The Lost Art of Survival

“America is the only country that went from barbarism to decadence without civilization in between.” - Oscar Wilde

Civilization is a fragile thing. We depend upon so many skills and talents of others. Consider driving a car. Could you replicate the rubber of the tires, the metal of the exterior, the electronics of the on board computers, the engineering of the engine, the production of oil and gasoline?  Recently I mentioned that ancient Rome used forks but this concept was lost with the Dark Ages. Also lost were heated baths, indoor plumbing, concrete, and many other technologies that made Roman cities famous.

A recent commuting lecture series on "Ancient Empires before Alexander the Great" described an empire in Mesopotamia that was a marvel of central planning with all labor and production organized by the Capitol. This lasted several decades but the next generation of rulers were not as skilled at planning; a drought and crop loss began a cascade of problems that unraveled the carefully made plans and the empire fell apart with food revolts.

Unfortunately the more advanced the civilization, the more dependent we become upon it, and ever less capable of surviving on our own. Most have lost the knowledge that comes from living "the simple life". How to grow food, build a home, make a fire from scratch, etc. I'm always amazed by the stories like "Little House on the Prairie" where a family builds a homestead from scratch.

The loss of basic life skills is not a recent phenomenon. In the late 1800's  Robert Baden-Powell, a Lieutenant General in the British Army, was appalled by the lack of nature skills with city boys drafted into the Army as Scouts. A Scout was required to spy on enemy positions and carry messages through dangerous territory. They needed to live off the land by hunting and gathering, build a fire and conceal it, know how to track others and how to hide. So Baden-Powell wrote a Scouting guide for the hapless soldiers. This book was published in England and became popular with young boys who wanted to play at being soldiers. Recognizing an opportunity, in 1908 Baden-Powell wrote a new book, Scouting for Boys, and began the Boy Scout organization that has spread around the world.

Bottom Line

Despite being a Cub Scout Leader, I would not fare well with outdoor survival. The only animal I've ever killed is fish (and I'm a terrible fisherman). If you want to learn survival skills check out http://www.survivalblog.com/ for daily ideas. A good starting point is Learning Traditional Skills covering the basics of Food, Water, Shelter and Fire.

Recommended Books

"The worth of a book is to be measured by what you can carry away from it." ~James Bryce

The SurvivalBlog has posted a list of reader recommended survival & preparedness books at ...

www.survivalblog.com/2009/07/survey_results_your_favorite_b.html

The readers' favorite book is The Encyclopedia of Country Living by Carla Emery. It sells for $18-20 on Amazon and is described as, "invaluable practical advice on all aspects of growing and preparing food. ... how to cultivate a garden, buy land, bake bread, raise farm animals, make sausage, milk a goat, grow herbs, churn butter, catch a pig, make soap, work with bees and more."

Many of the books in the list cover gardening and farming. The rest are a mix of general principals, health (dentistry, first aid), guns, religion (bible), food storage, and cooking.

Bottom Line

While I love the internet and all the information that is available, I would not count on it to be working after a major emergency. First - many disasters knock out the electricity. Second, that might be a break in your phone line or cable. Third, if you do have power and a working line, the servers may be overwhelmed or just incredibly slow.

Do yourself a favor and buy a few good books:

• first aid
• old fashioned cooking skills (e.g. Joy of Cooking, 1965 edition)
• general survival guide
• farming/gardening (if you have the land)

How to Do Anything

“Bad planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part”

An amazing resource to know about is the web site, How to Make Anything.com. The site contains "GigaBytes of data collected from all over the world" with detailed instructions on how to do just about anything. Items include:

UNDERSTANDING CEREAL CROPS I-WHEAT, OATS, BARLEY, AND RYE
How to Dehorn Cattle
Raising Yaks (a Yak is pictured above)
Cheese making
Donkey work made easy
Snail farming
Making Yoghurt
and more like all types of stoves, making bricks, making Ox carts, sanitation, medicine, education, etc.

Bottom Line
Sites like How to Make Anything.com are amazing and fun to read. But they are not much use after a disaster that knocks out electricity. Or if the site is popular and well know, the server may become overloaded by too much traffic under emergency conditions. You need to prepare in advance to make this site useful:
1. Print out topics of interest and create your own survival manual this way
2. Buy some good survival books
3. You could download useful topics to your PC or flash drive and when the internet and power is down use an UPS (backup power supply) to access the topics (warning - the UPS won't last long).
4. For those technically inclined, it's possible for a bicycle to create power to run a laptop (but not enough for a PC) http://science.howstuffworks.com/question658.htm
Here's one product that claims it can charge batteries via bike: http://www.econvergence.net/electro.htm

Top Seven Preparedness Books

“Be careful about reading health books. You may die of a misprint.” - Mark Twain

Check out The Survivalist Blog for descriptions of the best Preparedness Books according to Arthur Bradley, author of “Process of Elimination"

Book 1: Crisis Preparedness by Jack A. Spigarelli
Book 2: Preparedness Now! By Aton Edwards
Book 3: Disaster Preparedness for Dummies (DVD video)
Book 4: Emergency Food Storage and Survival Handbook by Peggy Layton
Book 5: Organize for Disaster by Judith Kolberg
Book 6: Making the Best of Basics, Family Preparedness Handbook by James Talmage Stevens
Book 7: No Such Thing as Doomsday, by Philip L. Hoag, revised in 2001

Bottom Line

Arthur Bradley suggests that if you can only purchase three books, buy Book 5, Book 6, and either Book 1, 2 or 7. With those three, you should have a balanced look at common sense organizing, food storage, and emergency items to have on hand. If you can buy only one book, get Book 1.

Soldiers of Fortune

"Survival kits and disaster preparedness used to be something out of the mainstream. After a brief (and heavily-mocked) period of fallout-shelter construction in the late 1950s and early 1960s, the notion of private disaster preparedness retreated from the mainstream. … 10 years ago, [Survival Kits] was the stuff of Soldier of Fortune [magazine]." – Glen Reynolds

Glen Reynolds (Instapundit) wrote the above in a 2006 article entitled “We're All Soldiers of Fortune Now”. He notes that “You know survival kits are mainstream when Costco is selling them. … Survival food buckets … were going for $110 and had about 275 servings of freeze dried vegetarian meals.”

More signs that preparedness is mainstream:

• The federal Department of Homeland Security, http://www.ready.gov/, pushing survival kits
• Many states have preparedness pages. In 2006 the state of Ohio sent residents a pamphlet suggesting they put away a month’s worth of food in case of avian flu.
• FEMA encourages Community Emergency Response Team training
• September is now officially National Preparedness Month

Bottom Line

Glen concludes with, “It's a dangerous world out there, and there are lots of reasons, beyond politics, for doing what we can to be ready for it.”

Random Safety Tips

Better a thousand times careful than once dead. ~Proverb

Here are Random Safety Tips thanks to the amazing web site, Codename Insite.

• Never store poisons in old food containers. People have drunk gasoline, anti freeze, etc from what they thought was a bottle of soda pop.
• Wear your seatbelt low around your hips. If your seat belt is high up on your waist you can get serious spinal injuries in a car accident.
• If you have old blinds with the loopy pull cords on your windows, cut the cords so they do not form a noose that can strangle young children.
• Don't take medication prescribed for others. It might react with your meds or be too strong for your body weight.
• If you are taking strong drugs like heavy duty pain killers or prescription meds put them in pills boxes with compartments for each day (some have morning and evening compartments). This can help avoid accidental overdoses from taking your meds twice on the same day.
• Always wear a helmet on motorcycles and bicycles.
• Never drink & drive.
• Exercise every day.
• Use tools safely at home and at work.
• Be especially careful on ladders. Falls are quickly becoming the leading cause of death and injury.
• Be careful crossing the street! Stats show that adults in the 45 to 65 year old range are actually more likely to be hit by a car than a child.
• Be fire safe--have working smoke alarms, fire extinguishers on hand, and a fire escape plan.
• Water safety is huge--swim in marked areas with a friend. Never swim alone, in situations above your swimming ability, and certainly don't dive into unfamiliar water.
• Turkey deep fryers make a tasty turkey but they are a huge fire/burn hazard. Use this type of fryer outside and don't put too much oil in the fryer as it could over flow when you drop in the turkey.
• Put ICE (in case of emergency) on your cell phone attached to the phone number that should be called in the event of your incapacitation. Put ICE 2 and ICE 3 if you would like to add additional contacts.
• Have a code word with your family to alert them to a dangerous situation.

Bottom Line

• Be proactive instead of reactive--make your home secure, get regular medical check ups, have an emergency fund for future emergencies, etc.

What Could Happen?

"The most merciful thing in the world... is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents" - H.P. Lovecraft

An important question to ask in emergency preparedness is, "exactly what event(s) am I preparing for?" Different events require different responses. During a tornado you'll seek shelter in an underground room that is protected from winds and flying debris. The same spot might work for a hurricane too but you have to consider the possibility flooding. Could a water surge drown you in your basement? On the other hand a basement is a very bad place to be during a chemical spill or terrorist attack with a heavier than air gas. A heavy gas creeps along the ground and would fill your basement and your lungs.

It is important to think about and make plans for the scenarios most likely to occur in your neighbor. To help you in this planning, here are two websites that list potential events:

• FEMA www.fema.gov/areyouready/getting_informed.shtm
• Survival FAQ www.geocities.com/tominelpaso/assess_faq.txt

I recall one podcast where an emergency instructor said he felt very safe in a suburb of Chicago. There was very little chance of earthquake, flood, hurricane, tornado, etc. So he was surprised one day when ordered to evacuate his house by the police. It turns out that an abandoned railroad car in the neighborhood had caught fire. No one knew what was inside so the fumes were assumed to be dangerous.

Bottom Line

Once you've made a list of possible local emergencies, make plans. Where would you go? What supplies would you need? What skills will you need? What don't you know that you should learn?

If it helps, plan one event at a time; don't get overwhelmed with information overload. I heard a story about a new leader of a church who wanted to be prepared for everything. Together with his counselors/advisers he made a list of things that could go wrong - someone has a heart attack, breaks a leg, the toilets overflow, etc. Then during weekly church committee meetings, he and his staff would discuss one item from the list for at most five minutes deciding how they would react and respond. Now if any of these events did occur, the church leader had a plan.

A blog for the beginning survivalist

"He who wonders discovers that this in itself is wonder" - M.C. Escher

Today I found a blog, Getting Started In Emergency Preparedness, that is written for "the beginning survivalist." It covers the basics for anyone interested in surviving short and long-term emergencies, natural or human-made. The blog is a 16+week course updated on a weekly basis."

The "Getting Started" blog started in June and covered all the topics by October. The author is now updating and revising the original posts.
Week One-Thinking
Week Two-Shelter
Week Three-Water
Week Four-Food
Week Five-Guns
Week Six-Air
Week Seven-Information
Week Eight-Health/Medical
Week Nine-Clothing
Week Ten-Transportation
Week Eleven-Finances
Week Twelve-Communication
Week Thirteen-Taking Time Off
Week Fourteen-Power/Power Production
Week Fifteen-Emergency Evacuation Kits
Week Sixteen-Reading Material
Week Seventeen - Blog Recommendation
Week Eighteen - Resources

Bottom Line
There is a lot of material in the "Getting Started" blog plus a great deal more if you read the many excellent links. If you find the volume of information to be overwhelming, take advantage of the "Quick Start:" at the start of each post.

The Survivalist series

"The whole catastrophe-preparedness notion is a guaranteed dinner-party downer, roughly on par with discussing leprosy or child molestation, and only a fool writer desperate for material would risk bringing the subject up in sociable company."
- David Shenk, the Survivalist Series

In 2006 Slate magazine published eight articles on survival topics. Here are the topics and links:

• How to Survive a Disaster (intro)
• How Survive a Nuclear Bomb
• How to Survive an Earthquake
• How to Survive a Subway or Skyscraper Attack
• How to Survive a Superworm or EMP Attack
• How to Survive Global Warming
• How to Survive a Dirty Bomb
• How to Survive Avian Flu, Smallpox or The Plague

Bottom Line
Each week I discover new survival blogs and publications. It's amazing how much material there is out there but how few people actually care.

Professional Snow Training

"Because of the specialized nature of this course, the student is expected to bring the snow vehicles they currently use to class."
- SafetyOne course description

One of the fun things about this blog is learning new things. Who knew there are companies that teach OSHA certified winter survival for drivers of snow plows and other winter equipment? It sounded like a fun class to take until I found the quote above - bring your own snow plow to class!!
I wish I knew how much the classes cost. The web site show zero dollars when I try to register. http://www.safetyoneinc.com/winter-safety-training.html

Bottom Line

Winter weather is no joke. If you are a hunter or work in winter wilderness areas then seriously consider attending a winter survival class. It may save your life. Here are some links I found on Google but I have no experience with these courses:

http://www.apathways.com/corporate/WinterSurvival.htm

http://www.mainesoutdoorlearningcenter.com/survival.html

http://www.karamat.com/wintersurvival.html (this site has a nice list of topics taught and other useful information)

http://www.woodlandsurvivalcrafts.com/survival-courses/winter-survival.php (located in the UK)

Principals behind a good Survival Kit

"Readers will learn about the eight categories of gear: Fire and Light,
Signaling, Water and Food, Shelter and Protection, Knives and Tools,
Multi-purpose Items and Miscellaneous Items, and what to pack into a kit for their pocket, glove box, four-wheeler, trunk, small plane, backpack, and more." - Amazon.com description for "Build the Perfect Survival Kit"

Several years ago my wife & I attended a class held at a local sporting goods store on "Building the Perfect Survival Kit" by John D. McCann. It was an amazing experience and I highly recommend John's book on the subject.

As the quote above indicates, John builds a kits following two principals

1. Satisfy the rule of 3's with the right tools
2. Select the contents based on the kit size

Small kits fit on a hiking hat, a belt or inside an Altoids tin. Large kits can fill a back pack or a supply chest on a boat or bus. The kit size forces compromises: you won't fit a tent into an small tin but you can address the need for shelter by having a compact space blanket.

The "Perfect Kit" satisfies eight categories:

1. Fire & Light - can be used for warmth, cooking, medical sanitation, protection from animals and signaling. This is the most important.
2. Signaling - Includes whistles and mirrors to help rescuers find you. Old CD's make great signal mirrors and can be cut to size.
3. Navigation - maps and compass
4. Water & Food - in small kits this can be line and hooks for catching fish and some foil for cooking
5. Shelter - space blankets and rain poncho
6. Knives and Tools like a mini saw
7. Medical - First Aid supplies
8. Multi-purpose: items which can serve many uses like DUCT TAPE. More on this in another post.

Bottom Line

The perfect kit is tailored to your abilities and your needs in the size space you have available. Review your kit to make sure it supplies fire, warmth/shelter, means to obtain safe water, food or means for obtaining food, first aid and useful tools.

The PM Survival Guide

"Survive Anything!" - Popular Mechanics

Popular Mechanics, the magazine, maintains an amazing survival guide on their website at www.popularmechanics.com/survival. Topics include:

• How to Survive Anything Mother Nature Throws at You
• 5 Steps to Get Ready for Disaster (Not Stuck in It)
• 22 Steps to Save Yourself When Natural Disaster Hits
• 7 Steps to Eat, Drink and Be Smart When Worse Comes to Worst
• 4 Steps to Power Your Home When the Grid Fails
• 5 Steps to Fix Your Home After a Crisis
• 107 Pieces of Survival Gear for Your Car, Home and To-Go Bag
• The 10 Worst Disasters of the Last 101 Years

Bottom Line

The PM Survival guide also contains several quizzes to test your knowledge. Try them out and see how well prepared you are.