The Real Survival Series – Part 1 – The Emergency Supply

The Real Survival Series – Part 1 – The Emergency Supply

“Luck favours the prepared” ~ Louis Pasteur

After several blog posts on how to survive owning a vintage Mercedes without a mechanic, survive grad school, survive teaching smart undergrads; and several hacks for embedded systems, baking and brewing beer, I decided to actually live up to the blog name and dedicate a couple posts on "actual" survival and sustainability at a request from some readers.

As of the time of writing, Japan incurred a devastating earthquake, is on the verge of a nuclear holocaust, entire cities are now in ruins; the magnetic poles of the earth are shifting at an alarming velocity, Libya is at war, Chinas exports slowed, Spain has his credit rating cut, Oil’s a hundred a barrel, German exports are tumbling, the American deficit is swelling, there are riots in Wisconsin, and, last but not least, Michigan now has a new totalitarian government that Chinese communist party officials dream of. In addition to these facts, there are also quite a few people around, accepting their fate and making it easy by believing that the end or alternatively their resurrection is coming by 2012 +/- x years.

Mankind and Mother Nature share this neat habit of beating us to our knees without warning while laughing us straight into our face. Put otherwise the world is a beautiful, diverse, and interesting place. If you ever get bored, just watch the news.

So how do you survive this?

Actually, in the end you won’t. In some not so distant year in future, nature will reclaim you and convert you into worm food. For the short-term, answering that question becomes actually quite complex. There is no silver bullet for today’s world, mankind’s stupidity and Mother Natures surprises but man still has hope. The key to turn that hope into increased odds is readiness. This readiness consists of several different dimensions that I will discuss in subsequent posts. For now let’s start with the basics.

Surviving the expected unexpected at home – the emergency supply

Blackout! Your electricity goes of. A major storm tears off rooftops, an avalanche cuts you off from your town, flooding, winter storms, or other natural disasters strike. Now you are sitting unprepared in your dark home. Your home gradually becomes chilly because you’re forced-air- (or oil-) heater only works when electricity is there. Thanks to cable, DSL or wireless handset your phone nowadays also depends on mains electricity and is not working, not to mention that the cell phone net may be overloaded or down too. Your fridge is almost empty. Thanks to the destroyed or blocked infrastructure the shopping malls are closed or empty and gas stations ration fuel. Depending on the scale of the disaster, banks may be closed or money rationed and your savings frozen to rescue your countries sovereignty in the aftermath of a major disaster (i.e., late nineties crisis in Argentina).

Despite modern technology and extensive rescue efforts, you are best advised to take your own precautions. Especially the crisis right now in Japan and numerous other examples of the past show you how quickly the “governments” rescue efforts are exhausted. It is up to you to deal with this mess. You need to solve your problems now and the government is nowhere near in sight.

For such cases you need an emergency supply at home. Recommendations from the ministry of interior of Germany include the following:

• Oven with fuel for 4 weeks
• Warm clothing
• Radio with fresh batteries (or a battery-free crystal radio)
• Water in opaque container to avoid the growth of algae
• First-aid kit
• Sugar
• Rice
• Flour
• Vegetable oil
• Cans of vegetables, fruits, and meat
• Rusk
• Cocoa
• Dried Fruits
• Instant Coffee and or Tea
• Powdered Milk
• Dried Egg
• Matches (or lighter with enough fuel)
• Candles (or kerosene lamp with enough fuel)
• Flashlight
• Camping stove with fuel for 4 weeks
• Sleeping Bags
• Waterproof document bag of essential documents and money

Maintaining that stock looks like overhead but in fact is not; consider that you consume and replace the perishable items. Pack those supplies in a solid box to avoid vermin, dust, and rodents. This box also gets a table of contents and a packaging date. These are the core essentials that will allow you to survive and wait for the government’s spare capacity and rescuers to finally get to you.

Considering the fate of the many Japanese these days that had to evacuate quickly, having an essential subset of that stock readily available in a portable box may not be a bad idea. If there is need for swift evacuation you can quickly grab it and are well prepared for an emergency shelter. I would probably supplement it with a very light tent to house you and your close ones if there is no shelter. I particularly like these collapsible totes for that case. Also prepacking a backpack with the non-perishable essentials may not be a bad idea either. Below you see my empty German army military backpack (standard issue 2000 for non-commissioned officers from wild times of the past) and a subset of the above supplies in the foldable box. A folded example is standing behind.

At hand supplies

Everyone should in addition to cash carry the following in their wallet.

• Enough coins for telephone calls
• Name and address card
• 2 fixing pins
• 2 stamps
• A couple band-aids
• Paper
• Mini pen
• Matches

In addition a sharp pocket knife will also help with most every day tasks. Rüdiger Nehberg recommends a high-quality switchblade, but I stick with a Swiss army knife.

Emergency Amulet

This is a neat idea that was proposed by Rüdiger Nehberg a while back. If you have to move and get separated from your group, you can end up in very dire situations.

Craft yourself a little leather amulet that has a small unbreakable plastic tube inside. Inside that tube you put:

• 100 $ (or whatever your local currency)
• Something personal, for example mini pictures of your best friends, kids, and/or family
• Two painkiller pills
• One stimulant pill for really dire situations, could be phenetylline (also sold as Captagon in Europe)
• Tiny list of contents and emergency phone numbers

Glue and hide this tube inside the decorative amulet. The hundred bucks can feed you, bribe somebody, or enable you to organize help. As Ruediger points out this amulet may also be a useful gift for someone in trouble, especially if they do not know what is inside.

These three things will get you ready for many natural disasters and bridge a couple days until help is underway. Be disciplined and maintain the inventory and condition. Some of these items can be used for camping or outdoors and the perishable items can be consumed and replaced by rotation; such that, the investment will also pay off for non-emergency situations.

In subsequent articles, I will expand on more particular events and how to prepare for them.

Most of the ideas are based on Rüdiger Nehberg’s Survival books (in German).

A final comment to Japanese readers. Actually your administration made huge efforts in contingency planning, readiness drills, and documenting tailored list for emergency supplies. Given your exposure  to increased specific risks like earth-quakes and tsunamis, you may be better off reviewing these materials first. From my perspective the devastation and human loss would have been much larger, if those measures were not in place.