Disaster Preparedness

Been thinking about some things lately that are beyond the usual purview of the blogspace. This is going to be a survivalist / disaster preparedness tangent, so feel free to skip it if you like.

Two recent events have galvanized me into action:

1. My friend's house was burglarized during the night. He was out of town but he could just as easily have been at home. More on this shortly.

2. While putting my feet up at The Girl's house last week and I heard a series of loud bangs. Sounded a lot like gunfire to me. I wasn't completely unprepared, but I felt a bit less than prepared than I would have liked. As it turns out it was only fireworks, but it was still disturbing. And annoying.

These two events happened within 48 hours of each other. They made me re-evaluate my level of home and disaster preparedness. In short: I'm unprepared. For a long time it was not a huge issue for me personally because I can look after myself in most circumstances and I'm not a soft target. But The Girl doesn't have the same advantages; she is considerably less mean and also less heavily armed. So: What can we do to increase our chances of survivability in the event of a disaster?

Get Prepared

A lot of people, me included, used to view disaster preparedness as some kind of weird fringe activity for Idaho/Wyoming nutjobs. Then Katrina happened and the federal government showed how qualified it was to deliver you from harm in the event of a major disaster. (Hint: not qualified at all, and that was a disaster that people knew was coming. *facepalm*)

The interesting thing about this kind of preparedness is that even the most minimal efforts dramatically increase your chances of surviving a disaster. In other words you get a lot of value for the most basic efforts.

I don't believe that we will have a permanent and complete institutional breakdown in this country. I do believe that you should be prepared for a temporary breakdown of all services and the rule of law for a minimum of 72 hours. To that end, you should be prepared. The nature of your preparedness will depend a lot on where you live. Are you in a rural or urban environment? What is the climate like?

You can find thousands of lists and instructions on the internet for how to prepare for the 'zombie apocalypse' but most of them are bullshit. And they might not suit your needs. Or your budget. Make a plan. Build an urban survival bag for your house, and put a get-home bag in each of your vehicles. It might save your life.

More later.