Preparedness Notes for Friday — March 27, 2020

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March 27th is the birthday of the late Robert W. Ford (born 1923, died 20 September 2013). He was an amazing man who had a remarkable life. His book, Wind Between The Worlds (an account of experiences in Tibet, captivity by the communist Chinese, and his fight against brainwashing), is highly recommended. It is available for free download.

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Some Troubling Statistics…  My most recent visit to WorldOfMeters revealed plenty of “hockey stick”-shaped  graphs.  If the U.S. continues to mirror Italy and Spain (presently with about a three week delay), then our hospitals will run out of standard ward beds and ICU beds by the fourth week of April.  Please pray that social distancing will sufficiently flatten the curve, to prevent that.

SurvivalBlog Writing Contest

Today we present another entry for Round 87 of the SurvivalBlog non-fiction writing contest. The prizes for this round include:

First Prize:

  1. A gift certificate from Quantum Harvest LLC (up to a $2,200 value) good for 12% off the purchase of any of their sun-tracking models, and 10% off the purchase price of any of their other models.
  2. A Gunsite Academy Three Day Course Certificate. This can be used for any one, two, or three day course (a $1,095 value),
  3. A course certificate from onPoint Tactical for the prize winner’s choice of three-day civilian courses, excluding those restricted for military or government teams. Three day onPoint courses normally cost $795,
  4. DRD Tactical is providing a 5.56 NATO QD Billet upper. These have hammer forged, chrome-lined barrels and a hard case, to go with your own AR lower. It will allow any standard AR-type rifle to have a quick change barrel. This can be assembled in less than one minute without the use of any tools. It also provides a compact carry capability in a hard case or in 3-day pack (an $1,100 value),
  5. Two cases of Mountain House freeze-dried assorted entrees in #10 cans, courtesy of Ready Made Resources (a $350 value),
  6. A $250 gift certificate good for any product from Sunflower Ammo,
  7. American Gunsmithing Institute (AGI) is providing a $300 certificate good towards any of their DVD training courses.

Second Prize:

  1. A Front Sight Lifetime Diamond Membership, providing lifetime free training at any Front Sight Nevada course, with no limit on repeating classes. This prize is courtesy of a SurvivalBlog reader who prefers to be anonymous.
  2. A Glock form factor SIRT laser training pistol and a SIRT AR-15/M4 Laser Training Bolt, courtesy of Next Level Training, which have a combined retail value of $589,
  3. A $300 purchase credit for any of the products from EMPShield.com
  4. A Three-Day Deluxe Emergency Kit from Emergency Essentials (a $190 value),
  5. 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).
  6. An assortment of products along with a one hour consultation on health and wellness from Pruitt’s Tree Resin (a $265 value).

Third Prize:

  1. 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)
  2. A Royal Berkey water filter, courtesy of Directive 21 (a $275 value),
  3. Naturally Cozy is donating a “Prepper Pack” Menstrual Kit.  This kit contains 18 pads and it comes vacuum sealed for long term storage or slips easily into a bugout bag.  The value of this kit is $220.
  4. Two Super Survival Pack seed collections, a $150 value, courtesy of Seed for Security, LLC,
  5. A transferable $100 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!

Round 87 ends on March 31st, 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.


6 Comments

  1. We all hear nightly about Spain, China, Italy, elsewhere and here at home. What we seldom hear is anything at all about the American military members with their families in places like Caserma Ederle (Vicenza, Italy) home of the 173D ABCT (Yes I am partial and yes I am a former Sky Soldier) and of course Aviano Airbase. What about all the American military installations in Germany? Yes we have Americans in trouble here at home, but also abroad. Keep all in your prayers please.

    America also has some 74.1 million American citizens above the age of 60 years old. We also have a bunch of people with many pre-existing medical conditions that make them susceptible to this ‘Chinese Coronavirus’. We have some 900,000 existing beds in hospitals and clinics nationwide. Perhaps this will not be near enough. However, up here in the ‘North Country’ of Minnesota we have under 240 ICU beds still left. This is troubling because as those infected progress in the more serious pneumonia their needs for acute care become paramount to their recovery. If we do continue exponential increases in infected and those in serious/critical condition we will have a major strain on our medical facilities, supplies, vital equipment and most importantly, our medical frontline care workers.

    Even on this localized level, the state of Minnesota, we have this troubling trend of not enough test kits for more cases than we can ‘confirm’ to be existing. Medical workers have already been out some 10-12 days here already with suspected, but unconfirmed cases. This is going to take time to fully extend across the nation and with just in time delivery we will be seeing this spread regardless of social distancing is in place. Can we lessen the problem a bit? I believe it is possible, but we all know this is not a real lock down in most of the country so it will spread just like the Spanish Flu did some 9 months across the entirety of these somewhat-divided states.

    My brothers latest report came in from his current duty station at West Point. Yes, there are severe protocols in place to contain the spread on this crucial military installation just as is being attempted in NYC and greater New York. However, the number of cases is astronomically straining the medical system beyond what they can truly handle. When you see a sitting governor plead for all recent medical worker retirees to come back you know there is trouble in the ‘Big Apple’. A call for additional retired military medics, docs and other related MOSes related to medical care has also gone out. He also told me well over 200 NYPD are infected with the call still going out to release ‘non-violent’ criminals back into population. This is troubling as the notion that these are truly non-violent individuals is load of dung. They pleaded down their case to not get stuck with felonious charges and right-minded individuals need to call their representatives nationwide to resist such measures. In any event all those seeking to replenish their pantries are having to undergo 1-hour fever checks, questionnaire about recent travel or possible exposure to others with COVID-19. It is truly important to try and limit your exposure so we do not have widespread community transmission to vulnerable populations. I understand money is necessary to exist, but no one wants to accidentally get their elder family members infected either. Yes this has directly happened here in Minnesota leading to our first death.

    Finally, I was personally contacted that my recent order to add a bit more depth to our existing supplies would not be able to be fulfilled due to overwhelming demand at the online LDS Cannery Food Storage store. This was a major help to many on here and across the country to provide staples in the event of a disaster, such as this. I hope they are able to replenish their supplies and continue offering fair-market prices on necessary items. Seed Savers Exchange are completely sold out on transplants so I pray you can start your own plants for a garden we all need to be preparing to plant. This is also a serious time to stock up on emergency seeds just in case we need to have the means to provide should this pandemic continue into next season. God Bless you and yours. We all need to be checking on neighbors, wearing out our prayer bones and mentoring others on how to prepare their own families for prolonged issues in our food supply.

    Thank you to SurvivalBlog.com for continuing to allow us to provide a forum for communication that can help each other in this tough time.

    My brother is

  2. I also failed to mention that the ‘Big Army’ is expecting its 6,000 green LTs to be delivered on time, despite the interruption in their Senior Year training. This is a bit of a concern, but is just another factor affected indirectly by this virus. I am sure their are countless others, but these are the times strong men must face and lead others on a path that is guided by faith, honest, integrity and honor.

  3. Tibet has changed since China invaded. … Such things have happened before, and are still occurring.

    The Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) is not seen as the authentic (by the original inhabitants) Tibet as it was artificially created by China in 1965 for political reasons. It comprises less than half of the surface of historical Tibet and it merges together the provinces of western Kham and U-Tsang. Tibet has an estimated population of about 6 million Tibetans and 7.5 million Chinese settlers. The estimated population within the TAR is 2.62 million, of which 93% are Tibetans and 6% are Han Chinese, whilst the rest live in the Tibetan areas outside the TAR.
    ……..Tibet is rich in natural resources such as gold, iron, lead, uranium and huge reserves of forest. ………The Tibetan Plateau is the source of most of Asia’s major rivers and the surrounding terrain is extremely fertile and rich in forests.
    [From Unrepresentative Peoples and Nations Organizations site]

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