Letter Re: Non-Fiction and Fiction Book Recommendations

Jim,
Here are a couple of books that I have stumbled across recently that I would recommend to SurvivalBlog readers.

The first book is actually a set of books written by Rita Van Amber. She wrote five volumes of books entitled, “Stories and Recipes of the Great Depression of the 1930s.” The recipes are from readily available ingredients and are simple to make. However, the stories are the best part of the book. The people of this time lived with such hardship and so little food yet they lived well and family relationships were strong. There was no whining for iPods and plasma televisions like you see today. Their survival stories are amazing and I know I learned a few things that could be utilized in a TEOTWAWKI situation.

The second book I want to recommend is a survival fiction book recently out, titled, “Black Monday” by R. Scott Reiss. It entails a scenario where a virus hits our oil supply and all the machines in the world stop working. The way the government reacts and the panic and violence that hit cities in the aftermath are along the lines of your “Patriots”novel. In other words, it is written like it would really happen – no Hollywood (like [the TV series] Jericho) “everybody is happy” scenario. The author was recently on one of the morning shows and believe it or not the technology for this virus already exists and this scenario could really happen. It pays to be prepared!

Both of these books are available on Amazon.com. Happy reading! – L.C.A. in W.N.Y.

Odds ‘n Sods:

Ben L. sent this: Shell to Offer a Biodiesel Fuel in Europe Made From Wood Chips and Straw

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A tidbit from The Daily Reckoning: “Remember, for a good part of America’s history, every dollar in your pocket was a dollar backed by gold. So it’s not so crazy to ask yourself… if America has 8,180 tons – or nearly 261.7 million ounces – of gold in reserve… how many dollars does that buy? The answer will shock you. When dollars became unhinged from gold, the printing presses at the Fed cranked up. By 1980, for every ounce of gold in America, the financial system carried $6,966 in cash. That’s $1.8 trillion total. But get this, by the end of 2005, the total real money supply shot to over $10 trillion . That’s $38,349 in circulation for every ounce of gold in reserve! “

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Yesterday afternoon, while en route to our kid’s Bible study class, I nearly collided with a flock of wild turkeys that was standing in the highway. Collisions with deer are quite commonplace in this part of The Unnamed Western State. Collisions with elk and moose are more rare, but usually horrendous. These are both heavy and long-legged animals that tend to go over a vehicle’s hood and oft-times through the windshield. But just smacking into a couple of 25 pound turkeys can do some damage. We thank God for his travel mercies!

Jim’s Quote of the Day:

“This, by the way, is a good place to pause and explain to readers who will write in wondering why the United States will tolerate an Israeli nuclear force but not an Iranian one. The answer is simple. Israel will probably not blow up New York. That’s why the United States doesn’t mind Israel having nukes and does mind Iran having them. Is that fair? This is power politics, not sharing time in preschool. End of digression.” – George Friedman

Note from JWR:

I recently felled some small cedar trees in the area that will soon become our expanded garden plot. The logs measured 8 to 11 inches in diameter at the butt. I cut them to 12 foot lengths. These will soon come in handy, since I will be using them almost in situ, as posts for the new deer fence. The largest of the logs should make dandy corner posts. Here in the valley, a stout eight foot tall fence is considered the standard for deterring deer. But a very determined elk, moose, or grizzly bear will go wherever they please. Most wire fences aren’t much of an obstacle for these hungry four legged intruders. So we’ll keep plenty of extra woven wire on hand, for repairs. Oh yes, and plenty of concertina wire in reserve for deterring any two legged hungry intruder in the event of absolute worst case Schumeresque situation.

Letter Re: Unimog and Pinzgauer 4WD Vehicles

Jim,
I have been an admirer of these surplus military vehicles ever since I saw them for sale at ‘Major Surplus’ in Gardena California. They are certainly stout. I’m sure they would make a great off-road multi-purpose vehicle but if I was going to use it for any thing else, i.e. Highway, town use I’d be more inclined to just drive a nice American made 4×4. Why? Why bring attention to yourself? If you want to tell the world, your neighbors and total strangers that you are survival oriented and that you may be in the possession of firearms and other expensive gear, this is the way! That is one thing I believe we should all try to avoid. Do you want some “Dudley Doright” state trooper or over-zealous “County Mountie” to pull you over and go through your gear? Then drive a Unimog. I believe in ‘flying low to avoid radar’ and to appear like every other citizen. With a nice old Chevy, Ford or Dodge you can do just that..and spare parts (especially for the GMC/Chevy. I know, I own one) are cheap and plentiful, Upgrades to these trucks are as well numerous and priced right. I still remember seeing a [mixed] caravan of the Steyr Puch and Unimog trucks on Inerstate-5 near Oceanside, California…and I remember all the rubber-necking as well..not too low profile and not all that practical from a mechanical standpoint. Try getting a starter, rear end assembly or a crank shaft for one of these vehicles from Kragen, Napa Auto Parts, or Autozone. Nada. It ain’t gonna happen! Thanks,- Jason in North Idaho

Letter Re: The Coming Dark Age, by Roberto Vacca

Shalom, Jim
Recently I read a quote on SurvivalBlog from the book The Coming Dark Age, written by an author named Roberto Vacca. I went to Amazon.com to research it and found out that it was written in 1986, and, surprisingly enough, there were no reviews on file from other readers.
1.) Do you recommend this book?
2.) If so, what do you like about it?
Looking forward to hearing from you soon.
Hodu l’Yahweh ke tov (Give thanks to Yahweh for He is good), – Dr. Sidney Zweibel

JWR Replies: I first read Roberto Vacca’s short book The Coming Dark Age in the late 1970s. An updated and expanded edition of the book, circa 2000, is available for free download. It is worth reading, but hardly a Earth-shattering revelation. The book has a decent main premise, followed by lots of vague generalities. These are mainly extrapolations based on the precedents of when the Roman Empire disintegrated. Vacca was a member of the Club of Rome, an NGO which began as a sort of a precursor to the present-day Peak Oil crowd. They collectively predicted that “some crisis” was coming, based on societal complexity/fragility/interdependency, and would result in a multi-generational TEOTWAWKI. In recent years, the Club of Rome has focused on Peak Oil as their presumed trigger for a collapse. Used copies of the original English translation of Vacca’s original book can often be found via Amazon Shops for under $5. And of course there is always inter-library loan.

Letter Re: The Eastern Canada Gasoline Crisis

Hi James,
It’s interesting to look at what’s going on here in Ontario. The gasoline [filling] station near my office has been out of gas for two days, and others have been out for varying amounts of time. A friend of mine delivers fuel to gas stations, and was telling me what is happening:
1) There is a rail strike at CN Rail. This has prevented refineries from receiving shipments of the additives needed for diesel and gasoline.
2) There was a fire at one of the Ontario refineries, cutting production significantly. This fire occurred on February 15, and by two weeks later we are in shortages.
The Ontario Premier has asked the fuel suppliers to make sure that no towns run completely dry, and the suppliers are saying that we should be back to normal within two weeks.
Ontario has a reasonable supply of crude oil, with southern Ontario having a large number of wells. However, this situation highlights how fragile our fuel infrastructure it. One fire in one unit at one foundry, and a disturbance in the rail system has driven Ontario to a fuel crisis in a matter of two weeks. In light of this, I’m starting to realize that generators won’t do us much good when TSHTF, since we’ll be pretty much out of fuel not long after that. Even those people that have large reserves of safely stored fuel will run out eventually, and they’ll have to defend it against those people that
consider “hoarding of fuel” to be a crime. How about kerosene for oil lamps or propane for cooking? This stuff is not going to last in a long term situation.
I guess that in a long term survival situation we’ll simply revert to the natural way of doing things, getting up when it’s light, and sleeping when it’s not. We’ll walk, or bike when we need to go somewhere, and cook over wood fires, just like the rest of the Third World.
In the Revelation [of John] one of the angels is given the command “Don’t harm the wine or the oil.” These will be extremely precious commodities in times to come. Be blessed! – Chris

Letter Re: From a USFS In-Holding in Colorado’s High Country–Snowed-In!

Mr. Rawles:
I just wanted to send you a thank you note for your novel “Patriots”, your “Rawles Gets You Ready” preparedness course and for SurvivalBlog.com. We’ve been having a winter weather adventure, which I’ve chronicled in this thread at The Claire Files. If I hadn’t found SurvivalBlog.com some time back in late 2005, it might have been a very different story than the mainly humorous tale I was able to relate. Catching up on some of your entries that I missed over time, I found one that was particularly pertinent to our situation. On February 14, you did a post titled “State and Federal Lands – Poor Choices for short term retreat locales”. The first item of concern that you stated was access, with the following specific quote: “There is also no guarantee that once you get in to public lands that you can get out. Many roads inside forest lands are not maintained in winter. Depending on the latitude and elevation, this could mean getting truly “snowed in” for the winter.”
Our retreat is on private land at 8500′ elevation, but is totally surrounded by National Forest. Our only access is via non-maintained forest service roads. These roads are never maintained, not just a case of no winter maintenance. And snowed in we did get. Fortunately our larder was deep.
So I just wanted to let you know that I’ve gratefully renewed my annual subscription to the Ten Cent Challenge. As I said, without SurvivalBlog.com, the story might have had a very different outcome. Thanks, – Karen, aka Coloradohermit

Odds ‘n Sods:

Michael Z. Williamson found this news story for us: A Glitch in the Financial Matrix: How Heavy Trade Volumes and a 70-Minute Time Lag Wreaked Havoc Upon the New York Stock Exchange

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Mike F. points to an opinion piece first published in 2003 that he asserts still has relevance: Dollar vs. Euro — Weapons of mass destruction

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Hawaiian K. forwarded this article from The London Observer: Now the Pentagon tells Bush: climate change will destroy us. The article begins: “Climate change over the next 20 years could result in a global catastrophe costing millions of lives in wars and natural disasters. A secret report, suppressed by US defence chiefs and obtained by The Observer, warns that major European cities will be sunk beneath rising seas as Britain is plunged into a ‘Siberian’ climate by 2020. Nuclear conflict, mega-droughts, famine and widespread rioting will erupt across the world. The document predicts that abrupt climate change could bring the planet to the edge of anarchy as countries develop a nuclear threat to defend and secure dwindling food, water and energy supplies. The threat to global stability vastly eclipses that of terrorism, say the few experts privy to its contents…”

Jim’s Quote of the Day:

“We don’t raise any corn on the farm but prices for wheat and barley have risen because the corn previously used for livestock feed is being pulled off the market for ethanol. Cattle, sheep, and pigs will eat chopped barley and wheat as well as corn so wheat is now at something like a 30 year high. Ignoring for now the fact that it’s not an all time high, that 30+ years ago wheat sold for more than it does today, we realize that there might be an increase in prosperity of some farmers in the near future. Some people are fantasizing about replacing nearly all our non renewable fuels with “natural” fuels made from grain. The key word in previous sentence is fantasizing. I knew Doug had done the calculations 15 or 20 years ago and realized then farms cannot begin to supply our fuel needs and I asked him to redo the calculations. He sent me this short paper (Microsoft Word .DOC, slightly edited by me). The important information is as follows: Comparing potential alcohol production to current petroleum production, we see that if we stop eating and make ALL of the world grain production into alcohol, we will produce: 1.77e16/1.447e17 [BTU] or 12% of the energy we currently get from petroleum. … …we are falling behind on world food production versus consumption in the last 10 – 15 years, so there are a few billion people that will have to stop eating if the rest of us want to stop using fossil fuels and switch to biofuels. Also on the negative side is the fact that the huge increase in agricultural production that we have seen in the last 50 years is mostly due to fertilizers that are based on natural gas. Modern agricultural production also depends on fossil fuels for farm equipment and transportation. Thus, the “renewable” biofuels are also based in part on fossil fuels.” – Joe Huffman, in The View From North Central Idaho Blog

Notes from JWR:

You may have heard on the news about a southern California man that was put under 72-hour psychiatric observation when it was found that he owned 100 guns and allegedly had (by rough estimate) 1 million rounds of ammunition stored in his home. The house also featured a secret escape tunnel. My favorite quote from the dimwit television reporter: “Wow! He has … …about a million machinegun bullets.” The headline referred to it as a “massive weapons cache.” BTW, I am dubious about the pile of ammunition boxes and cans that they showed. It looked big enough to contain no more than about 100,000 rounds, unless there was a lot of .22 rimfire ammo. However, by southern California standards, even someone owning 100,000 rounds would be called “mentally unstable.” Just imagine if he lived elsewhere:
 In Arizona, he’d be called “an avid gun collector”
In Texas, he’d be called “a novice gun collector”
In Utah, he’d be called “moderately well prepared,” but they’d probably reserve judgment until they made sure that he had a corresponding quantity of storage food.
In Montana, he’d be called “The neighborhood ‘Go-To’ guy.”
In Idaho, he’d be called “a likely gubernatorial candidate.”
And, in Wyoming he’d be called “an eligible bachelor.”

I’m happy to report that the new expanded edition of my survivalist novel “Patriots” is now orderable online in the U.S. and Canada through Amazon, Borders, Barnes and Noble, Abe Books, and Powell’s Books. Of those five, Barnes and Noble seems to offer the best price. In England, “Patriots” is available from a variety of Internet vendors including Foyles, Tesco, WH Smith, Waterstones, and Amazon.uk. In Australia, it is available through Angus & Robertson Books. In New Zealand, it is available through Abe Books. (Whitcoull’s should stock it, but they will only do so if enough customers pester them. Hint-hint.) In France, it is available through Amazon.fr. I also sell autographed copies through my mail order catalog, and through Amazon Shops, with most orders shipped through our fulfillment partner located up in Montana. OBTW, if you have the time, I’d appreciate posting of positive book reviews of the novel at Amazon.com. Thanks!

Letter Re: Recommendations on FAL and L1A1 Manufacturers and Custom Builders

Jim,
In the 2/23/07 blog, you replied to Stephen D. that: “If I ever hear shooting nearby and have my choice of grabbing either an AR-15 or FAL, then I’ll grab the FAL.” Would you please recommend/suggest a brand name of a FAL type rifle that is currently available in the U.S.? I read your FAL FAQ, but didn’t see any brand references. I’ve researched from the Century “cobbled togethers” to the “new” DSA’s, etc. I know there is a huge price range, but I am mainly interested in reliability (and accuracy, of course). Also, will FAL’s perform equally well with either 7.62 X 51 NATO or commercial .308 Winchester [soft nose] ammo?
Thanks, – Russ in Atlanta

JWR Replies: I highly recommend Dave Selvaggio’s (DS Arms) FALs. In contrast, the Century Arms FALs have a bad reputation for very un-even quality control. Many of them have functioning problems–both feeding and cycling glitches. If you have a bit more money, I also recommend both Century Gun Works (CGW, run by Rich Saunders in Gardnerville, Nevada–not to be confused with Century Arms) and Arizona Response Systems for custom FAL and L1A1 builds, using post-ban receivers. And if you have an even bigger budget, you might buy a pre-ban SAR-48, Argentine FM-LSR, or an original Belgian FAL. For what it is worth, we have four L1A1s here at the ranch, all of which are pre-ban. Two were re-built by Century Gun Works, using pre-ban Australian inch receivers, and two were re-built by Arizona Response Systems on SAR-48 receivers that they converted to inch specifications. Up until recently, I also owned a “Para” FAL that had been converted to take inch magazines by Rich Saunders. But sadly, I had to sell it to pay some bills. (My blogging income is still not yet paying all my bills.)

I believe that there are several distinct advantages to having an “inch pattern” (L1A1) instead of one of the metric measurement FN-FALs. These advantages include:
1.) The ability to use inch OR metric magazines. If you have a metric FAL, you are limited to using only metric magazines. But if you have an inch receiver rifle you can use both inch and metric mags. (The latter wobble a bit when used in an L1A1, but they still feed reliably.)
2.) Inch magazines are sturdier than metric magazines, because they are heavier gauge steel. And if they ever do get dented, L1A1 magazines can be repaired with a mandrel block, but metric mags cannot. (If you lay an inch mag and a metric mag side by side, you will notice that the floor plate retaining tabs on a metric magazine are turned inward, whereas they are turned outward on an inch mag. Hence there is no way for a metric magazine to accept a dent-removing mandrel.)
3.) A larger safety selector switch that you can’t miss with your thumb.
4.) A larger, ambidextrous magazine release. (Unlike the tiny mag release on the metric FAL, which is designed for the convenience of right handed shooters.)
5.) A sturdy folding charging handle is standard. If you’ve ever tripped and fallen while carrying a metric FAL, you’ll appreciate this feature. There is nothing quite like taking a blow from metric charging handle to the solar plexus!
6.) Sturdier and less reflective stock furniture. The British Maranyl pebble grain black plastic furniture is practically bomb proof.
7.) Buttplates that come in a wide range of thicknesses, to accommodate shooters of various heights. Proper stock length usually means more accurate shooting.
8.) Better rear sights. OBTW, the inch pattern “Hythe” dual-aperture variant is a great sight with the versatility needed for long range shooting, close quarters combat, and night shooting. I have Hythe sights on all of the L1A1s at the Rawles Ranch.
9.) An integral winter trigger arrangement that is always stowed and available in the pistol grip. (One downside is that L1A1s don’t have the “in the grip” miniature cleaning kit found on metric FALs.)
10.) A slightly more efficient flash hider. (I’ve viewed a video of a nighttime test that was filmed by a SurvivalBlog reader, using identical ammo, and the difference was apparent.)
11.) Specially-designed “Sand Cut” bolts and bolt carriers, designed to operate more reliably in grungy environments.
In summary: Yes, the parts and magazines for inch pattern L1As are slightly more expensive, but the advantages that I just related more than compensate for the greater expense.

BTW, for those of you reading this that presently own metric FALs, I suggest that you keep them and just improve them a bit: For example, I recommend retrofitting them with inch pattern magazine releases and selector switches. And unless you have one of the excellent Israeli-style forward assist charging handles, you should also consider retrofitting with an inch-style folding charging handle.
All of the aforementioned parts might be available from Gun Parts Guy.

In answer to you other question: A FAL or L1A1 will indeed function with commercial .308, but it is best to turn down the gas adjustment a bit, since commercial soft nose ammo has considerably higher pressure than the 150 grain military ball. You will also notice a slight difference in point of impact.

Two Letters Re: Kanban: America’s Ubiquitous “Just in Time” Inventory System–A Fragile House of Cards

Jim,
I recently shared “Letter Re: Propane Shortage and Rationing in the Frigid U.S. Northeast” with several friends. Surprisingly, a new friend who does not know that I am into “Prepping”, sent back the following. – Douglas in C. in Connecticut
Hi Douglas,
I work in the grocery industry. I can tell you first-hand that this industry (as most others) has expended incredible amounts of time and energy over the last 20 years into streamlining the supply chain. More than anything else, this means reduction of inventory held within the system – starting with the raw materials on the manufacturing end, all the way to the shelf in the grocery store. Back Room stock in the store (formerly called “safety stock”) is especially targeted through automated ordering and demand forecasting tools. I design database systems to facilitate this type of analysis. Of course, as companies seek to squeeze maximum efficiency from their investment, the capacity to cope with unusual demand spikes is often overlooked or simply eliminated. I was out of the country during the sleet and icing that we had last week in Connecticut, but my wife tells me that as soon as it became evident that there was a potential for bad weather, the local stores were packed and being rapidly stripped of certain commodities. And this was for a very minor event. I can promise you that in a major event — whether it’s an act of terrorism, war, civil unrest, an accidental overload of the infrastructure, labor strikes or just plain old harsh weather — you can not be assured that your local grocery store will be able to supply your needs. You can not count on the bank to have your money accessible (this also means you can’t count on credit cards to work). You can not be certain that you can refuel your vehicles. You may not be able to get heating oil at times, and your light switch might not do anything for you.
Please consider the many thousands of potential points of failure (and their associated domino effect) that can seriously alter your daily life. Think about where you and your millions of neighbors will find clean drinking water if storms or floods contaminate the public supply. Consider how an ice storm or a power plant accident can force you to find ways to stay warm, to keep your food safe and to prevent the pipes in your house from bursting. What will you do if the grocery stores can’t get resupplied? Or, what if there is food on the shelf but they cannot process non-cash payments. When these events happen, it is our responsibility individually to deal with them. If the stores in your area can’t supply you food for the next week, will you be OK? What about the next month?

 

Mr. R.:
I just thought I’d weigh in on on the concept of JIT logistics. Just so it’s clear where I’m coming from, I’ve worked in the infrastructure side of the shipping/distribution/logistics business for the last
decade. I have insight into a lot of this, but am by no means an expert. On 9/11/01, I was working in Virginia for a major food supplier, at a fresh food (FDA “fresh”, i.e. refrigerated to below freezing but not hard frozen) distribution center. I was called in, and told to get the rest of the team in. The goal was to try and reroute everything on the road to New York City (NYC), anticipating bridges being closed or down, and the city being stranded for at least a few days. This was a very vertically oriented company, shipping it’s product via it’s own dedicated truck fleet. I didn’t get my whole team in, some of my key personnel had family in the affected areas, and understandably put priority on learning their status. But we were able to reroute a lot of product right into traffic jams and closed bridges. If it wasn’t in NYC right after the event, it didn’t make it in for a while. I say that to say this. The average person doesn’t understand how much effort it takes to keep a JIT system running on a day to day basis, under relatively optimum conditions. Throw a monkey in the wrench and things go south (or actually sit in gridlock trying to go south) really darn quick. I had a dedicated, talented team; who’s base efficiency dropped like a rock under strain. Our communications to dispatch, operations, and individual trucks fell apart, and lots of goods simply ‘disappeared’ from our tracking for a while as drivers with no instructions and in unfamiliar territory got lost. Procedure was ignored, contingency plans forgotten, and individual effort replaced organized method. The problem is, individual effort moves a truckload, organized effort moves tonnage. I don’t know what system military or civil authorities use, but one would imagine that it’s at least somewhat subject to the same strains. It’s the nature of the beast. And before we talk about the military’s ability to do stuff under adverse conditions, let’s face the fact that shipping ammo and supplies overseas from US bases with the base and surrounding infrastructure intact is one thing; trying to do the same without roads and bridges is another. The problem after [Hurricane] Katrina wasn’t the latent ability to respond, it was the practical logistics of route planning and delivery of mass tonnage of personnel, support equipment and supplies that had to be done over the new and unmapped landscape of chopped up roads, downed bridges and nonfunctional port facilities. Then think about the bulk of the quantities of anything that 8 million people need, daily, post disaster. I echo the concerns of JH, but I’ll take it one step further. Realistically, drop the bridges across the Hudson, NYC is pretty cut off. But New Jersey has good port facilities, so does Brooklyn, and to some extent Manhattan. While not ideal, with enough supply getting to eastern New Jersey, NYC could be resupplied. And there are lots of warehouses staging goods, and manufacturing facilities making the goods is in Jersey. But the problem with JIT is it works throughout the supply chain. Just as the final user stores and is supplied with as little as they expect to need until expected resupply, the manufacturer stores as little raw material and spare parts as possible to fulfill orders. That means that after a day or two of resupply, the primary supplying distros will be empty, and the manufacturing plants out of material.
Now, drop a couple of bridges and tunnels in Pennsylvania and Delaware, and New Jersey is practically an island. Now where do the supplies come from? Pennsylvania is a massive ship-through state for goods from the Midwest going to east coast ports. And Pennsylvania”s transportation infrastructure, since the decline of railroads (again, as JH mentioned) truly sucks. A minor ice storm storm a couple of weeks ago shut down 80 miles of one of only two major East-West highways in the state, stranding some motorist for days. You could turn it around, ship through upstate NY or the Great Lakes, or swing materials to other east coast ports like Baltimore or Norfolk, but doing that dance on the fly isn’t easy, which leads to my final point.
The other part of the equation is, JIT relies heavily on communications, to intelligently track levels, forecast needs to plan materials ordering and production, and distribute goods where there’s the most pressing need. If communications are disrupted, the system becomes grossly inefficient, sending goods where they’re not needed while other places starve, and making production planning a craps shoot. On a good day at my current job, we have to dedicate a phone line to lost truckers; if we didn’t a significant portion of our material would wander for who know how long. Now try that without the phone, GPS, Google maps, real time traffic reports, and throw in some random bridge/road closures.
Sorry for the long ramble. To sum up, JIT can, and does, work as a business solution. Quite well in fact. It saves significant cost, and can provide better, more responsive service. But it’s also a tightly coupled system, therefore very sensitive to disruption, and doesn’t heal well afterwards. You can put in contingencies and redundancies to make it more robust, but those that think that such a system can truly be bulletproof are kidding themselves. – Rayster

Letter Re: The “Third Way” Approach–A Forward Base En Route to a Remote Survival Retreat

Hi Jim,
While I value your insights on location, I think you have overlooked one possibility. That is to have your final destination be some 300+ miles away from any major metropolitan areas as you so aptly describe, but then I would add for those people who feel that they need it, a forward base of operations. This would consist of a small cabin, rental unit, or lot with a trailer and a storage shed that would be used as a forward base of operations and a leaping off point to go to their final destination. It would be located 25-50 miles out of town, so a family could use it to commute to their jobs in town and school if they did not know exactly when to make their final departure. It would be for those who are indecisive about when to cut and run, and want to stick around until the last possible minute to collect their last paycheck. Ideally it would be far enough out so that any resulting traffic jams that develop would occur between their forward temporary residence and the city center so they would have relatively unimpeded driving during their exit along the back rural roads. It should also give them 30-60 minutes lead time in [the event of] any short notice, explosive evacuation. Since most of their supplies should already be at their final destination, the only supplies that should be at the forward location would be just what they would need for day to day living out of their suitcase, and extra jerry cans of gas or maybe a 55 gallon drum on/in a small trailer like an enclosed [Wells Cargo] style trailer. If properly prepared, they should be able to “bug out” within ten minutes of their decision to go. They would only need to top off their fuel tanks, throw their suitcases in the car, hitch up any trailer, and leave. This forward location would contain only minimal provisions, but one of those would be enough stored fuel to get the family to their final location plus some extra for detours and traffic jams. It would be located on a less used gravel county road that would lead the family further out, away from the city towards their final destination in relative safety and obscurity. To find these suitable, closer-in locations, you would have to study your local maps in great detail and do a lot of Sunday driving and exploring. – Paul

JWR Replies: What you suggest might have its merits for a “slow slide” scenario, where there is urban rioting, but otherwise things are fairly safe elsewhere. But your approach seems to me like a huge unnecessary expense. The same thing could be accomplished by finding a small town roughly 50 to 60 miles in the direction of your intended retreat that has both a motel and a commercial “mini storage” company. In the storage space, you could store some jerry cans of stabilized gasoline (check the local fire code first, of course) and perhaps a couple of inexpensive used off-road motorcycles, for use as back-up “get out of Dodge” vehicles. If things start looking dicey, you could leave your family at the motel and spend your nights there, for as long as you are in “wait and see” mode. (The period when presumably you determine if the situation has deteriorated to the point of necessitating totally “pulling the plug” on your paycheck and moving to your distant retreat for the long term. ) This will both save you the expense of buying or leasing a “forward location” cabin, and it will also eliminate most of the risk of burglary of the requisite supplies–which otherwise is a huge risk for an unattended cabin just 60 miles from a metropolitan area. If you have a really big budget and can afford a “vacation cabin” in addition to your fully stocked retreat that is much farther away, then by all means go for it. Just be sure to either build some secret compartments into the walls, and/or construct some underground caches. Otherwise, you might arrive at your “Forward Base” and find it stripped bare. Also, regardless of where you cache your gasoline, I recommend buying nothing larger than 20 gallon drums for any supplies that you want to consider mobile. (Anything larger is to difficult to move.) Buy winter formulated gas (which has extra butane–so its stores better), add a gas stabilizes (such as Gas Saver, PRI-G, or Sta-Bil) and be sure to rotate it (replacing it with fresh gasoline) at least one a year. OBTW, speaking of stored gasoline, a good thing to store is a few can of ether-based engine starting fluid. Often, an engine will run with old gas that has had its butane “burn off”, but it is difficult to start it without first giving the carburetor a shot of starting fluid.

Odds ‘n Sods

Chuck G. (a regular content contributor) sent us this: The Plunge Protection Team gears up for a possible derivatives crisis. I’ve warned you about derivatives, so don’t be surprised when you see trillions of dollars get wiped out, overnight.

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SurvivalBlog reader Doc Holladay notes: “The wife of a fellow doomer buddy has a booming business as a professional seamstress doing alterations. I opine that her livelihood is pretty secure, as she is covered up in work. I’ve four of the treadle sewing machines I’ve refurbished. The old Singer treadle sewing machines use the same bobbins as today’s electric ones! It was Singer who introduced the current bobbin style. Thus, the Singer treadle machines are to be preferred. I figure these will get more valuable over time. I believe a “doomer” should be well prepared with all sorts of sewing gear, fabric, thread, and notions. I plan to take your suggestion to store [green and brown] dye packets to ‘tone down older clothes if needed.”

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“Kon Tiki” mentioned this piece from The Army Times: The gas piston-operated HK 416: Better than the M4, but you can’t have one.

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Freeze Dry Guy has announced some special pricing, just for the month of March:
Dehydrated Butter, 6 #2 size cans, yields 174 Tbsp: $62.80 or Three cases, yields 522 Tbsp: $175
Milk, 6 #10 size cans per case (yields 306 one cup servings): $101.40, or Three cases, yields: 918 one cup servings: $284.20
Emergency Unit (1 month of food for one person–takes up just 3.5 cubic feet), $239, or Three units (3 months for one person), $672 Call for details.