American Partisan: Balkanization in the United States

From the fine staff of American Partisan is this brief article, Balkanization in the United States: Is it Coming?.

…We are meant to swallow the lie that says “diversity is our strength” without consideration for merit, performance, ability, intelligence or actual results.

This is not meant to be an indictment on any specific culture or ethnicity, but more of a history lesson, a social observation and a dire prediction.

The history lesson is the continued failure of all socialist based economic models, whether we want to consider them “real” socialism or not. The sort of hard socialism seen in 1980’s Yugoslavia and the crony-capitalist soft socialist version seen in the US today are both examples of that failure system. As I stated earlier, it does not take any level of economic expertise to understand that our current system is insolvent and that we have passed the point of no return on a future crash of our financial system. Now that less than half of the people in the US are net-taxpayers and over half of the people in the US are receiving some sort of government assistance simply to survive, we have become a welfare state, with only decreasing numbers of producers with increasing numbers of consumers. Mathematically, it is not sustainable. Historically, it is disastrous.

The social observation is that such a mass of diverse peoples must have a voluntary pressure outlet in order to maintain peace. We must accept reality that not all cultures are able to be forced together with peaceful results. Forced proximity, with advantages, disadvantages and blame doled out to certain peoples, with a lack of opportunity to separate peacefully will always result in strife and eventual violence.

The dire prediction is one that is easy to see coming: An eventual economic failure is the lit match, while the total lack of national cultural identity is the gasoline. The media and governmental apparatchiks stand by to stoke the fires.

We are Yugoslavia circa 1980’s.

My advice? Stay out of Sarajevo.

Click here to read the entire article at American Partisan.

Forward Observer: The Hidden Tribes of America

WRSA: Unprepared People Can Kill You

From a Pat Hines comment over at Western Rifle Shooters Association, describing one man’s Hurricane Michael incident, this short story shows how people who are mentally or physically prepared can be a danger to everyone involved. Edited for language.

“4 of us men (out of a hallway full of people) were desperately trying to tie doors shut in the shelter in the middle of a category 5 hurricane, with a 140-160 mph wind ripping down the breezeway right in front of it in a storm of debris, doing its best to suck those doors open, which would have resulted in people being sucked out.

We need to cut cord, so I produce a Leatherman. Two people gasp, “I didn’t think you were supposed to have THOSE THINGS in a school!”

In sheer disbelief, but in the interests of not escalating the situation, I went with my second-best response of “It’s a tool, not a knife, just a set of pliers with an auxiliary blade,” rather than my first instinct of, “Who gives a ****, you ****ing idiot! What are they gonna do, expel me?”

It turns out that my daughter and I were the only ones with knives in the place. Go figure.

Meanwhile, a woman is asking, “But how can the rescue squad get to us if the doors are tied?”

“The rescue isn’t coming until the wind stops and it’s over, lady, and we’ll untie it then.” The “if any of us are still alive to do it, and if not, it won’t matter, will it?” was left unsaid.

Another woman was whining, “You need to leave those doors open; it’s hot and stuffy in here, and we need a breeze.” No, I’m not lying.

She kept complaining about it to anyone who would listen, until she was finally silenced by a rawboned redneck woman who suddenly shouted, “B****, there are little kids in here handling this **** better than you are! If you don’t shut the hell up right now, I’m going to knock the **** out of you!”

End of complaints.

Lessons learned:
1. Be prepared with basic tools (like knives).
2. Something like 90% of people are passive observers in an emergency, only a few will take action without being told directly, and tiny number are so incredibly stupid their mere presence can threaten the survival of the entire group.
3. The best way to deal with that tiny percentage is with the real threat of violence, complete with the full intention of following it up if necessary.” – Gregory Kay

Emphasis added.

Inland NorthWest Preparedness Expo, Sept. 22-23, 2018 – Sandpoint, ID

The Inland Northwest Preparedness Expo will take place at the Bonner County Fairgrounds, Sandpoint, ID on September 22 and 23rd. While this expo is not related to our own Northwest Preparedness Expo in Prosser, we do know a lot of the speakers involved, having hosted them for our own expo or as separate speakers for our assembly. There are a lot of good people presenting here, and it looks like it would be worth your time to attend.

http://inwprepexpo.com/

Speaker schedule:

Saturday, 9/22
Time Slot	Title	Speaker	Room
9:15 – 9:30
	Flag Ceremony	Boy Scouts & Girl Scouts	Main Floor
9:30 – 9:45
	Event Welcome	Glen Bailey, County Commissioner	A
10:00 – 10:50
	Go Bags: Survive the First 72 Hours	Lee Lukehart, Bonner County ARES	A
	Active Shooter!	Ranger Rick	B
11:00 – 11:50
	Hazardous Fuel Treatment	Mark Sauter, Selkirk Fire Dept	A
	Gunshot Trauma First Response	Ranger Rick	B
12:00 – 12:50
	Water Storage & Purification	Nick Mechikoff, Panhandle Health	A
	Handgun Safety and Operation	Russell Spriggs, The Pistol Prof	B
1:00 – 1:50
	Prepping from a Woman’s Perspective	Shelby Gallagher, author A Great State: The Divide	B
2:00 – 2:50
	Prepping 2.0	Glen Tate, author 299 Days Series	B
3:00 – 3:50
	Intro to Prepper Gardening	Patrice Lewis	A
	Intro to Emergency Communications	John Jacob Schmidt, AmRRON	B
4:00 – 4:50
	Medicinal Herbs	Dr. Carla Northcott, PhD	A
	Meal in A Jar	Janiene Rise, THRIVE Freeze Dried Food	B

Sunday, 9/23
Time Slot	Title	Speaker	Room
10:00 – 10:50
	Go Bags: Survive the First 72 Hours	Lee Lukehart, Bonner County ARES	A
	Medicinal Herbs	Carla Northcott, PhD	B
11:00 – 11:50
	Overview of Idaho Water Rights & Permitting	Brian Domke, Strategic Landscape Design	A
	Introduction to Emergency Communications	John Jacob Schmidt, AmRRON	B
12:00 – 12:50
	Community Force	Craig Nelson, Bonner County Sheriff’s Office	A
	Ladies First: How to choose a handgun	Russell Spriggs, The Pistol Prof	B
1:00 – 1:50
	Prepping 2.0	Glen Tate, author 299 Days Series	B
2:00 – 2:50
	Prepping from a Woman’s Perspective	Shelby Gallagher, author A Great State: The Divide	B
3:00 – 3:50
	Wood Gas — The Other Solar Energy	Steve Honkus	A
	Beekeeping	TBD	B
4:00 – 4:50			B
	Ham Radio Field Communications	Richard Howell, NQ7C North Idaho Militia	A
	Critical Considerations when deciding on solar, wind, hydro and hydrocarbons	Thomas Quinlin, Idaho Solar & Energy Storage	B

Family and Friends Who Don’t Prepare

Kit Perez has been written a short article titled The Dilemma of Family and Friends Who Don’t Prep over at American Partisan about how you might need to react to people asking for food in the event of a severe crisis. In an event like a civil war (which 31% of US voters believe is likely in the next five years), those people in need may be more desperate than you have imagined.

In the time that I’ve been prepping, I’ve talked to a lot of friends and family about the need for them to prep too. I’ve gotten varying answers in this conversation, but the one answer I hear more than anything is, “I’ll just come to your house if something happens.” It’s always said with a laugh, as though it’s such a hilarious, original joke, and I’ve read many folks who advocate answering that with a resounding “No, you won’t.”

On one hand, this sounds greedy and rude–or at least, you’re told that it does. How can the person who claims to want to build local communities and work together with neighbors not be willing to share in hard times, when your little nephews are starving or the family next door doesn’t have any more water and no hope of getting any? Some may say that there’s a moral and ethical obligation to help others regardless of situation. Others I’ve talked to say that they’ll give the people at the door two days’ rations and tell them that’s it. Still others say they’ll help children but no one else.

The problem is that they’re still thinking in terms of normal, civilized society, and the social mores that people generally abide by–and trying to apply them in a brutal, life-or-death situation where there are no rules and no limits.

In order to understand the real situation you’d be faced with, you need to read Selco’s work, in which he describes in great detail the mindset changes that occur in a societal breakdown. Think about what happens when an area is faced with a major storm, or prolonged power outages. People swarm the stores, scrambling for supplies before they’re gone. Looting and theft, even assaults and worse occur as a matter of course.

Let’s take a look at some of the potential situations. Let’s assume you have a family of four people plus one dog. You’ve saved a few hundred dollars in silver, and you’ve got three months of food and water saved up…

Click here to read the entire story at American Partisan.

Brushbeater: First Line Survival Kit

NC Scout at the Brushbeater blog has an article up about first line survival gear, i.e. the gear that you keep on your body to sustain you until you can be rescued or reach other gear or resupply.

Combat arms soldiers are taught the process of layering equipment- a first, second and third line– which support our mission both individually and as a team. The third line is our ruck sack with mission-specific equipment, the second, our fighting load. In dire straits these two are expendable. The first line gear is a set of items worn on the body always which keep us alive until we link up with friendly forces. It is a concept that serves anyone into wilderness and outdoors living quite well when the unexpected happens.

In training we first establish a baseline and then create standards to meet them. If it’s small unit tactics, that begins with individual skills including quiet movement, observation, land navigation and marksmanship graduating to team formations and battle drills. If it’s communications, we first create competent operating skills then move into basic radio theory. With survival, it’s focusing on individual sustainment skills to keep you alive and successfully rescued. No matter what your fantasy is about ‘bugging out’ , the reality is you’re not going to last long in the wild without a prior skillset, a few basic items, and someone there to eventually recover you. If the world has become upside down and you find yourself in a real-deal survival situation, the first goal is rescue and everything you do between the time of the incident and getting rescued is geared towards keeping you alive.

Survival Rule of Threes

The general survival rule of thumb is the rule of threes:

3 minutes without oxygen

3 hours in a severe environment without shelter

3 days without water

3 weeks without food.

While its physiologically correct, the rule leaves out the psychological factors which cause the bad decisions ending up in a tragic story…

Click here to read the entire article at Brushbeater.

American Partisan: Realistic Redundancy

JC Dodge of Mason Dixon Tactical has a brief article up at American Partisan entitled Realistic Redundancy: Prioritization and Selection about the gear for which you should have a spare.

It was a dark and stormy winter night in Northern Iraq. My patrol had just been ambushed by bad guys, and we had casualties. Guess what “Patrol Leader”, you’ve got to call in the 9-line, ASAP! I hurry up and fill it out with a grease pencil, and start to relay the info to higher via radio. Guess what? While reading off line three, my headlamp died. “WHAT THE HELL DO I DO NOW!” is the first thought, which is immediately replaced with “Wait, I have a clip light in my front gear pocket.” I get it out, clip it to my helmet band, and am able to continue transmitting. Why am I telling you this? I bring up this example to point out why redundancy in certain areas of your gear is CRITICAL, and how you might want to prioritize what should have redundancy.

When people in the Civilian Survivalist/LEO/Mil arena think about redundancy, it’s usually tied to the phrase “Two is one, one is none.” There’s a lot to be said for that mindset, but taken to the extreme, it will do nothing but add extra crap (that you don’t need readily available), and probably slow you down in the process, due to the extra weight it adds to your gear. Whether you are a Civilian, LEO, NPT (Neighborhood Protection Team) member, or member of the Military, understanding the need for redundancy in you essential gear, and how to prioritize it is essential to giving yourself the best chance at survival in a non-permissive environment. First we will talk about prioritization of gear that needs redundancy, then we will talk about a method to use when looking for redundant gear options.

How do you prioritize what needs redundancy? Here’s the questions I ask myself to make my decisions. 1) If I lose use of the item while in the middle of using it, could it drastically alter my chances of surviving? 2) Is the item of such importance in my line gear (1st on person, 2nd is load bearing gear, 3rd is your ruck), that not having it alters my chances of success and/or mission accomplishment? “Mission accomplishment” being different things to different people. An example of this for Survivalists would be surviving a life and death situation, whether it is natural or man made. For the LEO or legally armed civilian, it could be an “Active shooter” situation. For an NPT (Neighborhood Protection Team) member, it might be conducting operations in your AO after your area has devolved into TEOTWAWKISTAN, whether those operations are purely defensive, or what I call “Aggressive Defense”. 3) Is the weight of the redundant item that is added to my gear offset (less important than) by the importance of that item?

Let’s discuss them in order,

1) If I lose use of the item while in the middle of using it, could it drastically alter my chances of surviving? As I illustrated in the first paragraph, having that extra light (same type, a hands free design) was critical to mission success, which at that time was callin’ in the status of some of my patrol’s wounded soldiers.

2) Is the item of such importance in my line gear, that not having it alter my chances of success in mission accomplishment? Due to the “priorities of work” being done at the time, It would have been “less than optimal” to pull one of my other soldiers off of their assigned task, just to hold a light for me.

3) Is the weight of the redundant item that is added to my gear offset (less important than) by the importance of that item? In the case of the hands free light HELL YEAH! Those clip lights from a number of vendors are very small, lightweight, and can be tucked almost anywhere for a future need. The only downside is their proprietary type of small watch battery (my normal headlamp uses AA, along with almost all my electronic gear, except for a few 123’s).

Things that I think are good candidates for redundancy…

Read the entire article by clicking here.

FO with John Mosby on Building Tribe, Community and Preparedness

Sam Culper at Forward Observer interviews John Mosby, a former Army Special Operations soldier, small arms instructor, and author on building tribe, community and preparedness. Mosby writes at the Mountain Guerrilla blog, and is the author of The Reluctant Partisan Volumes I and II, and Forging the Hero.

NC Scout: Preparedness Groups and Community

From NC Scout, writing at American Partisan:

From my angle, not suffering the myopia of many, the prepper movement seems to be rekindling. After the siesta many seemed to take after November 2016, a large number are waking up to the reality that no, your problems are not solved by simply voting and that no, they won’t be any time after. We can easily see that all of the same issues which motivated the many are still omnipresent- the shaky basis of our economy, the very real threat of domestic discord, and the increasing likelihood of terrorism or even a possible nuclear exchange. I can’t help but wonder if this is what the early 80s felt like. Coming of age in the 90s survivalists were far more concerned with the rise of globalism and the threat of domestic tyranny, listening to William Cooper on our Sony Shortwave receivers that we bought at Radio Shack. Those threats haven’t gone away, but what has changed for the good is the approach many are adopting to preparedness and survival compared to the past- embracing a small group and community model versus the inefficient and socially obtuse ‘lone wolf’ stereotype. Before anyone hisses at their screen while reading this, take a moment to reflect on some of the things that have been either written, filmed, or observed in the past few years. Look at the growth of all things survival, primitive living, or just asking for a simpler and more resilient lifestyle. What was once a fringe notion among social outsiders is now mainstream. Look at the resurgence of the ways of yore and the reembracing of simpler, more resilient and less wasteful lifestyles. The age of tradition is coming back, fueled in part by a need to reawaken those bonds with our past meanwhile recognizing the need for community. The days of the large family gatherings and community get-togethers seems to be returning, and its a welcome sight.

Rugged Individualism doesn’t negate the need for others. I think of myself as a fairly well rounded individual. I can build anything from a lean-to shelter to a radio shack. I can keep a person alive from trauma long enough to get them to a higher tier of care. I can communicate around the world with basic equipment, I can make accurate shots with a 7.62×51 past 1k meters, lead a combat patrol, fix my diesel truck, brew my own beer, hunt any game out there, and can make it into the best smoked sausage you’d want to eat. But those skills at a basic level only serve me. What of my family? What of yours? I have to sleep sometime. Who watches over you when the body or mind shuts down?

And that’s where the confusion comes in. The idea of the well rounded man, rugged individual, or as I like to call self starter, doesn’t mean you don’t need anyone else. Could I live like that, alone, in total isolation? Maybe for a little while, but it wouldn’t be much fun. Without others to share a good laugh, food, drink or the human experience with, what’s the point of ‘surviving’? Many of the libertarian mindset pride themselves on personal liberty, not being reliant on anyone else for anything and accountable to the self alone. While I share those views it cannot negate the reality that I cannot do all things alone nor would I want to. Specialization may be for insects, but we do all have our talents. Groups tend to coalesce around skills that add to the whole. And that brings us to how we stand up communities of preppers.

The first thing to recognize is that prepper groups are voluntary and should be based on respect and friendship…

Click here to read the entire article at AmericaPartisan.

Liberty and Lead: Reality Check

Are you and your friends ready? From the Liberty and Lead 2.0 blog:

Reality Check

This post is going to be a bit personal. It may however help someone who is going through something similar.

I have been prepping and preparing with the same 2 other families for a decade. We have been very close, like family but…

Something has been off for a good while. It has been increasingly hard to get everyone together for almost any purpose. Training opportunities have been given to us only to end up with us passing on them because we simply could not get everyone to commit. Because of other things going on in life we failed to capitalize on some terrific potential learning.

Increasingly it seemed that my wife and I were the serious ones, the folks trying to herd cats so to speak. Again and again our own progress in what we needed was hampered because of schedule conflicts and other commitments by our partners.

This year I have committed to prepping me. Along that vein I realized we needed to get out in the open what we felt and see what was the will of the others involved. I called a meet for this purpose.

We laid it all out. It did not go the way I had hoped.

People who we believed were just as committed as we were to continue toward building a resilient tribe relocated at property already secured have lost their desire. They have lost their sense of urgency. They have succumbed to normalcy bias. Living in this false reality has taken priority away from preparing to live a more primitive and self sufficient life. They were honest and we appreciated it but…they simply are not going to be the people we continue building with.

So today I feel a little like I’ve been slapped back a decade.

Yesterday I thought I had it figured out. Today I am trying to get a grip on the new reality.

My wife nor I slept well. This morning she stated flatly “we have a lot of decisions to make” and added “what do we do?”

I don’t know.

What I do know is that this changes my personal goals not one tick. We are still on a countdown to moving our family to the lifestyle we want. We are still on a mission to learn all we can, acquire what we need and be ready to weather all storms. We just won’t be doing that with the now broken tribe we have had for many years.

It is disappointing, but not devastating.

This is too important to have to herd people. Too critical a commitment to have to try and pull people along. Everyone gets tired and needs encouragement and that is part of tribal life but once you have realized that other’s hearts are no longer in it, it is time to check yourself. YOU are the only person you can control. YOU have to make a decision…

Continue reading at Liberty and Lead 2.0 by clicking here

The Surprisingly Solid Mathematical Case of the Tin Foil Hat Gun Prepper

BJ Campbell over at Medium has written an interesting article about the mathematically sound basis for being prepared. The title sounds more sensational than the content. The article isn’t really about firearms, but about how statistics show that really bad events, for which you should be prepared, happen with higher probability than most imagine.

…There’s a common misconception in the media about the eventuality for which the preppers are exactly prepping. That’s because they’re a diverse group, and prep for many different things. No, they aren’t planning for a revolution to overthrow the government. (Most of them, anyway.) Mostly they’re planning to keep themselves and their families safe while someone else tries to overthrow the government. That or zombies. More on zombies below.

While we don’t have any good sources of data on how often zombies take over the world, we definitely have good sources of data on when the group of people on the piece of dirt we currently call the USA attempt to overthrow the ruling government. It’s happened twice since colonization. The first one, the American Revolution, succeeded. The second one, the Civil War, failed. But they are both qualifying events. Now we can do math.

Stepping through this, the average year for colony establishment is 1678, which is 340 years ago. Two qualifying events in 340 years is a 0.5882% annual chance of nationwide violent revolution against the ruling government. Do the same math as we did above with the floodplains, in precisely the same way, and we see a 37% chance that any American of average life expectancy will experience at least one nationwide violent revolution.

This is a bigger chance than your floodplain-bound home getting flooded out during your mortgage.

It’s noticeably bigger.

Read the entire article by clicking here

Excerpt from “Locusts on the Horizon”

“Hunger is not a problem of too many people on the planet, nor is hunger a problem of the planet’s inability to feed everyone that currently lives on it. Hunger is caused by human actions.

“The horrific fact is that from the 19^th Century to the present time, most of the worst famines on the planet have been caused not by an apocalypse of nature, or a worldwide shortage of food, but by the hand of man. More often than not these famines were caused by the intentional, deliberate actions of those in positions of power and influence, for either political or economic reasons.

“One of the causes of famines has been the decisions and actions of a powerful elite few who decide that their personal wealth and power are more important than the lives of the ‘little people’.

“For those who think it can’t happen in the USA, because this country is a ‘bread basket’, think again. Many Americans today are descendants of those who fled one of the worst famines in European history. It was a deadly famine which occurred in the midst of plenty while living in a country which was a bread basket.

“Ireland, during a seven year period starting in 1845, in the very heart of the powerful and wealthy British Empire, lost almost a quarter of its entire population either through death or fleeing refugees, due to a famine triggered by a potato blight. A common name for this event was the great Irish Potato Famine. Many Irish call this event, An Gorta Mór, which means, The Great Hunger…

Continue reading “Excerpt from “Locusts on the Horizon”” →

John Mosby: Craftsmanship in Preparedness

As usual, John Mosby of Mountain Guerrilla blog has some insightful comments on prepping in general and on the more important craftsmanship of living a self-sufficient life which results in being prepared for whatever life throws your way. Some people don’t like the things JM says nor the way he says them, but even if you disagree with his conclusions, the ideas that he presents are well worth contemplating.

…As I discussed in my books, while the occurrence of a single, instantly-identifiable “SHTF” trigger event would be remarkably convenient, it’s not likely. Even in the case of an event that popular prepper porn novels make out to be THE event—solar flare, EMP, economic collapse, etc—the fact is, collapses of major civilizations take years, decades, and even centuries to fall all the way to “dark ages” status. That’s not popular, and it’s not convenient, but it is reality.

“But! Violent struggle in the streets!” “But, mah second civil war!” “Riots!” “Collapse of the Dollar!”

Sure, all of those are bad, but, especially at the local level, none of them are really “TEOTWAWKI” either, in most places. Sure, parts of major metropolitan areas are going to get ugly. A lack of potable drinking water from the taps. Absence of police presence making violent crime more likely. Control of whole neighborhoods by criminal gangs and cartels. A breakdown in the infrastructure system. Squatting by newly homeless people…Yeah, that’ll be different…

Guess what? That IS the norm, right now. You think an EMP going off is going to make it worse? Maybe. Maybe not. I’m betting on not. In fact, in a lot of ways, I suspect life for the residents of … ghettos in large urban areas will get BETTER after an event that draws more attention away from them, when the shadow governments that are already in place, in the form of criminal cartels, can move about more openly. No more pretense of divided loyalties between the government, the relief agencies, and the local gangs. The gangs will stomp out unaffiliated criminal actors in a hurry. Sure, it’ll be despotism, and if you’re an attractive female of breeding age, it’ll probably suck for the indefinite future, but, as a general thing, that’s just as true now.

What benefits will accrue the inner city? They have a new governing body in place that has a proven track record for getting a niche product into the community, under difficult conditions. Are groceries as profitable as drugs? Not right now, but in the event of a major event? It’s not like drug dealing gangs are in it because of the drugs. They’re in it because of the money, and the power the money brings them. How long do you think it will take a local gang to switch over from smuggling drugs to smuggling carrots? Hell, they don’t even need to smuggle carrots. They can get their mamas and grannies to grow them on the roofs and in the deserted lots.

Rural places? The power goes out in my neighborhood when a good storm blows. A cartel safehouse was raided and busted less than a couple miles from my house, last year. There was over $2 million worth of contraband on the place. My neighbor told me that our other neighbor had something like 50 head of cattle rustled out of his pasture, in broad daylight, two months ago. The closest town to us has signs in the front yard of several businesses and houses openly acknowledging the corruption in the municipal government. You know what people do?

They live. They have backup generators, or they are off-grid completely. Of my six closest neighbors, every single family raises a serious garden every year (as in, somewhere over 100% of their annual intake of vegetables. Some gets sold, some gets canned for storage, some gets given away), and every family raises their own chickens for meat and eggs. Half have a larger meat animal on the place as well, either beef cattle or pigs. Three of the neighbors have a family cow each.

Read the entire article by clicking here. Also as usual, the article is spiked with JM’s typically NCO colorful epithets and aphorisms which may offend the sensibilities of some readers.

Turning Anxiety to Action on the Cascadia Quake

From the Oregonian Editorial Board, Turning Anxiety to Action on the Cascadia Quake.

The New Yorker’s Pulitzer prize-winning piece on the massive destruction expected from a Cascadia Subduction Zone earthquake understandably struck fear in the hearts of many Oregonians who immediately set to work stocking emergency kits. At least some of them did. For a while.

Then came the terrifying video from Multnomah County, showing how the Burnside Bridge could rumble, torque and collapse after an 8-plus magnitude quake. The destruction alone is devastating to watch – even if by animated simulation. But it’s almost paralyzing to listen to the narration describing how bridge debris will block cars, emergency vehicles, trains and ships needed to bring supplies and evacuate victims.

It’d be easy to shove another recent state report into that corner in your brain where the darkest worries hang out. But despite its jarring numbers, the Oregon Department of Geology and Mineral Industries’ assessment released last week hits a few bright notes…

No matter how far you go, at least start.

Read the entire article at Oregonlive.com by clicking here.

EARTHQUAKE REGIONAL IMPACT ANALYSIS FOR CLACKAMAS, MULTNOMAH, AND WASHINGTON COUNTIES, OREGON (DOGAMI) pdf file

Emergency Essentials: Financial Preparedness

The fine folks over at Emergency Essentials have a brief blog post on preparing to weather financial storms.

For those of us who are old enough to have experienced the Great Recession in our adult life, the thought of another economic crash occurring is a very real worry. Even the most prepared individuals felt the effects of a crashing economy in the years between 2007 and 2009. Some of us still haven’t fully recovered. Although the possibility of another recession is always in the air, unfortunately, most people are less prepared today than they were before the Great Recession began. If the economy were to crash tomorrow, could your finances survive?

If the answer is, “I’m not sure”, you should definitely continue reading. In the following post, we will present five questions to test your financial preparedness and help you to get completely ready for an unexpected economic future.

Do You Spend Too Much On Your Debts?

Truth is, many people are simply overextended with their debts, using their credit as a way to live beyond their comfortable means. Even in an economic recession, your debts will not stop and your debtors likely won’t “give you a break.” If you lost your job today, would you be able to afford your debts next month or would you suddenly find yourself having a hard time keeping up with your mortgage and car note?

Many financial consultants recommend a debt-to-income ratio of 1:3. This means that your debts should be equal to or less than 33% of your monthly income. This rule ensures that if you were to become unemployed today, you would still be able maintain your debts with only ⅓ of your current income.

What To Do About It

Assess your monthly debts and compare them to your monthly income. If your debt-to-income ratio is already lower than 33%, great, keep it that way. On the other hand, if you find that your ratio is higher than this, here is some advice:

Pay Down Your Debts: The most obvious way of decreasing your debt-to-income ratio is to maintain your income, while decreasing your debts. Examine how you spend your money each month. Identify areas where you can save money (eliminate or decrease cable services, etc.) and use this extra money to make additional payments on your debts. Every debt that you are able to eliminate equates to one less worry in the event of another economic recession!

Refinance for Better Interest Rates: High interest rates that you carry on your debts can add significantly to your debt-to-income percentage. Work on improving your credit so that you can refinance your mortgage and car loan debts for better rates. Speak with banks and other credit card providers to see if one of them will offer you a credit card with a lower interest rate than what you are currently receiving.

How Large Is Your Emergency Fund?

Unfortunately, for many people, the answer is “not large, whatsoever.” According to a GoBankingRates survey, 35% of all adults in the U.S. only have “several hundred dollars” in their savings account and 34% have no money at all in savings. It is generally recommended that you keep 3-6 months of income in your savings as a safety net, in case your income becomes restricted for any reason. While this is a great start, is it enough? The Great Recession lasted two whole years, and the effects, much longer. During this recession, many people found themselves without a job for much longer than 3-6 months. Some financial advisors, like Suze Orman for example, suggest an emergency fund equal to at least 8 months of your income.

What To Do About It…

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FEMA: Emergency Financial First Aid Kit (pdf)

Emergency Essentials: Financial Preparedness 101

MDT: Nuke Alert, “The 15 Minute Scenario”

Mason Dixon Tactical has a blog post addressing what to do in the case of a nuclear alert like Hawaiians experienced recently.

Nuke Alert, “The 15 Minute Scenario”

By now we all know about the Hawaii false “Inbound Missile” alert that took place a week ago. I keep hearing the BS from the talking heads about “One guy pushed the wrong button.”, and “It was a complete accident.”, and none of use that know better believe anything they are saying. Brushbeater spoke about it briefly in this post. Here’s the thing to ponder, what if it was real? I’m not getting wrapped up in the political, misdirection BS being espoused, but what would you do if it was real? Where would you go?

Do you have the slightest clue how you would react, and is your situational awareness and training enough that you would immediately know where relative safety is (it honestly depends how close you are to the blast). Keep in mind that this post is about protecting yourself from the initial blast, not the fallout. Fallout/Radiation protective measures have been talked about here.

Here are three “area dependent” scenarios you might want to consider planning for.

You are at home.

You are driving through or at work in town.

You are driving on the Interstate or in a remote area.

Before we discuss where you are, let’s discuss where the primary targets in your area might be. Two primary targets for a nuke would be a military base, or a large city. Once you’ve figured out where the target for the nuke might be in your area, you can then make an assessment of where you might want to position yourself in the area you have selected as an improvised blast shelter. This assessment would dictate that if you are in a building, you’d want to be on the side furthest from the blast, preferably in a basement. It also dictates that if you are in something like an end to end open drainage, the drainage needs to be perpendicular, rather than parallel to the most likely direction of the blast’s path.

1. You are at home. OK, do you have a basement, if so, are all sides covered by dirt (less chance of blast damage)? Protection in this situation is somewhat simple. Get in your basement, go to the side furthest from the likely target, and if possible, get under something like a table to help protect from falling debris. Another thought would be to grab that spare mattress that everyone seams to have in their storage area and place it on the side of the table closest to the direction the blast would be coming from. In the below video, Cresson Kearny discusses a basement shelter.

If you don’t have a basement, do you have a crawl space? If so, apply the directions for the basement, in the smaller area of the crawl space. If you have neither of these, apply whatever is more applicable from what is mentioned in either #2 or #3 below…

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