Economics & Investing For Preppers

Here are the latest news items and commentary on current economics news, market trends, stocks, investing opportunities, and the precious metals markets. In this column, JWR also covers hedges, derivatives, and various obscura. This column emphasizes JWR’s “tangibles heavy” investing strategy and contrarian perspective. Today, news of BRICS countries dumping U.S. Treasuries. (See the Economy & Finance section.)

Precious Metals:

Costco says its 1-ounce gold bars are real and have been selling out in hours.

o  o  o

Spot silver and gold both dipped sharply, over the weekend. This is another buying opportunity, for those of you who stack bullion coins.

o  o  o

A Kitco.com editorial, from Neils Christensen: Gold’s selloff doesn’t change the long-term bullish outlook – Saxo Bank.

Economy & Finance:

$18,900,000,000 in US Treasuries Dumped by BRICS Members China, Brazil, India and UAE in One Month. JWR’s Comments: If all of the BRICS nations consistently stop rolling over their US Treasury paper in the next three years, then we could witness a veritable sea change in the global currency regime. Jerome Powell must be worried. To be ready for any Dollar chaos, stick with the sage advice: diversify into precious metals.

o  o  o

House Passes CR Bill Without Ukraine Funding to Potentially Avoid ‘Government Shutdown’.

o  o  o

Next, over at Zero Hedge: Credit Risk Heightens As Equity Gamma Flips Negative.

o  o  o

A Third Of Remote Workers Say They’d Quit Or Find A New Job If They Were Asked To Return To The Office.

o  o  o

Biden Forgives Student Loans for 804,000 Borrowers.

Continue reading“Economics & Investing For Preppers”

Preparedness Notes for Sunday — October 1, 2023

On October 1, 1936, Francisco Franco became head of the new Nationalist regime of Spain at the beginning of the Spanish Civil War. His dictatorial reign lasted until his death in 1975.

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On October 1, 1553, with her coronation, Mary I became the first queen to rule England in her own right; she was later nicknamed “Bloody Mary” because of her persecution of Protestants in a vain attempt to restore Roman Catholicism in the country.

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SurvivalBlog Writing Contest

Today we present the first entry for Round 109 of the SurvivalBlog non-fiction writing contest. The prizes for this round include:

First Prize:

  1. The photovoltaic power specialists at Quantum Harvest LLC  are providing a store-wide 10% off coupon. Depending on the model chosen, this could be worth more than $2000.
  2. A Gunsite Academy Three Day Course Certificate. This can be used for any of their one, two, or three-day course (a $1,095 value),
  3. Two cases of Mountain House freeze-dried assorted entrees in #10 cans, courtesy of Ready Made Resources (a $350 value),
  4. A $250 gift certificate good for any product from Sunflower Ammo,
  5. American Gunsmithing Institute (AGI) is providing a $300 certificate good towards any of their DVD training courses.
  6. Two sets of The Civil Defense Manual, (in two volumes) — a $193 value — kindly donated by the author, Jack Lawson.

Second Prize:

  1. A SIRT STIC AR-15/M4 Laser Training Package, courtesy of Next Level Training, that has a combined retail value of $679
  2. 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).
  3. Two Super Survival Pack seed collections, a $150 value, courtesy of Seed for Security, LLC.
  4. Montana Survival Seed is providing a $225 gift code for any items on its website, including organic non-GMO seeds, fossils, 1812-1964 US silver, jewelry, botany books, and Montana beeswax.
  5. A transferable $150 FRN purchase credit from Elk Creek Company, toward the purchase of any pre-1899 antique gun. There is no paperwork required for delivery of pre-1899 guns into most states, making them the last bastion of firearms purchasing privacy!

Third Prize:

  1. A $300 gift certificate from Good2Goco.com, good for any of their products: Home freeze dryers, pressure canners, Country Living grain mills, Emergency Essentials foods, and much more.
  2. Three sets each of made-in-USA regular and wide-mouth reusable canning lids. (This is a total of 300 lids and 600 gaskets.) This prize is courtesy of Harvest Guard (a $270 value)
  3. A Royal Berkey water filter, courtesy of Directive 21 (a $275 value),
  4. A transferable $150 FRN purchase credit from Elk Creek Company, toward the purchase of any pre-1899 antique gun.

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More than $850,000 worth of prizes have been awarded since we started running this contest. We recently polled blog readers, asking for suggested article topics. Refer to that poll if you haven’t yet chosen an article topic. Round 109 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.

Writing Contest Prize Winners Announced — Round 108

We’ve completed the judging for Round 108 of the SurvivalBlog non-fiction writing contest.  The judging was particularly difficult for this round, because there were so many great articles. Round 108 began on August 1st and ended on September 30, 2023. (The contest is run in rounds that each last two months.) The prize-winning writers for Round 108 are:

First Prize

First Prize goes to Reelfisherman, for: Vintage Car Repair Part 1 and Part 2, posted on August 29 and 30, 2023. He will receive the following prizes:

  1. The photovoltaic power specialists at Quantum Harvest LLC are providing a store-wide 10% off coupon. Depending on the model chosen, this could be worth more than $2000.
  2. A Gunsite Academy Three Day Course Certificate. This can be used for any of their one, two, or three-day course (a $1,095 value),
  3. Two cases of Mountain House freeze-dried assorted entrees in #10 cans, courtesy of Ready Made Resources (a $350 value),
  4. A $250 gift certificate good for any product from Sunflower Ammo,
  5. American Gunsmithing Institute (AGI) is providing a $300 certificate good towards any of their DVD training courses.
  6. Two sets of The Civil Defense Manual, (in two volumes) — a $193 value — kindly donated by the author, Jack Lawson.
Second Prize

Second Prize goes to J.M. for A Local Disaster Network, posted September 5-9, 2023,  (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, and Part 5.) He will receive the following prizes:

  1. A SIRT STIC AR-15/M4 Laser Training Package, courtesy of Next Level Training, that has a combined retail value of $679
  2. 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).
  3. Two Super Survival Pack seed collections, a $150 value, courtesy of Seed for Security, LLC,
  4. A transferable $150 FRN purchase credit from Elk Creek Company, toward the purchase of any pre-1899 antique gun. There is no paperwork required for delivery of pre-1899 guns into most states, making them the last bastion of firearms purchasing privacy!
Third Prize

Third Prize goes to Lodge Pole, for Homesteading: A Trapper’s Perspective, posted September 19-22, 2023. (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3., and Part 4.) He will receive the following prizes:

  1. A $300 gift certificate from Good2Goco.com, good for any of their products: Home freeze dryers, pressure canners, Country Living grain mills, Emergency Essentials foods, and much more.
  2. Three sets each of made-in-USA regular and wide-mouth reusable canning lids. (This is a total of 300 lids and 600 gaskets.) This prize is courtesy of Harvest Guard (a $270 value)
  3. A Royal Berkey water filter, courtesy of Directive 21 (a $275 value),
  4. Montana Survival Seed is providing a $225 gift code for any items on its website, including organic non-GMO seeds, fossils, 1812-1964 US silver, jewelry, botany books, and Montana beeswax.
  5. A transferable $150 FRN purchase credit from Elk Creek Company, toward the purchase of any pre-1899 antique gun.
Honorable Mention

Each Honorable Mention Prize winner has been awarded a transferable and accruable $100 FRN purchase credit toward the purchase of any antique or percussion replica gun from Elk Creek Company.

Honorable Mention Prizes go to the writers of these 15 articles:

Round 109 ends on November 30, 2023, so get busy writing!

How to Build an Outhouse, by Mrs. Alaska

Lack of sanitation has killed more people than wars, so while bullets may be useful, outhouses may be more important! Can you dig a hole and construct a simple structure over it? For more than a decade, we have lived with an outhouse and no indoor bathroom.

In many coastal communities, an outhouse is built over a pier. Peering through the toilet, one sees the incoming or outgoing tide. I don’t want to think too much about that. Throughout India, where we spent 9 months, commercial outhouses and bathrooms in modest hotels have tile floors with a sloping center, flanked by two textured pads for shoes or sandals. One straddles the sloping section and afterward slops water from an adjacent bucket. Bring your own toilet paper.

This week, with the substantial help of a carpenter friend visiting from Wisconsin (thanks, Jim!), we built a new outhouse, near our guest cabin/ham shack/man cave, to supplement the one built in 2009 by our main cabin.

CONSTRUCTION

THE PIT:

The pit is dug first, of course, either by hand or with a backhoe. How do you select the location? First, know the depth of your land’s water table! If you live in a swamp, an outhouse with a bucket may be feasible, but not a hole in the ground. Second, choose a spot that will not drain down to a water source. Third, it is advisable to consider the direction of the prevailing wind. If you dig a shallow hole and the outhouse does not fit well over it, you will have downwind odor. Fourth, the digging will be easier in an area that is not riddled with thick roots, so keep your distance from big trees.Continue reading“How to Build an Outhouse, by Mrs. Alaska”

JWR’s Meme Of The Week:

The latest meme created by JWR:

Meme Text:

That Face You Make When You Learn That

Another $18.9 Billion in Treasuries Were Just Dumped by BRICS Countries

News Link: $18,900,000,000 in US Treasuries Dumped by BRICS Members China, Brazil, India and UAE in One Month. 

Notes From JWR: Do you have a meme idea? Just e-mail me the concept, and I’ll try to assemble it. And if it is posted then I’ll give you credit. Thanks!

Permission to repost memes that I’ve created is granted, provide that credit to SurvivalBlog.com is included.

 

The Editors’ Quote of the Day:

“Then cometh he to a city of Samaria, which is called Sychar, near to the parcel of ground that Jacob gave to his son Joseph.

Now Jacob’s well was there. Jesus therefore, being wearied with his journey, sat thus on the well: and it was about the sixth hour.

There cometh a woman of Samaria to draw water: Jesus saith unto her, Give me to drink.

(For his disciples were gone away unto the city to buy meat.)

Then saith the woman of Samaria unto him, How is it that thou, being a Jew, askest drink of me, which am a woman of Samaria? for the Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans.

Jesus answered and said unto her, If thou knewest the gift of God, and who it is that saith to thee, Give me to drink; thou wouldest have asked of him, and he would have given thee living water.

The woman saith unto him, Sir, thou hast nothing to draw with, and the well is deep: from whence then hast thou that living water?

Art thou greater than our father Jacob, which gave us the well, and drank thereof himself, and his children, and his cattle?

Jesus answered and said unto her, Whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again:

But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life.

The woman saith unto him, Sir, give me this water, that I thirst not, neither come hither to draw.

Jesus saith unto her, Go, call thy husband, and come hither.

The woman answered and said, I have no husband. Jesus said unto her, Thou hast well said, I have no husband:

For thou hast had five husbands; and he whom thou now hast is not thy husband: in that saidst thou truly.

The woman saith unto him, Sir, I perceive that thou art a prophet.

Our fathers worshipped in this mountain; and ye say, that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship.

Jesus saith unto her, Woman, believe me, the hour cometh, when ye shall neither in this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem, worship the Father.

Ye worship ye know not what: we know what we worship: for salvation is of the Jews.

But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him.

God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.

The woman saith unto him, I know that Messias cometh, which is called Christ: when he is come, he will tell us all things.

Jesus saith unto her, I that speak unto thee am he.” – John 4: 5-26 (KJV)

Preparedness Notes for Saturday — September 30, 2023

On September 30, 1949, the Berlin airlift officially ended after the Western Allied powers delivered 2,323,738 tons of food, fuel, machinery, and other supplies to West Berlin, which had been cut off from the West during the Soviet blockade of Berlin.

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On this day in 1938, the Treaty of Munich was signed by Hitler, Mussolini, Daladier, and Chamberlain. This treaty forced Czechoslovakia to cede territory to Germany.

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I just learned of the death of Democrat California Senator Dianne Feinstein, at age 90. Please pray that a more conservative and pro-gun senator takes her seat.

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Today’s short feature piece is by JWR.

We are now seeking entries for Round 109 of the SurvivalBlog non-fiction writing contest.

The prize winners for Round 108 will be announced on Sunday.

More than $840,000 worth of prizes have been awarded since we started running this contest. We recently polled blog readers, asking for suggested article topics. Refer to that poll if you haven’t yet chosen an article topic. Round 109 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.

Risk Mitigation in the Mid-2020s

Looking at the manifold threats facing the world in late 2023, as an American citizen I cannot help but feel overwhelmed. In a nutshell, these threats include:

  • The threat of regional or world war, stemming from the Iraq, Ukraine, or Taiwan conflicts.
  • Out-of-control government spending and indebtedness.
  • Corruption at all levels of government.
  • Federal agencies running roughshod over our constitutional rights.
  • Selective and vindictive prosecutions driven by politics.
  • High inflation and an increasingly unaffordable cost of living and healthcare.
  • Urbanization and over-complication of supply chains.
  • Malinvestment and misallocation of government spending.
  • Chronic homelessness and growing encampments.
  • Uncompensated Federal mandates on state governments.
  • New restrictions on gun ownership.
  • Enforced vaccination with largely untested mRNA injections.
  • Military organizations that are neutered by political correctness.
  • A fiat U.S. Dollar that is losing its dominance in world trade.
  • A doddering, senile, reality-detached, and perverted president who is controlled and scripted by his handlers.
  • The deepening divide between urban and rural states.
  • Unprotected national power grids that are vulnerable to physical attack, hackers, solar flares, and EMP strikes.
  • The ongoing culture war, with both the mass media and academia siding with the woke, leftist, and largely homosexual agenda.
  • The marginalization of traditional American culture, Christianity and the nuclear family unit.
  • Rapidly increasing consumer debt.
  • Political parties with indistinguishable agendas.
  • Politically-driven green energy conversion.
  • Out-of-control urban crime.
  • Cancel culture: Social credit scores, de-banking, de-listing, de-ranking, and swatting.
  • Censorship driven by private interest groups.
  • Rampant drug and alcohol addiction.
  • Propaganda.
  • The rise of artificial intelligence (AI).
  • Loss of election integrity.
  • Obesity, poor diets, and a decline in meaningful exercise.
  • Social media obsession/addiction.
  • Declining soils and food quality.
  • Depleted aquifers.
  • Uncontrolled illegal immigration.
  • Schools that no longer strive for academic excellence but instead occupy countless hours preaching woke leftism.
  • The push toward digital currencies.

And that is just a cursory list!

Vote With Your Feet

I must remind my readers that these many problems will not be solved within our lifetimes.  If anything, given the nature of modern government and technocracy, these problems will only get worse. Therefore, the only effective risk mitigation for individual American families will be via relocation to lightly populated self-sufficient regions that are more conservative.  In short: It is high time to vote with your feet!

Please prayerfully consider relocating your family, as soon as possible. Do so while mortgage interest rates are still affordable. Urban land values will decline, while rural land values will increase. If you wait too long, then you will essentially be trapped by a property and mortgage affordability gap. – JWR

September 2023 in Precious Metals, by Steven Cochran

Welcome to SurvivalBlog’s Precious Metals Month in Review, where we take a look at “the month that was” in precious metals. Each month, we cover gold’s performance and the factors that affect gold prices.

What Did Gold Do in September?

Gold prices surprised observers by resisting selling pressure until the last part of the month. A breakdown in stocks, bonds, and gold caused by abysmal consumer confidence and plunging new home sales on September 26th pushed gold prices to $1,919. Bond yields hit 4.6% and the dollar index rose to 106.82 on the 27th, forcing December gold $29 lower and into a “death cross” where the 50-day moving average falls beneath the 200-day moving average.

Gold prices saw no relief at the end of the month, dropping another $12.50 to $1,866 an ounce on the 29th to the end September with a loss of $100. $80 of this loss came during the last week of the month, which shows the rapid deterioration of the gold price as the automakers strike continued and the economy recoiled from the threat of a government lockdown.Continue reading“September 2023 in Precious Metals, by Steven Cochran”

Editors’ Prepping Progress

To be prepared for a crisis, every Prepper must establish goals and make both long-term and short-term plans. In this column, the SurvivalBlog editors review their week’s prep activities and planned prep activities for the coming week. These range from healthcare and gear purchases to gardening, ranch improvements, bug-out bag fine-tuning, and food storage. This is something akin to our Retreat Owner Profiles, but written incrementally and in detail, throughout the year.  We always welcome you to share your own successes and wisdom in your e-mailed letters. We post many of those –or excerpts thereof — in the Odds ‘n Sods Column or in the Snippets column. Let’s keep busy and be ready!

Jim Reports:

I was fortunate to find a couple of power tools at an estate sale, this week:  A drill press and a bandsaw. I had been needing both of these for many years.  To get the pair for under $400 was a real blessing. The traditional Rockwell belt-driven drill press dates from 1962. Granted, it will be cumbersome to set different speeds, but I won’t have to do that very often. The bandsaw looks like it was made after 2000, and it appears to have hardly had any use. They are both now safely positioned in our shop. Now I just have to do some online research, to find PDFs of their user manuals to print out for my workshop reference binder.  Lily still wants me to find a wood-turning lathe. But finding one of those at a reasonable price might take a while…

I did some more traveling last weekend to attend a gun show. I found a Ludwig Loewe Argentine contract Mauser M1891 sporter, for my Elk Creek Company inventory. I also bought some ammunition, for one of my consulting clients.

I also did some apple picking, but Lily will fill you in on that.

Continue reading“Editors’ Prepping Progress”

The Editors’ Quote of the Day: 

“I will praise thee, O Lord, with my whole heart; I will shew forth all thy marvellous works.

I will be glad and rejoice in thee: I will sing praise to thy name, O thou most High.

When mine enemies are turned back, they shall fall and perish at thy presence.

For thou hast maintained my right and my cause; thou satest in the throne judging right.

Thou hast rebuked the heathen, thou hast destroyed the wicked, thou hast put out their name for ever and ever.

O thou enemy, destructions are come to a perpetual end: and thou hast destroyed cities; their memorial is perished with them.

But the Lord shall endure for ever: he hath prepared his throne for judgment.

And he shall judge the world in righteousness, he shall minister judgment to the people in uprightness.

The Lord also will be a refuge for the oppressed, a refuge in times of trouble.

And they that know thy name will put their trust in thee: for thou, Lord, hast not forsaken them that seek thee.” – Psalm 9:1-10 (KJV)

Preparedness Notes for Friday — September 29, 2023

The Twilight Zone Episode 3, Season 3 titled “The Shelter” originally aired on September 29, 1961 on CBS. It is one of the few Twilight Zone episodes to feature no supernatural or sci-fi elements.

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September 29th, 1881, was the birthday of Ludwig von Mises. (Born 1881, died October 10, 1973.)

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SurvivalBlog Writing Contest

Today we present another entry for Round 108 of the SurvivalBlog non-fiction writing contest. The prizes for this round include:

First Prize:

  1. The photovoltaic power specialists at Quantum Harvest LLC  are providing a store-wide 10% off coupon. Depending on the model chosen, this could be worth more than $2000.
  2. A Gunsite Academy Three Day Course Certificate. This can be used for any of their one, two, or three-day course (a $1,095 value),
  3. Two cases of Mountain House freeze-dried assorted entrees in #10 cans, courtesy of Ready Made Resources (a $350 value),
  4. A $250 gift certificate good for any product from Sunflower Ammo,
  5. American Gunsmithing Institute (AGI) is providing a $300 certificate good towards any of their DVD training courses.
  6. Two sets of The Civil Defense Manual, (in two volumes) — a $193 value — kindly donated by the author, Jack Lawson.

Second Prize:

  1. A SIRT STIC AR-15/M4 Laser Training Package, courtesy of Next Level Training, that has a combined retail value of $679
  2. 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).
  3. Two Super Survival Pack seed collections, a $150 value, courtesy of Seed for Security, LLC.
  4. Montana Survival Seed is providing a $225 gift code for any items on its website, including organic non-GMO seeds, fossils, 1812-1964 US silver, jewelry, botany books, and Montana beeswax.
  5. A transferable $150 FRN purchase credit from Elk Creek Company, toward the purchase of any pre-1899 antique gun. There is no paperwork required for delivery of pre-1899 guns into most states, making them the last bastion of firearms purchasing privacy!

Third Prize:

  1. A $300 gift certificate from Good2Goco.com, good for any of their products: Home freeze dryers, pressure canners, Country Living grain mills, Emergency Essentials foods, and much more.
  2. Three sets each of made-in-USA regular and wide-mouth reusable canning lids. (This is a total of 300 lids and 600 gaskets.) This prize is courtesy of Harvest Guard (a $270 value)
  3. A Royal Berkey water filter, courtesy of Directive 21 (a $275 value),
  4. A transferable $150 FRN purchase credit from Elk Creek Company, toward the purchase of any pre-1899 antique gun.

—

More than $840,000 worth of prizes have been awarded since we started running this contest. We recently polled blog readers, asking for suggested article topics. Refer to that poll if you haven’t yet chosen an article topic. Round 108 ends on September 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.

—

But first, and update to an announcement.

Update: Opportunity for Retreat Group Membership in a Secure Kansas Bug Out Location

I currently have a consulting client who lives full-time with his family on a highly-productive farm in Kansas. He has asked me to use SurvivalBlog to add a family to his retreat group. Unlike the caretaker position that I posted earlier this year (which was a salaried position) posted earlier this year, this is not a paying job, but if you have the qualifications think of your response as the first step toward a potential space for you and your family in a lifeboat which in a collapse scenario could be very important.

Imagine if the collapse has occurred and instead of being stuck in the city, you traveled to a retreat and are welcomed by a Christian family. All you needed to do is travel to their farm/retreat and help with security and usual farm chores. It sounds like a fantasy, but it is true as there is a retreat owner and consulting client has asked me to search for a qualified like-minded family to help assist their family in the event their retreat needs to be activated. They live full time at their farm which has been a productive farm for over 150 years. The farm is in a safe geographic area with multiple sources of power, water including a stocked lake, and abundant trees for firewood in Kansas, which is a conservative state.

The farm produces enough food for hundreds of people and surrounding farms also produce grains, milk, meat, and eggs. The area is lightly populated, with more cattle than people. Wildlife including deer abound in the area.
Continue reading“Update: Opportunity for Retreat Group Membership in a Secure Kansas Bug Out Location”

A Nuclear Attack Quick Actions Checklist – Part 2, by Anon-6

(Continued from Part 1. This concludes the article.)

– To filter air:

  • Need to get fresh air into the shelter without pulling in fallout particles
  • In rack 1 is everything you need to set up an air filter system that pulls in filtered air
  • Checklist with step-by-step pictures is on the clipboard
  • Instructions are also written on the plywood board that will go in the opened movie room window slot (board already has 12” holes in it for the small yellow industrial fan to pull air into the movie room through one of the furnace filters) [Rack 1 contains a small commercial ventilation fan (Vevor 12” utility blower fan), three large house furnace filters that will be used to filter air pulled into the movie from outside, a fitted plywood board that will go into the movie room subterranean window, two rolls of duct tape, and several pre-cut thick pieces of foam to ensure a tight fit]
  • The fan will need to be powered on once every two hours for 5-10 minutes to change out the air [it will be powered by the Yeti 1250 battery “generator,” or by another power source discussed below]
  • When the fan is off flip the pre-cut and already-attached thick plastic sheet down onto the inner/exhaust side of fan – this will keep bad particles outside as much as possible (use the large black rubber bands already on the exhaust side of the fan to secure it)

Continue reading“A Nuclear Attack Quick Actions Checklist – Part 2, by Anon-6”