Letter Re: Retreat Locales in the Eastern United States

Mr. Rawles:

I see that [in your Recommended Retreat Areas page] you only list information for retreat selection in 19 western states. Do you not think other states are worthy of retreat locations?

We live on 300 acres in southwestern Missouri (Polks County). Not totally ideal I am sure, but it is home, children and grandchildren are here and more over we feel placed here by our Lord over 35 years ago.

I would be very interested in hearing your thoughts pro/con on the state of Missouri so that we might be better prepared. — Paulette

JWR Replies: I consider Missouri marginal as a retreat locale, primarily because of it population density. The state of Missouri is on the safer (lower population density) side of the Mississippi River but it is still far from ideal, since the state is bisected by the Missouri River and the dramatic drop in US population density is west of the Missouri. (As I will discuss later in this reply.)

My choice of reviewing retreat locales in just 19 western states has been discussed a few times before in SurvivalBlog, but for the benefit of the many newcomers, I will reiterate:

After much consideration, all of the eastern states were intentionally excluded for my recommendations because they are all either downwind of nuclear targets and/or are in areas with excessive population density. This wasn’t just the result of subjective bias. I try to use the dispassionate mindset of an actuarial accountant.

Take a look at The Lights of the U.S. photo maps. These montages of satellite photos make it clear that most of America’s population is east of the Missouri River and is highly urbanized.The population density of the U.S. is dramatically lower in the west. In troubled times fewer people means fewer problems. In the event of a social upheaval, being west of the Missouri River will mean a statistically much lower chance of coming face to face with lawless rioters or looters When The Schumer Hits The Fan (WTSHTF).

The other startling thing you will notice when looking at the Lights photo montage is that even in the western states, Americans live in a highly urbanized society. Roughly 90% of the population is crammed into 5% of the land area, mostly within 50 miles of the coast. But there are large patches of the west where there are virtually no lights at all–particularly in the Great Basin region that extends from the back side of the Sierra Nevada mountains to Utah and Eastern Oregon. The average population density in this region is less than two people per square mile.

As an example of the low population density in the west, I often like to cite Idaho County, Idaho: This one county measures 8,485 square miles–bigger than Connecticut and Rhode Island combined. But it has a population of just 15,400. And of those residents, roughly 3,300 people live in Grangeville, the county seat. Who lives in the rest of the County? Nary a soul. There are far more deer and elk than there are people. The population density of the county is 1.8 people per square mile. The county has more than three million acres of U.S. Forest Service land, BLM land, and designated Federal wilderness areas. Now that is elbow room!

The northeastern states depend on nuclear power plants for 47% of their electricity. South Carolina is similarly dependent. This is an unacceptable level of high technology systems dependence, particularly in light of the emerging terrorist threat. You must also consider that virtually all of the eastern states are downwind of major nuclear targets. In a full scale exchange, the eastern US would be a bad place to be. See the target lists, fallout projections, and other data at Richard Fleetwood’s excellent SurvivalRing web site. Not only are there lots of nuclear targets in the east, but easterners will also get considerable additional fallout carried on the winds from strikes farther west–including SAC bomber bases, the strategic missile fields (in Montana, the Dakotas, and northern Colorado), Cheyenne Mountain (Colorado), Offutt AFB (Nebraska), and others. The majority of the military targets are expected to be hit with ground bursts, which are the type that produce fallout. Because of the Coriolis Effect, the prevailing winds in most of the United States are from west to east, so the farther east you live, the greater the accumulated fallout that you are likely to receive. Sorry!

My general advice for easterners: If for one reason or another you are stuck in the northeast, then consider New Hampshire or Vermont. They are both gun friendly and have more self-sufficient lifestyle. But unless you have some compelling reason to stay in the East, I most strongly encourage you to Go West!

With all that said, there are some areas in the eastern US that will be safer than others (like parts of Tennessee and Maine), and there are ways to mitigate the risks that I mentioned.:

Risk Mitigation

The risk posed by the higher population density of the eastern states can be mitigated by both carefully choosing your retreat property (look for bypassed areas that are far from “channelized areas” and lines of drift“) and by having heavily-manned 24/7/360 armed and vigilant security at your retreat. (See my novel “Patriots: Surviving the Coming Collapse” for a detailed description of what might be needed to mount such a guard.) This will of course mean extra mouths to feed–which in turn dictates the expense of extra storage food, extra gardening space, extra housing, and extra stored fuel. But this could be viable, especially if you are wealthy.

The other obvious risk mitigation is to construct a blast/fallout shelter with a forced-air HEPA filter. If your house already has a basement, and you are willing to do some of the work yourself, a retrofit can be done for under $5,000. Constructing a new, dedicated shelter can be a $15,000 to $70,000 proposition, depending how large and elaborate you want to make it. The folks at Safecastle have extensive experience in building such shelters, tailored for all budgets. They specialize in combination storm/nuke/gun vault shelters. I highly recommend them.

Letter Re: Do It Yourself Coffee Roasting

After reading some information in SurvivalBlog about roasting green coffee beans I thought I could offer some useful info on the subject, since I’ve been a coffee supplier and roaster for about 10 years.

Let’s assume the grid is down—how does one roast coffee? You can do it over an open flame such as a propane burner, or campfire. In the days of cattle drives the cook would roast in a cast iron pot just stirring the beans constantly. If you do that then a peaberry type coffee bean works best because they are more round, and my research tells me that that’s what many of the old cooks packed. Regular beans have a flat side and have a tendency to burn some of the beans on that side regardless of how much you stir.

But here is the method I’ve tried and it worked reasonably well. Use a good heavy duty wok pan. (Avoid a Teflon-coated wok pan at all costs). Place 6-to-8 ounces of green beans in it, and over the hot fire flick it forward like a chef does, doing so constantly. In a few minutes the beans heat up and you can hear the first crack of the beans, it’s not very loud so listen carefully. Keep flicking —chaff comes off, and when the first crack has stopped you can stop the roast. For future roast adjust from the stop of first crack—you can go on into a less audible second crack in a minute or so for darker roast. Going to the end of second crack will give you a French roast that some like. Understand that this will give you a decent roast, not perfect as some beans will roast up unevenly, but you will definitely like it better than canned coffee, I guarantee it, because it’s fresh roasted.

Now here’s a vital point to your roasting: when you have it just where you want it—end of first crack, or into second crack, whatever, the beans have to be cooled as quickly as possible. The most practical way I found was dumping them back and forth in two colanders, 3 or 4 minutes at least. If possible, allow the beans to degas for at least a day, but don’t roast up more than you’ll need for a few days. Store in Ziploc type bags in a dark place, but leave a small opening in the zipper to release the built up CO2 or the bag could burst. After that keep it sealed between uses. Have a hand grinder, or as the cowboy cook did, mash between two hard objects. If you’re just throwing your grounds into hot water use a course grind, and don’t boil the coffee, let it steep for about four minutes.

I am not trying to present myself as an expert coffee survivalist, but with some practice you can make excellent coffee truly from scratch. But why wait til for a collapse? Practice doing it now. Charlie at Cme Brew Coffee.

Letter Re: Ammunition Reloading for Survival

Jim,
I saw the article that mentioned Reloading for autoloading rifles, and some comments that seemed to not completely answer questions people may have.

It is important to note that reloading any caliber is a delicate undertaking for any gun you are about to trust your life with. The use of case gauges is an important one, but for the part-time reloader they are an expensive investment (~$30-50 each!). A much easier method is to test the cartridge in the firearm, to accomplish this, if you are working on either a progressive or single stage press, reload a few rounds as dummies. This means no powder, no primer, just case and bullet, and test them in the gun for fit and feed. Do not test fit live ammunition unless you are in a place where a discharge is allowed. (For most of us [that live inside city limits] this means a firing range). Numerous negligent discharges have resulted from people not following proper safety precautions, and even if you do this is never a guarantee that a mechanical problem won’t develop causing an accidental discharge.

If you have issues with reloading bottle-neck rifle cartridges, a likely fix is to use small base dies, these will size the brass down to a smaller size, and will size more of the case than a standard full-length sizer. However, the added working of the brass will result in earlier failure of the brass.

When it comes to [reloading] dies, I recommend against buying those made by Lee Precision, I have had far too many cases that were mangled, scratched, or had other defects resulting from the poor quality of Lee [brand] dies. One thing to be especially careful of when using Lee dies is the decapping pin will sometimes stick in the flash-hole, if you are working on automated loading equipment this will likely detonate the [fresh] primer when you go to seat it. (Most other manufacturers have switched to a headed [de-capping] pin, making this an extremely rare problem.). RCBS, Redding, and Lyman all make very good and sturdy dies from hardened tool steel, Dillon offers tungsten-carbide sizing dies for bottle neck rifle cartridges, if you have money to spend, the Dillon dies
will likely outlast your grandchildren, provided they have an adequate supply of decapping pins (RCBS, Lyman, and a few others offer free replacement parts, Dillon believes these to be a consumable item, and charges for them).

Regarding the differences between Military and Commercial cartridge specifications

You are absolutely correct, 5.56 and .223 have the same external case dimensions, but for the most part the similarities stop there. 5.56 has a SAAMI maximum working-pressure of 55,000 PSI, where as the .223 [Remington] maxes out at 50,000. If a 5.56 round is fired in a .223 firearm, then pressures are likely to be extreme, another key difference is the 5.56 chamber and throat dimensions are different, the engraving force will be reduced, and there is the potential for some gas leakage to the rear, a cumulative effect of this will be lower over-all pressures.

However, with .308 [Winchester] and 7.62mm NATO [the specification difference] is slightly the other way, but for different reasons. The .308 and 7.62mm NATO rounds are functionally identical, while there was some disagreement about the chamber pressures generated by some commercial ammo (SAAMI maximum some say is 62,000 PSI) and some military ammo (maximum pressure at 50,000), there seems to be a larger issue with the military chamber being longer, and thus being harder on the brass. If you are reloading, you can account for these differences with your selection of load and powder. That is one of the true advantages of reloading your own ammunition.

In all likelihood, anyone using a good quality military semi-auto in 7.62mm NATO isn’t going to notice any difficulty using commercial .308 ammo. But keep it in mind if you ever do encounter problems.

I hope all is well Jim, glad to see you are getting some more public exposure. It seems that the population at large is waking up, I had a co-worker hand me your book “Patriots” the other day. I giggled a bit to myself and told him I already had the book. Even my mom started asking me questions about the SurvivalBlog site, after hearing about it on the news. Lets hope all the people who are waking up to the unpleasantness we are all facing are able to head it off and clean up this mess before a lot of people have to get hurt. Sincerely, – Drew

JWR Adds: Part of the problem in discussions regarding commercial versus military cartridge specifications is that some of the specs are written in terms of pounds per square inch (PSI), while others are written using Copper Units of Pressure (C.U.P.) They are not the same scales!

Odds ‘n Sods:

Lisa C. suggested this article: One Guy Who Has Seen It All Doesn’t Like What He Sees Now about an elderly financial that fears the effects of the current credit collapse, but suggests buying stocks. I concur with the former, but not the latter. In my opinion the US stock market is heading for a fall. The recent Dow Jones rallies have been nothing but sucker rallies. And if you look at the volume of stock that insiders are selling, it is clear that a lot of the “smart money” is abandoning ship. (See, for example, Oracle CEO Larry Ellison’s regular dumping of his own shares.) I predict that there may soon be a stock market collapse, most likely immediately after the Federal Reserve stops easing interest rates, and starts raising them. That will be the turning point. That will also likely be the day that those of you that took my advice and invested in gold and silver will become very happy campers. And also, BTW, the recent pull-back in the spot gold and silver prices are a great buying opportunity. I recently wrote that a gold price south of $875 would be a bargain, an I stand by that.

   o o o

Eric sent us this piece on Peak Oil : Good-Bye, Cheap Oil. So Long, Suburbia? But, meanwhile, we read: Oil discovery rocks Brazil. I have my doubts about Peak Oil theory, but I recommend hedging your bets by buying photovoltaics, horses and tack.

   o o o

Merry found us this: Buffett says recession may be worse than feared. Warren’s wisdom: “This will not be short and shallow.”

   o o o

FerFAL (our correspondent in Argentina), has some suggestions on making a living during a “slow slide” economic situation, based on his experiences in Argentina. Check out the post at his blog titled “Making Money During the Crisis.”

Jim’s Quote of the Day:

"Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experience of others, are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so." – Douglas Graham

Note from JWR:

Reader Jeff T. kindly did some digging and found the text link to my recent ABC (Australia) interview: Global food crisis sparks US survivalist resurgence. And here is the audio link.

Letter Re: Spare Parts Now Available for XD-45 Pistols

Jim:

You mentioned that spare parts for Springfield Armory XD pistols have been hard to find. That was the case, up until recently. But now spare XD parts are starting to show up at PistolGear.com. Hover you cursor arrow over “Springfield XD” at the bottom of the window that pops up . There should be a line that reads “XD Factory Parts“. I just got a whole stack of [factory spare XD parts] in the mail last week. There are still some critical parts that are missing, such as the extractor. I have done a lot of business with them and talked to the owner Tom a good deal, good fast service and sounds like a pretty good guy.

My first XD has over 40,000 rounds through it without cleaning and it functions perfectly. They are just as tough as a Glock, just as easy to field strip, but a bit more difficult to detail strip. Overall, it is a great pistol. – Regards, – Bert M.

JWR Replies: That is great news! Consider the proviso that I mentioned yesterday, withdrawn. I can now without reservation endorse the XD pistol as a primary pistol for the long term survival firearms batteries of SurvivalBlog readers.

At this point, I am sorely tempted to sell off my stainless steel Colt M1911s and replace them all with XD-45 pistols. I now recognize that I could get better reliability and nearly twice as many guns for the money that I’d net from selling my used Colts! (A stainless steel Colt Gold Cup .45 now sells for around $1,200. Yikes!) The only remaining issue is that I have 35 years of training invested in the M1911 platform. I will do some extensive testing of an XD-45 and let you know what I decide. Oh boy, am I tempted!

I must reiterate that Front Sight’s “Get a Gun” training and gear package offer is available only for a limited time. I most strongly recommend that SurvivalBlog readers take Naish Piazza up on his offer before he cuts off further enrollments. (They only have a limited quantity of guns and gear available for this “package” deal. This is a tremendously generous offer. As near as I can figure, Naish is offering the package at near his cost, as an inducement to get shooters to come and take their first course at Front Sight. Once someone takes a course there, they are “hooked” and keep coming back for more–the the training there is that good. The Memsahib and I can vouch for that personally. We were astounded at the quality of the training. I learned more in four days at Front Sight than I had in the 35 years of my previous pistol shooting experience. I’m not kidding.

OBTW, I note that in addition to Springfield Armory factory spare parts, PistolGear.com also sells a wide range of aftermarket parts and accessories for XDs. And anyone that needs more details on XD pistol should check out the XD Talk Forums.

Letter Re: Cooking Aromas and Post-Collapse OPSEC

2

Greetings All,
SurvivalBlog has, and is, providing great practical information as well a thoughts on just about every aspect overcoming adversity and disastrous conditions. This brain trust provides information on retaining as much privacy as possible in this era of electronic monitoring of everything we purchase, and how to camouflage just about every type of inanimate object. I have noticed one issue that hasn’t been addressed. (Don’t faint!).

During a long term situation in particular this one issue can impact any family or group’s safety. So here is the question. How can we best ‘camouflage’ or limit the smell of food cooking? In a short term situation, as after hurricane, this would be a less dangerous situation provided relief was available and the aftermath limited in locale. During a hurricane most of us in our neighborhood had huge cookouts to use up frozen foods before they spoiled, or shared prepared food. We knew the limits of the damage and even with a week or more without power, while ‘bothersome’, wasn’t creating any real dangerous situation. Our family gathered a large percentage of our frozen food as well as some of our neighbor’s food and took our freezer and it’s contents to a relative within traveling distance who had power. And through that week we made trips to pick up food for that day and put it into ice chests.

If anyone has been down wind of a neighbor grilling out during the Spring, Summer or even Fall; you know how that affects you. When I was growing up and spending Summers on her farm, or visiting every week or so, I remember the aroma of my Grandmother’s cooking whenever I was outside and down wind of the farm house. During a long term situation, where people are desperate or crime more widespread, as the example Argentina provides us, that one element has the potential negate all the ‘movement, light and sound discipline’ one may initiate in order to maintain a low profile of having a stock of foodstuffs. It could even attract unwanted attention from any government agencies who are ‘here to help us’. How can this danger be mitigated?
Keep your powder dry, – The Rabid One

JWR Replies: You’ve raised a valid observation that should be included on retreat planning OPSEC “signatures” planning. Aside from minimizing the use of cooking herbs and spices, and minimizing outdoor venting, there is not a lot that can be done to reduce cooking smells. Obviously, in a famine situation, preserving meat by salting or brine jerking would be far superior to using a meat smoker!

For some background on various habitation “signatures”, see my December, 2007 discussion of being holed up in an apartment. In such demanding circumstances–with neighbors in close proximity—it would be advisable to cook only the most bland foods and to primarily use the Thermos bottle cooking method–like the one described by SurvivalBlog reader KBF.

Cooking odor signature is yet another reason to buy a house on acreage. The farther that your house is away from public thoroughfares, the better. The inverse square law (which you’ll recall I’ve mentioned regarding topics like sound attenuation and even Golden Horde attenuation) applies to the olfactory sense, too. (Your local wind speed and direction may vary.)

Perhaps some SurvivalBlog readers have some other suggestions on minimizing the “signature” of cooking aromas. OBTW, another odor that needs to be controlled is the smell of burning tobacco, which can carry a surprising distance. (I’ve heard this mentioned by several infantry combat veterans.)

Three Letters Re: What Determines if a Storage Bucket is Food Grade?

Greetings Jim,
I have found the folks at the bakery counter at [supermarkets such as] Safeway are willing to give me food grade buckets for free or maybe $1 each. They get frosting five gallons at a time. Once you read the label on that stuff you may never eat store bought cake again! – DAP in Missouri

 

Jim:
I wanted to share the best priced source I have found for Food Grade Buckets.
Other than getting them free from food vendors, I haven’t found a price better than $3.99 for five gallon food grade buckets. Lids are $1.09. People might not see the terms “Food Grade”, but seeing NSF, FDA, or USDA approved means essentially the same thing. – Joe A.

 

Jim,
A couple of days ago you wrote about storing grains in [HDPE] plastic buckets. Since then people have had questions regarding what constitutes a “food grade” bucket. Questions that you have answered fully.

However, in that original post you mentioned putting the grain in plastic bags inside the bucket. My question is what [plastic composition] bags should I use? The first thing that came to mind was a trash bag — Convenient as they are readily available and they are large. But, I recall reading somewhere that [some] commercially produced trash bags are treated with pesticides which one would not want their food stored in. If that is so, then what type of bags would you recommend? – Mark

JWR Replies: Clear vinyl bags (often marked “V” or with recycle code “3”) are almost always food grade. Low density polyethylene (LDPE or recycle code “4”) in film form–typically used in grocery bags and trash bags–is usually food grade, but some varieties have some strange additives or coatings. To be sure, see the manufacturer’s packaging for details. If the package is marked “FDA Approved”, “USDA Approved”, or “food safe” then they are food grade. Most mylar is food grade, but again beware of odd coatings. Most mylar bucket liners–such as those sold by Nitro-Pak — are food grade. The latter, BTW, is my top choice for extending the longevity of stored grains and legumes.

Two Letters Re: Observations on a Tour of a Telephone Company Central Office

James:

The batteries are why the phone still works when the power goes out. That is if you still have an old style (hard wire) phone and not all cordless phones. The cordless phones need 120 VAC power to run the base station. You should maintain at least one all wire somewhere in your house.
I believe the [common design for COs is that the] whole building is built in such a way that it is a big Faraday Cage. It would take a pretty close proximity EMP to take one out. The EMP
danger is in the above ground wiring [and antennas].

Most of this kind of engineering is done for lighting protection, but it is something of an EMP protection as well. That is [on reason why they are continuing to switch to underground wiring, even on expensive long[er] distance routes. The switch to fiber optics helps here also, even though the main rationale for its adoption was capacity and cost.

The phone companies are some of the most engineering conservative utilities in this country. When I worked with them, everything was “double built”. 100 percent redundancy.
And they are learning a lot fast about “hardening” their properties. Some of the upgrades I have seen done inside those little brick buildings spread around the country make them into pillboxes. – Keith S.

 

Hi Jim,

I saw the stuff about phone Central Offices (COs) and thought I would contribute a bit as well since this is a part of my area of specialty. Many times people have these nearby and are unaware of them. They look like a generic office building – most have few or no windows and are most often brick, concrete or concrete block. They are generally unobtrusive and sometimes do not even have the company logo on them. They are made this way because they house what is considered critical communications infrastructure and because they are supposed to be semi-secure and protected against all but the very worst mother nature can dish out. They are also a desirable target for terrorists, etc. As far as I know it is a Federal felony to disrupt the operations of one of these buildings so batteries, generators, and so forth would be strictly off limits in all but a true TEOTWAWKI situation.

This link has pictures of COs. If you look at the Kansas page you can see the COs that might exist in a small town – where they may serve at most a few hundred customers. The one’s listed under California (619) might serve a few thousand customers. These buildings will generally not be more than about 3 to 5 miles apart in suburban areas and even closer in urban areas so they are quite common, but most people do not have a clue where or what they are.

They do have large battery back-ups and larger one’s have generators. The larger one’s will also have fuel reservoirs of either diesel, propane or gasoline depending on the location, company policy, etc. These are required to keep the system up if the grid goes down – however they are only meant for a few days operation at best on generators. They do change the batteries our regularly because they have to keep the grid operational. [Their surplus battery sales are] a decent way to get good, used deep cycle batteries. The best money can buy. Regards, – Tim P.

Notes from JWR:

A couple of readers have told me that they heard my recent interview on Australian ABC Radio about the global grain shortage. The reporter described me as “a secretive survivalist, speaking from an undisclosed location.” OBTW, I was also interviewed last week by the BBC, but I don’t know if that one has aired yet.

The high bid in the current SurvivalBlog Benefit Auction is now at $230. This auction is for four items: A FoodSaver GameSaver Turbo Plus heavy duty food vacuum packaging system (a retail value of $297) kindly donated by Ready Made Resources an autographed copy of : “Rawles on Retreats and Relocation”, an autographed copy of “SurvivalBlog: The Best of the Blog”, and a copy of “The Encyclopedia of Country Living”, by the late Carla Emery. The four items have a combined retail value of around $395. The auction ends on May15th. Please e-mail us your bids, in $10 increments.

Letter Re: What Determines if a Storage Bucket is Food Grade?

Mr. Rawles,
I recently purchased some five gallon buckets at Wal-Mart that I thought would be considered food-grade. I’m afraid these are probably the paint buckets you recently warned against, but I read elsewhere on the web that if there was a “2” inside of the recycle-symbol on the bottom of the bucket, the bucket would be considered food-grade. If these are unsuitable, do you mind going into a little more detail as to why? Thanks, – Ben J.

JWR Replies: The number 2 (with the number inside the “chasing arrows” symbol) refers to HDPE, but not all “2” marked plastics are food grade. Let me explain: The “food grade” designation is determined by plastic purity by and what mold release compound is used–not by the plastic itself, since all virgin HDPE material is safe for food. For paint buckets, manufacturers sometimes use a less expensive (and toxic) mold release compound. For food grade they must use a more expensive formulation that is non-toxic. Unless the buckets that you bought are are marked “food grade”, (or, marked NSF, FDA, or USDA approved), then you will have to check with the manufacturer’s web site to see if they make all food grade buckets. For more details, see the information at this barbecue and brining web site.

Letter Re: Observations on a Tour of a Telephone Company Central Office

Hi Jim,
I just came back from a tour of one of our local phone company’s central office (CO) and this is what I learned: Besides finding out how our phone lines work, I found out that the hardware there runs on 48 volt DC power. There is a large battery bank in the basement and the batteries are charged by the grid. It is made up of large clear cylinders and you can see the acid level and the plates inside. In the case of the grid going down it has a generator back up. Many of these offices are unmanned. I also found out that there are many small remote units around that run on a couple of deep cycle batteries for back up power around town. In the case of a prolonged power outage the technicians will cycle through the remote units with generators to charge up the batteries.

I was also surprised at all the circuit boards. An electromagnetic pulse (EMP) would easily take out [these microcircuit boards, and hence wipe out] all the phone circuits.

I know that society would have to totally break down in order to make use of these resources but I bet not too many people know about the battery banks. Just something to keep in the back of your mind because every town will have something like this. – Adam in Ohio