Survive Infinite Dangers: The Family Survival Guide of 21st Century Dangers (28 page)

Even with the gel, never pass up an opportunity to wash your face (around your nostrils and mouth mostly) and hands with anti-bacterial soup and warm, clean water. Until recently even medical science thought the transmission of germs from one person to another (or animal to a person) was mostly airborne. The “cough into your sleeve” seems to be all you need to do to remain healthy (they STILL “preach” to us – wrong!). Most germs quickly die when exposed to room temperature. So sneezing or coughing doesn’t cause anything close to the infection transfer that skin to skin contact causes. When you do touch others use your bottle of hand sanitizer afterwards and, whatever you do, always keep your hands away from your face except when doing something like washing your face or shaving. To repeat: at least 95% of germs and other bacteria and foreign agents enter your body through your mouth and your nose. Think about it and it makes perfect sense. Where else can germs enter your body? How many times do you shake hands with someone then do something like touch your nose or rub your mouth? You probably don’t even notice such actions. Well, begin to notice such actions now and break bad habits! You’ll notice a decrease in colds I guarantee you. Such a simple change to this one habit of mankind could make all of us so much healthier!

I won’t bother to list the personal hygiene items you’ll need for each person. Just think of all you’d need for an extended trip where there will be no electricity then list them and multiply by the months you have planned for your group.

Janitorial supplies: Once again, this is a “no-brainer”. Take a look at what you have in your home now and make sure you have duplicates in your safe area. If your area is in your home then you are already prepared except you’ll need to buy more of most everything making sure you have at least six months of each item. Equipment such as mops, pails, brooms, rags and so forth. You don’t need a book to tell you what is in your home cleaning closet. Just have enough to last the length of your stay and assume all shops will be closed/destroyed/burnt to the ground!

Chapter 25

Don’t Forget Your Pets!

Those of you without pets may decide to skip this chapter but I’d encourage you to at least skim it plus remember it is here when a disaster occurs. You never know when someone else’s pet suddenly becomes your responsibility or a “stray” shows up at your door with pleading eyes that cannot be ignored. There will be plenty of “strays”. Actually, other people’s pets who decided they would do better on their own because they are “animals”. That is the furthest thing from the truth! They have been fed and taken care of all their life such that they are more dependent on their owners than a two-year old child is on their parents. The author lives in an area that was once rural. In those days we would have a “stray” appear at our door several times a week. They never had collars and tags but the neck hair was often still matted down from where their collar was for years. Some “city people” (a derisive term we used in those days) decided they didn’t want a pet after all and the “animal” would be “just fine” in the “wild”. How cruel! Yes, for maybe one night until a coyote got it. We already had plenty of pets so we’d call county Animal Control several times a week. Our community operates a wonderful animal shelter that finds a home for almost all animals they take in. They accept pets from “city people” no questions asked. But people still drive their loving animals into the country, push them out the door then drive off. I always wanted to catch someone in the act of doing that but never have. Now, our same home is in the suburbs so the same type of people has to drive another ten miles further out to rid themselves of their pets.

Just use common sense in keeping your pets as healthy and happy as possible. The same caveats for people apply to animals. Prevention and protections such as giving them potassium iodide (PI) pills (they have thyroids too that are just as susceptible to thyroid cancer as yours and mine are) should be observed. Pretty much everything in this book from sanitation to health to keeping them occupied and sane while confined to a small area for, perhaps, months applies just as much to pets as to people. They will be like small children in that you won’t be able to explain why they can’t have their daily romp in the backyard. Expect them to be grumpy (remember – just like humans!). Whether you have one or five pets to take care of, you will have your hands full. But the companionship will be worth it (all animal lovers may now say “amen!”). But, as mentioned, as much as you’ll want to, you cannot take in the many strays that will show up at your door. They will already be contaminated with radiation, anthrax or whatever else is the cause of the mass destruction. Nor can you shoot and eat wild game if the cause of the disaster is radiation/anthrax/etc. related as you will be ingesting what would have killed them if you hadn’t hunted them first. No, while (over) cooking does help kill parasites and can make somewhat bad meat safe to eat, cooking does not rid the meat of radiation nor most of the germ and biological warfare agents known to exist.

Of course in a time of crisis animal shelters will not be open. If you have a pet or pets, are providing for them but are running out of food for everyone including the pets do not even think of “turning them loose any more than you’d push one of your children out the door. I’ve seen cats and dogs after packs of coyotes have finished their evening meal. It is not a pretty sight. I know we care enough about our animals we would starve first before letting them starve. Don’t do it! With your group dead they will also be dead in a few days and die a horrible death. As terrible as it sounds a bullet behind an ear is the most humane end to an animal’s life if death for all of you is only a matter of time. Then bury the body deep enough to keep wild animals away. Wrapping the body then dousing it with bleach is common sense. If the end is going to come for all of you, give your animals a decent and humane death before each of you die.

I’ve read much about shooting, cooking and eating stray dogs and cats. I’m sorry, I’d rather starve first. If you’re an experienced hunter or grew up on a farm then you are experienced with animals such as deer, chicken, rabbits and so forth. If survival is either you or them then let it be you that survive. “Fishing and hunting” can be more than a sport, it may just save your life and all of those in your group. But keep in mind others have the same idea so the wildlife on the edge of the suburbs will be gone within a week if not days. The same holds true for wild berries and other edible plants that grow wild. Even if you have the knowledge or reference books the “woods will be picked clean” in short order. Your food supply is what you bought months ago at Super Walmart. Let’s hope you bought enough food for your pets too!

Buying enough food and water for your pets just takes common sense. Pets are much easier to buy for than humans. If a pet spends time outdoors they naturally get enough exercise and then balance it with just the right amount of food and water. An obese sometimes outdoor pet is rare. If only humans were so smart! Obese and unhealthy pets are found in apartments where they are “walked” a few times a day. The remainder of their days is spent on soft chairs and making frequent trips to their food bowls. Hopefully you care enough about the health of your pet to provide them only enough food to maintain a proper weight no matter how much they beg for fatty treats. Assuming your pet is at its proper weight then just multiply how much food and water they consume in a week by the number of weeks of your planned survival mode. As yucky as it sounds read the ingredients of the food to determine if you run out of human food you can share with “Fido”. Just as emergency ration foods are made for humans, they are also made for animals. “Food bricks” (i.e. 3600 calorie ER bars from Amazon) taste as bad as they look to you and to animals but an animal will eat almost anything if it gets hungry enough (just like a human!). So seriously consider some animal emergency food rations that have shelf lives of five years and up for the outer months when the “real food” is gone. ER bars are made for dogs as well (I wonder what ingredients are different?). Look awful? So what! They will save your life if you run out of regular food.

If your pet or pets require certain medical care (i.e. prescriptions) discuss this with your veterinarian and then stock up as much as possible. Try not to share you “nutty idea” of your survival “warehouse” with your veterinarian more than you share it with anyone else. Just say you want to stock up. Go to a different doctor if necessary. The exception is medications that require refrigeration. Ask your “vet” if there is a long-shelf life alternative.

Don’t forget rugs, blankets and the like for your pets. You don’t like sleeping on bare concrete floors and neither do they! However, after a few chilly nights mild arguments may break out over whose legs “Fido” will be sleeping on tonight. The pioneers of the 19
^th
century were not that stupid when grandma began by lining the bed with hot water bottles and warm rocks from the wooden stove followed by many layers of blankets topped off by the entire family in one bed. If survival means keeping warm don’t waste a bit of it. Following your great grandparent’s example where they often even added some livestock to their family bed is OK by this author. The goal is to survive, not to be modest. Anyway, you’ve already read the sanitation chapter so you know any level of privacy will be gone after the first day. Save the modesty for when you emerge from your safe area to the new world you’re going to be living in the rest of your life.

Chapter 26

Your “GONe” (Get Out Now!) Bags

First of all you don’t have just one GONe bag, you have many. Have a GONe bag packed and fully provisioned in many locations. You should have a GONe bag for each person of your group and I’d say likely locations for GONe bags would be trunks of every car you own, the office or wherever you work and wherever else you regularly spend time. If you prefer, instead carry one LARGE backpack everywhere you go but I’ll guarantee you that will last about one week before you decide “I’m just going to gone for an hour so I’m OK without my GONe bag. Then, bam! Disaster hits but you’re 30 miles from home.

Have one primary GONe bag for each person located at your safe area in case you are unlucky enough to be too close to the disaster location or roving gangs of “bad guys” makes staying impossible, although think long and hard before leaving. Don’t trade a difficult situation for an impossible one. Don’t trade a bad “known” for an unknown that could be deadly. If you must leave have advance scouts with walkie-talkies (yes, just like the covered wagon folks did it except they had no walkie-talkies) to radio your group as to whether it is safe to proceed or best to turn around and make the best of your safe area.

Buy quality backpacks for GONe bags. Add plenty of empty plastic bags (especially re-sealable) as well as large trash bags. You never know what you’ll find you need to add to what you’re carrying. Buy backpacks to match the size of the person. Yes, even a three year-old should have GONe bags. They make nice backpacks for children that size. Just don’t load down a 90 pound person with a bag weighing one hundred pounds! What should go in a GONe bag? Refer to the supplies chapter and pick out the items you need for a three to seven day hike. As much water as possible plus plenty of water purifying pills and food of the concentrated “brick” kind to sustain nutrition is wise; granola bars if nothing else. Look through the list carefully. A small amount of many items is usually better than a lot of a few items (except food and water). Things like first-aid supplies, solar blankets and all the things a wilderness camper would carry. Items like maps, a compass, pen and paper and the list goes on. If you are experienced with guns, one or two guns should rank high on your list. A gun can safely end a serious confrontation very quickly. Please, no letters. “People kill people; guns are just one of many means to an end”. The goal is to safely end a confrontation with no one hurt. Treat a gun with respect and others will (should) too.

Always have JIC (Just in Case) items in every bag. A bottle of Potassium Iodide Pills and an N95 (or better) breathing mask in case it is a nuclear, radiation or bioterrorism attack (such as sprayed anthrax and you can’t get indoors). “Indoors” with as many floors and roofs between you and the sky is always best. Poor ventilation if it is radioactive dust or something like anthrax blowing around is a good thing (for awhile). If you can afford it you can easily end up spending $500 on every bag. For instance a double aluminum wrapped Kaito KA500 radio and a pair of walkie-talkies is a very good idea. Receiving an emergency broadcast station announcing which direction a radioactive or anthrax cloud is blowing can keep you from walking into one! They usually cannot be seen so, unless you invested in a Geiger counter for radiation or have a 10,000 pound portable chemical lab to analyze powder falling from the sky, your radio might save your life.

Hopefully you and your group have a great plan to gather at certain pre-arranged locations and you have the way clear to get to your safe area FAST and find it undisturbed and undamaged when you arrive. But you have to plan to live out of a backpack if there is no other choice. This is when watching world disasters become even more important. In times of world stress stay close to your safe area even if it means cancelling trips or vacations. Hopefully, in another ten years, or less, people will read a book like this and scratch their heads that it was ever thought necessary.

You wouldn’t have bought this book and I wouldn’t have spent the thousand plus hours researching (for completeness and accuracy) to write it if it wasn’t necessary in today’s dangerous world. For now, I think we both agree, this book couldn’t have come along soon enough! The lack of survival preparedness knowledge I have encountered has been staggering and caused me to type ever faster each time someone said “what is EMP? some kind of computer thing?” or “anthrax? I think that’s in the toothpaste I use.” Yikes! The knowledge that life in the future will be anything other than it is right now is a mile wide and an inch deep. As things stand today, a major worldwide disaster could cut our population in half in days if not weeks. It can be Hell on earth or a survivable disaster for almost everyone with the thin difference being knowledge, provisions and common sense. By the time you’ve read this book a few times as well as the other books and Web sites recommended in this book then completed all of the “prep work” you’ve raised the chances of survival of your survival group from maybe five percent to 95%. Isn’t that worth a week’s worth of salary (a guess) and a week, or so, of your time broken up as you have the time to learn, buy and prepare? Of course!