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When was the last time that you woke up and the water was off, or when the electric was off?
Did you know what to do? Did you have water stocked up, or a generator to keep the fridge running?
Why is preparedness important you ask? We all need food and water to survive. If you don’t have any water at all, what do you think would happen in three day’s?
There are a lot of aspects to preparedness and you don’t have to know everything to survive. You should try to learn as much as you can after the basics, after you get the basics down, you spend some time learning more skills.
Where should I start?
The very first thing you should work on is getting at the least, three day’s of water stocked up for each person.
If you have a family of four, two adults and two kids, you should have four gallons of water per person per day. So, for three day’s your looking at around 12 gallon’s.
You can go with a half gallon of water per person per day, but that would be the minimum needed, the extra water helps with washing up and cleaning your dishes and stuff to eat off of.
There are a few different ways you can store the water. First things first, NEVER USE MILK JUGS! The milk jugs are very hard to get clean and if you use it for drinking water, you will get sick.
You can spend around $15 to buy 12 gallons of water, or you can do it without spending any extra money. If you use a CPAP Machine like me, you can just fill the old jugs of water up and build your storage up over time.
I have found that I can use store about 17 gallon jugs in an area of my closet before I have to start stacking more on top of them. It does take up a lot of floor space, but since I can stack it by putting a piece of plywood on top of the first layer, I can add more water to my storage.
If you drink pop, you might consider going with the plastic two liter bottle’s instead of the can’s. You can just wash the bottles out and use those for storing water.
If you want to spend the extra money, you can get some stackable water jugs on Amazon. This might be a better option for you. With these, you can easily stack these anywhere and they can save you some space, this is good for those who have limited money and space.
Now that we have covered water, lets talk about food.
If you can start out with at least three days worth of food in your house at any given time, then you are already ahead of the game compared to most Americans.
We won’t live without food, our bodies must eat!
You can slowly build up your food storage to a week’s worth, or two week’s worth of food. You don’t have to go out and buy it all at once. Build up to it!
Now, the more you have the better off you will be, but do what you think is right for your family.
Don’t forget that you don’t want to just have food in your fridge, you want to get non perishable foods to store for the long term. Canned, Freeze Dried, and packaged food’s will last the longest.
What about Power Outages?
Think about the last Natural Disaster that happened in your area; How long did it take to restore power?
The longest I remember being without power due to a natural disaster was around two weeks.
How do you regularly cook? Most household’s have electric stove’s, or even worse, just a Microwave.
How do you plan on cooking in the event of a natural disaster? Sure you can use an outdoor grill, or a fire-pit, but if you don’t have a lighter or a match, how are you going to start the fire?
I think everyone should know at least one way to purify water and one way to build a fire. Learn that one way, get it down, then expand your knowledge, try it another way!
Do you know just how reliant on power we are, in today’s society? Think of it this way. If the power were to go out due to a CME the size of the Carrington Event, the world would be brought to it’s knee’s.
Million’s of people would parish within a few years time. Now I’m not trying to scare you, I’m just giving you a heads up. The likelihood of that happening are slim, but possible.
Here is a short list of what all would be effected without power:
- No Air-Conditioning
- No running water
- No light’s
- No heat (for those who don’t use a wood stove)
- No fuel for your vehicle’s
- No swiping your credit card to buy food or gas with
- No refrigeration for your Insulin or food
- and much more!
Imagine how your life could be effected during such an event. A Hurricane or Tornado just ripped through your town causing major devastation! How will you fair?
It would be wise to look into alternative power means and get a generator or at least a small portable generator to run the necessities like your refrigerator or medical equipment.
What are you Preparing for?
If you are wanting to prepare for a certain scenario like a local natural disaster emergency, you will be preparing differently than someone who is preparing for the end of the world!
Think of it this way, if you normally get hurricane’s in your area, you wouldn’t want to be preparing for an major earthquake and vice versa.
You know, there could be a train that is passing by your area that had just derailed or was leaking chemicals. Stuff like that happens every day.
You don’t want to just prepare for one thing in particular, you will need to determine what the highest probability of something to go wrong in your area and plan accordingly.
No matter what you’re prepping for, you should at least have enough food and water for everyone in the house to last at the minimum a week. These are the most vital components of prepping!
If you don’t know what you should be preparing for, reach out to me, leave me a comment below and I will help guide you through it! Everyone should be prepared!
Whats the difference between preparedness and survivalism?
Preparedness in my opinion is someone who has taken the forethought and gathered the necessary tools and resources to survive a few month’s to a year if need be.
Survivalism is in the sense a mindset, they are much more prepared and have honed in their skills. The skill set for a prepper and a survivalist are similar, but a survivalist will take the extra time to learn everything that they can to live off the land.
Things like:
- Foraging
- Hunting
- Fishing
- Primitive fire starting and camping methods
- Learning more than one language
- Knowing how to operate with different Radio Communication’s
- Hand to Hand Combat
- Knife fighting
- Becoming familiar with different weapons
- Train regularly
- Stay physically fit
Are just a few of the things a survivalist will hone in on. Now, everyone is different and have different opinion’s, but I’m sure that others will agree.
With that being said, a lot of the above mentioned skills work for both preppers and survivalists but the amount of knowledge and training is the key difference.
Preppers prepare with the mindset that if something does happen they will be better off than others that aren’t prepared, giving them better chances for survival.
Survivalist’s train constantly with the mindset that something will happen and they overcome all the odds.
With all that being said I’m sure we can all agree that preparedness is important, not for just the end of the world, but for our day to day lives.
If you were to get laid off, how would you fair until you can get another job? Just think about it!