Do you ever reminisce about the old days? I do quite frequently. I often think about how I have managed to acquire a repertoire of valuable “prepper skills” that could help me to survive today – if, an unexpected accident, casualty, or disaster were to occur in my life, that I had little or no control over, that affected my life a truly detrimental way. This is my new Prepper World that I have found myself in.
What could possibly happen to me, you say to yourself? Well, this depends on what you do from day-to-day; and the type of lifestyle you lead. Let’s see just what this means to a variety of different people.
To hypothesize about divergent lifestyles in a true SHTF occurrence, I will attempt to set forth circumstances for people in differing lifestyles that could encounter life-threatening events or what we true preppers call SHTF scenarios. These are too numerous to analyze, but I will discuss enough scenarios to give people who want to be prepared for scary times, a place and position of comfort, which so many of us need and believe are unquestionably going to be necessary one day soon. Maybe sooner than most of us are prepared for – so let’s get prepared! What do you say?
Here are just three possible SHTF events that could arise that preppers should consider the possibility of happening:
- An EMP (electromagnetic pulse) event like North Korea claims to have perfected, which if somehow projected upon our country, could leave us without any power for an extended period of time.
- A local power outage occurred leaving us without power for several days like with transformers being compromised in any number of ways.
- Any number of natural disasters leaving us without power. These are too numerous to mention but are very real possibilities. Some could even be from extraterrestrial sources — as so many wise people are conjecturing.
So, how do we preppers prepare for such events if we are in a compromised life situation, which to me is a person or family who lives in a city that is large enough to be a possible target for those who would do harm to us in any number of ways? A lights out, no power debacle for an extended period of time is going to result in total chaos in any community. The bigger the city, the greater the turmoil will be, I suspect.
My family situation is that I live in a city that is a little over 200,000 people, and that is not a major city, but we have a military base on the outskirts of our city and it also has a number of military training facilities. So, we are definitely a potential target for our enemies. How does such a person (family) prepare for a SHTF scenario like this?
First of all, one needs to look at survival in a given circumstance and what the primary needs are for that scenario. I have decided to address several different situations in a series of 5 or 6 articles, and the first is a situation like I, myself live in.
My life situation is I am a retired person who lives with his wife in a small home in the city described above. What should we have at a minimum? Because I am a prepper, I have prepared for a SHTF scenario and I will give my advice as to what I would recommend for others who wish to be ready for life-threatening events so they can avoid serious ensuing problems. Both my wife and I are on medications that certainly would not be available in a long-term life-threatening SHTF scenario. What should we do to prepare:
Water
Even though we are both on meds, we can’t take some of these monster pills without water. I have put away lots of water because without it you will die in about 3 days, meds or no meds. I have enough water to last a minimum of 90 days for my wife, myself, and lots of extra for you name it issues. I may want to help a neighbor or friend who is unprepared. I have also treated it with chlorine to assure it does not become contaminated while being stored. I have access to a large quantity of water I can access by bicycle if my car will not run due to an EMP. I have a number of filtration devices and water treatment pills I may use to purify water. You should have enough in your storage preps for months of purification, should the need arise.
Spare Medications
Secondly, we keep about 90 days of meds on hand in case we run into problems. If a SHTF scenario goes beyond this, we will have to do our best by drinking lots of water and staying well hydrated and thus, detoxified. Water is a wonder drug for keeping the toxins out of your body or put another way, it is the best way possible to keep your body clean and working harmoniously with God’s life plan if nothing else exists to complement it. This could happen! Be prepared!! (Most of us elderlies would probably do better if we were not on so many meds doctors prescribe so freely. I could spend hours discussing this problem, but rather will move on to more important issues.
Shelter
Thirdly, with water and meds out-of-the-way for us old folks, we must be sure the home shelter is secure. How long will it be secure if there is no power and most likely, no water after a few days? Now, think about this for a minute. My guess is about 2 or 3 days in a city my size (200,000), and marauders and thieves will be everywhere looking for water and food and anything, for that matter — like booze, cars, cigarettes, drugs, gas, guns, anything.
It will be truly a horror story, and no matter what you have, if you can’t keep it, your prepping efforts will have all been in vain, because you will lose it in short order. The unprepared, especially those with kids who are dying of thirst or are starving for want of food, will be out and about and will be killing if need be to provide necessities for them and their families. How do you protect yourself and your home from these thieves? I will tell what I suggest starting with primitive protective devices, and work my way up.
Security options
How about an effective blowgun? Got some 3/4′ PVC pipe? If not, go get some immediately. Then you can make a simple and very effective blow gun and darts with paste and 2″ roofing nails. Go online for the simple instructions. You can be putting darts into cement blocks in a matter of minutes by following some really simple instructions. You will be amazed at how easy this is and how powerful this blowgun is.
Secondly, I recommend both a hand crossbow and a rifle cross-bow (with lots of extra strings, string wax, arrows, and accessories). These weapons are both very powerful and very quiet. (The hand crossbow can have up to at least 80 pounds per square inch availability and the rifle style cross-bow up to 180 pounds per square inch availability. These are both awesome and silent weapons.
Thirdly, I recommend two high-powered pellet guns. There is about a $50 Pumpmaster that shoots pellets at up top 750 psi and bb’s (loads up to 300 bb’s at a time and has 6 round pellet clips of which I recommend having at least 3 extra clips loaded and ready) and about a $120 Crossman Storm XT pellet gun that has around 1500 psi (along with about 5,000 bb’s and 5,000 pellets (one which shoots BB’s of which I have about five pounds of BB’s put away). Once again, I love these weapons because they are good for small game and they are quiet. In a SHTF scenario, I have an abundance of squirrels in my yard and many more nearby, that these guns will take care of in a survival situation.
- Muzzle velocity 1300 FPS
- Whisper Noise Dampening
- IGT 10X Quick Shot
- Standard trigger and 4X32 optics
- Sport type: Exercise & Fitness
Black powder guns (2 – 1858 Remington pistols in 36 caliber and 44 caliber and one 50 caliber rifle with a scope, and loading accessories to last for years. This classification of bigger weapons I will leave to your imagination. My knives, machetes, and other scary forces of protection are also something to ponder.
Food Stockpile
If I can make it to day 3 in a SHTF scenario, I for sure I am going to be hungry if I have not had time to eat. I know I would be a busy boy in a SHTF scenario, so I indeed would have to be eating something, and in my situation, I would have to have been providing sustenance to my partner and wife of many years who is not super mobile. (She recently has had a knee replacement and has previously had her other knee done, and prior to that she has had a double hip replacement [in one operation], and also has previously had 2 major back surgeries.
The poor lady has had a lot of surgeries, but thank God, she is a real trooper. Rarely complains, and she is a sweetheart and I will love her to the end in this realm. Me, I have had a knee replacement due to a lifelong knee issue from a football injury in high school that plagued me all my life; an aneurysm on my aorta that was found from an ultrasound being done preparatory to back surgery [revealed to be from an infection that literally ate up my 5th lumbar vertebrae contracted from an infection obtained in a hospital that could never be cultured – scary to say the least]; and lastly, the back operation that was put off, until the aorta aneurysm could be repaired.
[Obviously, my wife and I have had our share of issues over the years.] Our food stores are adequate for a SHTF scenario. That is all I will elaborate on about this, but we will not starve. If you are wise, you will have put away adequate food for at least a year that you must be sure will not spoil or deteriorate. Always be sure to rotate your food stores.)
First Aid Kit
What about injuries? What do you need to have for first aid? Where should it be? Whow!! This could be a real puzzle, couldn’t it? My advice to any prepper is to take a First Aid Course like offered by the Red Cross. I have read about 10 good survival handbooks and the best of all, in my opinion, are the “SAS Survival Handbook” and “Survival Wisdom & Know-How,” both of which give great aid advice as well as a wealth of other survival skills and techniques far too numerous to mention in my first go-round on survival and prepping. I plan to go well beyond this in a series of articles that I hope the Prepper Journal may find of value to people who may encounter a true SHTF dilemma.
Renewable Food Sources – What about when the food starts to get low. What then? You need to have a plan for gardening in the house and outside – even in a small yard. It does need to be concealed as well as possible. I recommend a good supply of seeds and there are a number of good seed storage packs that have all the essential seeds for a good diet.
You will be wise to start a composting area and learn the ropes of composting. I assure you that one person (and two is even better) provide an abundance of composting materials. If you have trees, as I do in abundance, you have loads of composting materials and in my caseloads of acorns. I suggest a little reading by preppers on composting. It could save your life. The two survival books mentioned above are all you will need.
There you go for round one of “prepping for the serious prepper.” Good luck and God bless.
Editor’s Note: This post is another entry in the Prepper Writing Contest from Ol’Farm Boy. If you have information for Preppers that you would like to share and possibly win a $300 Amazon Gift Card to purchase your own prepping supplies, enter today.
