Survival Information Resources & Articles

Today I am going to share some additional information resources with you. It seems we never have enough time to get everything done, and I have not been updating this site as regularly as I would wish. These are some additional resources that you may find helpful and useful.

www.survivalblog.com/
www.survivalstation.org/
www.aussurvivalist.com/nuclear/doomsday.htm

Here are a couple of articles from these resources.

God bless.

Jeff Citizen




Where You Live Matters: How to Assess Your Location and Develop Scenarios, by Brendan S.

A little foreknowledge will prevent you from becoming a victim. Most people don’t think about what they will actually do in the case of an emergency. One just has to see what happened after Hurricane Katrina to see how ill-informed the masses are. They simply expect the government to take care of everything. They meander like zombies to some location and wait to be fed and cleaned up after. Not me! I know what I’m going to do when any disaster strikes.

In this article I want to share with you my thoughts on how to:

•Assess the situation and your location.

•Assess your job location and commute.

•Assess any variables to your survival plans.

When disaster strikes where will you be? How well do you know the place where you live, work, or the space in between? Chances are that when a disaster occurs you will be either at home or at work or commuting in between. You may be ready to deal with things at home on a sunny afternoon, but what if you’re on the road in a downpour?

The main occupation of think tanks is to devise scenarios of whatever their specialty is; oil, food, military or political events. The same tactics can be done on an individual scale to find out what your reactions might be to disasters or events. You can plan out your reactions to events by knowing what your assets are at the time and how to be ready for any variables. Planning is simply about not being surprised. “When I am in situation 1, I will do X. When I am in situation 2 I will do Y.” Simple yet effective.

ASSESS THE SITUATION

A scenario doesn’t need to be the end of the world as we know it (TEOTWAWKI). Natural disasters are just as important and deadly. Not just in the initial disaster but also in the aftermath. Actually more people usually die after a disaster.

Living here in Northern California, earthquakes are an ever present fear and so ill prepared by people and neglected by the elected officials, city planners and developers. People’s houses might be able to take a moderate earthquake with little damage, but what about the roads, highways and overpasses? Chances are fire will spread unabated killing more people than the initial damage. Or, with the cops busy, looters will think it’s open season on home shopping.

So where does your house stand in the general theme of threats?

TASK #1: List the dangers that might affect your area.

Living where you do, you should already have some experience with some disaster inducing events. The United States has a very large variation in weather and its effects can be devastating. Floods near rivers, hurricanes near the coasts, blizzards up north, heat waves almost anywhere, earthquakes out west… the list goes on. You have probably dealt with something already.

Growing up in the Midwest we were always in danger of tornados cutting a swath through our neighborhood. Then in winter we had to worry about blizzards. But the situation doesn’t have to be devastating. What if a thunderstorm simply cut the power for several days? What if the basement floods? What if there’s an escape from a prison?

Could the effects be temporary or long lasting? Is it just power lines down or a blackout covering several states? Do striking rail workers mean food shortages? Is the riot from a basketball game or did Oakland finally collapse into chaos?

ASSESS YOUR LOCATION

TASK#2: Know your city.

As a pilot I know a lot about terrain. All day long I see the land rolling underneath me. Here in Northern California, from the air, I can easily see how land is managed and how cities and towns are developed. I see how many roads go in and out of town centers, suburbs, business parks and so on.

The place I live in is a small town in a valley with only a few roads leading in and out. If there was an earthquake along the Hayward fault line like the “big one” that is due to happen here any time now, and most of Oakland, Berkeley, San Francisco were apocalyptic hellscapes, the bridges might be knocked out and it would hopefully prevent refugees from setting up camp in our open land. We have a route to safety toward Sacramento if needed. And we have arable land that can be turned into farms quickly.

How dense is the population where you live?

Do you live in a dense populated city? A suburb? In the center or on the edge, close to farmland? If there was a disaster, where would most of those people head? You don’t need to fly over your area to assess it, Google Earth will do just fine. Take a good look at the main avenues of traffic and housing. Where is the most dense? Where do you not want to be? Where does the suburbs taper off finally into farmland? If Hurricane Katrina is any indication, people will congregate in a large open space like a stadium, park, school or the like. If you were a FEMA organizer, where would you tell people to go?

Where are the nearest hospitals?

When something happens these are most likely going to be the first place that people head for. There is medical attention, food, warmth and light. If you are uninjured, do you really need to go there? Would it be more dangerous? When the hospital gets overloaded after a disaster and turns into a triage; giving attention to the worst cases first, do you think that panicked people are going to simply wait calmly in the waiting room? Or will they start fights, demand attention maybe at gunpoint? Better to avoid it at all costs. (Or be the very first to show up through the emergency room doors!)

Is your home prepared?

Most time spent by people like us is in preparing our home for disaster, so this is well covered elsewhere and too vast to talk about here. But don’t just look at the stuff you have in your house. The wall of freeze-dried food will get you through the initial catastrophe, but then what? How adaptable is your house? Do you have a yard that can be turned into a garden with a little work? Where can you get more water? Are you near a stream or lake?

Is your neighborhood safe and secure?

You don’t have to live in a gated community to be safe, but how far off the main roads is your house or apartment? Would big city gang-bangers find it accessible and tempting? This fear goes up as the powered lights go out at night and all you can see is darkness out of your front door. Even temporary power outages cause hoodlums to go outside and behave like jackasses.

How well do you know your neighbors?

What would your kids do if you were stuck at work and they were home from school? Do they know your plan of action? Which neighbors could they trust? Which neighbors might want to come together but really are there to deplete your stockpile at twice the rate?

ASSESS YOUR WORK AND COMMUTE

TASK #3: Know your place of work.

If you are stuck at work how long could you last there? You could always sleep at your desk overnight but what about food? Do you think your boss would be ready or willing to provide for you and the other employees? Probably not. It would probably turn into surviving out of your car, especially if your place of work is damaged.

What would you do if stuck on the highway?

The cars are stopped because of an earthquake, flood, jack-knifed chemical truck, etc. Could you pull off and hike on foot? Which way?

When I lived in Tokyo we had to have a plan ready for commuting by train and an earthquake happened. I carried a small street map book so I could walk back to my home when the roads and train lines were disrupted. (Even harder for a foreigner.) The Japanese are far better equipped for disasters from typhoons to earthquakes because of simple occurrence. They know it is just inevitable that something is going to happen. There they can trust their government and employers to help though.

Where are your loved ones and do they know what to do?

Does your spouse know what you might do? Don’t expect your cell phones to be working. I have an agreement with my wife not to come looking for me. I will either go to work or home and she will do the same.

ASSESS THE VARIABLES

TASK #4: Game out some variables.

Once you have a plan of action and know what you want to do, you have to be ready for any changes. The emergency situation probably won’t stay static, but either gets better with quick action from authorities or more likely get worse through inaction and incompetence from them.

If rising flood waters block the road that lies between you and your loved ones, do you know the alternate routes? Where is the higher terrain versus lower? Once you know what you want to do, head straight home for example, what variable might change that course of action? Snow too deep. Flooded bridge. Tremors sending rocks to the road below. Pinhead cop telling you the road is closed.

Are you ready for the extremes?

Are you ready to spend the night in your car? Or several nights? You can find lists of things to have to make your car into a temporary shelter, but the main thing is not to be surprised and get taken by panic. Simply be ready to tough it out for a while until the situation is to your advantage. If you plan to stay at work, how long until you want to head home?

In conclusion, being prepared for emergencies is not just about sitting on top of your stockpile of food with an AR-15 and waiting. You have to know the game plan and how to implement it and expect it to change. As a pilot, I am always ready for an emergency situation by being mentally prepared for it and never panicking when it doesn’t go the way I’ve practiced. You can do the same for any situation.




Underground Survival Shelter Construction and Security--Learn from My Mistakes, by B.B.

In the summer of 1995 I decided to build an underground multipurpose survival shelter. I purchased the book Nuclear War Survival Skills by Cresson H. Kearney and went to work. If you want to know about shelters and what it will be like living in one, then purchase his book. My brother helped me for a while with the construction, but I did the majority of the work alone and it took me two years to complete the project. Let me say up front that I’m an amateur who used a brilliant book to build a shelter. Along the way I made many mistakes and had some unanticipated problems. Hopefully if you decide to do something along these lines you can learn from my many mistakes.

I purchased used 40 foot x 12foot diameter and 20 foot x 8 foot [galvanized steel ] road culvert pipes. The 20 foot long culvert would be used as the entrance to the larger pipe. The first step of my project was to enclose the ends of the 40’ pipe. In the back I used heavy angle iron to frame the end then 2x12s to enclose it. Welding on galvanized metal was a problem for me so I also bolted the braces to the pipe. When I finished enclosing the end it didn’t look right so I placed black roofing felt over the 2x12s and covered it all with a layer of plywood, painted it and then tarred it. I cut a hole in the back at floor level and inserted a 12’’ plastic pipe into the hole and ran the pipe up to the top for airflow. In the front of the pipe I framed it in with angle iron and just used 2x12s. I used 2x12s so that my front solid core entrance door would be right.

I used metal channel iron to enclose the floor of the pipe. I cut the floor frame channels to the proper length so that the floor was about 8ft in height so that I could walk and not hit my head. I installed a plywood floor and placed 4 foot square inserts in the center that would pull up and out for easy access to the lower level. This lower level gives me 4 foot x 40 foot storage under the floor with 8 feet of headroom on top. Along the sides I used two 2x12s wide for bench seats the entire length of the pipe on both sides. This is more than enough seating and is not in the way when you walk around in the pipe. I don’t want to gloss over this part but it took about a year for me to complete the inside.

After I completed the construction of the pipe I was ready to bury it. To accomplish this I rented a 988 Cat[erpillar brand wheel loader with a excavation bucket] and dug a hole for the 40 foot long section. I then buried it to the proper height so the 8 foot piece would match the door and then buried the whole thing. The 20 foot x 8 foot piece extended out the end far enough to prevent the soil from burying the front door. From the bottom of the pipe to the top of the soil is about 22 feet. After burying everything the front didn’t look right. There wasn’t anyway to secure the entrance to the pipe so I then I built a 20x20 wooden shed on the end to secure the entrance. I placed the pipe west to east so the airflow would work and buried the pipe with about 10ft of earth on top of the main 40-foot pipe being sure to protect the plastic air pipe on the end. The book says you only need three feet of compacted earth to protect you from radiation but 10 feet works for temperature control. [JWR Adds: In my experience, only foot depth of clay or loam soil is required to take full advantage of the ambient ground temperature, at least outside of permafrost zones.] The temperature is constant summer and winter and it is pleasant inside. I checked the level of the ground for drainage and adjusted the drainage away from the entrance.

Alongside my buried pipe shelter I placed a Santa Fe Railroad boxcar for storage. This was the real deal and made of solid metal. I filled the boxcar with lots of stuff that could be used for barter or just be used to keep us comfortable. After loading the boxcar with stuff, as a precaution, I welded the two large solid metal doors shut. The doors slid sideways to open so I felt it wouldn’t take much to prevent them from opening.

After I finished construction, my pipe complex was 80ft long, with a storage boxcar alongside. There was water, food, bedding, clothes, everything I could think of that I might need, I stored in the pipe shelter. There is water close by and I also had 8 - 55 gallon. used white plastic Coca-Cola syrup barrels filled with water inside the pipe. When I open the entrance door and the 12’’ plastic air flow pipe you can feel the air flow but according to the book that isn’t enough air for [very] many people and the book tells you how to increase the airflow for more people. On the right side of the pipe there is electrical plugs for 12 volt DC power and 2 Heavy equipment 12 volt DC batteries for power. On the left side of the pipe is 120 volt AC power [conduit and outlets] to be plugged into a generator.

The boxcar was for extra, non-essential items. My family and I could go to my pipe shelter without bringing anything with us and stay there for at least one year.

Lessons I have learned:

My first and biggest mistake was in believing that my property was secure. There is no possible way to secure property if you aren’t there to secure it. I have 120 acres fenced in and the pipe location is out of sight of the main road. I thought the location was secure but it only took the druggies a couple of years to find it. Once the word got out what was there everything went down hill fast. Now the property is always being broken into and trashed. They will steal anything and everything and then trash the rest. I live in the city and the [unoccupied] pipe [shelter] is 200 miles away from my home in the country. The pipe is located in the middle of my land but it doesn’t matter. (Hindsight) When you use wood to enclose your shelter eventually the Prairie dogs and druggies will find a way into it. 4 Wheeler [ATV]s can go anywhere and they do. Not only did they break into my pipe [shelter] and destroy and steal everything, they used a bumper jack to attach to the bottom of my metal door on my boxcar, jack it out and steal everything they wanted. Then when they had everything worth something they burned the boxcar. The interior walls and floor of a boxcar are lined with heavy wood and burns real hot.

So here is where I am now: I had to rebuild the front of the entrance to the pipe. I originally had some windows in front of my pipe complex to help add a little illumination so I used crusher screen cloth to cover the windows and doors. After the druggies broke into the pipe they left it open and the prairie dogs ruined everything left inside. I have cleaned out everything in the pipe and threw it all away. Now the pipe is empty but at least it is still usable, but my boxcar is a burned-out shell and unusable.

If you want to have a place in the country to escape to Good luck. You have to be there to be able to protect it.

I also buried some plastic 55gal barrels with some extra #10 cans of food in them. They have been in the ground for about 10 yrs and I have learned another lesson. There is enough moisture in the barrels to rust through many of the #10 cans. The barrels didn’t leak water but many of the #10 cans still rusted through. If you want to do something like this dip your cans in wax and that will protect the metal #10 cans from rusting. You can buy lids for 55 gallon barrels that snap on to the top of the barrel. They are thin but if you place a piece of rolled plastic on top of the lid and then some ¾’’ plywood over the top of the barrels they will be fine. Mine were buried on end with about two feet of soil on top. You can bury 8 barrels with a single piece of plywood over them and have a lot of #10 cans of food safely stored in a cool temperature. 10 yrs. of storage isn’t a problem if you store wheat, rice and beans as you can fill in the gaps later with storage easer to get to.

I find that this type of storage in 55gal plastic barrels buried in the ground works for many different things.

[Some information on another topic deleted, for brevity. It will eventually be posted separately.]

I hope this information is helpful. - BB

JWR Adds: I've heard may similar tales about unoccupied retreats being ransacked. BB's experience underscores the oft-repeated need to either:

1.) Live at your retreat year-round, or

2.) Have a retreat caretaker, or

3.) Have a trustworthy year-round resident neighbor that lives in a house with line of sight to your retreat buildings.

Anything less than that cannot be relied on! There is some utility in motion-queued web cams, but there is no sure substitute for the Mark I Human Eyeball. I consider web cams just a good backup, and a means to capture images of would-be burglars and their vehicle license plate numbers.

If it is an underground shelter, then you might get away with a completely hidden entrance. Typically, this is done with a large scrap/junk pile. (Two of my consulting clients have done this, thusfar with several years of success.) Although it is labor intensive to remove, the "scrap pile camouflage" technique is fairly practical for a property that you visit only infrequently. But all it takes is just one untrustworthy person that knows about the shelter's existence to make this approach ineffective. (The goblins will keep looking until the find the entrance.)

Given enough time, miscreants can reduce just about any obstacle to entry to an unoccupied and unobserved structure. They will come back with a cutting torch or even a backhoe, given enough time!!