When you don't raise the debt ceiling

Not raising the debt ceiling is not defaulting on debt: it is defaulting on new spending.

Actually it is not even defaulting on that, but ending contracts via a Termination For Convenience of the Government clause in each and every contract the federal government gets into.  It is an 'unwritten' clause that need not be put down to be present in the contract and that is by statute: you are responsible for knowing how the government contracts and that there are unwritten clauses in every contract.

What does a T4C do?  It ends the contract.  No further payments, no penalties and no recourse against it.  The federal government as a sovereign power has that ability while you do not.

So if we don't raise the debt limit what would the government have to do?

First it still takes in approx. $2 trillion in revenue a year, and 1/3 of that goes to service our current debt.

Now you have $1.33 trillion left to deal with everything else.

The shortfall is about $1 trillion (give or take on the wild spending spree that went on from 2008-2010).  Not all of the spending spree money is spent, so that should have its obligations canceled under a T4C and returned to the Treasury.

Next up: cuts.

I don't like across-the-board cuts as that leaves the overburdening structure in place to resume its spendthrift ways if we can dig ourselves out of the fiscal hole.  I propose structural cuts to the federal government, reductions in military outlays for non-active war fighting operations, and entitlement cuts,  plus a clean-sheet, one rate tax code with no exemptions for anyone for anything on income.  What you buy, sell and do are your business and nothing is special enough to warrant an exemption.

What goes?

The Dept. of Agriculture is a subsidy and cash transfer system for large agribusiness to the tune of over $700 billion which includes overseas offices. It can go.  There are many fine State standards that will fill this role, like PA.

The FDA thinks that the cost of a drug changes its efficacy, and that is a lie, so it can go.  If they can't be truthful about their main mandate, it is not worth having.  Let the manufacturers know they are totally on the hook for safety and efficacy.

EPA believes carbon dioxide does not get picked up by plants for processing of sunlight into plant cells, but instead lingers forever in the atmosphere.  It can go.  The States duplicate much of the actual regulatory environment, anyway.

The FCC was made for a 1930's problem solved by 1990's technology and is now obsolete. It can go.

The SEC can't pass a GAO audit... since 2004... and now gets FOIA exemptions. It can go.

The Dept. of Education has not changed the literacy rate by 5% in the positive direction since it was started, and the current rate dates back to when Johnny Couldn't Read.  It can go.

We have had the Dept. of Energy through at least 2 energy crises and still cannot get us cheap and plentiful energy.  It can go.

National Endowments for the Arts/Humanities produce feces filled, irreligious works that are of no benefit to anyone.  Starving artists need to find real patrons, and get off the government teat.  They can go.

UN payments.  Why do we have this?  It hasn't brought world peace and only fostered dictatorships and tyrannies across the globe.  It can go.  Ditto foreign aid to non-friends and allies.

The Federal Reserve needs to be audited and asked why it devalues our currency, contrary to its mission.  It must go.

IRS needs a 'right sizing' when a new tax code comes in that is clean sheet.  Throw in the BATFE with that as it has proven remarkably effective at harassing law abiding gun shop owners and has, itself, allowed weapons to be sold to straw purchasers with the guns destined for Mexico.  If Congress really wants a tax on imported alcohol, then it can become the BA or BAT.  I would suggest eliminating the entire bureaucracy and doing the clean-sheet tax for the revenue involved, but moralists love their sin taxes.

Medicare & Medicaid - add up, divide by 2, block grant to the States with no overhead, phase out over 5 years.  Let the States figure it out, if they can, since the federal government has made a hash out of it.

Social Security - you do not have an 'account' but a promise of future payments for your tax money.  That is not even a contract but on sufferance of Congress.  Anyone in the system stays in and the SSA goes into the general expenditures part of the budget.  FICA is eliminated as part of the clean-sheet tax system.  No one pays into SSA any more and those in it have until their 'accounts' are exhausted.  If you make the argument that it's an 'account' then that is very fair: your account goes, so you go off the system.

Military bases in Japan, Germany, UK, S. Korea all can go, save if they are in the direct logistical train for current war activities, and even then shifting from high cost bases to cheaper ones elsewhere is necessary.  Stretch out refurbish times for aircraft carrier battle groups and reduce the active Navy forces for that.  Shift tactical air operations to the ground forces and make the USAF responsible for strategic forces and orbital surveillance, and remove multiple spy platform agencies from the government.

Throw in an across-the-board pay freeze and reduction to 2006 levels for the remaining workforce.

How to get rid of these things?

Don't fund them.

Then GAO takes control of their lands, buildings, offices, supplies, equipment, etc. and the National Archives takes the paperwork and documents.  Everything else is sold off at auction so the government gets a year or so of revenue from those big ticket items.

While the statutes and regulations remain 'on the books' with no one to enforce them they are not followed, and as the agencies and departments go away, any ability to enforce them are put on the DoJ, and it will not have the time, manpower, money, nor size to do so.  Thus getting rid of the enabling legislation via a 'sunset' law for all laws and regulations would look like a great idea.

With all of that stuff gone and a simple tax code in place, we can easily pay down our debt and not get into more debt, thus reducing future payments as old debt is paid off.  The 'debt ceiling' should be lowered with that, also, as we don't need that much debt.

The idea that $2 trillion isn't enough to run ANY government is asinine.

If it can't be done for that then it can't be done for ANY amount of money as no one knows how to be thrifty on the spending end of things.

Of course politicians would muck up not raising the debt ceiling: they are good at politics, but suck at economics.

Yet pure and harsh austerity will set us free from debt.  Not immediately, but not getting NEW debt is vital.  In 30 years it will all be gone and you will have given your children and grandchildren a better and more solvent country.

Or you can make them paupers indentured to the federal government.

That choice is yours, and that of your representatives in DC.

Choose wisely.

You may live to see that day when they either thank you, or spit at you, and what you do now will determine what you get, then.

The things I do waste time on

Another of those rare postings on what I am doing to take away from my time seated in front of the computer glazing my eyes out looking at historical documents.

Or... how I make sure I can still feel my feet!

One of the things that I've been doing is getting a lovely Thompson rig together.  Really if one is to have a Tommy Gun the least you can do is get a few things for it so it doesn't feel so lonely.  Thus my dissatisfaction with the first digital camera came to the forefront as it took awful pictures close-up in what should be a macro-mode.  They didn't have that when I first bought a camera, so I did the best possible I could with what I had.  So when one of the first major acquisitions for the Thompson came through I was less than satisfied with the pictures, but they did serve the purpose.  Luckily the folks at storeplay.net took a few of the first shots:

You see to me a violin case is... well... a violin case.  Here it is to an era toy gun, at least I assume that, which was made, in that era, full-size.

How do I know it was made full size?

Well its obvious:

This and the rest of the pics courtesy your host.

A full size Thompson fits in it, plus if it was one with a stock there is more than enough room for that, too.  Plus a drum magazine and a few stick magazines.  Now mine is a M1927 not an M1921, but a good case is a good case, and if I need to go somewhere and not take the big, hulking modern padded plastic case, I can take this one and go in style.  Still, I'm not much for a Zoot Suit.

Now my ill time spent doing other things has included sewing, on a lovely White 565:

Its a real champ!  I have had problems with it going through rigger's webbing and coated cordura at the same time and will take it into the shop to have it looked at and, if necessary, worked on.  Still its gone through a few projects, chowing down MOLLE webbing and structural webbing, cordura, fleece and all sorts of material that would choke a lesser machine.  At this rate I will need something a bit sturdier at the industrial level, but the amount I've learned from the White 565 is worth the money I paid for it.  The equipment I've made certainly paid for the cost of it and the raw materials involved.

So on to more of the time wasting stuff I've done using that, and I'll put the major project up next.

That is the main case with the barrel portion, the top part is a separate MOLLE magazine carrier for the 30 round stick magazines.  All things done in digital tigerstripe cordura are prototypes and leave a lot to be desired on fit and finish, but are functional.  I could not find, anywhere, a Thompson MOLLE case and I've looked.  Now I could find MOLLE stick magazine carriers but for something like what I have it would cost what the sewing machine cost.  Plus I made an extra singleton you can see in each of the pics as it swaps out top to bottom.  I still have to make the drum magazine carriers, but have found the 2 qt. carriers for water bottles to fit them quite nicely.  When I get the 565 back up and going I need to make those into full MOLLE carriers to attach next to the barrel and square out the case, as I would much rather have them on the outside of the case than the inside.

Now for what I pack in that case:

What you have there is the Thompson plus two 50 round drum mags, three 30 round stick mags and five 20 round stick mags.  That last is in a WWII original magazine carrier.  Also included are two Thompson spare part bags from WWII, a WWII brass cleaning rod, plus oiler and pull-through.  Basically the only thing missing would be a 100 round magazine, but that isn't in the cards until the economy improves.  I have more 30 round stick mags... those I can find on the cheap still.

Loose ammo is Federal Blazer and Aguila.  I've had some issues with Aguila ammo both in 45 ACP and 22 lr in the FTF arena.  It seems that there is just something a little off on the specs... either that or the guns are damned finicky.

I'm pretty happy with the rig to-date!  I got the mag catch modified at a local gunsmith's so I can use the original USGI magazines and not have to go drilling into historical pieces to get them to meet the minor mag catch change done in the '70s to the design when Numrich had it.

My other great time eater has been scrounging parts for the Vz.61 Skorpion build which is now complete, but not test fired.

I've put snap-caps through it and am not impressed with the tiny indentation being made, but it could be that the snap-caps aren't behaving like actual rounds for recording the impact of the firing pin.  So a test-fire is in order.  No one seems to make a testing rig so this means yet another DIY project.  Something simple would be best, and its looking like the articulated arm with clamp and piece of string will be in order.  Even though its only 32 ACP, I will not be holding it for a test fire or even the first magazine's worth of firing.  Fire and inspect thoroughly is the order of the day with this.

Its been a great time-waster, getting the parts for it.  Its part kit and a large number of parts from Czech-Point USA, like the SA frame and trigger group.  Had to get rid of a few parts from the kit to make it compliant, and I couldn't pass up a deal on the full SA trigger from CPUSA.  Still some of the stuff, like decent priced 20 round mags and a carrier for them, just couldn't be found easily.  Getting the barrel in was a real PITA and finally took some dremel work to make sure it got a snug fit.  Its a fascinating piece, and the only screw parts on it are for the handle.  The rest is all springs, plates, ends on springs, indentations and the barrel pin.  I finally used a small screw for the trigger guard, but that is due to me not being able to figure out how to get the tiny rivet put in.

There you have just a couple of the things I've been putting time into.  I won't even start on the emergency supplies, but should have a post on backpacks up soon.  Really!  They can be a great time waster...

Survival - Phase 5 - Self-defense

Self-defense is a subject rife with danger, and yet the ability to defend yourself is an inalienable right granted to you by Nature and recognized by all of mankind. Your surest, most ready defense is not an army nor a police force, both of which may take time to get to you if they can get to you, at all. Defense of yourself, your body, your life, your liberty and freedom rests upon no society, no government, no one but yourself. Your religious beliefs or beliefs derived from personal morals may not want to let you defend yourself, and that is granted: that is also your right. There is a fine line between self-defense and harming others, and varying levels of harming others that fall far short of absolutely lethal or being lethal at all. It takes a skilled martial artist to know just how to hit you with bare hands to kill you and the necessary self-discipline of the martial arts instructs those who follow them to not do that save as a last and least resort. That form of skill and self-restraint are not only laudable, but demonstrate a profound respect for those you encounter in the martial realm. By practicing the ancient and modern Arts Martial, the practitioners demonstrate honorable utilization of their skills to the lowest, possible cost to those they fight. As practitioners they must practice, constantly, and always keep their skills at bay for merely civil disagreements: you are safer in disagreement with a martial artist on civil grounds than you are with nearly anyone else save clergy of the majority of Christianity.

The concept of self-defense, however, goes beyond just humans gone lawless or turned lawbreaker, and includes all of Nature in that category of 'potential threat'. Animals are one thing, but knowing the 'lay of the land' another, and the greatest way to defend yourself is to avoid confrontations that can be easily avoided. Nature does not 'have it in for you' nor is it looking to protect you: Nature doesn't care about you and you are on your own when in the confines of the Natural world, which is all of your life. Nature tells you many things in the landscape, itself. Do you have a nice, raising meadow area between two forested areas, all of which go uphill rather quickly? If so, just why are there no trees in that meadow all the way up to the upper reaches of that summit? If you see snapped off trees at the edges or large piles of dirt, stone and random natural detritus further down, you may have found yourself an avalanche area or landslide area, not the place to be when it rains or snows a lot. Likewise do you find a stream with abnormally wide and clear banks and see that trees do not go down past a certain point on both sides of the stream valley? Then you can see where large flash floods come through, and as you never know what the weather is 30 miles from you upstream, it is best not to stay there overlong. Mother Nature doesn't care about you, but the message is clear: these are dangerous places at certain times.

Cheap Knowledge

Knowing edible plant life, while in season, is a great survival enhancement and when out of season an essential way to maintain a balance of nutrients and vitamins. You do not need to lug around a huge wildlife guidebook, just some of the convenient decks of cards put out for that purpose: they pack small and are lightweight, and you can use the ones you know for starting fires. Always handy! That, too, is self-defense: eating properly over time. For a short period of time that doesn't matter, but as this series of articles uses the James Burke question of what happens if the lights go out for good, the longer range of survival must intrude on preparations. A 50 cent or $1 pack of cards purchased now may ensure your long term survival later. That is damned cheap insurance, in my book.

Cheap Tools

To get at such plant life you do need a way to render it into edible form. This doesn't start with cooking but with taking non-edible portions away from edible ones so that you lower cooking time. The very first and most useful invention of mankind, still existing with us to this very day, are knives. Originally flint chips used to scrape and cut, the modern knife is a wonder of metallurgy and has thousands of years of good sense behind it. As a category knives go from swords and spear points (of large and numerous variety) to the simple pen knife. Every stout warrior of the Middle Ages carried the utility knife with them: a blade of less than 5" and no less than 2" with them at all times. A modern Swiss Army Knife at 2.25" fits into this category as does a variety of 'fighting knives' and 'commando knives' all the way up to such things as daggers and stilettos. The utility pocket or pen knife of 2 or more blades is a basic and essential part of any survival kit, be it in an actual knife form or in a 'multi-tool' that is pliers, corkscrew, flashlight... Why 2 blades? You will break one. Murphy works with Nature, and that means you need a back-up. The broken one can be fitted to a long stick as a digging tool or simple spear! Yes, when Murphy breaks your knife you now have the opportunity to fashion a makeshift spear/digging tool. Isn't that marvelous? A cheap pocket knife with two blades can be had for $10 and should, with care, last a lifetime. I have two pocket knives from my father and one, if memory serves, bought by my grand-father for my father... that one has a broken blade... and if you add in a cheap hand sharpener and honing oil you are looking at possibly $5 and a few minutes of work to get the blades back into shape.

Thus for a $1 pack of cards on edible plants, a cheap $10 knife and $5 in maintenance supplies for the short term (<1 year), you now have a survival sub-set of identification capability and tools to do basic scavenging in the long term (>5 years), just so long as you take care of them in the mid-term (1-5 years). Your survival cost is: $16 on the cheap.

What a pocket knife/pen knife/multi-tool does, is allow you to become a tool maker.

The prime definition of mankind is that we make tools to make tools to make tools to make things we use. Many animals make tools: birds do, chimpanzees do, and rodents do (after a fashion). Making a tool to make a tool is limited, as far as I know, to the hominids. At third degree there is only humanity. Using a knife to strip bark and put points on sticks means that you will not be wearing down the knife digging, but saving it to make more tools. The tools you make can go into making traps, snares and fishing weirs, or towards creating other tools to do more complex tasks. Without a knife you are down to flint knapping, which is a damned useful skill as it will save your knife from being over-used... by the time you have gotten to making hammers, wooden wedges, and primitive chisels, you will not be using your knife very much at all.

Longer fixed blades, as opposed to folding blades which I put into the 'utility knife' category, are useful for fewer tasks and more readily used for self-defense against animals. A fixed blade at an end of a straight stick is a spear used to fend off animals. Really, do you want to do that up close and personal with, say, a black bear? Or a bull moose during rutting season? Although, come to think of it, that last will not really care if it is pricked with a spear... best give those a wide berth. Of course making a fire hardened tip out of wood is better, still, and saves your machined and tooled blade. With that said a cheap machete is under $20, and I have seen some very cheap, if not too trustworthy, blades at under $15.

Total survival cost to you: $36, tax and tip not included.

With these most basic of tools you can now cut down small trees, brush, make spear points, gut fish and game, and do the million and one things that your hands and fingernails aren't good at doing. You would have a hard time packing all of that into a purse but with care that can be done. Or put into a small bag or pack and kept near you, although on your person is far, far better survival-wise. There are other tools to be had on the cheap, especially in multi-tools, but for the most basic set of survival requirements you are set at the sub-$50 range unless you buy very well made goods. Something that is better made should last longer, with care, than its cheaper alternative and it is up to you if this is truly 'last ditch if I have to survive' or 'without this I will die' mentality.

I will skirt the area of steel traps, dead-falls and the like as they are the realm of decent knowledge on animal habitats, skilled making of impromptu equipment and being able to figure out the first so as to use the second. This is the realm of Les Stroud and Bear Grylls.

Defense from the Elements

Self-defense from the elements is a common sense thing: tarps, rain ponchos that can be made into tents, clothesline, cords, etc. All of that can be under $10, on the cheap, too, for yourself.

Each person that needs to survive with you needs equipment, too, so that $36 basic is per person. Defense from the elements is per group. Do note that most military surplus rain ponchos can be sealed up to provide fast tent space with lines or cords, so that anyone with a friend needs enough cordage in case of sudden bad weather. I have seen surplus military rain ponchos on sale at less than $4 each in packs of three. Cordage varies, but 50' lengths of nylon can come in under $2 and often far less when bought in 100 yard lengths. A tarp to go under an ersatz tent would be more expensive, up to $10 although I have seen them for $4 at local closeout stores, and another rain poncho can serve on the fly, also. A thick 'solar blanket' with strong backing, usually canvas or other material, can be found under $10 each.

If this is not to your liking, then an 'emergency tent' in blaze orange can be had for $4-$10 and comes with cord but without a tarp, allowing it to pack very tightly. That said it is not as thick as a rain poncho and less handy against the wind and the cold. This may do if you are surviving solo, as that and a poncho can pack into a very small sack or waist pack.

Emergency shelter, then, can go for as low as $8 (low cost tent and poncho) or just a bit more per person ditching the emergency tent for ponchos and cord so that just under $15 can serve two people and that increment can be brought down with more individuals.

Your total cost is now: $44, shipping and tax not included.

Emergency Cooking

Cooking food is a matter of fire and ensuring you can have one in an emergency. For the long term people who survive the short term should have the skills to make fire, and in an emergency that must be instant without much skill. Folding solid fuel stoves (Esbit, et. al.) that can accept a wide range of solid or gel fluids are cheap (I've found them for under $10 for the stove, used, and about $10 for a package of fuel tabs). This is about as small as you can get as such things as a 'Commando Stove' or 'Pocket Grill' actually take up more space than this WWII German designed soldier's emergency stove. All the emergency stoves can take solid or gel fuels, so if you find the cost of the solids prohibitive, you can go with a cheaper gel (cost varies for solids from 80 cents per tablet and gels about 30 cents per package, although the tablet will last longer and heat more intensely). Thus your cost will vary somewhat depending on expected length of time you will need them. Either gel or tablet can be used in very small quantities to start fires with tinder, thus extending the use of such materials to cover more situations.

Cost for simple, basic stove and easy to pack refill on fuel: $20.

Total cost for simple survival: $64, although with the various provisos given on equipment quality, tax and shipping.

For absolute and positive emergencies, a 2" rod of flint plus your knife gets sparks, leaving you with something to catch the sparks that will catch fire rain or shine. The best tip I have for that is a pre-preparation DIY and involves having a big bag of cotton balls (actual, real cotton), petroleum jelly, and decent size sealable containers like old medicine bottles. The cost of this shouldn't run more than $5 unless you need to buy containers. The process is to smear a cotton ball completely in petroleum jelly and pack them into the sealable containers that will not leak petroleum jelly once it gets warm (like in a pack during a sunny day). With this cheap stuff you now have lots of prepared spark catching balls that have fuel and wick embedded in them, so should last long enough to add real tinder on them. Flint can cost you 50 cents per piece, so get a couple.

You are now around $70 for survival supplies, excepting those things that deal with the elements but adding in the one tool that makes us superior to the animals, which is fire use.

Defending yourself from more than the Elements

With the low end of self-defense taken care of (your self, tools, fire and the means to get them, we now head up into the higher cost range of self-defense, which is firearms. Mind you, if you are a boyer and fletcher, or a skilled atlatl craftsman, you already have the tools you need to survive, but most people don't. I heartily recommend spear tips (both solid and tines, especially frog gigging ends) for self-defense and small game as you only need a relatively straight branch and twine/cord to keep it on. Throw in a cheap mop handle that you can disassemble and for under $15 you have hand hefted self-defense at close to short range! A real bargain, that. But everyone concentrates on firearms and they are a flexible tool system if you have the right parts of the system, so I will start at the very basic, anyone can pick it up end of things.

As I said, this section gets expensive, quickly, but pre-made and useful tools and weapons come with the cost of having them made added into them. If you think about your needs now, then shopping for a decent bargain means you will find yourself with a slightly lower marginal cost, but at a slightly higher cost than the basics. I consider a single lightweight spear for fishing or frog work, and putting pointy things in the face of an animal to be very basic survival.

Cost for this section: $15.

Total cost: $85

From here, onwards, I will be discussing more expensive considerations. If you do not consider firearms and their use to be of necessity to you, then you have read as much as you are likely to need for survival.

Outside of the never so trusty 'saturday night special' guns made of zinc and likely to blow up in your hand, there is the rock bottom of firearms that is legal to have without any sort of proscription. Most folks don't consider them 'firearms', in the sense of Dirty Harry, but they are just that by definition and much more than that and have a multi-role place in a serious survival/rescue toolkit. Beyond that they are also useful for the longer-term, although they become 'last ditch' weapons. What is this category?

Flare guns.

Not the cheap plastic Orion ones! What I am talking about are military grade flare guns, which range across a gamut of sizes and eras, so even an 'antique' flare gun can serve you well if you think ahead to get the right parts for it. That said I will stick with the modern 26.5mm surplus guns common from the Eastern Bloc and West Germany, that can range from as low as $30 used to just over $50 new, old stock. Something like the HKP2A1, from Hechler & Koch:

Bobba Fett's favorite!

That is a one-shot, tip-up loaded flare gun. The cost of the flares for it are as much as the gun, per box of 10 flares, but a good part of that due to HAZMAT shipping, so buy a few boxes to bring the overall cost down. Yes there are cheaper flare guns on the market from Poland, Russia and the Czech Republic. I trust H&K. This is one simple, rugged design that you can clean with an old toothbrush and just a touch of light oil (I recommend Militec-1, but everyone has their own preferences). It is a solid foundation to work with. If memory serves it was made for a service life of 10,000 flare rounds and it is built to last with very little complicated on it.

Now for that 26.5mm flare gun you can also get a $15 adapter to 12 gauge flare rounds (not 12 gauge shotgun rounds, and don't try that with the insert!) and those 12 gauge flares you can find cheap, save for the HAZMAT fee. For aerial flare signaling the only thing better are single shot, purpose built high altitude flares that are for extreme distress maritime use and cost you, per shot, what this flare gun costs you. If not more. To make up for that you can get parachute flares (new, old stock) and other flares at 26.5mm and lesser altitude 12 ga. flares. As with all things survival, multipurpose and multi-capable is the idea here.

Flares are a burning pyrotechnic that are lightweight and have the extreme advantage of burning in nearly any weather. Get a large pile of logs with tinder in the center and an opening to fire into and the flare will happily burn anything on the inside of that pile. Make sure that you are in a decent clearing at a bit of distance, first, and that the flare can't shoot out through the other side. So for the price of gun plus flares you get a signaling device that can be seen at long distances and an ersatz emergency fire starting system (and a damned expensive one, too).

As you have guessed this is a serious piece of ordnance for survival, coming in at $50 for the gun and perhaps as much as $150 for three boxes of 26.5mm flares and one 12 ga. flare insert. This is a 'weigh and balance' concept: if you can't afford this, but can afford somewhat better initial gear (say a low cost ALICE pack for $30) then get the pack. Even if you can afford this, it is a step into an area that you may not be familiar with. If you are facing the unknown, then that is a choice you will make before disaster strikes, as you can't make it afterwards. However, I will go on to examine some other things this device is useful for to examine what that $200 gets you.

Section cost: $215.

Total cost: $285.

There are only a couple of 'alternate' rounds at 12 ga. for this platform and the best of those is the pepper gas/spray rounds made for flare guns (as opposed to 12 ga. shotgun rounds). That can be a life saver against large carnivores if you have nothing else (thus last ditch) or useful fired into an enclosed space like a room or car. Stand upwind of it if you ever have to use it. I have seen a three pack of these rounds for under $10.

Flares for 12 ga. flare guns do range a bit in price, but specialty pyrotechnics places sell them for $15 per 9 rounds. Orion flares can be used in such an insert, and I've seen those at the low end of $25 for 4 rounds.

So for simple self-defense rounds and a pack of 9 rounds of red/green flares, your cost is: $25.

Section Cost: $315.

Total cost: $340

For carrying around purposes, you can carry at least 3 of the 12 gauge rounds for every 1 of the 26.5mm rounds. The latter go about 3x higher than the former, so you are trading off number of rounds for vertical distance. Three very low altitude rounds don't matter if you are in a deep canyon as they won't clear the walls of it, thus you must take terrain into consideration for your expected survival needs.

At $225 you now have a variable altitude signal device, plus one that can do pepper spray to incapacitate a good sized room or convince a hungry carnivore that they really do not want to mess with you. Throw in an old Russian satchel made for 26.5mm flare guns and you add another $10 to the expenses, but I will keep that out for estimation purposes.

In the realm of inserts there is one man who makes a double insert system to adapt the 26.5mm gun to various pistol rounds. The idea is that each steel insert will take the pressure before it gets to the gun, itself. Once you get that and insert those into a flare gun you have created a deadly weapon, a true handgun, albeit single shot. This has been done in the maritime realm so as not to have a 'real' gun for those ports that don't allow them but to still have some sort of defense in the bridge. So long as the inserts are not inserted, you have a flare gun. This is not a toy, and your life is in your hands with that, which is the point of things. The ability of the frame of a well made flare gun to take firing even small pistol rounds is suspect, but if your life is on the line this is better than nothing. Cost for the double insert is a bit over $100.

I don't consider that as 'essential' unless you are thinking of 'last ditch' sorts of equipment or foresee your maritime travels going into areas where Pirates and other lawless people roam. At that point upgrading your foreseeable problems means weighing costs and benefits of such inserts. As it is I will not use the purpose built inserts for cost estimation, but examine another area that covers the same ground in the way of inserts.

Next up on inserts is a bit harder and requires just a bit of time and energy. The main problem with the straight adapter for 26.5mm to 12 ga. flare rounds is that it is chambered for flare rounds (short shotgun rounds) and isn't all that sturdy. To get to firing pistol rounds requires a multi-insert system, but if you are considering a wide range of possible survival settings and can afford inserts and pistol rounds, then you want something convertible to common 12 ga. for standard 12 ga. shotgun inserts for pistol rounds. The great wonder is that the 26.5mm flare gun is almost, but not quite, 4 gauge shotgun in size. For display cannons there is a 4 ga. to 10 ga. adapter, but it is just a bit too big to fit. So you would have to sand or grind it down just a bit to get a good fit and if you are handy with a dremel and have some good bits for attacking aluminum, you are looking at a couple hours of work to pare down the outer diameter and the base of the insert. Cost for this insert runs about $40, your time in grinding not included but makes for an interesting spare time project.

Why 10 gauge shotgun, which is a larger diameter than 12 gauge? At 10 ga. shotgun you can get a 10 ga. to 12 ga. shotgun adapter, but since the 4 to 10 insert is lightweight you wouldn't trust your hand with that idea: you like your hand, it likes you and you will not blow it off using a 12 ga. shotgun round. However, at that point you are now in a standard and relatively cheap market for (<$20) pistol inserts for 12 ga. That 4 to 10 insert is a bit steep to get you to something a bit more common and from 10 to 12 is no picnic ($30 or so). At that point you have 3 inserts to take the pressure of the pistol round 4-10, 10-12, 12-pistol. So you have a steel flare gun, aluminum 4 to 10 insert, and then two steel inserts (10 to 12ga and then 12ga. to pistol round of your choice) all of which should take the expansion of the pistol rounds used. For $80 or so, and some work on your part, you go from a flare gun to a deadly weapon able to take much smaller caliber rounds.

Do remember that this is not a nice firearm designed to fire these things! It isn't made to take a lot of punishment and you are the recoil mechanism. That is why this is 'last ditch' and far more expensive than a dedicated single shot shotgun. A shotgun, however, isn't that easy to carry around and is limited to the lower altitude 12 ga. flares, so your decision must be made on what the purpose of the firearm is and how it is to be made available to you in an emergency. A flare gun is a low-end, all-purpose tool for signaling, emergency fire starting and self-defense, but with limitations on the last. Any time it was used in that 'last ditch' role, and you survive, the entire firearm should be examined for cracks or expansion on the barrel, plus the inserts may have expanded to the point where you can't get them out of the gun. Making that call of having an all-purpose 'by god if I have nothing else with me, I will at least have this' gun against the ready-made 'bug out' kits by Smith & Wesson or Mossberg is one of choice, utility and expectation of events. You can do a lot with a dedicated 12 gauge shotgun and it can do things the all-purpose, lightweight flare gun can't. But the flare gun can do things the shotgun can't, too.

You can have the capability to do these things and never use them.

But if you ever need them and don't have them, you are SOL.

Defending yourself from the elements, providing shelter and food is low cost. When you step up in the level of considerations of what might happen to you, your expectations must adapt to that wider range of possibilities. As actual firearms vary widely in cost and personal needs, I can only ballpark a few things and examine what I have looked at.

Defending yourself and hunting, basic firearms and concepts

Beyond the basics you get to the dedicated (or insert adaptable) area of rifles, shotguns and pistols. Each have their pluses and minuses, they all require you to train yourself in being able to fire them, use them, clean them and think about them not just as weapons but as survival tools. Each realm is open to a wide range of individual tastes, attitudes and capabilities, but for general categorization they come down to ranges: short (up to 10 yards), medium (10 to 100 yards), long (100 yards+). Each area can be used in the others, to a degree, and a rifle is relatively handy all the way up to personal space defense weapon where the ability to quickly change targets is critical.

I can't offer you solid choices on these, just some that I have made for myself and the reasons why.

At long range the Mosin-Nagant line of Russian/Soviet/East Bloc bolt action rifles is my preference as they were designed for Russian peasants in the 1880's to use. If you have the ability to find the instructions and strip the bolt down using a purpose designed tool, cleaning and oiling the thing, then you have a dependable firearm. It was not made for the space age and is a 'no frills' rifle that is very basic in design, care and maintenance. The Finns bought them on the cheap, did some testing for accuracy and their version, based on the Soviet sent arms, allowed the much smaller Finnish Army to beat the Soviet Army during the winter war. A top sniper for the Finns was a farmer, and he used a Finn Mosin-Nagant and was a terror to the Soviets in that sector. Chambered in 7.62 x54R (Rimmed or Russian, but 54R is critical), this is the oldest '3 line' rifle round still in use today. The Eastern Bloc and Soviet military surplus ammo is cheap, but corrosively primed so you need to clean anything that touches the exhaust gases that is metal after use. There is a water based CLP available (Gunzilla), Aero-Kroil, and even a DIY mixture of Murphy's Oil Soap/Isopropyl Alcohol/Hydrogen Peroxide, plus quickly getting a patch or 10 through until you get the stuff out of the system. Or you can use water which dissolves the salts but really needs to be cleaned out so the thing doesn't rust.

These are cheap, reliable rifles and have cheap ammo available, plus a real confidence builder once you get something on the buttstock to help with the recoil or wear thick clothing. The major downsides are that the military surplus coming from Russia/Poland/Czech Republic/Bulgaria rifles are in cosmoline and will always have some come out when you fire them, unless you totally redo the stock. The upper forearms need some small pieces of material to help keep them in place, too, and original arms were found with paper stuck there, but I recommend very thin, cut with a scissors, brass shim stock. These weapons were made for Russian winters, summers, and soldiers who didn't take good care of them, which sounds like survival conditions to me!

Personal choice only, remember, and this is for survival, not fighting off the zombie hordes.

There are very few 'exotic' rounds for the 7.62 x54R, and they tend to be either tracer or incendiary. Thus, as a round, it isn't all that useful beyond moderate size game hunting and not adaptable to multiple situations.

I have seen used Mosin-Nagants for $80, arsenal packed in cosmoline from a 1950's check-over for $90-$120, and lovely Finnish rifles for $350 on up. Sniper versions cost much, much more. Ammo in a 'spam can' from Bulgaria can be had at 440 rounds for under $90. Modern non-corrosively primed I can find 20 rounds for $10. Bulk discounts can be found for the ammo, still, even with the various runs on other ammo this last year.

For under $200 you get a basic rifle, a spam can of ammo, plus a buttstock pad, and the joy of wiping cosmoline off the forearm and putting small strips of brass in to keep the upper handguard from sliding around.

Next up, shotguns.

Shotguns have one name to know: John Moses Browning.

From 1903 to 1999 the Browning Auto-5 sold continuously and there are millions of them out there. Likewise the various pump shotguns of Browning are still beloved of hunters and troopers to this day. From what I have heard the basic system of exchange in the back country of TN is 'The Browning' as those shotguns are a steady game-getter, easy to maintain and a necessary part of living.

No matter what the shotgun is that you want for survival, the idea is that this would be a primary multi-use gun at 12 gauge. As we have seen before there are 12 ga. flares and 12 ga. pepper rounds. In fact 12 ga. is the realm of exotic ammo from frangible copper slugs made to blow hinges off of doors to tear gas 'rockets' that are actually just finned delivery capsules. From blanks that go 'bang' to flechettes to flares to tear gas to 'less than lethal' flexible baton (bean bag) rounds... if someone ever said 'hey, can this be made into a 12 gauge round?' then it probably has been. For everything from high velocity sabot rounds to slugs to buckshot to bird shot to bolos to nails to salt to pepper... the reason that this is a survival weapon is that it is all-purpose gun, no matter if you have a single shot, side by side, over/under, pump or semi-auto in 12 ga., you have a full suite of options from 'less than lethal' to riot control to small game to big game to signaling all with one gun. If you can't justify a flare gun as a multi-purpose survival tool, then a 12 gauge shotgun is the gun of choice.

Make sure the barrel is smoothbore for as rifling really messes with exotic ammo and skews shot like you wouldn't believe.

If you pick up an antique, get it checked by a gunsmith to make sure it is sound and will work with modern rounds and their pressures.

I prefer a Browning Auto-5 with slug barrel that is Cylinder (no choke). Luckily the original barrel was a Cutts compensated full choke and the barrels are easy to swap out (just remember to change the ring positions!), so for under $500 I have an adaptable shotgun. The hunting and target rounds are damned cheap for 12 ga. and the exotic stuff can be anything from cheap (25 cents/shot for small game shot shells) to 'you want HOW MUCH for 3 rounds?' (getting into the $8+ per shot range). If you use it for home defense remember the ranges on 'less than lethal' and pay attention to where you really shouldn't hit. Plus it shows you though ahead of time and don't intend to kill. What this means is that a 12 ga. shotgun is the all-purpose firearm... save for the long barrel and weight of it. If it wasn't an Auto-5 I would have been looking at a pump action Browning.

A new Mossberg pump action can be had for under $400 (check to see if the survival kit is available), a used Browning Auto-5 with two swappable barrels for $500, and a Kimberly Safari Shotgun with gold scrollwork easily gets into the $10,000 range and up... way up. That old thing at the back of the antique store may only be $100, and once you pay a gunsmith to check it out, you probably dropped another $30-50, and you might have a 'wall hanger' that you will disable and cherish as the new family heirloom or a survival shotgun. With more modern weapons, like the Mossberg 500 pump action, you can get into all sorts of tactical arrangements, home defense set-ups and still have a decent hunting weapon.

My choice was a basic late 1940's vintage Browning Auto-5 that had a barrel for competition/small game and then a later Japanese steel barrel for solid shot, buckshot, and home defense needs. A semi-auto tends to raise the barrel up due to recoil more than a pump action, which is great for quail on the wing but not so hot for the zombie hordes.

Pistols run such a wide gamut it isn't funny, but keep in mind your ultimate needs when deciding if and what you need. Getting a concealed carry weapon (plus any legal documents to allow you to do that legally via training and such) is one thing. A pistol for survival needs is another. There are two calibers that are personally suited to my needs, yours will vary.

First is .22lr, which is a rimfire cartridge and suitable for small game and has been used for decades for just that purpose. Rifles for .22lr are very lightweight, compared to the Mosin-Nagant, and far better for small game at close range, so as a survival rifle (pure and simple) a Marlin 60, Ruger 10/22, Ruger Charger or, really, just about anything would do well for the close range/small game set-up. On the pistol side there are the Browning Buckmarks, the Ruger Mark series, plus the Baretta NEOS, amongst tens if not hundreds of designs, possibly thousands once you get back 70 years or so. A small game hunting pistol in .22lr should have a long barrel to it for better rifling effect and be a bit thicker than a self-defense barrel. A heavier barrel means fewer changes due to thermal expansion as you fire, thus allowing for greater accuracy. What you get is up to you, and if this is to be a CCW then a short barrel and slim-line design (like those from North American Arms) may be more your style.

The thing that must be done with any pistol, shotgun or rifle: practice, practice, practice. Practice on the range. Practice holding it at home in your copious spare time. Practice dry firing. Practice your stance. All of these are critical with a .22lr as it is a small round and the slightest movement by you is the difference between hitting what you are aiming at and missing it completely, and the smaller the target, the smaller the error on your part that will do that. Your survival depends on your skill.

As a survival round .22 lr is actually pretty good. There are shotshells for 'pest control' that won't go through things like aluminum siding, but are good against snakes and other very small animals. There are also tracer and incendiaries available of various types, plus a wide degree of pre-fragmented, sectional and other forms of projectile, that make the .22lr a prime survival round. For survival and getting small game .22lr is a pretty good round type and for long term survival a competent marksman can make a limited ammo supply go a long, long way at a very low up front cost. A Marlin 60 can be found for under $150 and a Ruger Mark III Competition pistol for under $400. Out of the box and with a good cleaning to get the factory gunk out of them, they are good survival weapons. The US Air Force has used a single shot .22lr as its bail-out gun for pilots since the 1960's as it is low mass, low cost and very accurate, plus isn't that noisy in the field. There is a good chance that someone within a mile will hear a 12 gauge shotgun blast, but very little they will hear a .22lr especially if it is a sub-sonic load. Cost for 500 rounds of .22lr is normally under $25 and often under $20. That is a 'brick' of ammo and weighs about the same as 30 rounds of 7.62 x54R or 25 rounds of 12 gauge birdshot shells.

I'm really quite surprised that no manufacturer has made a good 'bug out bag' based on a .22lr pistol.

Second for caliber is 45 ACP, the most favorite round for American pistols and even a few carbines. The Browning designed Colt 1911 has been a favorite on and off the battlefield since it was introduced and, when all the variants are taken into account, outsells any other handgun in the US, hands-down. With the run on ammo starting after the election of 2008, 45 ACP vanished off the shelves in a few weeks and the first wave of re-supply in AUG 2009 also quickly went down. Now there is enough to purchase without paying a premium and it goes back into the 'a good round to have' category. As a round the 45 ACP hits a 'sweet spot' between speed and mass, remaining sub-sonic in most loads and yet delivering a heavy system shock. The arguments on this are legion! Still 'In Browning We Trust' should be a motto for a coin. Here I varied from my recommendation of a 1911 variant for myself, as I didn't have a shotgun or rifle, at the time, and didn't know when I would have money for either, but the 1911 is what I recommend as there is not a gun shop in the US that hasn't seen a few dozen of them if not a hundred or more. A good 1911 variant is on my 'buy list' if I ever have funds for one again.

Surprisingly this is a survival round having a wide array of ammo types available for it: flare rounds (they won't cycle a semi-auto), shotshell, tracer, incendiary, explosive, 'spotter' that lights up on impact, frangible (lethal but doesn't over penetrate), segmented, and on and on. I picked up a longer barrel pistol version of the Kahr/Auto-Ordnance Thompson TA5 as its 10.5" barrel allowed for the most velocity as a standard load has expended its powder completely in that distance. That meant a general all purpose firearm that did none of the things specialized ones did (as a shotgun it isn't much, as a rifle it doesn't have enough range, as a pistol its too bulky) but did them all passably with a bit of style. I would not want it as a carry weapon as it isn't concealable nor lightweight.

But then most pistols can't use a 50 or 100 round drum magazine, either.

I had some work done on mine to allow it to use the older Auto-Ordnance and Government Issue magazines of 20 and 30 rounds. I refuse to mutilate pieces of history when I can perfectly well mutilate something modern with a good spare parts supply. The up-front expense for the Thompson has more than made up for the actual using it, and it has proven to be quite accurate with a smoothbore barrel far beyond what I expect for a pistol. Its mass means it is a weight lifting session, but the joy of getting round on target in tight groupings more than makes up for that. Additionally it is 'user friendly' if you can heft it and have good, reliable magazines.

45 ACP target ammo goes for under $20 for a box of 50 rounds. The cost of a 1911 or variant, or any other pistol using the round, varies so much as not to be funny. As a separate platform I was looking at the $700-$800 range, although Kahr has some nice slim-line variants for under $400. And that is on the new market... used I would prefer a historical arm, not necessarily war time issue, as I do have a fondness for historical arms.

Out of the list the cheapest to outfit is the Mosin-Nagant. For about $100 you can still get a great, clean bore military surplus rifle. For an extra hundred you might get someone else to clean it for you... but if you are willing to expend the time and effort to get the cosmoline off, then you have an inexpensive, relatively accurate rifle. Get up to the $350 range and you can get a Finnish surplus one, no cleaning necessary. The ammo is 20-25 cents per round in bulk 'spam can' amounts (440 rounds per can). A real deal for the cost and you get a piece of history, as well. It is the cheapest to procure and the second cheapest to actually use on a per round basis.

Next is the .22lr and a single pistol comes in well under $400 and a Marlin 60 rifle comes in under $150, and ammo is damned cheap (although during the ammo run of 2009 it was also absent, but so was 45 ACP and .22lr came back first). At 4 to 6 cents per round you can't go wrong, and buying in bulk can lower that price, too. Exotics cost more, of course. This is the second cheapest to procure, and the cheapest to fire on a per round basis.

For shotguns you can vary from $150 to... well what are those gold engraved, specialized pieces? Still at the survival end cost for the gun itself, $500 to $700 with a pretty wide variance at the low end, depending on your personal needs and ability. Cost per round is 25 cents to a dollar (from target shot to slugs) and more for a sabot and exotic ammo. It is a real investment useful for a wide range of applications and nothing can replace a good 12 ga. shotgun, and if you must have one gun, and only one gun, make it a 12 gauge shotgun. What you can do with it has no peer in diversity for a weapons platform.

The 1911 variants and older models range all over the map, but rarely under $500 for an older service weapon, although that is only a ballpark. A special-made custom with all sorts of goodies can reach $2,700 and beyond, and in-between at the $700-$900 range are good modern models. Cost for ammo is 36 to 45 cents or so per round at the low end with exotics cost more at the high round. Remember I paid more for something different.

Are these all the guns I have?

No, these are my survival ones that I consider to be good, multi-use weapons.

I do not consider myself to be a 'gun nut' nor someone who has a deep knowledge and history of firearms per model, per line and per type. I do like the history of arms and have the capability to take decent care of the mechanical end of things while being a pretty fair shot. And while I do work up a sweat at the range, the need to concentrate and understand what I am doing is, itself, a form of relaxation and honing a skill.

Next up on my list of skills to acquire: sewing.

Is it just me or has there been a run on jeans needles, lately?

Why sewing?

I have an article I'm working on... about backpacks. Really the entire industry has undergone a revolution over the last 30 years. But adapting your equipment to YOU is a PITA. Thus I am off to the world of cloth, thread, needles, foam, ALICE, MOLLE and weight distribution. And the last time I even touched a sewing machine I was around 8 or so. Luckily I only need 'the basics'.

Just like firearms.

And I have this lovely White Model 565 from the 1960's...

Survival - Phase 4 - Leaving Home

If we follow James Burke's idea in Connections that, without power, an elevator is a metal box with buttons on the inside of it, then your home is the largest container of your stuff that you can't carry with you.  It is so large that you can sleep in it, raise a family in it and, generally, be protected from the elements and wilds of nature within it so as to not have to be constantly on guard against the vicissitudes of weather and wild animals.  Either rent or own, there is no place like home, and only in the modern era can one actually be a tramp and continue a high tech lifestyle with low tech necessities.  That lifestyle is totally dependent upon 'the grid' which is that matrix of systems far beyond power that keep modern civilization going: clean water, sewage treatment, road maintenance, bridge maintenance, the electrical system, gas mains, and so on.  This grid reaches far further than electricity and deeply into modern society, to the point where it is not maintained as we assume it will always be there for us.  As we reach the maximum design capacity limits of these systems, however, we find them failing and lack the political will to keep them up.  Thus even as the last few miles of the interstate highway system are now being built, other sections, mere decades old, are being ripped up and out and replaced by new road going over the same place the old one went because the old one had crumbled in place.  As we pile 'nice' services on government and eat up the maintenance budget for necessary public infrastructure, that infrastructure becomes weakened, brittle and frail over time.  Now that it does fail in many places, fingers are pointed at political rivals and that ignores the fact that in the two party system, BOTH parties have been at fault from the local level on up to the National.

This frail system has many weak points and is also liable to catastrophic failure at all levels from the local, to the regional, to the State level, to the multi-State level and even to the National level and beyond to interconnected Nation State entities.  A sewage main failure can only get to some neighborhoods and be a purely 'local' crisis effecting mere thousands of people.  A polluted water system from biological or chemical hazards can effect an entire metropolitan region.  One substation in the power grid having a relay that kicks in when too much power comes through that line will then do what it is supposed to do and shunt the load to other lines... which then fail, in turn... and the entire northeastern seaboard of the US and Canada is thrown into darkness.  An earthquake in the New Madrid Fault Zone will destroy not only buildings, but bridges along the Mississippi, sink or disable or beach barges and watercraft, possibly cause earthen dams to give way, destroy railroad bridges and yards, cause ground subsidence at airports making them useless, take out all water and sewage systems, break up the electrical grid, destroy main natural gas and other critical pipelines along and crossing the region, and displace millions from homes in an event that will take months to see the ground finally stop shaking... and that is without the dis/appearance of lakes, shifting the course of the Mississippi river, causing sand-blows that look like sand volcanoes, and open up giant cracks in the ground where none were before... that will take months to end and millions will be displaced from St. Charles, MO all the way down to Memphis, TN depending on the epicenter location(s).

That last is horrific, no?

The electrical grid will be broken up by it, and possibly damaged far beyond the immediate zone with shunted loads racing in all directions from the region back into other regions unprepared for it.  The northeastern US and Canada may face a winter without natural gas, or even gasoline and diesel fuel as the major off-loading ports tend to be further south and on the other side of the NMFZ.  That is one of the Top 5 events that is certain to visit North America in the future, and out of my Top 5 list we have only partially prepared for #5.  If our government cannot prepare beyond a moderately regional happening which is just worse, in scale not type, from what has been seen before in that region, then what does that say about the Nation as a whole?

FEMA is a joke: multiple hurricanes in FL and the NOLA event demonstrated that.  It hasn't even gotten the barest concept that the NMFZ is far deeper and harder to cope with than ordinary earthquakes as it encompasses multiple high level quakes, thousands of aftershocks of normally felt and disruptive magnitude, and a host of issues reported the LAST time it went.

No one will 'rescue' you in any except, if you are damned lucky, a few places in #5.  Even there a magnitude 9 earthquake lasting over a minute in the San Francisco basin and, possibly, Los Angeles, is nothing that California can now cope with.

On top of those events the sun could burp for a few days and charge our upper atmosphere causing ground currents on more than just a local level, as was seen a few years ago in Quebec.  If that event had been just a bit larger and longer, to last a day or two, failing electrical systems would be a global phenomena... and still not be a major event for our sun.  Just a poorly aimed and timed one, and odds are they have happened before when we didn't have electrical systems to worry about.

Leaving home, or 'Bugging Out', is something that must be addressed by everyone who takes their survival seriously.  Any of these events could happen in a moment.  Some would last only for 90 seconds and be over, leaving ruined infrastructure around it.  Others could last for minutes, or hours, or days, or months.  The top of my list isn't survivable as it is decades long in its effects and requires something a lot more than 'bugging out' or even basic survival skills and is a very humbling thing to think about when examining what we currently 'do' via government and what we can and should prepare for.  It doesn't matter if you get a short reprieve and have to leave, or even a long one: when the time to leave is apparent and you must leave then you must have the 'basics' prepared to go.

In previous parts of this I have looked at You, Your Vehicle, and Home: in each case the basic and fundamentals of what you need to survive for even a short period of time must be prepared for, which means you do it now when the doing is good and you are willing to think about it.  Each stage must have its survival components in it, and your home is the greatest of all of these as it is the container for most of your worldly goods... your 'home' at this point is your last resort, major place you will live that you have prepared for survival in an emergency.  It may be your actual home, a cabin, a motorhome (saving that if electrical systems have been fried it must be an OLD motorhome, pre-computerized) or the place that you have otherwise scouted out, prepared and made ready for a day when you will need it the most and you can and WILL get to it.  If a disaster strikes that takes out your home or makes you unable to get its, say by washing it away as a massive tsunami along the eastern seaboard of North America, then you are stuck with what you have on you and, if you are lucky, your vehicle.

What needs to be covered is that your staged retreat during disaster has gotten you home, or finds you at home, or has happened and home now becomes unlivable and you MUST leave.  That might be the decision of 10 seconds or 6 hours or more.  The 10 second one is the easiest: you remember what you packed for your vehicle and have a subset of that as a second set of purchases for yourself, removing those items that you only need for your vehicle.  Plus whatever is on your person.  But even that decision can be better prepared for than a standard 'Bug Out Bag'.

At this very lowest end of time frames you can and should prepare for multi-season survival.  A few emergency blankets and such are 'core' items and absolutely necessary in all contingencies.

So is water, which is a gallon per person per day.

Medicinal goods to cover your a wide range of problems, and should include things like Quickclot bandages for deeper wound types.

Your medical needs should be in that contingency as you may not be able to get to your medications.  This can be a horror with some medications that are deeply expensive and prohibitive to get on a pre-buy basis.  That is something that each individual must deal with as there is no catch-all to determine what is best for each circumstance, save that 'some' is better than 'none' in the way of critical medications that will not allow you to survive for a few days without them.

Food in the way of USCG/SOLAS emergency bars.

A change of underwear or three, depending on needs.

Emergency shelter, like a simple emergency tent with rope and stakes.

All of this packs into a very small space, save the water, on a per-person basis.

Core functions are those which keep you immediately alive in a given situation so you can start leaving home with them.

After that comes the idea that what you need will vary on season and expected near-term weather, and you will not be able to take an entire wardrobe with you.  And if you don't live alone, you now have the rest of your loved ones to think about.  Thus the 'lone wolf' can easily deal with their needs, but children and those not present at the leaving time must be considered.

Before you do any of this, make sure everyone who you are preparing for has the NEXT staging point in the leaving known and in mind.  This is the place you will all get together if at all physically possible and be prepared to wait for at least a day or two for others to arrive.  This can be a park, an empty field, a mall parking lot, an abandoned structure or facility... any place that everyone will know, know how to get to and will be some distance away from home.  It is the place where the next major decisions must be made if everyone is not present and accounted for when leaving home.  The less inhabited the better, and the more open the better, also for security reasons, but having access to concealment and shelter if possible.

With your core needs addressed per person, next comes the wardrobe and longer term items.

Here the concept is that you do NOT want JUST a central large carryall pack.

Why?

You have to take it off and open it to get rid of things or put things into it.  That said you can HAVE a central pack as the destination point for many things and the military large ALICE pack is near perfect for this.  The system is not complex and easy to understand and requires smaller sub-load units.  These units are of uniform size, large enough to carry a number of small items or one-two small bulky ones, and have pre-existing straps/loops or other method to string them together.  Basically they will take one change of clothing per person per season.

These bags/sacks/pouches will ALSO take your medications, per person, plus small first aid supplies, per person.

Filled canteen or water bottle per person can be separate or attached or in a pouch but must have strap/loops or other way to be strung together.

Any item or part of survival you can think of that you will need for more than a few days MUST fit in that standardized container size or be pre-packed even if you don't need it at all times of the year.

Each container will have a loop of wire or rope or other item to string them together run through it and tied off with a name tag on each loop clearly visible.

Items per person to deal with each season will have a different color tag and their name on them.

In an emergency with time enough for an orderly leaving, each person can quickly, and easily, grab up their items with a single pass of their hand and carry them out.  If they have their own packs, then that is fine as a travel packing on the go.  If not it gets swept into the larger pack that is open and waiting for them, probably in a storage closet or other nearby place, but coat closet is near ideal for this.

Anyone who isn't there gets their stuff put into the pack by the last person who is the pack carrier.

You leave.

This system allows for separate packs to be tightly packed into a carrier for off-loading the main pack as you travel: each person gets their named material which includes the smaller pack.  When you are done all central survival needs are in the main pack along with that person's particular needs, possibly stored in the outer pockets.

You know have a complete kit of packs, storage pouches, and all necessary survival gear, per person, so that each person has the ability to look after themselves if they get separated from the group.  Plus if you got nice, connectable braided wire to do the fastening, you now have everything from a white-out rope to hold on to during blizzards to a quick to put up drying line for wet items.

Anyone who cannot make the main rallying point requires a decision by those who do get there.  If your group has had some pre-planned final destinations in mind, then taking the missing person's equipment may be a good idea.  If not, or if you have a range of options, then concealing that equipment with which point you did decide upon left with it or nearby is the other way to go.  Or breaking their equipment up and distributing it if worse comes to worse.

It is obvious that a single bag for a single person is best, but perhaps not a good, overall, way to address a 'Bug Out' when it is more than one or two people.  A modular system allows quick, visual identification of what to do: color coding the visible end loops to equipment strings then allows for core and necessary climate and weather to all be picked up at one go... and the rest is left.

If you stick to a shirtsleeve environment core pack of clothes, then augmenting that requires only one single pack per season, and as fall and spring tend to have similar climates, you are down to core, spring/fall, winter... summer requires such things as taking off clothes along with insect repellant.

There are a million and one solutions as to what to pack, how to pack it and what to take with you.

A modular system to be swept into a large pack means that you get the benefits of massive carry load AND individual carry loads and better, overall survival for then adapting to your environment.  Individual small pouches/sacks/carryalls serve a variety of uses from temporary water transference items, even if they leak badly, to berry picking bags, to fish storage bags... to the million and one things humans use storage capacity for.  Empty capacity can be FILLED with vital goods.  Packed to the brim storage means you must LEAVE something behind if you want to pack MORE.

Once every individual has what they can carry, there should always be excess carry space left, per person.

 

None of this is particularly costly unless you have to bring it all together quickly.  I am doing so and it is costly, to say the least, but then I am doing the suite from vehicle to home to leaving home all at the same time.  The concept that I ran across on various military surplus (and industrial surplus, office surplus, etc.) sites is that you can get multiples of just about anything at a reduced cost.  As you are NOT buying for fashion, NOT buying for good looks, and ARE buying for reliability and ruggedness, the idea of pre-used means that you can see how the wear of use has impacted various goods.  I have seen large ALICE packs, sans frame but with shoulder straps, at 2 for $20.  Small packs that were once gasmask bags go for $2@ for 5 at a time.  Ditto canteens, containers, rain ponchos, tents... often at lower cost than their 'emergency' counterparts although not fitting as tightly.  There are a few companies that, I believe, manufacture ONLY to surplus directly, thus removing marketing overhead and reducing cost and increasing throughput.

The lingo of the sites is not hard to pick up:

New - Newly made.

NOS - New Old Stock, meaning it was made years ago and is still in original packaging or unpacked but went unused.

Used - Someone has used it, usually a military organization and it is either being replaced due to wear, changes in stock for that military, or it has reached its military EOL (End Of Lifecycle) and so its maintenance cost, to them, is higher than buying new.

Antique - Really old stuff, used.  But some times just really old NOS.

Repro - Reproduction off of original pattern, made new with modern materials often at old specification.

Vintage - Old style, newly made.

Retro - Looks like an old style, but is a new style on new material.

Mil-Spec Equivalent - Newly made, passes quick visual inspection when assembled, probably not when your Sergeant gets to you, however, for a detailed inspection.

Excess - Usually a form of NOS or Used that has been sitting in a warehouse for decades, available by the pallet load, WYSIWYG.

 

Why go MILSURP?

They invented the term 'Bug Out' and have been doing this since the invention of the first company of soldiers needed to utilize the same sorts of goods at the same time, and that makes the ability of military goods to survive multiple 'Bug Out's under combat conditions a prime requisite for consideration.  The military has made the entire process of leaving, re-arranging on the fly, moving, temporarily laagering, counting noses, deciding on a new course, and setting up again a fine art.  Roman soldiers would actually dig and make NEW a full, temporary ditch fortification with spike palisade before they had dinner. And then break the place up when they left so no one else could use it again when they left.  As the modern military invented modular systems to keep everything together, you get the bonus of their knowledge for free by getting the equipment and can double bonus it with thinking in a modular way.  Also, having one day a week to get everyone together to pack one change of cold weather gear allows everyone to decide what they have and will not miss sitting on a shelf and may reveal some items of pure essential need that are now missing or worn out.

Also the stuff is cheap.  Yes you can and probably will spend a decent amount to get your home ready, but no more than 2-3% of the cost of your home, most likely, and probably far less than that.  My needs and expectations go up as I have observed, first hand in the wilderness, what the necessities are and made the list of 'what the hell you really need if you do something damned stupid' up some time ago.  Buying emergency lighting (candle and other lanterns, plus flashlights), a securable storage place for the vehicle, the small but ever so handy items with which to augment one's survival capacity (wire saw, e-tool, collapsible saw, flares, flare gun, etc.) means the entire soup-to-nuts of water to waste and food must be gone over completely.  All for things that may just sit on a shelf for years and never be used.

Which means it either gets passed on as an 'heirloom' or the next person will find it at a rummage sale as damned nice stuff just barely used... don't mind that some of what you got started out life prior to WWII.  Or in the 1890's.  It works, right?  I mean you ARE depending on it to save your life, it had BETTER work, now, hadn't it?

There are some pitfalls of buying MILSURP, particularly in things like gas cans, where a few Nations (France to be particular) made a similar looking to NATO jerrycan, but it has a wider, raised mouth to which no one on the planet makes a spout for it... not anymore, at any rate, and the old ones are gone.  Also you get some pretty battered stuff, like small packs that have one arm loop detached or has more than a cosmetic rip to it.  Glad you got a sewing kit, huh?  Also you have your choices in color between Olive Drab (OD), Forest Green, and more varieties of Camo from 3 color desert to Flecktarn to ACU to MARPAT to snow camo which isn't just white.  When you mix'n'match and buy the lowest you can get, you get a strange and often disconcerting melange of colors and patterns.  With camo spray paint you can re-do it all with a new base coat and new over coats... mind you a lot of those are temporary.  If you love the history of camo, then you can be a walking museum AND well protected.  The final problem, such as it is, is that the synergy between components can often be lost between multiple modular systems.  The old style ALICE clip is still venerable and extremely useful, but we now have MOLLE clips, MALICE clips, PALS clips, and on and on as various manufacturers try to do something 'new' and yet relatively different while staying cross-compatible if they can.  I've had the experience of finding 'helpful' clips from niche manufacturers that were unlike all of the above and damned near useless.

On a personal note I also choose systems I have used before.

I have had the experience of Duluth packs in my youth, and they were capacious!  I could fit a full medium ALICE pack on my front and have a Duluth pack and a canoe and hike ten miles with that load.  I appreciated the ALICE system, even in my youth, as it allowed me to segregate equipment via pockets, pouches, loops and keep wet away from dry.  That elder Duluth pack allowed me to carry more, but as a jumble that wasn't easy to segregate.  The next time I went out, it was with a full ALICE pack to carry my load and that of two younger kids (most of their stuff fit in the pockets which they loved as they could get to it on the fly).  That early appreciation for early post-Nam ALICE packs stuck with me.  I like the overall modularity of the MOLLE system, especially for tactical loads: it is truly a wonder.  The difference between long tactical and short, but permanent 'Bug Out' is vast, however and the equipment needs likewise vast.  I can rig up a large Eberlestock all-gun case to the side of an ALICE pack to carry more than one firearm...and all my long-term survival needs plus that of my loved ones in an ALICE pack.  As I'm the one with the strong back, that is essential.  I could find a full, large ALICE pack with frame for under $30, new... I have problems touching  small size MOLLE system at that price. 

Starting from scratch I go with what I know and rig up the rest.  As my old geology survival gear got stolen some years back, and I was working at a desk job, my needs varied and I stuck with Buffalo survival which depends on your ability to do for yourself.  Getting hit by an illness then made changing plans impossible as I could not even do simple long-term pre-preparation due to lack of stamina and energy.  Recovering just some and now more with newer medication allows me to start afresh, with only a few odds and ends from my old kit left: an old utility pistol belt, an old compression sack (just used still not that damaged), pocket knives, and the remains of an old first aid kit.  I do have a new sleeping bag that I got for at-home emergencies, plus my old Buffalo bag that really needs to go as its pretty much falling apart...that meant new bags for the car and instead of expensive and lightweight I went MILSURP and cheap, and got compression sacks for them.  Buying damned near everything, even matches, means a large purchase overhead over the past few months as I am addressing things I couldn't really do for years... after my old gear went away and I did spare survival packing for metropolitan work.

From that I worked outwards from my known carry capacity and my preferred system, but changed how to do the internals greatly from doing it solo.  I didn't like the jumble of stuff when I was a youngster and still don't, thus the modular internal stocking system is mandatory.  While you lose some room due to the material of the sub-load, what you gain is the ability to widely vary across a whole range of expected circumstances quickly and easily.  A closet would be ideal, but there are other storage arrangements just as good for this.  Cabinets, shelving, all sorts of ways to make sure what you have is readily available and yet not an eyesore for every day house guests or yourself.

 

I will be handling the last part of all this, Personal Defense, as a final piece, but it, as with everything else, needs to integrate from top to bottom, from personal to 'Bug Out'.  It gets easier to pre-plan when you move away from your direct person, but the ideas presented so far are the guiding ones, and defending yourself and protecting yourself are core ideas.

Like the American Express Card, don't leave home without it.

Survival - Phase 3 - Home

There is a good chance that you are living 'on the grid'.

I am.

What is 'the grid'?

It is popularly put forward that 'the grid' is the electrical grid, actually an interconnection of networks for managing electrical power across the US, extending into Canada and Mexico.

The actual grid is far more complex than just the electrical system.

For most residents of urban and suburban areas, even small towns, the actual grid consists of a number of services that are primary to our technic society:

1. Electricity - The popular 'grid'.
2. Potable water supply - This is done at a central water purification plant where the majority of viruses, bacteria, harmful chemicals and other such things are removed and a level of chlorine and other minerals added, and a proper pH balance put together. Without this you would be boiling your water and only using tap water for limited purposes.
3. Sewage disposal - No civilization can grow or maintain itself without this, as diseases such as cholera then become epidemics that regularly recur due to the mixing of bacteria from sewage with drinking water. Most homes are connected up to a system that removes waste water and human waste so that you don't have to deal with it locally.

Of these three it is the third and second that are the most vital to address for long-term survival in a home without power. As hundreds to thousands of generations of humans can testify: you can live without electricity.

You can live without central water and sewage, but not at high densities unless you prepare for such a lack. Urban areas decay without these things, and their lack is not only an inconvenience, but a public health threat to the general population. War torn Iraq had its systems degraded by Saddam Hussein during the '80s when he was having a nasty war with Iran, tried to pay for it by invading Kuwait, had the infrastructure of his Nation decimated by the alliance to restore Kuwait, and then, after more than a decade of neglect of THAT another war with terrorists blowing up such places came roaring through the Nation. You can live in cities without central electricity, potable water and a sewage system.

Not at the population density levels before all that happened, however.

Still it is a testament to many Iraqi city leaders that the FIRST thing they wanted restored was NOT these civil necessities but factories so that a production base and tax base could be formed so that these necessities could be restored, replaced, rebuilt or built new. In such a war torn country that has had a taste of industrialized supported lifestyles, the understanding that production makes dense urban populations possible is one that shines through the sandstorms of Iraq and smoke clouds generated by political partisans. This is a telling aspect of society, in general: if you live in a society that understands that active production is the source of the goods of society, especially technic society, then they will be prioritized over civil necessities.

On the downwards slope, things aren't so pretty.

Going on the James Burke Connections idea, if something struck civilization either locally or globally to remove the ability to sustain the technology or that ruined the technology we have, what would you do?

This is not that far-fetched an idea as both EMP bursts (on a regional/Nation State basis) and solar storms (regional to global depending on duration) could do that to our sustaining electrical infrastructure. Most particularly targeted are circuits, especially microcircuits, that control so much of our daily life that we take it for granted. These are two of the worst survivable happenings that we can foresee, with lesser ones, like the New Madrid Fault Zone earthquake event, being regionally devastating but leaving much of the area outside of it immediately unaffected and only impacting the Nation in the long term by removing the cross-ties of 'the grid' through that region and destroying the local grids and infrastructure to a high degree in some areas. A Cumbra Vieja event sending massive tsunamis overtopping tall skyscrapers along the eastern seaboard is another event where devastation is regional, losses are high, but the rest of the Nation exists to start recovery. One or more EMP events or a solar storm of magnitude not seen since the start of the electrical age are much harder to deal with as they then leave you with NO outside help.

From those you can start to see the outlines of the necessities for yourself, getting back home (or a ready place of safety you have, say a cabin or some such) and then using your pre-positioned goods to continue surviving the event. For those that cannot afford a cabin in the country this means that where you live determines if you survive. How you survive depends on how you prepare before the event happens. If you survive depends on using your skills to the best of your ability and testing them against what the fates send your way. More skills and supplies means you stack the deck in your favor. Mother Nature plays with unloaded dice, but they are extremely heavy... you can change fate enough by preparing so that you no longer depend on hope to survive. Hope could not stop the ills of mankind nor will it offer you a cold glass of iced tea when you are thirsty.

I will start with staying put, at your home or other place of retreat that is prepared by you before the worst hits. Leaving or 'bugging out' I will address in another piece.

Your strategy will vary upon circumstance, and there are many, many, many websites and places to go to so as to address your particular needs. If you live in an apartment/condo then you have one set of worries. Attached homes, row houses, townhomes all have a different set of worries. Detached homes in suburban settings a third set. And detached homes or cabins in rural settings yet another. No one person can address all your needs, only you can do that, yet your needs will be very much the same no matter if you are 10 stories up in a highrise, sitting off a cul de sac in suburbia, or out in a cabin in the boonies. Most likely you have them addressed in the last area, as you know what you need.

Treating Human Waste

Water, clean water, and getting same are the main problems mankind has had and continues to have to this very day. Desalinization is expensive and/or time consuming. Ridding water of bacteria and viruses is a well known problem and has been addressed since the very first towns got polluted wells from their own human wastes.

Human waste that your body generates, then, is the second problem and goes hand-in-hand with the first. There are as many different ways to get rid of waste as there are communities and climates. Simply put: you cannot survive living in your own wastes for very long, especially if you are coming from a technic era in which health care is at a pinnacle of achievement. In rural areas where you deal with animal waste, you can deal with human waste. In urban areas, that is not such a simple thing to learn or do as the infrastructure did it for you. And if you don't have a very arid climate most of the year, you can't just leave the shit out to dry, either. Iraq does have a rainy season, so that wasn't a year round option there, either.

In that reverse order you have: dump it out the window (the popular method of the pre-modern times and the reason men walked on the outside of women next to buildings) because you now have an open sewer just outside the window, utilize an exterior drain and decomposition system (a form of composting) to dump wastes, create or utilize a system of ponds/large fish tanks and natural organism decomposition (good for small enclaves living on a hillside or on terrain with a slope) that utilizes microorganisms/macroorganisms/sunlight to treat the bacteria in waste, 'brown water re-use systems' for the re-use of previously potable water used for cleaning yourself and your home but it still needs to go somewhere in the sewage cycle, holding tanks (septic tanks) and leech fields. Plus the old 'dig a big hole in the ground and put a half-moon cabin over it'. A system to actually dry wastes to solid and water (purified by systems after that) is also excellent, and solar/thermal systems exist for that, along with bacteria based ones.

Each of these have infrastructure costs, daily/weekly/monthly/annual time investments, upkeep costs and transition time to full utilization of them. The object of these systems is to get the wastes reduced from a state where diseases can be harbored and do so where people will not be impacted by that process. A settlement pond system with bio-degrading and fish uptake reprocessing is one excellent way to do this... but has downsides of space requirements and what is efficient for 100 people is less so for 10. If you are staying in a highrise, then your options become extremely limited to ones of bag, contain and then either cart to disposal or dispose in-place with compost systems designed just for this...then you get fertilizer to sell! How you deal with this is up to you. Or else your lifespan will head markedly downwards, and instead of weighting the dice in your favor you are doing just the opposite.

Where the grid as a whole goes down, that means that your municipal sewage system is out of action, and you will begin to see 'back-up' of waste water and solids in low lying areas. If you LIVE in a low lying area by way of the sewer system, finding a way to STOP that is critical as other, less innovative people, are willing to flush their waste downhill via gravity. Look at all the people uphill from you and you will get an idea of how bad that will be and how quickly. Living uphill or on a ridge means thinking about what to do so as to NOT inflict your waste on others. Plus you will need a way to stop up the drains on back flow if you do live in a low lying area. Shooting wars start over these sorts of things.

There are many, many ways to deal with this, from plastic pots with plastic liners and lids (easy transport) to setting up pre-purchased flush toilets utilizing your brown water or other captured water system that then goes to a septic tank or series of settling ponds. What best makes sense to you changes by your location, and no matter what you do you want human waste to be isolated from your living environment. No toilets in kitchens or sleeping areas. There are many excellent choices from the low cost for a few dollars to the high cost 'you will now live off the grid on a semi-permanent fashion once the grid goes away' deal in the hundreds to thousands of dollar range.

Getting Potable Water

You, of course, have a week's worth of water prepared and ready in your home to last out a storm or other contingency when potable water isn't available.

You did, didn't you? A gallon a day per person for intake and clean-up needs. No skimping on preparing for water as it is the one, vital part of your daily uptake that will kill you the fastest when it goes missing. If you expect to be active during this time (cooking, cleaning, hunting, etc.) then double that to two gallons per day. You are NOT Ghandi, you will not be in bed with people tending to you. He could get by on nothing by doing nothing and then had to take sips and minutes between them to recover after weeks of that. He had a grid. You won't.

Getting more potable water if you stay home requires that water be screened, filtered, decontaminated and biological contaminants be removed (bacteria and viruses). UV coming from the sun does a lovely job on the bio side and, if you arrange a system of enclosed heating space and either a reverse osmosis system or natural condensation catchment system for a solar still, you can get clean water from rain water on the cheap. Water from other sources still requires filtering and treating down to the viral and chemical level.

Here and again, there are many, many choices available and your circumstances will dictate your path. In an urban setting getting clean water when power goes away and the grid along with it, means over-stocking on stored water and having access to a water source you can filter: rivers and flowing water are preferred, ponds next, stagnant water only with the best of filtration systems. You can hike water around only to the limits of your strength and stamina, and water is heavy. Anything over a gallon or so and you will need a pack system to ensure that you can hike water around (be it untreated which you will treat at your safe house or treated on the spot). What this means for apartment dwellers is that you need a good water source... unless you can get access to the roof, then the idea of catchment, tarps, hoses, storage tanks, etc. comes into play. The square footage at the top of a building or catchment from canted roof area is one that can be operational if, and only if, you are either alone or have agreement with others who are staying to convert such roof space to a water catch and containment system. Having that equipment pre-purchased and secured is no easy feat, but it can be done if you prepare.

A standard home, even attached home in a row house arrangement, has some roof space and postage stamp lawn space suitable for catchment of water. If you really do expect the worst, then a means of catching that water, filtering and purifying it thus becomes a system of pre-purchased rain barrels or central water storage tank with filters in-line in the down spouts. Treating is done via reverse-osmosis, direct sunshine and settling, or via solar still. Note that distilled water is missing minerals and other dissolved solids and will slowly demineralize your teeth, so adding in minerals is a necessity in a distilled situation.

Larger properties afford larger systems and even settling ponds as part of the overall system of changing human waste water into drinking water by removing salts.

The final way of bacteria remediation is as old as civilization itself: beer and wine.

Alcohol kills most harmful bacteria.

A shot of hard whiskey in a few cups of water does a great job of killing biological entities.

There is a reason why our ancestors were hard drinking folks: it was the best way to get drinkable water.

Similarly silver, at moderate temperatures, serves to kill of most biologicals in water. Our ancestors who headed west put a silver dollar in their canteens that they filled in the morning and then drank at mid-day. That works. Silver is a means to remove biological agents from water and moderately warm temperatures. That stack of silver coins you had in the expectations of 'barter' now become a long term means of purifying water.

Removing human waste and getting potable water now increase your life expectancy from days to long-term sustainable, so long as your filters and waste treatment plan hold up. A slow shift from a high-tech to a low tech system is not only out of the question but unavoidable: filters will break or no longer function, your waste treatment system will develop leaks. Your supply of duct tape will run out.

Really, just how many rolls of that stuff do you have?

The 'fun' part of living without a grid, the parts that everyone else talks about: the growing of plants for food via gardening, hunting, trapping, fishing, and general food preparation and treatment. This is the stuff everyone loves to talk about. After shelter, sewage treatment, and getting potable water, actually getting food falls into fourth place along with heating and cooling your shelter... you can survive in a place that gets too hot in the summer and provides some windbreak and protection from cold in the winter, but still gets deathly cold all on its own. Next to food, finding a way to cool your living space in the summer becomes a primary concern as well as trapping heat in the winter. Doesn't do you much good if your own wastes are ankle deep in the shelter, however, as that is a health hazard when hot and really nasty bacteria get to it... or when cold and it freezes at that ankle depth. This is why it is second. Water third. The 'fun' stuff gets pretty near the priority of keeping a living temperature for your living space throughout the worst seasons. It isn't 'living space' if you can't, actually, live in it.

Temperature Control

A generator is great, until the fuel runs out. Solar cells are lovely and if you already have them in-place then you can actually run some systems to keep temperature controlled in your living space... and don't mind the annual cleaning to make sure dust and grime doesn't build up on them, as that is part of the deal.

Circulating air from the cooler regions of your living space to the warmer ones and vice-versa is the reason mankind created central air systems for living spaces: it means on-demand temperature control. Passive systems need to be installed before the worst happens. Thus no matter how lovely air circulation vents from basement to attic are, they have to be in-place and functional before the grid goes down. Likewise solar water heating with tanks capturing warm water that then have passive systems to move that downwards and circulate cooler water upwards. Those cost time, money and forethought, plus eat up a good sized chunk of an active budget with a grid to get installed, which means you probably don't have them. Nor do you have canted roof tiles that are black on facing sides to catch low angle sunlight (which is most of it during the winter) and white on the top to reflect sunlight at high angles (yes a young man actually thought that most obvious of all solutions up and is trying to get it out there as a roofing system, with angles varied by your latitude... ingenious, really... warms the house in winter keeps most of the heat out in summer...) as that means you already had it done.

Older, pre-central heating and cooling tells us what is necessary to survive in a given climate, and if you wondered why wood framed buildings with plaster appeared in the mid-south you will find that the bricks, mortar, plaster and white wash all served to allow hot air and humid air to transpire through the building materials and out the cooler side of the building. Modern construction materials often do not have the permeability of older materials as we have more solid construction techniques that are cheap to mass produce. Thus heating and cooling become major issues in modern buildings when the power goes off for any extended period of time as they do not allow moisture to escape and thus condensate on the interiors of the structure. Moving air through ones living space is a necessity, not only to exhaust waste gases but to get rid of humidity. Not only does the climate contribute to this, but so do you, as you use moisture to do the exact same thing older structures did: keep cool. Your moisture in an un-vented space raises humidity levels. Trapped humidity gets absorbed on the interior of modern structures, thus creating a long term problem. In the short term all that extra sweat means you need more water to get into your system, and while food can provide some of that, actual potable water is a better source. If you eat right you can lower your water needs, but if you don't consider your living space and activity levels, then that will not help you very much if you are sweating profusely at night.

Thus, you must have windows that can be opened for cross-ventilation with screens to remove the largest of insect influx.

In a high-rise where you have windows facing towards the sun, this is a major concern, and the upper floors will become unlivable due to trapped heat... mind you they are the ones closest to the roof, too, so a water catch system will help to cool those upper levels some. Lower down, cross-ventilation is achieved by opening doors and windows in unused apartments/condos to the living space you are in. By opening and closing doors in hallways you can regulate air flow and even redirect it to a degree.

In winter there is the problem of retaining heat, and for that, in a high-rise, you are looking to keep the sunward side isolated from the shadow side. If you have the run of an entire floor you can shift your living space sunwards during the winter and into the shadow of the building during the summer. Depending on climate, your health and the general neighborhood you wind up in, this could be either workable or a death trap and only you can make that call. Remember that the idea of 'losing your investment' by leaving after a few months is an emotional one, while a rational one is ensuring that you survive so you can rebuild anew. Still, if the remaining tenants in a building can work out an arrangement, then a high-rise becomes the re-start of civil services as you will have everything from clean water to sewage (via the storm drains) available. And if it doesn't work out, then you are going to do a delayed 'bug out'.

For suburban to rural areas, including small towns, things look up as each family takes care of itself and concentrating resources across families makes more sense than independent living. The current system of governance is unlikely to survive a sudden deprivation of modern systems at the highest level: federal and even State systems may collapse. But County and local ones can adapt the fastest having the most accountability and the greatest need for inter-cooperation. To get to that point you must, indeed, get to it: you must have demonstrated that you and the people you live with (family, relatives, etc.) have the ability to contribute to survival needs. Civilization existed far before our modern time, and did so on that basis as an ongoing concern for millennia.

It did survive because people did and were an asset to themselves, their family, and their community.

And the best way to demonstrate it is to do it.

By preparing now, you are prepared to do later if you need to: you show faith in yourself.

We let other orders of events determine the course of the universe, galaxy, solar system and planet as a whole. You are responsible for yourself and what you do. No one can force you to survive... not and remain free, that is. By exercising your liberty now, you grant your freedom later.

That is what life is about from the moment you are born to the moment you die.

You are born free.

And there is no more precious thing we have in life than our liberty to support that freedom.