Image: Ambro / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

When disaster strikes, where will you go for refuge? Your basement? An underground bunker? Both good options, but there is one place that most people have not thought of: a self-storage unit.

Storage units are safe, well-built structures that provide the perfect safe house from any sort of devastating circumstance, whether it is any sort of natural disaster or simply a public “scare”. Most storage facilities are built with a strong, tough exterior and a flood resistant exterior, thereby allowing you to wait out most situations for as long as they persist.

Depending on size, most storage units can hold a couple individuals comfortably, maybe even a small family. The larger units, like the 10x20s, can also be stocked with various supplies including water, weapons and emergency food storage. However, be sure you check the facilities policy on storing guns before you decide to do so. Some places do not allow these types of items to be placed in the units. However, worst case scenario, if you need protection from, let’s say a zombie apocalypse, I don’t think the facility owner will be against extra protection.

When you are gathering supplies for your storage unit, remember that food and water are vital. Without those basics, your stay in that unit will not be an enjoyable one. If you plan accordingly, you can have a pretty sweet set up in there. Below are some tips on what to stock up on, and how to keep it fresh.

The most important thing you will want to have is water. Humans can’t go long without water, maybe a couple days, so make sure you have plenty of that. The gallon containers should be fine for your unit, and water doesn’t go bad, so no worries there.
Obviously you are going to want food as well, but what types of food? Does it matter? Indeed it does, and here are a few things to keep in mind.

• You want to have food that can be eaten raw and/or requires very little water. No need wasting something as precious as water on food that you could have done without.
• Get food that you like, and a lot of it. Who knows how long you are going to be stuck eating it, so you might as well make it tolerable (although worse comes to worse, you will eat whatever)
• Store food that does not require a fridge or freezer (like you didn’t already know that)
• Finally, rotation is key. Some companies will have you think that the best idea is to buy dehydrated food that lasts up to 25 years, but instead, with proper rotation of your food, you can eat like a normal human being instead of an astronaut for around the same cost.

To avoid the fate of eating astronaut food, simply keep track of the food you have stored and replace it before it goes bad. For example, let’s say you like trail mix (who doesn’t). It is a good dry food to keep in storage, but it will eventually go bad, probably after 6 months to a year. So approximately every 10 months, or just before the bag goes bad, retrieve your packages of mix you have stored and replace them with fresh packages. Not too difficult is it?
If you have the option, you definitely want to choose a climate controlled unit. This will allow you to keep whatever food items you have at the appropriate temperature until they are needed. In the worst situations, the power to the facility will more than likely be knocked out so it won’t matter, but before it comes to that it is always better to plan accordingly.

In the event of a disaster, always throw away food that has an unusual texture, smell or color. If any flooding or fires occur, throw out all damaged food. Take these suggestions seriously, so if the worst does happen, you will be ready.

This article was written by Matt Schexnayder. Matt is on the SpareFoot marketing team and writes for the SpareFoot blog. SpareFoot is the largest online marketplace for self-storage with more than 5,000 self-storage facilities listed nationwide. SpareFoot offers consumers the most complete comparison shopping experience in the storage industry and has been a big part of the national moving and storage industry for over 3 years.

Image: Ambro / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

© 2012, DFW Preppers and Survivors. All rights reserved.

I ran across a really interesting blogpost from DrCate.com.  The premise is that people who are keto-adapted (people who have become accustomed to eating  approximately 50 or fewer grams of carbohydrate per day) will have much more endurance if and when the SHTF.  Considering that we may not have machines to do our work for us, being physically prepared is very important!

If you were around during the Dr. Cooper/aerobics era, you will remember that the first 20 minutes of a workout are when you burn the glucose you ate most recently.  After that is when fat burning begins.  If that is so, the first twenty minutes of a workout is pretty  much wasted for those who eat carbs.  And after that, ramping up the fat burning is problematic, especially if you aren’t accustomed to burning fat.

If, instead your main foods are protein and fat (not necessarily in that order), you will readily burn fat which is a much more stable source of energy (and certainly more plentiful in your body).  Fat-burning also has other benefits.  Here’s how Dr. Cate explains it:

If you’ve ever seen War of the Worlds, or any alien-attack movie, you already know how this imminent threat is destined to play out. As soon as the invaders finish hovering around making ominous cloud formations, they get right to the business of blowing stuff up. It’s at this point that all the Earthlings will be forced to grab their kids and sprint down the street, Tom Cruise-like, as cars and pieces of houses and bridges fly through the air in the background. This running part, you’ll remember from the movies, can go on nonstop for days. And since all the restaurants are gone and grocery stores destroyed, there’s nothing to eat.

Ketogenesis and Survival

This is where the true benefit of the ketogenic diet will manifest. If you are not dependent upon regular infusions of carbs for energy, you’ll be able to keep on running ahead of the space aliens’ plasma blasts long enough for them to succumb to an Earth-born virus (or a virus Jeff Goldblum has downloaded into their computer mainframe, whichever comes first).

Not only will you and your family survive the aliens’ onslaught, since you will have been burning fat and working your muscles all week, you’ll look fantastic. When they vote for which groups of people should be charged with the duty of repopulating the Earth, you’ll be placed at the front of the line.

Be sure to click over to Dr. Cate’s blog to see her interesting graphics!

And keep in mind:  if you want to stay ahead of the Martians (or any other group of individuals that might wish you harm) – store protein and fat in your preparedness cupboards, and forget the carbs!

© 2011, DFW Preppers and Survivors. All rights reserved.

According to the emails, this pilot television show will feature the stories of two people, showing the stocks and/or bunkers of someone who has prepped extensively.  After seeing, presumably, the food stocks, weaponry and ammo, and other preparations, a survivalist “expert” will be brought in to critique (read: criticize) the preparations, and estimate survival time based on his extensive expertise.  The proposal asks for preparations that are “visually stunning.”

The emailer continues to say that it has been extremely difficult to get anyone to respond to her offers (gee – how can this be?).  She says she wants “to get the word out…that survivalists/preppers…aren’t all crazy people.”  She continues on to promise anonymity to any participant, and offers $1,000 for the person who is chosen.

Let me be clear here:  if any part of this proposal sounds attractive to you, you need to go back to reading and learning about proper prepping.   Does the word “OPSEC” mean anything to you? If not, you really need to pay attention.  It means operational security, and the first time your survival preparations go on television, you will have just issued an invitation to the rest of the world to come eat at your house when things go south.

You do realize, of course, that people who prepare, even those who are following the dictates of Homeland Security to have a 72-Hour stock of goods on hand in case of problems….are now considered by the FBI to be possible terrorists.

Is this really where you want to go?

© 2011, DFW Preppers and Survivors. All rights reserved.

There was a Dilbert cartoon published today that points out a potential ‘hole’ in any preparation plan. For those of you who can’t get to the link due to company filters or whatever, here is a transcript:

• Dilbert: “I’m preparing for the complete meltdown of our financial system. I’ve got six months of food and water. I have batteries, flashlights, and gold coins.”
• Alice: “I’m prepared, too. I have your home address. And I noticed that your preparations are light on defensive weaponry. (Long pause) Can you add some protein bars to the shopping list?”

Talking to anyone about your plans can be a problem if TEOTWAWKI (or, somewhat more likely, a lesser disaster) actually happens. But that is not the only potential gap in your plans. My elderly piano teacher has spoken of times when things were so bad that gangs would follow any person who appeared to be well-fed to his home, to rob him.

To plug these gaps, you need, at a minimum, to:

1.  get some defensive weaponry (I recommend firearms — plus learn how to use them, and store plenty of ammunition), and
2. don’t brag about your store of food, water, and other necessities.

For the “learn how to use” part, I recommend the NRA Basic Pistol Class (I teach NRA-BP every other month), and if your jurisdiction allows the carry of concealed handguns, by all means get whatever license is required (I teach the Texas Concealed Handgun License Class in north Texas). If your jurisdiction does not allow law-abiding citizens to carry handguns, I would urge you to move to one that does.

© 2011, DFW Preppers and Survivors. All rights reserved.

Some time ago, my wife promised that I would write a guest article (I have only a dim memory of signing on for that, but I see that it is featured in the left sidebar), so here it is.

Survivalist Magazine Front Cover

A few months back, a new magazine appeared in our mailbox. It was Survivalist. It was from a trial subscription request my wife submitted. I found it a bit interesting, given the subtitle “Survive Without Fear,” that the entire first issue was blatant fear-mongering. As if our situation wasn’t quite dire enough, the magazine painted a picture of all the ways our world as we know it might suddenly end. Which caused me to wonder why I would actually want to survive any of those scenarios — it looked to me like the lucky ones would be those who died quickly. I read about half of the articles, then tossed it.

Then, issue #2 arrived. We were a bit surprised, since we thought we were only going to get one sample issue. There was a little detail in the front cover that practically jumped out at me. I have attached a photo of the front cover above — can you see the problem? Well, it’s a bit hard to see the details on the full cover photo, so I’ll show you an enlarged section below that reads “7 Sensible Strategies for Teaching Gun Safety.”

Excerpt from cover

But that’s not the problem. In fact, teaching gun safety is a topic near and dear to me as a CHL and NRA Basic Pistol Instructor. My main goal in my classes is to insure that all of my students learn to shoot well, carry responsibly, and depart the class with the same number of body piercings they had when they arrived.

Finger On The Trigger

The problem is a little farther to the right and slightly up from that excerpt, as shown in the next photo. If the problem is not immediately obvious from that photo, then you definitely have never attended any of my gun safety classes, because nobody passes my range test until he or she learns to keep his/her finger off of the trigger until the sights are on the target. It’s obvious to me that the folks who put the cover story together need to attend one of my classes so that they can gain a little credibility.

To be fair, I think that the third issue was a slight improvement (it wasn’t about guns, but about food storage). Also, my wife told me that they took a lot of flak from their readers about the “finger on the trigger” photo (I didn’t read the letters to the editor section). Apparently, they use some stock-photo service instead of doing their own photography. My suggestion to them would be to solicit photos from their readers, and just give credit on the cover when they use a reader’s photo. They would probably get a good selection of topical photos that wouldn’t cost them anything but an acknowledgement.

I’m curious to see just how long this magazine will last. In fact, when I was double-checking the links in this post, I saw that the link to the magazine’s site was down (but that may be just a temporary glitch).

© 2011, DFW Preppers and Survivors. All rights reserved.

What?

After further investigation, I discovered that not only is a nickel worth more now than face value, and has been for some time (see this chart for the current value),  but there has been discussion – and a bill introduced, but not passed -  to reformulate the coin to bring the value back down to its original denomination. Are you aware that the nickel is the last denomination of unadulterated coin ?  All the other coins in general circulation have been “sandwiched”. Now,  keep in mind that it’s illegal to melt them down or take them out of the country even in very small quantity (see here for a discussion of this), but it certainly isn’t illegal to save them!

Still, if the nickels are ever reformulated, (though plans have been put on hold ) they will no longer have a higher value than their denomination. Additionally, as opposed to pennies, quarters, and other denomination of coins – it’s easy to tell which nickels are valuable – ALL OF THEM! With pennies, dimes and quarters, it’s necessary to hunt through your stock and pick out the “original” ones, usually by looking at the edges to see whether or not it is a “sandwich” coin.

Many people (myself included) have considered long and hard the possibility of investing in gold, silver, or other precious metals.  The problem  is that if you invest, for example, in a small gold coin – even 1/10th of an ounce – you have a pretty good-sized chunk of change in your hand.  So, post TEOTWAWKI, if I want to buy some bubble-gum, and all I have set aside for monetary value is a 1/10th ounce gold coin, the seller is going to have trouble coming up with the change, or worse yet, will adjust the price of his bubble-gum to – surprise! – the value of the gold, currently in the $175.00 range)!   OK, so maybe bubble gum is not a ‘necessity,’ but what if – having not been as prepared as I should be – I wanted to buy a gallon of water, milk, or oil?  That’s still exceedingly expensive!

It seems to me that, given this scenario, the humble nickel is a great investment!  Although heavy, they are easily stored in rolls.  They don’t require a huge investment all at one time (if you can’t afford to buy $20 in nickels once every few weeks, you really need to be examining your budget.) They don’t look suspicious, so they are great for Operational Security.  Try spending a gold coin at the grocery store and someone is going to get nervous (even though groceries are getting really expensive these days)!

And they will probably become even more valuable as time goes by.  See you at the bank!

© 2011, DFW Preppers and Survivors. All rights reserved.

Uh. Oh. Unfortunately, once again: this post isn’t in the list of promised posts in the sidebar. I have failed again! But somehow, food just seems to keep bubbling up to the top of my favorite things to write about.

When looking at most prepper sites, what are the recommendations for food storage, specifically? Well, the old saying “beans and bullets” is a start (well the beans part is), but often, the next recommendation is for wheat. Lots of wheat, with a manual grinder thrown in.  Rice, millet, corn – lots of corn, too.

Double Uh. Oh. We don’t eat wheat, rice, millet or corn. We haven’t eaten any of these foods  in 10+ years and while I’d rather live than die, why not keep in mind what we really eat and store that? Because after all, what would be the purpose of wasting space on food that we know we wouldn’t eat?

My husband and I live a low carbohydrate lifestyle, by choice. We find foods that are high in carbohydrates, particularly grains and sugars, to cause us to be sick and fat. Who wants to be sick and fat? So, we don’t store them, but given that meat is expensive and most low carbohydrate vegetables are not high in calories, what should we store that will give us a high-enough source of calories that 1) won’t make us sick and 2) last a long time?

What we have concentrated on, to date has been

- meats, including chicken, beef (mostly frozen, but some canned), and fish.  Variety things like vienna sausages (for hubby only) and anchovies, sardines, herring.

- low carbohydrate vegetables like tomatoes, green beans, and mushrooms, with an occasional root vegetable like beets thrown in.

- meat substitutes, like peanut butter (this would be much more successful if I stayed out of the peanut butter and actually allowed it to accumulate)!

- milk and milk substitutes.  I love, double-love evaporated milk.  I tolerate skim milk powder, but I have also found a brand of whole-milk powder that is more satisfying

- condiments, including cocoa, water flavorings, low-carb catsup, though I can make this myself, some artificial sweeteners, and various freeze-dried coffees.

Of the higher-carbohydrate selections, we have no-sugar-added fruits and some rolled oats, though not many. (Again, this is a nod to my preferences – I love raw oats).  We also have a few dried and freeze-dried fruits.

Somehow, it doesn’t seem as though we have enough, though lower carb foods are remarkable in that they suppress hunger in a way that sugary, carby foods can’t.

Do any of you live a similar low-carbohydrate lifestyle, and if so, what foods are you storing?  If you store high-carb foods, what has been your thought process concerning storing these foods?

© 2011, DFW Preppers and Survivors. All rights reserved.

So, I won’t. But I will say that some things have bothered me, and that’s why I have put off posting for some time, and I have had to mentally work out my place in this community.

I am a person who loves to read, and I love to read about topics that are of interest to me. Prepping is, obviously, one of my interests, but I find that it comes with a whole plethora of subtle add-ons. For example, while the idea of being prepared for almost any eventuality is of major importance to me, I just don’t subscribe to some of the belief systems that seem to drive other preppers. I don’t think that the end of the world is coming soon, (although changes in our world are certainly happening daily), I don’t think we are now or will at any time be punished by some deity. In fact, as far as I am concerned, the deity doesn’t exist.

Uh. Oh. Many preppers just don’t look kindly upon non-believers.

So, here’s fair warning: I intend to restart regular posting on my blog, but while I have no intention of being confrontational, and polite comments are always welcome, if non-belief offends you, the door is at the “X”.

No hard feelings, I hope!

© 2011, DFW Preppers and Survivors. All rights reserved.

So, just imagine my surprise when I received the following email from my brother-in-law, Tom:

I read your blog on the EMP Post. But did you know that the Harkness family actually witnessed just such occurrence? In the late 60′s, over the town of El Paso, TX, there was a weather satellite that was launched from the White Sands Missile Range. Shortly after its launch, it was determined that the rocket had malfunctioned and that the trajectory on radar showed that it was headed for Mexico.

With a flick of the wrist and a push of a button, the rocket was ordered to self-destruct. This was one of the main reasons that environmentalists demanded that weather satellites stop using nuclear power sources. The explosion caused the nuclear payload to ignite and burn. The site was spectacular as it formed a perfectly round rainbow in the night sky over El Paso. It also caused a power outage due to the EMP and EEMP. Fortunately, the telephone systems were still run by old electron tubes and the phone system was back up in a about an hour. Dad called White Sands and found out what really happened.

Ham radio operators like to hang onto old radios that use the big electron tubes because of their unique ability to handle massive amounts of EMP and EEMP. EEMP is “Effective Electromechanical Pulse” or sometimes called a High-Effective EMP. This is where electrical current is caused to exist in a conductor due to the effects of an EMP. It could cause the household current in your home to jump from 120V to several thousand volts, effectively destroying most of your appliances…. and, if you are touching any of them… being electrocuted.

Many military commanders opt for an air-burst of EMP and EEMP as it reduces the number of casualties and destroys most of the fighting equipment (i.e. communications). Other commanders have considered EMP Salting. This is where the fuel in the burst is designed to cause the metals in the ground, around your home, and even in you body, to be forced to give up electrons. This causes these metals to become radioactive and highly toxic, making just about everything you eat, breathe, or drink, a deadly poison (i.e. Nuetron Bomb). The only problem with this type of burst is that it makes the land uninhabitable for about 100,000 years. Kind of a waste of territory, but well within consideration for a Jihadist.

I would be very interested in hearing others’ views about this item that occurred in ElPaso in the late sixties.  Do you remember it, if you’re old enough?  I am old enough, but I lived in far East Texas, and I must also confess that in the late sixties, my mind was on “more important” things than national security!

My brother-in-law Tom blogs at Safety In Education.  He is a licensed CHL instructor and teaches in his hometown of Pittsburg, TX, as well as assisting my husband as a co-teacher with his CHL classes in Plano, TX.  Please check Tom and his blog out.  He always has an interesting (true) story to tell!

© 2010 – 2011, DFW Preppers and Survivors. All rights reserved.

One of the problems I have always had with growing flowers and food is that I tend to forget to water them. Oh, I start out with good intentions, and then I get busy inside on the computer, and next thing I know, several days have gone by, and the plants have gone bye-bye too. Very disappointing.

Well, Bob has a solution to this problem! He has written instructions for how to build a Self-Watering Planter that makes it easy for you when you go on vacation, or if you just get real busy, to keep your plants lush and watered. Not only that, but the system he has designed creates nice-sized planters that are big enough to hold several plants, but not so big that you can’t move them around.

Written in clear, easy-to-understand language, illustrated with lots of vivid pictures, this Self-Watering Planter instruction book comes in pdf form for instant download, and the price is a measly $9.99, payable very conveniently through Paypal. I don’t think there’s even the slightest detail that Bob has left out of his guide. His 20 years plus of designer experience in the auto industry certainly shows through in his book! Please take a look over at Bob’s site and check out his video, too.

Just in case my links aren’t coming through very well in your browser, you can visit Bob’s site at http://www.blindsquirl.com and you can order his book at http://www.blindsquirl.com/directions.html. We can never be too kind to the plants that feed us!

Update: I just want to note that I received a free copy of the book for my review. I do not receive anything at all from his sales. If Bob sells 1 or 100, it’s all the same financially to me, but I do think this book is worth the money.

© 2010, DFW Preppers and Survivors. All rights reserved.