I think people have a misconception about TSHTF

I'm usually too busy doing my own survival stuff, running classes, backpacking, and all that to really pay too much attention to other bloggers or whatever in the survival space.

However I do on occassion read a blog post if something catches my eye.  Now to be honest, things like "what to stock" is almost always something that I read because it helps me spot things that I might be missing or haven't thought of, or forgotten, or whatever.

I am regularly astounded however by some of the things people list either as a "necessary" bug out bag item or as something that should be stocked at your BOL.

THIS POST is an example of what I'm talking about.  Mimeograph machines??? Are you serious?

Look, your BOL is a location that you stock for when something goes really bad.  If your BOL is in the same goegraphic area and there's a natural disaster then your BOL won't be habitable anymore than your home is.

The truth right now however is that what is going on makes me think that your BOL is going to be much more useful should the US government declare some form of martial law.  Given the positively insane amount of ammo that the Department of Homeland Security is buying (1.6 billion rounds at present, enough to wage full scale war for 30 years) combined with the ever growing purchases of food supplies by FEMA, purchased in a way that seems to be purposely interrupting the supply chain of emergency food for preppers ... I think it's a fairly likely scenario.

Especially when you figure that the US is currently buried in an ACTUAL yearly deficit running at 75% of GDP and an ACTUAL debt load rapidly approaching 200 trillion dollars, is going to mean that sooner or later the US is going to "pay" for the debt by currency inflation.  That will lead to actual massive inflation and THAT is when the crack down will occur (I call it "Syria in the US").

Understand that a massive crackdown by the US government against the citizenry (effectively eliminating the "pesky" constitution) means several very important things.

1) The electrical grid is going to be closely monitored.
2) Various types and flavors of "law enforcement" personnel are going to be actively looking for people trying to be independent
3) Satellite technology means that any gun stashes that you THINK you have hidden are actually well known

Here's what I'm saying.

If (when really) TSHTF you need to be as invisible as possible.  You need to be able to live without electricity or gas.  If you think the government isn't going to use satellites to find homes being heated that aren't on a known electrical grid or getting fuel oil from known suppliers you are sorely mistaken.

Should the US government do exactly what it looks like its preparing to do, living anywhere in the US is going to be difficult no matter how great your BOL is.

In fact I'm going to go farther.

Unless the US decides to perform a wholesale takeover of both Mexico and Canada then I am rapidly coming to the belief that you need a BOL in both locations.  I say both because which you go to will depend on a number of factors.

One in the wilderness of far north Canada (where bothering you is more trouble than its worth) or very deep into southern Mexico  (area south of Monterey) where again its just not worth messing with you.  Or better yet, go farther south still into Honduras, Belize, or El Salvador (all of which are beautiful by the way).

Each has its own pros and cons.  If you go north, you can set yourself up with things like electricity and fuel oil and you can be exceedingly independent.  The culture up there is a culture of independence, of making it on your own and bartering for the few things you do need.

However it is extremely cold and you had better know what you're doing to survive up there.

On the flip side, if you set yourself up south of Mexico you can go into the wilderness areas there an live quite comfortably thanks to a very temperate climate.  However you have to understand how to survive the storms.  The great thing about both places is that you can set yourself up with electricity generation using both solar and wind.  (again, inside the US you'll be found if you do this and "brought to heel")

All of these things are why I keep saying the same thing ... all survival sooner or later is primitive survival.  If you're going to go south of Mexico or into the Canadian Wilderness you'd better be fairly skilled in primitive survival.

SUMMARY

A BOL inside the US is now useful only for a natural disaster and THAT means that your BOL needs to be in a different geographical area than where you live.  Of course actually getting to your BOL during or even shortly after a natural disaster is probably going to be difficult if not actually impossible.

Start thinking about setting up BOLs outside the US should the economy collapse and martial law is declared.

The ugly truth about survival that too many survivalists miss

I run more than a few free survival classes.  In fact most of my survival classes are free.  I rarely charge for them.  It keeps me and my family in practice (my kids help out with them a lot, my wife isn't as interested) and we all get to meet some pretty cool people.

Anyway, my son was over trying to coach an older man about how to build a fire using a bow drill.  After a few minutes (and seriously only a few minutes) of working the bow and the bit he throws the stuff down and says, "This is stupid! I don't need to know how to start a fire like this.  My bug out bag has three different methods for helping me to start a fire and I have tons of stuff for doing it at my BOL.  I'm done wiping myself out on this nonsense!"

So I stopped the whole class.  I started by stating there were lots of valid approaches to survival and gave my "spiel" on that.  Then I asked who agreed with the guy.  Of the class of 18 people, four others raised their hands.

So let me tell you what I told that class...

ALL SURVIVAL SOONER OR LATER IS PRIMITIVE SURVIVAL

If we are working under the assumption that a major collapse of the world economies is coming and that we are all going to be needing our BOLs sooner or later ... then it is also true that sooner or later your fire starters or other fancy fire starting equipment is going to stop working because it will wear out, or run out of fuel, or whatever.

So if you are of the opinion that a long term collapse of the US is coming, then you must learn how to start a fire using primitive skills such as a bow drill (easiest) or fire plow (which requires A LOT of effort).

Better yet, learn how to start a fire both ways and be proficient in both.

In fact, starting a primitive fire using a bow drill by necessity means something else ...

That you know how to make cord and rope on your own.  In fact in my opinion there isn't ANY survival skill more valuable than learning how to make "cordage".  Without knowing how to do this, in a survival situation you are basically screwed.

Let me see if I can break this down for you.

The single most important resource (other than air) is water.  You must have plentiful drinkable water if you expect to survive.

Sooner or later, your iodine tablets will run out, your filters will have ran their useful life, and the bulb on your UV lights will burn out.

That means boiling water, and that means starting a fire.  Again, a bow drill fire is unquestionably the easiest way of starting a fire.  The "problem" with the bow drill is that it needs some kind of cord or rope.

Now because I view coradage to be so important, I have a lot of it stored in various places.

The problem is that sooner or later, rope will fray and break, nets will need repair, and so on.  That means if a bow drill is the easiest way of starting a fire (without fire starters) then you have to assume that sooner or later you're going to have to start that fire with cord you make yourself.

You need cord to make the bow, to start the fire, that boils the water (cooks the food, gives warmth, heat for cleaning/sanitation and on and on).

You see, I have what seems to be a unique view of survival.

In any survival situation, you have to think about obtaining plenty of clean water on an ongoing basis.

That has to be your first thought.  But to be honest, clean water on an ongoing basis is most easily done with fire.  So really, fire has to be the first thing you do in any survival situation.

A fire can be used to generate smoke that makes it easy to find you if you're lost or stranded or whatever.

It purifies water, generates heat, and on and on.

The minute you find yourself in a survival situation, probably your first thought needs to be to creating a fire.

Again, the easiest way of doing that is with a bow drill and that just might mean that you have to create your own cord (at least it will sooner or later)

GOING FROM SIMPLE SURVIVAL TO SUR-THRIVAL

I don't know about you, but struggling just to stay barely alive in a constant state of near starvation doesn't sound like a whole lot of fun to me :-D

If you want to "sur-thrive" instead of just survive, then you MUST know how to make cord and turn that cord into nets for fishing and trapping.

You MUST know how to weave baskets (also for trapping both fish and wild animals).

You also MUST know what natural fibers are available for clothing (beyond animal pelts) and how to convert plant fiber into some kind of cloth.

To my mind, the following are absolutely basic survival skills that any true survivalist MUST possess:

1. How to create cord and rope
2. How to a fire using a bow drill and a fire plow and do it safely so you don't start a friggen wildfire
3. How to use your cord/rope to build a net for fishing/trapping
4. How to weave baskets (fishing/trapping and of course just storing things)
5. How to actually trap/net fish, animals, and birds

Now, different people are good at different things.  Even though I know how to weave baskets ... honestly I kind of suck at it.  My wife however is extraordinarily good at it.

That doesn't mean I just let the skill go for myself however!

The five skills listed above should be possessed by EVERY survivalist.  With them, if the person that is good with something should be incapacitated due to injury or illness (or God forbid death) the entire group doesn't perish because one of what I call "lynchpin skills" is now gone.

EVERYONE should possess those five skills.

A very close #6 skill that in my opinion everyone should possess is self defense (and as I've said multiple times, I mean close quarters hand to hand combat self defense like you learn from Krav Maga or Brazilian Jui-Jitsu).

It's from here that we can talk about hunting as probably a #7 survival skill.  However I don't see this one as something that everyone should have to do.  

Survival (not) made easy

I have a generally low opinion of most of the survival shows out there.  Yet interestingly I've found myself pretty attached to the show "Naked and Afraid" that's on Discovery Channel.

Now yes, it is true that the possibility that you will have to survive under conditions which you would be totally nude is astronomically remote, the reason I like the show is that it tests your knowledge under a "zero resources" scenario.  You have to build, create, hunt, fish, forrage for EVERYTHING.

I also find it interesting that pretty much EVERY TIME someone violates some of the cardinal rules to survival they end up not making it.

Let me highly recommend that you watch the show for two reasons.  First, it helps you go, "well that was stupid" when you see people doing something dumb on the show (so that you don't make the mistake).  However there are a couple of things that I've seen on the show that I really liked and plan to add to my skill set (like the gal that weaved hats and all kinds of useful things out of local plants).

That said, let me go through a couple of cardinal rules to survival.

A human can live without food or shelter for often very long periods of time (two plus weeks without food, longer than that without shelter).  However a human can live for about 3 days without water and can really only function for two days without it.

Therefore, in any survival situation water is always your first priority.  However, DO NOT EVER drink water below 10,000 feet without treating it by boiling or iodine first.  In a "true" survival situation where you don't have iodine, that means boiling the water for two minutes before you drink it.

THAT means that you have to build a fire AS SOON AS POSSIBLE to give you the ability to boil water.

Fire gives you several other benefits as well.

HOWEVER, if you can't create a fire to boil water then please know that if the leaves are green they probably have water in them.  You can gather a bunch of leaves, stick them in your hand and crush them to drip some water into your mouth.  It doesn't give you much, but it's better than nothing and can "get you through" until you can build a fire or do something else to obtain fresh water.

IMPORTANT NOTE: Always gather leaves from a single plant and "test" the water you will get by squeezing into your hand first.  If the fluid that you squeeze out is any color other than clear or a little green DO NOT DRINK IT.  This is especially true of the fluid is milky colored (a good indication the fluid is poisonous).

So, always, always, always, worry about water first.  In any survival situation you need water.  Even if you have the ability to treat water (e.g. iodine) you want to build a fire as a very close second priority as it helps to keep the wild animals at bay.

Now, unless you have a real fear of the fire spreading ... for crying out loud please build a fire large enough that you can use some pretty good sized logs in your fire.  That will prevent you from having to constantly tend to it and if the flame itself goes out the larger logs hold heat and keep embers longer.

Once you have a method of obtaining water (and there are a number of ways of doing that and I will be covering them over the next few posts), and once you have a fire going, THEN think about shelter.

Once you have a way of getting water, have a fire, and have shelter, THEN get going on food.  The method you use to get food will greatly depend on your specific location.

As always, hope this helps.

I'm sorry, but it's THIS kind of crap that makes me think another economic collapse will lead to social upheaval as well

As a former special operations "guy" I have more insight into the kinds of stuff the US government collects.  I have still yet more insight because of the specific group that I got my orders from.

However, every time I see stuff like this:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/06/us-tech-giants-nsa-data

It just drives me insane.  The NSA has been effectively tapping, without knowledge of ANYONE, the direct servers of Apple, Google, and Facebook.

That means if you sent something privately from you to another person on facebook, that private message was tapped by the NSA.  If you sent an email using Gmail then that private message too was tapped by the NSA.

I'm sorry but how in the world is that not a violation of the third amendment? Not that trifling things like the constitution is ever in the mind of a government bureaucrat.

Stuff like this is why I'm becoming ever more convinced that:

1) I firmly believe that we are headed toward a "double dip recession".  Worse this "recession" is going to cause economic problems that made 2008 to 2010 look like a picnic

2) Because of a runaway fed the next recession is going to cause RAMPANT inflation.

3) Skyrocketing food prices, combined with a general dislike and distrust of the government (thanks to the government doing B.S. like this) is going to cause massive social upheaval.

And when I say massive ... I'm talking Syria level mayhem.  Not exactly like that because we don't have the same religious "problems" that they do.  But in some ways it may even be worse because the normal "allegiance" that keeps this country together is likely to disintegrate.

Now allow me to "revise and extend my remarks" that I just made.

1) The next recession is probably two or three years off

2) The following inflation is probably three or four years off

3) The social upheaval following that is probably five to seven years off (a longer delay because the government is certainly going to take steps to "soothe the masses" but I think they ultimately will fail).

Now please don't go thinking that I'm some "overthrow the government" type.  That isn't the case.

I'm simply pointing the above out because

1) Learning methods to defend yourself are important and you should start now (again, actual self defense, your firearm is NOT actually a viable self defense weapon)

2) Setting up an AquaPonics system NOW, while the going is relatively good and you have time to experiment and learn is ABSOLUTELY something you should be doing.  When food prices start to go flying through the roof you'll be able to absorb it without much difficulty.

In my opinion, self defense, and GROWING your own food (both protein sources and vegetables and such) are important to surviving what's coming.

Stock piling food effectively ILLEGAL

President Obama signed an executive order late last year that was a bit shocking.  Basically it said that if you have more than three days of pre-packaged food, and a state of emergency was declared, then you had to turn over your food to authorities ... or face felony charges.  This law applies only to individuals an not to corporations (such as grocery stores or trucking companies)

Now honestly, I didn't think this executive order carried enough weight to actually allow the president to declare someone a felon simply because they were prepared.

Further, the order so grossly and obviously targets the prepper community that I also didn't think it would hold up in court.

Well here's the thing ... possibly it won't hold up in court.  That doesn't mean that some FBI agent won't still get to throw you in federal prison for God only knows how long until your case works its way through the court system if there is some kind of declared emergency and you are caught with large amounts of stock piled food.

That means that for all intents and purposes, right now, stock piling food is illegal.  Well, not illegal, just not worth it.  I mean, why stock pile the food if you're just going to have to turn it over to inept FEMA morons?

Now before I hear any foolish "pry it from my cold, dead, fingers" nonsense, lets be clear ... you can't fight the FBI.  Head on out to Waco if you have any foolish notions that you can.  And seriously, you shouldn't even TRY to fight them or even get around the executive order either.  There's simply no reason to.

The executive order however mentions only "pre-packaged" foods.  It leaves food growing in your garden alone.  The problem is that most gardens don't really produce enough food to be adequate for a survival situation.

AquaPonics on the other hand is a different story.  An AquaPonics system, grown "vertically" (meaning multiple things stacked" can produce ENORMOUS amounts of both food and fish that can keep you, your family, and probably your neighbors in good stead. (the system shown in the picture is a "horizontal" system with only two levels.  There's better ways of doing it)

If things get really bad then your ability to produce food for barter and other things can mean the difference between simple survival and actually thriving during a full blown "shit has hit the fan" type of scenario.

The great thing about AquaPonics is that it's both easy and remarkably non-time consuming.  Personally I'm not a good gardener or farmer.  Neither are my wife and kids.  In fact collectively we typically have a hard time keeping cactus alive in our house (seriously).

However the nature of how AquaPonics functions means that we have ZERO difficulty producing what amounts to a small mountain of food, most of which we can't even eat because our system "out produces" what we can consume.

The Bottom Line: If you're a prepper, it's time to stop stockpiling food and instead learning aquaponics.

Getting ready ... while not actually getting ready?

One of the things that most concerns me personally about any sort of survival situation is my kids.  Will they know what to do, how will they react, etc.

To help with this I've started talking to them in the car.  What would you do right now if there was a car accident and I was unconcious and my phone shattered?

In other words, I play a lot of "what would you do if ..." type of games in the car.

Interestingly they seem to REALLY enjoy it and have gotten in on the action themselves and started bringing their own "what would you do if..." scenarios to the table.

The great thing about this is that it's getting them to think about and consider survival situations and scenarios and reason out possible reactions ahead of an actual event.  Our constant talking about this has "cemented" their responses to certain things.

So, what would your kids do if ...?

Prep "Levels"

This whole "prepper" thing is, for some good reasons, focused on survival when things go really bad.  Long term survival off-grid with the supply chains broken and mobs of starving rioters running the streets, and/or surviving a full blown bug out.

The fact of the matter however is that there are many more "normal" disasters that we are likely to face.

Prep Level 1: Simple Power Grid Failure
Lets face it, at some point this is going to happen.  Can you communicate with others and let them know you're okay?  Can your loved ones get to you?  Do you have some alternate method of power generation to keep your refrigerator working and a radio running?

Seriously, out of all of the things we need to be prepared for this is the easiest one, but the most often overlooked unless you have a prep plan that allows for you staying at home.

Prep Level 2: Car Malfunction At Worst Possible Time

1. Your car breaks down on a lonely road during a blizzard in the middle of the night.  It's well below zero, visibility is a few inches.
2. Your car breaks down on a lonely road at noon in the middle of the desert.  It's 120 in the shade and the heat causes disturbances in the air making it difficult to really tell what's up ahead.

In either of those cases you can COUNT on it occurring at the same time your cell phone is also mysteriously not working.  You forgot to charge the battery, cell towers are down, snow from the blizzard is causing too much signal attenuation, or the nearest tower is simply too far away.

Now, we've heard of the Get Home Bag, and in the case of your car breaking down in the desert, IF you understand how to travel in the desert on foot, a Get Home Bag can literally mean you grabbing your bag, leaving your car, and doing it on foot.  More likely, your "Get Home Bag" that you should keep in your car should be more considered a "stay alive in my car until someone comes by" bag.

The problem is that your Get Home Bag needs to change depending on where you are going to be traveling.  The needs of someone in 120 Fahrenheit temps is obviously dramatically different than the needs of someone in sub zero temps.

Not only that, but of the two, the car break down during a blizzard is the worst scenario of the two as you could be stranded in your car for several days.  Out in the desert it likely won't be more than a day.  However, trying to stay in your car without it functioning in 120 degrees is problematic (your car would function like a giant greenhouse making it even hotter).

A quick word of note on this ... I really know what I'm doing in the snow and mountains.  Despite that, If my car broke down during a blizzard and there was no one else around I would stay with my car.  My "Get Home Bag" is packed for the mountains where I live.  Survival chances during a blizzard drop dramatically when you leave your vehicle.

Prep Level 3: Localized Natural Disaster
The possibility of your power grid going down is a fairly likely event that most everyone will encounter sooner or later.  Most of the country has experienced power grid failure for one reason or another that lasted multiple days and well into a week.

This is the first level where you need to worry about things like "Bug out bags" and "Bug out locations"

The possibility of your car breaking down is something most everyone has encountered though admittedly most of us break down on a major road and our cell phones work just fine.  If you actually live in an area of extreme mountains or extreme desert then you already know that several people die every single year from cars breaking down and the person isn't prepared for it.

However, if you live somewhere that has tornadoes, a high possibility of torrential rain, hurricanes, "firestorms", or even earthquakes then you know that these events kill A LOT of people, often result in a break down in civil order, and generally things can get pretty ugly.

Katrina hopefully taught us all a valuable lesson regarding the government's ability to respond to something like this and how society will react.

Here is the problem with Localized Natural Disaster; with the exception of a hurricane, it can happen so suddenly that you can't get home to obtain your Bug Out Bag or if you can, your home won't still be there.  This is where the "Get Home Bag" turns into a "Get To Your Bug Out Location" bag.

In my previous post I talked about "prepping your bug out location."  Well folks, this right here is part of the reason for that.  Your bug out location needs to be "ready enough" for your arrival even assuming you don't have your bug out bag ... because you might not have it.  You may want to consider taking a look at the video below for assistance in getting your bug out location ready.

In fact, I would venture to say that unless the "localized natural disaster" is a hurricane, you stand a better than even chance of NOT having it.  A hurricane is one of the very few massive natural disasters that gives fair warning of its arrival.

Those of you living in "tornado alley" are well away of how suddenly one of these puppies can take out a home.  What if one goes through your neighborhood while you're at work?

What I'm saying is that your survival plan must include the possibility that you can't get to your actual Bug Out Bag!

For that matter, during that time of day it would mean children at school and possibly most of your other loved ones at work as well.  What is your communications plan in the event of a breakdown in the usual communications system?  Do your children know what to do?  How will you communicate? I talked about communications in this post here.

Prep Level 4: Widespread Natural Disaster/National Breakdown In Civil Order
This is what most of us are actually prepping for ... and it is the least likely to happen.  In most of the first world, governments are quite careful not to push their citizenry so far that breakdown like this will happen and most countries are geologically diverse enough that no natural disaster could be that wide spread (except near extinction level events like a huge meteor strike).

Part of the reason I don't worry about storing years of food is that the likelihood of the above is so astronomically remote.  In the event something like the above happens, like I've said in previous posts, I'm much more about growing/hunting/creating what I need than I am with stock piling.

What's The Point Of These Stupid Levels Anyway?
Here's the thing.  I wanted to put up this post about the prep levels to create some understanding within our community.  In my opinion there is far too much planning for PL4 (prep level 4) despite the fact that few of us are actually likely to see it in our lifetime.

Now I will admit that with the current financial mess the world is in PL4 via massive civil order breakdown caused by an absolute collapse in the global financial system is becoming more likely.

However, it is still far more likely that you will have to live through a PL2 or PL3.

So let me ask you ... if your car breaks down can you live in it?  If there is a PL4 do you have a "Get Home Bag" that will get you home or to your bug out location?

Here is my point with all of this.

Lets plan for the most likely survival events we are likely to encounter.  Especially since starting with the most likely events we might encounter makes us more prepared for the PL4 level events.