Prepper: Surviving the Tough Times Ahead

Mental Preparation

Quick Start:

Turn off the television and other electronic devices then go for a walk, for at least 30 minutes, 3 to 5 days a week, in and around your neighborhood.

No, you don't have to wave to your neighbors, yet, but if they wave, make sure you and your family smile and wave back.

As you and your family prepare for disastrous events; you will need to focus on the priorities that will insure your continued survival before, during and after an event. The Rule of 3 to 5 will help you focus your preparations.

The Rule of 3 to 5

You will survive only …

3 to 5 seconds without Thinking

3 to 5 minutes without Air

3 to 5 hours without Shelter

3 to 5 days without Water

3 to 5 weeks without Food

3 to 5 months without Information

3 to 5 years without Community

3 to 5 decades without Medical Attention

As you can see Thinking is the first item on the list. It is the most important. Don't believe me; browse through the list of incidents at the Darwin Awards.

At the Darwin Awards, you will read about such famous people as Attila the Hun, Francis Bacon, James Kim, and Steve Irwin. Attila the Hun was so drunk; he suffocated from a nose bleed. Francis Bacon and James Kim froze to death when they could have survived, and Steve Irwin after being stabbed in the chest by a sting ray, pulled the bard out of his chest then bled to death. All of these incidents were survivable, if they had made the right choices.

So, how do you make the right choice, during an event?

You have already made one by wanting to read this book. You have demonstrated that you and your family see the fragile nature of our planet and its different societies. Second, you have also realized; you and your family need help getting prepared for the tough times ahead.

Next, if you don’t already know, you and your family are going to be making a lot of choices.

The Decision Making Process

The Decision Making Process can be simple or complex. You can choose to use a military-style 7-step process, a logistical-based process, or a process you have learned at work or in school.

In this section, I will describe two processes, a 4-step and a 7-step decision making process.

The OODA Loop

The OODA Loop is a quick four-step decision making process; it was originally developed for use in tactical situations, for fighter pilots. The OODA Loop will assist you and your family to focus on your problems and their possible solutions.

It is …

Observe

make Observations about a problem

Orient

Orient yourself to the problem.

What do you see as the problem, and what information do you have about the problem

Decide

Decide what you are going to do about the problem

Act

Act on you decision

Next, you look at the results and ask the question; Are you satisfied with the results? If you’re satisfied with the results you stop and move on to the next problem. If you and your family are dissatisfied with the results, you go through the process, again.

A Simplified Example

You and your family only have a three-day supply of food, and you want to start a medium-term food storage program, for your family.

Observe – not enough food for a medium-term event; have cool, dry storage in the kitchen and basement

Orient – have limited ‘extra’ cash, need enough food storage to last several months

Decide – commit $25 a month to purchasing food for emergencies

Act – purchase extra canned food from the grocery store that you and your family will eat, at the beginning of each month, and store it on shelves in the kitchen.

Remember, you look at the results and ask the question; Are you satisfied with the results? If you’re satisfied with the results’ you stop and move on to the next problem. If you and your family are unsatisfied with the results, you go through the process, again.

Let’s say, you’re not satisfied, so ...

Observe – after a year, your family only has a one-month supply of medium-term food storage

Orient – still have limited ‘extra’ cash

Decide – sell excess stuff and commit the ‘extra’ cash to purchasing more food

Act - purchase more of the canned and boxed food the family normally eats and store the extra food on shelved in the basement, at the beginning of each month

Again, you look at the results. You’re not satisfied, so you ...

And the process continues until an acceptable outcome occurs for you and your family.

The Seven-Step Decision Making Process

Another decision making process is the 7-step process. It is …

Identify the Problem

Gather Information

Analysis the Situation

Develop Options

Evaluate Alternatives

Select the Preferred Alternative

Act on the Decision

Just like the process says, first you and your family identify the problem. This is also the time to ask, if you really have a problem that needs to be solved; is it an important problem, or can this problem wait to be solved.

Next, information is gathered about the problem. During this step, you and your family determine what is relevant to the decision, and what you need to know before you can make a decision.

Third, you analysis the problem by asking such questions as What courses of action are open to us as a family? Can the information, the family has collected, be interpreted another way?

Next, your family develops options by brain storming solutions to the problem.

Fifth, you and your family evaluate alternatives for: Will the alternative solution work; is it accepted by each family member; and which alternative will best solve your problem?

Next, your family selects a preferred alternative. What are the consequences of this decision; will the decision create problems for your family’s ability to make another later choice; and are there any risks?

Seventh, before you act on the decision, check for acceptance and support for the decision from your family. Next, put supplies and time into implementing the decision.

Lastly, as you and your family start making decisions about your preparations, I need for you to keep three things in mind Normalcy Bias, the Dunning-Kruger Effect, and Groupthink

Normalcy Bias

Normalcy bias is thinking that you and your family’s lives will always be the same. Basically, everything remains the same.

A recent example is housing prices. All across these United States, everyone assumed they would be able to sell their home for a profit and purchase a bigger home or retire early.

Another example is my mother-in-law. She is getting older and starting to slow down. My mother-in-law gets frustrated because she can’t do the things; she use to do very easily, like pitching hay bales out of the barn.

So, how do you and your family prevent a normalcy bias from affecting your family, in your preparations?

First, you are preventing normalcy bias by reading this book. You and your family have realized that things can change, in your lives. Next, you and your family game plan by thinking and talking through possible scenario and planning possible responses.

Let’s take fuel prices, as a simple example. Right now, as of this writing, gasoline is running about $3.00 a gallon. Ask yourself:

What would you and your family do, if gasoline went to $5.00 a gallon? Stop seeing movies at the cinema, no flowers for your partner’s birthday, or make some other minor adjustments. How about $7.50 a gallon gasoline? Would your children play soccer? Who would you rideshare with to work? At $10.00 a gallon, would you have work? What would food prices be? Would you and your family have city water? Would taxes increase?

You get the point.

Dunning-Kruger Effect

Basically, the Dunning-Kruger Effect is thinking that you know a lot about a subject when truly you know very little. A personal example is climate change.

Jumper, my brother, is always calling me and talking about how global warming isn't happening, especially this winter and summer. He points out how cold and snowy it has been all over the world.

I'm nice and I listen. Plus, I try not to say too much because he is Wrong!!! Very Wrong!!! Very, ...

Why?

My brother has made a common mistake; he has confused weather and climate. Weather is what we see every day. Climate is what happens over a long period of time, say twenty, fifty, one hundred years, or more.

I love you, bro, but back to my point.

Another aspect of the Dunning-Kruger Effect is that people with ability will underestimate their competence. This underestimation can lead to problems because your family may spend limited resources trying to learn skills or acquire knowledge that you already have, or never attempting a project that you could, with a little effort, accomplish.

So, how do you and your family prevent this phenomenon?

First, you can ask knowledgeable friends and family members to evaluate your thoughts or plans before making a decision. Another similar preventive measure is to ask a more knowledgeable friend to quickly refresh your memory about a subject or technique. If you have to ask too many questions or feel lost, you probably need more training. Another technique to prevent the Dunning-Kruger Effect is going to the local library and reading about the subject of interest to refresh your memory.

Groupthink

Groupthink or Group Think is basically a group of people reaching a decision without properly evaluating and analyzing that decision; additionally, members of the group may not feel comfortable questioning the group’s decision to reduce conflict or to prevent looking foolish.

We can see group think in prepping. Check out Mr. James Rawles' Survival Blog. He advocates having expensive semi-automatic rifles with detachable magazines for protection. A lot of people agree with him, and if you read his site, no one disagrees with him.

Another example is this most recent financial crisis.

It seems everyone was shouting that we were immediately headed into another Great Depression or hyperinflation, so folks were advocating purchasing gold and silver instead of food and other supplies. Again, no one questioned this strategy.

So, what can we do to prevent group think?

First, there are a number of things, such as being critical evaluators, seeking outside experts, and having a position called ‘Devil’s Advocate’ at each meeting.

The person playing the Devil’s Advocate questions every decision made by the group. The advocate challenges the group members to explain the reasoning for their position on a decision. This position must be rotated among the group members. I know from personal experience that having a permanent devil’s advocate causes the other group members to become irritated with that person. Rotating the position allows everyone to stay an accepted member of the group.

Being a critical evaluator, for me, is questioning myself on my ‘facts.’ I ask myself: Am I hearing the same sound bite from different people? Am I limiting my information gathering to only certain groups? Am I only listening for ‘facts’ that back my view of the situation?

Seeking help from outside experts can be difficult. It is difficult because we need to maintain a certain level of operational security (OPSEC) to protect your family and supplies. But, you can seek help by carefully framing our questions.

Instead of framing your question around societal collapse, you can ask about preparing for the more likely disasters, such as hurricanes, tornadoes, and other natural or technical (human-made) events. You can also use the recent economic situation to ask questions about a wide range of subjects, like purchasing a handgun, buying gold and silver coins on-line, and other defensive financial strategies.

Heck, you and your family could claim you’re looking to simplify your lives then you could ask questions about cooking with whole foods, gardening, raising and caring for small livestock, and other back to nature-type questions.

Almost lastly, you can also read and seek answers from survival forums. Most of your beginning prepper questions have been answered, in these forums. A friend of mine says that is the reason Survival Blog has gotten kind’a repetitive; all of the basic questions have been answered. He said Mr. Rawles and et al can only write so much about beans, bullets, and Band-Aids before they repeat themselves.

Lastly, the most unique way, I have seen, of concealing your questions or motives are the Zombie Squad. All I can say about this group Zombie Squad Makes Dead Things Deader. I have provided a link to the group at the Prepper: Surviving the Tough Times Ahead blog.

And, this leads to my next point, probably the most important item in this chapter.

OPSEC

As much as you would like, don’t tell anyone that you and your family are preparing for tough times.

Yes, I know, it’s cool to tell extended family and friends about all the water, food, and other supplies you and your family are storing; or showing friends the ‘new’ semi-automatic rifle and the ten 30-round magazines, you recently purchased; or about the recent survival book, you and your children read about prepping, last weekend.

By now, you are probably wondering why I don’t want you and your family to tell anyone about your preparations. It’s because everyone will show up at your door looking for a handout during tough times, even strangers. Don’t believe me? Investigate what it’s like for a recent lottery winner.

So, what are you and your family going to do? You are going to implement simple measures of concealing your preparations by withholding information from your friends, neighbors, and employer. These simple measures of withholding information are called Operational Security.

Some of these measures you might decide to use, to prevent people from learning about your prepping activities, are buying supplies in another town with cash, not talking to friends and family about your preparations, and by engaging in other activities such as hiking, raising backyard chickens, camping, sewing, and cooking at home. Plus, you and your family must never read prepper blogs at work!

These measures could be important because I'm unsure how people will actually behave during an event. Sometimes people will help each other, like during September 11th, 2001 in New York City. Sometimes they will hurt each other, such as the Los Angeles Riots in 1992.

In some disasters, Operational Security won’t be a necessity, but in certain events, OPSEC could be a matter of life or death. Since I can’t tell when those events will happen, you must practice Operational Security all the time. Plus, you will also have to get your family, especially your children, involved with OPSEC.

Let me explain by telling you a fictional story.

In 2015, the United States is continuing to suffer a deep and long economic depression. Food is in short supply, so federal and state governments adopt anti-hoarding laws. These laws allow government officials to seize excess food from farms, businesses and homes.

One family saw the coming tough economic times and started buying food during the years of plenty. As the crisis progressed, the mother and father knew that properly-fed children would stick out at school, so they began to feed their children a little less.

Their teenage daughter started to complain about how hungry she was and how unfair it was that they had all this food but couldn't eat it. First the young lady complained to her Mom and Dad, then to her friends. Soon, government officials learned of the family's supply of food.

Within a matter of days, government officials confiscated all of the family's food. As her friends started to grow ill and die from malnutrition, her father and mother fed her and her brother extra food from their cache of long-term food storage; they had hidden and told no one about.

Needless to say, this fictional family saw various disasters; they needed to prepare for, such as food shortages, loss of OPSEC, and government confiscation of supplies.

So, this leads to my next point about preparing for disasters.

Threat Analysis

No matter the decision making process that you and your family are going to use, you will need to create a Threat Analysis. A threat analysis helps you focus on the situations that you are going to prepare for; it will also lead you through the process of discovering and documenting the threats to your continued survival.

To create a Threat Analysis, basically, you write down all the bad things that could happen to you and your family.

To do this, you take a piece of paper and draw a line down the middle. Next, write down every bad thing that could happen to you and your family on the left side. Some things you might write, in no particular order, are a house fire, laid-off from work, car accident, flood, nuclear war, hurricane, tornado, home invasion, windstorm, violent revolution, earthquake, sewer back-up, fired, sectarian violence...

Don't get discouraged. Keep brain storming and keep listing.

Once you're finished, on the right side of the line, you and your family want to prioritize the possible events, from greatest threat to the least likely to happen to you and your family.

Getting Informed

Remember me writing about the Dunning-Kruger Effect, a couple of pages ago.

Well, if you’re like my family, we didn’t know all of the potential disasters; we faced. Let me give you two examples.

We use to live about one mile from an interstate highway. It is a huge 8-lane ribbon of concrete carrying tens of thousands of cars, trucks, buses, and the big cargo trucks (semis) every day. After talking to a professional truck driver, a very good-friend, he mentioned some of these trucks carry dangerous chemicals that, ‘if’ released during an accident, would cause my family to evacuate from our home for a couple of days.

Another example is my mother. She lives in a beautiful valley, by a lake feed by a small stream. Yep, you guessed it. After a little investigation, we found out the stream comes from an earthen dam about five miles from her home. If the dam were to collapse, during an earthquake or very heavy rains, her home would be destroyed. Because there is no early warning, of a dam collapse, she would probably be killed.

So, how does your family get better informed about the potential disasters you currently face?

First, you can contact your local fire department; they are a great source of information about common disasters in your area. Remember, OPSEC! When you talk to the firefighters, you and your family are wondering if tornadoes, earthquakes, wildfires, and other common natural disasters are a concern in your local area.

Speaking of firefighters, you and your family can contact your local sheriff or police department for information, too. When you talk to them, you and your family are concerned about ‘bad’ neighborhoods, gang activities, and other crime problems in your area.

Another source is the newspaper. My local paper has the weekly crime reports, in the Friday edition. If you don’t want to purchase the paper, you can probably visit the library for a copy.

Lastly, there are two resources from the United States’ Federal Emergency Management Agency that you might find helpful. First FEMA has a book titled Are You Ready? It is a free book. You can download it for free or order a copy. FEMA will even send you multiple copies, for free, to give to your friends and family. Just call the FEMA publications warehouse at 1.800.480.2520 to order your copy.

The other resource, I would like to point out, from FEMA, is FEMA-196 Risks and Hazards: A State by State Guide. This publication is over twenty years old, but it still is very informative.

A Living Document

So, you and your family have created a threat analysis. I want you to remember this threat analysis is a living document. You and your family will add and delete threats as your family’s situations change. Here are two example situations.

Your family moves from California to Florida. Your partner would cross off earthquakes, the possibility of higher taxes and gang warfare then add hurricanes, being hit by an elderly driver, and the possibility of sea level rising. Of course, you and your family would have to prioritize the possible threats, again.

Another example is your eldest daughter attending school at an out-of-state college. She and you would discard the family’s threat analysis and create one for her new home, in the dorm. Needless to say, you and your family may have to research new possible threats and your response to these threats.

And, this is where Prepper: Surviving the Tough Times Ahead comes in because you will find in your research that most of the events, your family has listed, have common solutions, even an extreme event such as an economic collapse. In other words, you and your family will always need air, shelter, water, food, medical supplies, protection, and many other items and skills to possibly survive.

So, how do you organize your purchases and acquisition of equipment and skills?

Inventory

First, you and your family need to conduct an inventory of everything your family owns. The inventory should also include the skills, you and your family have. Needless to say, there are many ways to conduct an inventory. I cover two methods, in Appendix D for this chapter.

After you have conducted an inventory, you will need to determine what items and skills you will need to acquire to provide air, water, food, medical supplies, and the other items needed for survival.

P.A.C.E.

To help you determine what items and skills your family will need to acquire, I want you to keep an acronym in mind, P.A.C.E. PACE stands for Primary, Alternate, Contingency, and Emergency; it helps you and your family to identify the methods, equipment, and skills you will use to solve critical problems faced by your family during and after a disaster. So, what is PACE?

Primary

What is the first way that you are going to solve a problem or situation?

Alternate

What is the second way that you are going to solve the same problem?

Contingency

The third way?

Emergency

The very last way before you have to improvise a solution to your problem.

Let us look at an example.

Your problem, opening cans of food that your family has stored for emergencies, so your family can eat a meal. Using PACE:

Primary - an electric can opener

Alternate – an expensive ergonomic manual can opener

Contingency – an inexpensive manual can opener

Emergency – a P-51 military can opener

Yes, I know an electric can open won't work in a power outage. That is why you have three other methods of opening canned food. It could be worse; you could have lost electricity and broken the expensive ergonomic manual can opener. Don't worry though; you still have the other manual can opener and the P-51 military can opener. All of these methods have to fail before you start stressing about how to improvise a method for safely opening your canned food by using a flat chunk of concrete

Now, don’t get all panicky; thinking that you and your family are going to have to purchase vast quantities of equipment to survive that’s not what PACE is about. First, PACE is about organizing, in advance, how you and your family are going to solve critical problems during an event. Second, PACE is also about identifying the skills that you will use to solve your family’s problems, during and after a disaster.

Spiral Purchases

So, you have identified everything you own, using an inventory; have an idea of what you need, from using P.A.C.E.; next, you need to start making purchases. To prevent you and your family from overspending and overbuying skills and supplies, I would like to suggest you use a technique called Spiral Purchasing.

For spiral purchasing, I want you to imagine a clock with sixteen hours, instead of twelve. Each of those hours has a label. At the very top is Thinking, the next Emergency Evacuation Kit, the next is Air, and so on, just like the example below. Next, you and your family write in one item or skill, your family is going to acquire for your preparations.

Blank Spiral Purchase Diagram

When writing down what you’re going to acquire, you and your family should focus on the basics and most important items or skills in each category. An example, you purchase a blue tarp and some nylon rope for emergency shelter. Your family’s next purchase would be some water containers then you would buy three-days of canned food. The next purchase, if you already own a handgun, would be some bullets. This process would continue until you have a little bit of the items and skills you and your family may need to survive an event.

First Spiral Purchase Diagram

Once you and your family have purchased all of the items and acquired all of the skills you first listed, you make another spiral purchase diagram for your next set of purchases and skill acquisitions that build on the things; you and your family already owns, and your first set of purchases.

Second Spiral Purchase Diagram

As you can see, spiral purchasing insures your family has a balance in your preparations preventing you from having a lot of one item and none of another thus compromising your possible survival during a disaster.

You Have to Know the Rules to Manipulate Them

Lastly, I was talking to a guy at work about Rules. As we were talking, he said 'You have to know the rules to be able to manipulate them.'

Take traffic lights, as an example.

If the light is green, you drive through the intersection. If the traffic light turns yellow; you know you need to be prepared to stop. For a red light, you stop and wait for a green light or green arrow. As I said, every new driver knows the rules for traffic lights.

Well, someone who knows those rules quickly realizes they can develop techniques to bend the rules. Again, let us talk about traffic lights. If the traffic light had just changed to yellow; I personally know, I can speed up to get through the light, if I’m close to the intersection. If the light has been yellow for a long time, I know, I will have to stop because the yellow light will soon change to red.

Remember, this has worked for me and it may not work for you.

Now, some rules are not as forgiving as yellow lights. One of these unforgiving rules is:

The Rule of 3 to 5

You will survive only …

3 to 5 seconds without Thinking

3 to 5 minutes without Air

3 to 5 hours without Shelter

3 to 5 days without Water

3 to 5 weeks without Food

3 to 5 months without Information

3 to 5 years without Community

3 to 5 decades without Medical Attention

Needless to say, you can violate the order of this rule in certain situations. As an example: If the weather is nice, you