a worst-case societal collapse.

Letter Re: The Tire Shop Option for Nitrogen Packing Food Storage Buckets

Sir:
For those interested in preserving food in bulk containers in larger numbers in a quick easy fashion.

Most of your up to date tire shops now offer nitrogen gas instead of air for your tires. The biggest advantage of this over normal pressurized air is that the nitrogen machine removes all the water from the system. No water, no water vapor, less change in air pressure while you drive your car. The shop can give you lots of reasons why you want nitrogen, but mostly, its just dry. For a comparison, watch a tech hook up an air nozzle to blow something clean and see how much water vapor is blown out of the normal (usually black) shop air hose vs. the (usually green) nitrogen lines at the tire machine station.

We test our system every morning and the nitrogen levels are generally around 95% purity. When packing our bulk food, for a couple days I would just bring my rice, beans, wheat, pasta, etc filled buckets to work in the back of the Jeep, pop the corner off the lid, and drop the nitrogen hose into the bottom of the bucket. Let the nitrogen displace all the air for 15 seconds or so (nitrogen hose blowing from a 120 psi tank), then pull the hose out from under the lid and snap it tight. Make sure to clean the hose before you get started, and if you have several buckets of evaporated milk, make sure to fill them with nitrogen outside the shop with the buckets sitting outside of your vehicle. If you purge the evaporated milk buckets in the shop, make sure its the bosses day off….

If you don’t know the guys at your shop, minimize your OPSEC by dealing with just the service manager and buying the nitrogen towards the end of the day after most of the techs and tire changers have left for the day. Hopefully you do know your local auto techs and they are already getting prepped. The normal charge for 4 tires is around $20 for nitrogen filled to 30+ psi, you should expect about the same for a truck load of buckets purged at 0 psi. Not a bad lick for zero moisture and 5% oxygen. – Dale in Tennessee

Three Letters Re: Enriched White Rice: A Perfect Long-Term Food Item

Jim, the letter about the value of storing enriched white rice was good, but I think a little more emphasis needs to be put on stocking up on lots and lots of spices to “liven up” the rice. I buy a couple pounds of dried or powdered spices a week–cumin, cayenne, garlic, dried onion, red pepper, fennel seed, cajun seasoning, anything with a strong flavor that can really “amplify” meals–and label them, date them and seal them up in quart-size mason jars. The danger of food fatigue/appetite fatigue is real–there’s plenty of research out there showing that some people (especially children and the elderly) would rather stop eating altogether than just eat the same thing day in and day out over an extended period of time. The psychological boost to having far more spices than you could ever think of using can have huge psychological benefits when it comes to mealtime.

Both of my brothers are chefs (and preppers as well), but when I mentioned to one of them that I had several dozen quarts of spices in mason jars in my food preps, he said, “You realize those will go bad after six months, right?” I replied that the spices will only “go bad” if they’re exposed to air for an extended period–but the seals on my mason jars are much more airtight than the containers which the spices came in at Sam’s Club, and unlike people in a restaurant setting, I’m not opening those same jars day after day in a hot, humid environment like you would find in a restaurant kitchen. And quite frankly, I’d rather have “too much” spices than to not have enough–I’ll take “stale” spices any day over bland food. It could literally mean the difference between people eating or not eating.

Also, don’t get hung up (no pun intended) on the thought of eating beans and rice every day. They should think of it as the opportunity to try an endless number of soup recipes using rice and beans as their base ingredients. I’ve paid just a couple bucks each for recipe downloads on eBay that have literally hundreds of soup recipes each. Maybe your readers will remember the Wendy’s hamburger chain commercials years ago that advertised that they could make a hamburger 256 ways–eight different ingredients gave diners 256 possible combinations of what they could get on their sandwiches. People using soup recipes for their rice and beans could eat soup every day for years and never use the same recipe twice. I recommend a search for soup recipes on eBay, where your readers should be able to find the same culinary treasure trove that I have.

Have a blessed week, Jim! – Chad S.

Jim.

White rice is the equivalent of Wonder Bread. Yes, it will store for many years, and this is due to the fact that the oils and other items that may go bad have been removed.

So to avoid long term deficiency diseases we need to add oils, vitamins and fiber back into white flour, ramen noodles and white rice or any ‘junk’ food we may be eating. Yes, I understand that flour and white rice can be enriched with vitamins, but even these added vitamins will lose potency with time.

In an earlier submission I described how whole grains could be sprouted to create vitamins (especially C), now let us discuss another option for protein and B vitamins.

POWs in Japanese camps in WWII were dealing with this same problem. One of their solutions was to grow yeast on the white rice. This added both proteins and B vitamins. There was Beriberi Dietary Deficient Disease in Japanese POW camps.

There are various yeast types (brewers yeast, red yeast, Biostrath) that you may be able to find and culture. Even baking yeast may be a viable choice.

You will want acquire these yeasts and experiment ahead of time to determine the best conditions for optimum growth given your media choices. People with weakened immune systems (stress, no sleep and malnutrition can do that) may want to cook the yeast first so that it cannot replicate inside their intestines.

You will, for all intents and purposes, be making vitamins at home in a manner not all that different than vitamin companies do.

For information on growing the ultimate nutritional supplement in a fish tank on your windowsill, learn how to raise spirulina. I took a class here… The Algae Lab and recommend it highly. You will also get a starter culture from the good doctor Baum when you go. An advantage of spirulina is that also contains making oils.

Don’t forget, egg yolks and liver are very high sources of B vitamins.

Finally, get to know your body. Vitamin deficiencies affect different people in different ways. Look at the symptom lists available online and see if you are susceptible to any of the symptoms. We are all biochemically unique. You may need twice the vitamin B2 than your wife does or vice versa. – SF in Rome

 

James,
I have Celiac (auto-immune disease requiring a gluten-free diet) and I hope you will allow me to add my two-cents about Enriched White Rice.

White Rice is known to cause Chronic Constipation and, as you pointed out, Nutrition Deficiency when relied upon too heavily in one’s diet. The biggest mistakes people make when they are diagnosed with Celiac is they start eating all those rice-based crackers and products to replace the more fiber-based options they can no longer eat. One of the reasons people say to add beans to rice to be complete is because the beans make up for the lack of fiber.

Ask our American Military Medics what one of their biggest non-battle related problems they have to treat, and many (that I’ve talked to) will say Constipation (mostly because of the MRE’s.) I remember this being addressed in your novel “Patriots” as well. If you plan on eating a lot of MREs and White Rice, then make sure there is enough laxative to go around.

Weight gain is another problem because of all that starch. Thus people who run to White Rice often trade one problem for another (or more). Perhaps why we don’t see a weight gain problem in Asian cultures is because they are more active generally, and after thousands of years of rice consumption their bodies can metabolize it better than the average American. The word “enriched” usually means that after the nutrients have been stripped off and the grain has been bleached, minerals are then sprayed onto the grain to offer at least some value to the now depleted grain.

People who do not have Celiac don’t realize the consequences of relying too much on White Rice, and TEOTWAWKI is not the time to find out.

I would also like to address the ludicrous mantra: ‘If 500-million Chinese can do it, so can we!’ often heard in regards to White Rice. Like any food-storage food, if you don’t eat it every day, right now, then chances art your body isn’t going to adjust well later. Also, the Chinese Government isn’t exactly known for its love of humanity in regards to its own people. Just because they do it, doesn’t mean it’s a good idea. I wonder what all those poverty-stricken people would say after a hundred years of actually having a choice! Studies of the Asian diet also show it is their eating of seafood and vegetables that gives them longevity, not white rice!

Our American POWs from the Vietnam War didn’t come out looking good after being fed a bowl of rice everyday for so many months–or years. Tooth decay, muscle-loss, vitamin deficiency …the list goes on.

White Rice certainly has it’s place, but Americans are not exactly known for our Balance and Control in regards to our diet, either. If not used properly, White Rice is about as useful as French Fries for survival food. – Rebekah