The greatest compliment I have ever received was from my wife answering her sister's question just prior to the expected arrival of a hurricane, The question: " Why aren't you running around all the stores trying to get batteries, food, water, etc?" The answer: "Because I have a husband who has taken care of all those things!"
There are times when readiness should be increased across the board and there are times to reduce readiness in order to use funds elsewhere.
I have a 55gal plastic drum which formerly held glycerine (Listerine) and it stores water well. I also store water in empty, cleaned 2 liter soda and juice bottles. I have a group of 5gal water jugs that are kept filled for operating the porta-potty and flushing of the toilets.
Everytime we make a store run, we pick up a little something. In food stores, my wife picks up 1 or 2 canned goods while I specialize in dry goods.
My wife keeps extra paper towels, toilet paper, diapers, wet ones, etc in stock at all times.
There are certain medicines that we keep 1 or 2 prescriptions filled, ahead of our needs to insure they are available.
Going out to the stores and dealing with the "Herd" mentality is not only being too late, it can get you hurt or killed. Being prepared means that you can sit back and watch the "herd frenzy" from a distance and smile.
To figure out my needs, I looked @ various checklists, but I also paid attention to what I did, for a couple of weeks. This is how I figured out what items I needed that weren't included on the checklists or that applied to my personal situation more so than other's situations. I don't try to be stocked up all at once. That is prohibitively expensive and I would be facing "block obsolescence" as well. I get a few things, steadily and I rotate my supplies, steadily.
My readines is always about an 8 on a 1 - 10 scale! Like Leah Ratcliffe says, "I don't do dumb and helpless"

Although I posted an after-action briefing on the subject of the Delaware River Flooding See
link I’d like to return to the subject in the context of the current thread.

Of course, experience is the best teacher, and as I mentioned in the aforementioned post, there’s a set of basics that trump pretty much all the other survival gear for shelter-in-place situations, and it’s what we’ve implemented at both at a personal level and in the context of the fire company to some extent.

1. Fuels, Fuels, Fuels. Vehicle fuel, generator fuel, woodstove fuel – it’s been called “liquid civilization” in this forum. It’s the one way to get your water well online, get your lights on and get your phone recharged. Stockpiling fuels is a complete pain in the butt, might be illegal where you live, and requires some up-front money. But it’s proven to be important enough that I put it before…

2. Water, Water, Water, Water, Water. Did I mention water? Not just drinking water, water to flush the toilet, water to wash your hands. Greywater recovery is a good idea where possible. Not having water is miserable.

3. Medical Needs – Oxygen, Insulin, Heart Medications, whatever you need, if you don’t have a 1-month supply in-house you don’t have enough. Band aids. Antiseptic cream. FAK items.

4. Communications alternatives. Phones are a pretty reliable means of communications, as are cell phones. But they are subject to overload conditions and simple mechanical failure from wires down. Radio is an option, CB radio & Ham radio come to mind, but from my first-hand experience, the ability of civilians to directly connect with emergency services during emergencies when the phones are out is severely limited.

5. Batteries – so many batteries, so many kinds. Don’t touch them unless it’s an emergency. Take $75 and go buy batteries. Rechargeable ones are a good idea if you know you can keep track of them. If not, buy alkaline. Put them in a box. Don’t touch them until the lights have been off for 24 hours and all your other batteries are dead.
Don’t. Touch. Your. Stash. Of. Batteries. You’ll thank me for this one day.


Things you don’t need as much of, despite what you might think.

A. Food. You have enough in most pantries to last a month or more, just eat a little less. It won’t kill you to eat only 2 meals a day, heck, I think it might help most of us to loose a bit of weight.

B. Electric. Aside from some electric to run your refrigeration, and that’s only needed if you’re in a summertime power loss, you actually don’t need much electric to get by. And you don’t need a huge generator set either. If you limit your electric use to a few hours a day to chill and charge – especially with LED lights and 15-minute NiMH batteries – an 1,800 watt small unit is really quite enough. If you have to have 220v for your water well and hot water heater, you’re stuck without a choice, you probably need a 5,000 watt 220v machine, which is expensive, but again, once you get things up to temperature, get some water up the pipe, there’s no reason to run it all day long.

C. Lots of Guns and Ammo. Yeah, yeah, Katrina….Katrina….Katrina….I know. We had looting in the last flood, and some guys formed an armed patrol, and we didn’t have anymore looting. Simple enough. But for the most part, and in most of America, the reaction to a disaster is for people to help people. Yeah, it’s not as fun to think of than the Mad Max scenarios that we all imagine, but the reality is that I can look the New York blackouts, the recent ice storms in the Midwest, 9/11, the Mississippi floods of the mid 1990’s, wildfires in the west….and the story there is people helping. Katrina certainly reminded us that there’s a scary potential for violence out there, however, you have to contextualize it – New Orleans was already one of the most violent, unstable places in America, so it didn’t take much to trigger things to go bad. But most of America isn’t so unstable.

That said, I don’t think you should not bother with general preparedness, but I’ve been through these 4 to 5 day scenarios a few times now, and this is what we figured out from experience.

Thanks a million for your consise analysis of in-place survival requirements. One thing that troubled us was the lack of lighting during the long winter nights. Not so much for functioning but to aid in keeping up morale. You have covered that under fuel and batteries but I think it's important to keep your spirits up as another facet of survival.

Jon

> Don’t touch them unless it’s an emergency.

Batteries expire. I think it's better to use them and replace them. If you just store and forget them, chances are when you need them they'll be flat and/or leaking acid. It's the same as with food, really. Buy what you eat and eat what you buy.

Exactly. Have two boxes of not quite so many (Home Depot seems to have good deals on mega packs). Mark one box "Now" and the other "Later" (if you have room, store it in the fridge). Use the batteries in the "Now" box as needed. Once a year move the batteries from the "Later" box into the "Now" box and refill the "Later" box with a new purchase. Not only will you keep your batteries fresh, you'll find out how many batteries you go through in a year.

Re: storing batteries in the fridge...from my BTDT files ;-)

IRRC, there have been some forum threads regarding keeping the batteries in the fridge / freezer versus room temperature on both Equipped and Candlepowerforums. Some folks say yes its good and others no its not. My take on it is to keep things relatively cool versus hot...foods and other materials seem to last longer.

Just a heads up...keeping batteries cold in the fridge / freezer is great until you take them out (particularily in a humid environment...) and place a cold battery into a device that contains electronic components and the humidity starts condensing and water collects in the battery compartment and elsewhere in your device. It is both frustrating and can lead to spending money (if you are lucky enough to be able to locate a replacement device during the emergency that you need it for).

My current procedure is to put the batteries in a hermitically sealed container (anything from a ziplock baggie to a tupperware container or what happens to be handy) and storing them in the fridge. When they are needed, I make a point to let them come back up to ambient room or outdoor temperature before removing them from the sealed container and putting them into any devices that are water sensitive. YMMV

Regards,
Comanche7

Slight change of subject, but this was on the website supplied by John.

http://www.usplastic.com/catalog/categor...&Page=1

The bad news is they are only available in case quantities.

I agree with martin wholehartedly. After going thru hurricane Wilma here in south florida I also learned a few valueable things from the experience. I realized very, very quickly that in any survival situation you are going to find out almost immediately what you really need, what you forgot, and that adaptability/improvisation is a paramount skill to develop.

Before the storm hit I had rougly 2 days lead time. Like the parable of the ant and the grasshopper, I saw myself as the ant. I had all my supplies ready, water bladders filled, bathtubs filled, etc. I had 2 weeks of shelf stable food (MRE's , and possiblly the best survival food of all - Chef Boyardee ravioli ), a water filter, etc, etc , etc...

Sounds like I was pretty prepared and it was a piece of cake right? Not exactly.... Some oversights on my part became glaringly obvious after the hurricane had passed over and done its damage ( which was pretty substantial in the area I live in)

Things I learned: (Good and Bad)

1. gasoline. You can NEVER have enough of it, ever. I should have had at least 20 gallons in 5 gallon gas cans stored in as secure a location as I could find. Gas was nonexistant for 4 to 6 days, and when it finally arrived in the area the lines were HOURS long ( I waited 3 hrs for 40 dollars worth), and rationed. Not to mention the potential for acts of violence in these places was very real.

2. A Syphon, or hand pump with tubing small enough to fit in an automotive fuel tank... I was lucky enough to find that my neighbor had one. It was essential in transfering fuel from one vehicle to another.

3. Always keep a couple of hundred dollars in various denominations ( 1s, 5s, 10s ) in a safe place. The electricity in my area was out for 12 days before it was restored. The phones were out for 6 days. ATM's need both to supply you with money. And credit cards are useless without it as well. I had money, but not enough in my opinion.

3. Oil Lamps are absolutely, positively, 100% the best way to light up an apartment or home at night. I had 2 lamps that I had purchased at Wal-Mart for 6 dollars a piece, and a gallon of lamp oil. They really light up the place and were a super efficient way of keeping my morale up at night. I could read a book and relax rather than sit in a pitch black box and stress out. ( like 99% of my neighbors did)

4. My Gunsafe gave me piece of mind when I was away from home after the storm. I wasn't worried about looting in the least as my safe is 500lbs (empty) and I was living on the second floor. I simply put all my valueables and papers in it and locked them up. I highly recommend getting one

5. Get your mind right... By that I mean keep your wits about you and remain calm and focused. Stay away from "panic thinking" and for that matter "panic thinkers" I can't stress this enough! Fear and stress are as contageous as the flu, stay away from it. Focus on one thing at a time. Its very easy to let your mind go in a thousand different directions at once. The look of wild desperation I saw in some people's eyes was chilling.

6. Food that doesn't require cooking, or refrigeration is hands down the best type to have. I know this sounds very obvious but you would be amazed at the number of people who were cooking on bbq pits, with charcoal or wood, and had generators running 24/7 to power a refrigerator.

7. I will never use a non LED flashlight by choice ever again. I had purchased an Eternalight, and an Inova 5 LED light for my kits and was very impressed with their performance. In fact, they still have the same batteries in them and are going strong.

8. you can never have enough toilet paper, ever... and I do mean ever.....

The title of the post is a good Mantra for any disaster/survival scenario. You have to be prepared to provide for yourself.

The experation dates are usually consevitive and the products are good well past the dates on the containers. If your going to store them for long periods get the heaviest plastic you can some of them are to thin for long term.

I went to the movies a couple of weeks ago and there were two advertisments for survival kits and one from fema about being prepdared.