The past few months, I’ve been studying the sovereign debt situation around the globe and have come to the conclusion things are likely to get ugly. Life as we know it is mathematically unsustainable. Governments, be they federal or local, may collapse. This means government services such as water, sewage, and electricity, could have interruptions. The riots we are seeing in Greece are likely to spread as governments fail to keep the promises of the past.
Taking more personal responsibility for one’s survival seems like a prudent idea. Even though I enjoyed the story Emergency by Neil Strauss, I wanted more of a manual to urban survival.
When All Hell Breaks Loose by Cody Lundin is exactly the book I was looking for. In fact, it was more. The beginning of the book goes straight into the psychological aspects of dealing with survival. To assume you or anyone else is going to remain calm and act completely rational in a crisis is a bad assumption.
Cody Lundin takes you through what is required for survival in order of importance. Having a fully stocked cabinet of ammunition and dual citizenship to some remote country is worthless if you freeze to death or run out of water. When All Hell Breaks Loose breaks it down into a Pyramid of Needs required to survive.
- Positive Attitude
- Clothing, Oxygen, sleep, water
- food, shelter, sanitation
- lighting, first aid
- communications
- cooking
- transportation
In most cases, survival doesn’t mean living off the land until the end of time. It might mean going without essential services for hours, days, or weeks. You can’t trust that the social safety net will always be there to rescue you. Taking responsibility for your own safety and the safety of your family should be your first goal.
The first thing I did this week was to buy and fill two 7-gallon water containers. My roommates bought 2 as well. Humans need 1-3 gallons of water a day. If an earthquake hits Seattle and water lines are cut, I can now survive longer than I could last week. And that is the essence of my survival strategy. Each week I will take an idea or two from the book and implement it.
Reliance Products Aqua-Tainer 7 Gallon Rigid Water Container
thomas
May 9, 2010 — 11:30 am
Mike, you are scaring me. What’s next militia membership? please quantify/qualify your fears that things will be extreme in the US.
best
MAS
May 9, 2010 — 12:54 pm
Boston had a water main break recently that affected 2 million people. You saw what happened in New Orleans after Katrina. The finances of government at all levels is getting worse. Being able to live “off the grid” for a week to me is an admirable goal.
I am not expecting society to collapse, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it got interrupted for hours, days or a few weeks. Being prepared to last a week longer than your neighbors is not a bad thing.
thomas
May 9, 2010 — 5:14 pm
yeah, I guess you are right. But I think Obama is really trying to make things better. A lot of these problems are due to past administrations/maintenance/incompetence. How did you get to use wordpress if with your domain name. I recently registered a name and am trying to start a site but someone already has my domain.wordpress.com name even though I just want to use wordpress like you for domain.com name.
best
MAS
May 9, 2010 — 6:44 pm
Who is to blame is not relevant in a crisis. Survival is all that matters.
To set up a website, go to Dreamhost.com. They offer 1-click installs of WordPress. Use the code DIGITALCOLONY and you will get $10 off your order. Three of my domains are now hosted on Dreamhost.
thomas
May 10, 2010 — 9:34 pm
Thanks for the info. I like your design better too. I think you may get fewer comments because it is harder to find and more sites have the comments after the post. thanks again.
MAS
May 11, 2010 — 9:27 am
@thomas – I added a comment link to the bottom of each post on the home page. I also removed some of the space between the post and the comments. Thanks for the feedback.
thomas
May 11, 2010 — 2:58 pm
Great! I’m glad my advice was of some value.
Another tip: I try to read as much as I can and have noticed sometimes publishers use fonts that are not as legible or reader-friendly as they would like to think. Sometimes a book looks great or has been recommended but when I actually inspect it I have to dismiss it because the font is like reading an 18th century bible. Font is either too small, letters too close together, etc. I am not 85 y.o. with problem sight either, it just that to me conveying information is what is important.
My personal observation about criticalmas.com is that the letters are too small (and skinny) and words are spread out too far apart from each other. The older design, I found to be much more user-friendly so I could check-in daily.
Funny story: Once I went to a new deli that served healthy/organic foods. It was a start-up with about 8 tables. When I went in the entire menu was handwritten in colored chalk on a giant chalkboard behind the cashier. The handwritten letters were so large that it was like sitting in the front row at a movie. It was like I could only partially see an entire word. I mentioned this and the annoyed cashier gave me a take-out menu.
Initially I was relieved by this. Then I noticed that the whomever designed that menu basically used every font style and size in Microsoft Word or like program. I mean like every line was in a different font than the one prior and the one next.
I was so put-off, I said I had to call a friend and left.
I wonder if they are still in business, if not the owner probably thinks that customers are ignorant and his food was delicious and healthy. Could have been the greatest food in the world, but I’ll never know though cuz of their fonts.
MAS
May 11, 2010 — 7:15 pm
@thomas – I was able to switch the main font from ‘trebuchet ms’ to verdana and increase the size slightly. The top and side navigation look better and I think the spacing issue are gone.
tb
May 12, 2010 — 8:00 pm
watching a series by Penn&Teller called Bullsh*t! you might enjoy it. I am watching a end of the world alarmists episode right now. reminded me of this post. Although, I see the value in keeping a small stockpile of survivalists goods ready.
MAS
May 12, 2010 — 8:06 pm
@tb – I am a fan of that show. I will be on the look out for that episode.
Ed
May 16, 2010 — 1:40 pm
I know it was only a matter of time before you started to plan like this, and make a post.
Survival skills are a must at this point in my opinion. I might take a weekend survival course this summer too.