Disaster Prep

Unless you’ve been half asleep, you probably have noticed 2020 is a year for the books. COVID 19, double...correction, quintuplet hurricanes, murder hornets, civil unrest, can we get a break? This year, the fabric of our society has been tested. We’ve seen how the masses will react to the prospect of quarantine and when the opportunity to lash out at the system was presented. Toilet paper was hoarded, ammunition was gobbled up by panic buyers, cities fell to riots deemed “mostly-peaceful protests” by the media, and the public was thrust into the position of seriously considering the lack of safety provided by the government and the benefit of self-reliance. 2020 is the year when all of your prepper friends were suddenly given credibility and the “crazy” labels weren’t slapped on so easily. With all of these events commanding headlines around the country, it makes sense to level up your preparedness. It can’t hurt to be ready for what could be coming next in the year we all won’t soon forget.
Team Up
When footage of disasters play on the nightly news,  you will rarely see a single person affected. When civil unrest happens, there is always more than a single actor causing the disruption. You can be certain you will not be alone in an emergency and it is better to team up ahead of time than after the fact. A word of warning, you need to select the right team. It is very easy to address your concerns to the wrong neighbors and they will paint you as “the crazy one” on the block.” Test the waters first and see if your neighbors are tracking what potential threats exist to your area. See if you can gauge what their existing level of preparedness is. If you select carefully, you may find training up these neighbors easier than you expected. Keep in mind, the more people you have on your team, the more specialized your teammates can become. You may find a neighbor skilled as a handyman, one as a medic, and one as a mechanic. Perhaps you can fill backup slots for each of these positions. It is far easier to have a team than tackling all these skills by yourself.
Stock Up
At the expense of sounding too much like a prepper who focuses only on supplies, you need supplies. In general, you should have a set of skills to backup your kit but you can’t deny the importance of purpose-specific gear to get you through an emergency. While it is great to know how to make fire 5 different ways, being able to flip the switch on a lantern for light and throw on a dry set of clothes for warmth is a different kind of wonderful. Having what you need, when you need it provides an immediate sense of relief. If you don’t believe me, think about the last time you were in the woods, needed to go to the bathroom, and couldn’t locate your roll of toilet paper fast enough. Think of the sense of relief you experienced when you found it. This is a simple way of thinking about it but now multiply the gravity of your situation by graver consequences and larger scale. I would rather have the gear I need when I need it, like firearms, fire extinguishers, power sources, toilet paper, etc, than have to create a makeshift substitute that doesn’t work as well as the original. Think of the gear you should stock up with based on what you will actually need, not want. This line is often blurred by fantasy and expectations based on popular culture. In some circumstances, a simple bottle of bleach is more important than the night vision you think you need to fight off the invading army. In other cases, all the food in the world isn’t going to do what an IR laser and NODs will. Remember, you simply cannot overlook having enough water, food, spare canisters of fuel for your stove, tools to fix common problems, and defensive measures. When you think you are squared away, reassess your kit and seek out better tools and support measures. What can you do to make your prep stronger/better?

Train Up

Before you experience any emergency, you should seek out training that makes you more capable. Think of your gear and equipment as hardware and your training as software. With proper training, you don’t have to experience an emergency physically and in reality before you experience it mentally and in a dry run of what it could be like. Find a reliable survival instructor skilled in teaching reality-based survival and look for subject matter experts in your group who can teach you what you already don’t know. Perhaps you have someone in your group knowledgeable on chainsaw use. Perhaps there is another person who knows how to administer first-aid or address trauma emergencies. If you are concerned about using a firearm for self-defense, you should seek out advanced training beyond the basic safety course you likely needed to purchase that firearm. Don’t confuse range time with training. Nothing will replace having a watchful eye point out where you can improve. Another important element of training for disasters is to mimic what you can of them in the safety of the training environment. It is easy to practice a “lights out” drill. It is also easy to set up a practice dry run of what your situation would look like if you had to shelter in place for 48-72 hours or perhaps longer. Last month, I wrote about the idea of bugging out. This month, the focus is bugging in. Get your neighbors together at your next cookout and share a skill like how to apply a tourniquet or how to make emergency lamps while you wait for your burgers and dogs to finish cooking. Make your training part of your lifestyle and share it. 

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