Bugging out is undoubtedly one of the most popular topics in survival literature, as well as in online discussion forums.
Assembling a bug out bag is something akin to a rite of passage among preppers, and we love to critique each other’s kits.
We talk endlessly about bug out locations (BOLs) and bug out vehicles (BOVs). Yet, for all of that discussion, one rather critical part of the plan often lacks attention.
We talk a lot about HOW to bug out, but we often forget that sometimes bugging in is the required course of action.
Weighing Your Options
First of all, I firmly believe that bugging out should be considered your last option rather than your primary plan of action in most disaster scenarios.
For most of us, home is where we have the bulk of our supplies and hitting the trail with even a fraction of what we have stockpiled would be an arduous effort, to say the least.
Sure, we can fit all sorts of supplies in our vehicle but what if motorized travel isn’t a viable option?
Depending upon the nature of the crisis, streets could be impassable due to debris or even manned roadblocks.
That said, even though it isn’t the best option in many cases, bugging out is still an important part of your overall disaster planning.
Would you have made the right choice?
Deciding When To Bug Out
Deciding when to bug out will largely be a judgment call, of course.
There are many factors that may come into play, and we certainly can’t plan ahead for all of them.
However, there are a few key indicators, call them red flags if you’d like, that should get you thinking that it might be time to beat feet and head for a more secure location, at least for the immediate future.
Civil unrest in the immediate area
Particularly if you live in an urban or suburban area, this is a big clue that things are headed south and you might not want to stick around.
As I’ve often said and written, frequently the biggest threat in a crisis is other people.
If you are made aware of looting and riots happening in your immediate area, you may want to load up the family truck and head out of town for a bit.
Now, a word of caution, here.
I cannot stress enough the importance of obtaining reliable information on what’s going on around you.
It is one thing if your neighbor tells you they just got back from the grocery store where he saw massive crowds stripping the shelves bare.
Another thing entirely if he tells you his sister said her best friend’s cousin was told by a random guy on the street three cities over that there were rumors of rioting happening.
This one reason why a working radio is a critical element of your survival gear. Depending upon the nature of the disaster, going online with a phone, tablet, or laptop might not be a viable option. A crank powered radio, ideally one that can tune in shortwave transmissions, might be the only way you can gather information about the world at large.
Bear in mind, though, recent history has shown that reporters quite often get as much wrong as they get things right.
The Eton FRX2 is an excellent emergency radio
Stores aren’t getting restocked
The common statistic tossed about is that the average grocery store only has enough stock on hand to last three days at normal buying volume.
That’s actually rather misleading as it depends upon the items in question. Food items will go quickly. Toiletries, maybe not so much.
Either way, if the grocery store has to shutter their doors because they’ve run out of stock on most things, people are going to get rather antsy.
We live in an age of immediate gratification. We’ve become accustomed to satisfying our wants without thinking much of it. In fact, people get very upset quickly if the store doesn’t have the item they traveled there to purchase.
“What do you mean you sold out of The Walking Dead, Season 87?!”
They’ll demand to see a manager, who is just as powerless as the store clerk, and pitch a holy fit because the store dared to sell their entire stock of the item without so much as a thought for this important-in-their-own-mind customer.
Now, imagine it isn’t a DVD set, but food.And rather than just being offended, the customer is starving… and has three kids at home who are just as hungry.
Yeah, you probably don’t want to hang around to see how that plays out.
Emergency services are overwhelmed
As we’ve seen happen time and again in major disasters, emergency services such as fire, police, and rescue can become overwhelmed.
Understand, I have the highest respect for those brave men and women who, when a crisis hits, run toward rather than away from danger. But, they are only human, and there are only so many of them to go around.
They can’t be everywhere at once, right?
Because of the limited resources, and no matter how large the department is, there are a finite number of emergency responders available at any given time, what’s called triage is going to take place.
Basically, decisions will have to be made about which emergencies are more important than others.Of course, dispatchers do that every day. A massive pileup on the highway is going to take precedence over a lost dog.
However, in the wake of a major disaster, there will most certainly be lives lost simply because of a lack of emergency personnel available.
Making The Call To Bug In Or Bug Out
The most important thing to remember is to trust your instincts.
If your gut is telling you it is time to get out of Dodge, listen to it.
Our subconscious minds often come to solid conclusions well before our active minds can muddle through all of the information. Bugging out can put you and your family in significant danger, whether from the actual crisis at hand or the people reacting to it in a less than an ideal manner. But, the danger of staying at home might be greater.
Jim is the author of several books on preparedness and has most recently written “Urban Emergency Survival Plan: Readiness Strategies for the City and Suburbs,” which is a comprehensive look at disaster planning for urban and suburban dwellers. Find out more about this great resource here:
We’ve all seen post-apocalyptic movies or TV shows that feature heroic survivors scrounging for food and, more likely than not, fighting off some sort of un-dead enemy. It all looks so…achievable, doesn’t it? In the movies, someone always manages to build a fire and find drinking water; no one ever dies of dehydration or from an infected wound. The question is, if civilization were to collapse, could we rebuild life as we know it?
According to The Knowledge: How to Rebuild Our World From Scratch by Dr. Lewis Dartnell, the answer is no. In this eye-opening survivalist guide, the author argues that if civilization should fall and necessities such as food and clothing no longer ‘magically’ appear for us on store shelves, then humanity would crumble. With all the advances and conveniences we’ve created, we’ve forgotten how to meet our basic needs if this crutch was taken away. In order to survive in a post-civilized scenario, we would need to relearn many of the core skills our ancestors used to advance civilization in the first place.
Why It Needs to be on Your Nightstand
The book is written from the perspective that if the world were to suffer a major catastrophe, it would be next to impossible for the ‘survivors’ of whatever calamity befell our civilization to retrace the steps of recent generations. Readers will learn the skills essential to rebuild our world in the immediate aftermath beyond just basic survival. By growing and mastering these skills, readers can move on to more complex tasks and learn how to improve their lives should the unthinkable happen.
Can’t we just use all the same stuff we enjoy today?
Consider this: many of the advances we enjoy today were created during the Industrial Revolution, fueled primarily by fossil fuels. At that time, these fuels were easily accessible and abundant, but now can only be mined or drilled using energy intensive and increasingly advanced methods. Oil, for instance, is currently fracked out of the ground using cutting-edge technology; a group of post-apocalyptic survivors wouldn’t stand a chance of pumping oil from a fracking well, let alone distilling it into fuel or plastic.
Given that we won’t be able to exactly replicate what our ancestors did, we need to devise ways of leapfrogging many of the steps they took as well as alternative solutions to problems solved during a different time.
A Quickstart Guide To Rebooting Civilization
In The Knowledge, Dartnell argues that “the aim for an accelerated reboot of civilization is to jump directly to a level that saves centuries of incremental development, but that can still be achieved with rudimentary materials and techniques – the sweet spot intermediate technology.” The book will teach you the skills needed to reimagine and recreate many vital technologies, including the following:
Melting down and reshaping plastics to make containers and other durable, reusable materials
Making steel via the Bessemer Process, instead of forging the way medieval blacksmiths did
Damming up a stream to create a millpond for a waterwheel – a technique not used until 600 AD, nearly 1,000 years after the widespread adoption of waterwheels
Leveraging chemistry to create a great deal of materials for building and creating, including basic chemistry to more efficiently make paper, soap, and fuels
How do I know this sort of thing is even possible?
Sound incredible? The Knowledge provides plenty of examples of times throughout history when civilizations successfully redeveloped technologies to survive. For instance, the City of Gorazde repurposed a roman-era waterwheel technology to generate electricity in the 1990s. This was during the Bosnian War when the city was cut off from the grid during a three-year siege by the Serbian army. A few years earlier, Europeans were able to repurposed more than 1 million cars to run on wood, coal and methane gas during WWII.
An old wood-powered car. Think you could get it back up and running?
What You’ll Learn About Rebuilding Civilization
The Knowledge provides an in-depth review on the key tenets of civilization and the skills needed to rebuild from scratch. If you were in a post-apocalyptic situation right now, would you be able to weave cloth from plant material? Preserve your food? Put wind and water energy to work? Find your way using only the stars as a guide?
If you answered “no” to any of these questions, you need to read this book. In addition to learning the skills needed for those key tasks, you’ll also learn the following:
What makes soil rich, the best fertilizers to use, and the best crops to cultivate based on ease of growing and nutritional value
How to turn crops such as cereals into consumables like bread and beer
How to preserve your food using traditional methods
How to spin yarn and thread from plant and animal materials to weave cloth
How to harvest the raw materials for more complex necessities such as soap, fuel and preservatives
How to scavenge for basic materials to build tools (such as a blacksmith’s) that will allow you to build more complex tools (such as a lathe or drill press)
How to create medicines needed for infectious diseases, childbirth, and more
How to perform basic medical exams and diagnosis without MRIs, X-rays, etc.
How to manage transportation in a post-fossil fuel world, e.g. wood-powered cars, animal power, wind for sailing
How to develop basic communication tools such as quills, inks and paper, as well as more complex medias such as the printing press, telegraph and radio
How to use basic chemistry to make explosives for mining and salvage work
How to use the stars for navigations as well as primitive tools such as sundials and astrolabes
The Ultimate Prepper Book?
If you’re looking to develop your self-sufficiency toolset, this book is a must-have. When disaster strikes, the greatest resources you can have is knowledge. The Knowledge gives you a holistic view of what skills you’ll need so you can prioritize your learning and development. There are also practical examples of how to use those skills to build the necessities of life from readily available materials.
The essential knowledge provided in this book will give survivors the tools to build a strong foundation for the future generations that come after, so that they can do more than survive – they can thrive. If you are interested in vastly increasing your own preparedness or learning more about The Knowledge, you can read what other people are saying here.
About The Author, Dr. Lewis Dartnell
Dr. Lewis Dartnell is a professor of astrobiology at the University of Leicester in the UK. He is a UK Space Agency Research Fellow, STFC Science in Society Fellow, and the Senior Editor of the journal Astrobiology. He has committed countless hours to his exhaustive research of the technologies and skills needed to rebuild our world, and the detailed thoroughness of his book demonstrates this. In addition to all this Lewis has somehow has time to keep up a preparedness related blog at The-Knowledge.org.
I recently reached out to Dr. Dartnell to speak with him about his book and ask the questions both myself and readers of The Bug Out Bag Guide had after reading The Knowledge. His rationale for writing the book in his own words is as follows:
What I tried to do with the book is push much farther beyond what most prepper books deal with – not focusing on the run-up to a disaster or the immediate aftermath, but looking years or generations down the line as to how you would actually need to know to reconstruct a new civilization (not necessarily rebuilding our world) from the ground up and ensure it remains vibrant and progresses. The idea behind the book is what would be the crucial knowledge you’d want to be able to hand to a group of post-apocalyptic survivors if society were ever to collapse (be it from pandemic outbreak, asteroid impact, or whatever) to help them rebuild as quickly as possible – a quick-start guide for civilization itself.
Q&A with Dr. Dartnell
Question #1
There are so many prepper books available, why should this one be on your must-read list?
Answer:
I have very deliberately written The Knowledge to pick up where other prepper books leave off. You can certainly stock-pile canned food, bottled water, and other consumables, and this would fare you and your family well for riding out a disaster. But then what? What do you do once your reserves have run out? What would you actually need to know to produce everything you need for yourself, and to start recovering a society from the bottom-up? The Knowledge is a thought experiment on how you could orchestrate the reconstruction of a technologically-capable society in the aftermath of a global catastrophe. I take a post-apocalyptic world as the starting point, and ask what is the critical scientific and technological knowledge you’d need in order to reboot civilisation after an apocalypse, how to avert another Dark Ages, and how you might even accelerate that reboot second time around… The one thing I hope people take away after reading The Knowledge is to understand a little more about the behind-the-scenes fundamentals of how the life-support system of our modern civilisation works, and appreciate the everyday things we just take for granted today.
Question #2 – Note This was the winner for best question!
Given a small amount of time and money, what five skills would you recommend a person learn to be ready for any eventuality? In order of importance, please.
Answer:
Well, at the end of the day, developing any new skill to a meaningful level of proficiency takes time – there are no short-cuts, particularly if you want to be prepared for any eventuality. But as long as your community of survivors has a diverse set of skills represented amongst them, and can work together effectively, you’ll have a much better chance of thriving. Throughout the chapters of the book I talk about the most crucial domains of knowledge and capability, why they were crucial in our own historical development and therefore why they will be needed if we ever have to reboot civilisation from scratch. This, of course, includes areas like agriculture and knowing how to grow enough food to sustain your community, and to keep your land productive and fertile over the generations. Knowing which natural fibres you can harvest and spin into thread, and then weave into clothes on a loom is also important. But history teaches us that building a capable society needs much more than just basic survival skills like these. The knowledge of how to extract crucial raw ingredients from the world around you and transform them into the most useful substances and materials. How to you create soda, needed for everything from soap to glass and paper? How do you get metals out of their rocky ores, to make all the tools and building materials that you need? And being able to use tools is also critical, as well as knowing how to maintain and repair them. I explain in The Knowledge why the lathe is so fundamental, and how it has the astounding ability to reproduce itself. All you need to make all of the components of a new lathe is a lathe, and if you know how, you can even use a half-finished lathe to complete its own construction. All of these crucial capabilities were developed slowly over time, and what I’ve tried to achieve in The Knowledge is provide enough of an outline that these could be redeveloped rapidly during a post-apocalyptic recovery. Well, as far as is possible in one single book, of course!
Question #3
What do you think the hardest thing to master or salvage would be?
Answer:
If our civilisation ever did collapse and a community of survivors had to start again, rebuilding a progressive and technologically capable society, I think one of the most difficult fields to recover will be medicine. Although there are some herbal remedies that can be extracted relatively simply from natural sources, the vast majority of pharmaceuticals in use today are purified or modified by advanced organic chemistry, and that is going to take a lot of time for a society to redevelop. For centuries of history, doctors found themselves in the frustrating position of being able to diagnose the ailment or injury inflicting a patient but being essentially powerless to do anything about it; without antibiotics to treat infection or without anaesthetics and analgesics to allow surgery. I explain in The Knowledge the fundamentals of these things – how to chemically synthesise nitrous oxide or how you could re-isolate penicillium mold,for example. But in the aftermath of a global catastrophe the survivors would find their health-care capabilities knocked back to basics for quite a while once all the pre-existing drugs and medicines have degraded away (which I also discuss in The Knowledge)
Question #4
What key skillsets would you want to teach the next generation so they could build on whatever knowledge or technology you yourself were able to salvage or re-learn?
Answer:
Of course there’s only so much information you could fit into a single book, or indeed a whole library of tomes. So the key skill for a society rebuilding after an apocalypse would be knowing how to fill-in the gaps – how to rediscover all of the other knowledge that you weren’t able to explicitly preserve or salvage. And so just with the last two or three centuries of our history, by far the most successful system for generating understanding will be science. The scientific method is essentially knowledge-generation machinery – a process you go through to understand the world around you and be confident that your explanation is the best one. As long as the survivors can maintain an inquisitive and rational mind-set then civilisation has a chance of recovering rapidly and not getting caught in another Dark Ages of superstition and ignorance.
Question #5
What is the single most important issue with regards to hygiene? They are so many things to consider, from hand washing to location of a latrine, and how to do these things with very limited resources (like water).
Answer:
I would argue that one of the most important nuggets of modern understanding that should be preserved if all else is lost, is the notion of germ theory. This is the idea that the reason people fall sick and pass their disease on to other people is not because of bad odours or the whims of fractious gods, but that there are things so tiny they are invisible to our eyes, but which get inside our bodies and make us ill. The most easily prevented diseases are spread by what doctors delightfully term ‘fecal-oral transfer’. Health education studies in the developing world have found that nearly half of all gastro-intestinal and respiratory infections can be avoided simply by regularly washing your hands. Although the importance of germs and hygiene seem obvious today, in our own history this wasn’t appreciated until surprisingly recently. As late as the 1850s, people in London, the capital city of the greatest empire on the planet at the time, were pouring their waste into the river Thames, and 20 yards downstream someone else was dipping in a bucket and drinking it. So if you did have to reboot civilisation, imagine the centuries of pestilence that you could leap-frog over with the fundamentals of germ theory. With this understanding, it is immediately obvious why you need to keeping washing your hands, treat carefully your sewage in large settlements, and use antiseptics and aseptic techniques to stop infection of an injury or after surgery. So in The Knowledge, I explain how to make your own soap for personal hygiene, how to produce ethanol as a disinfectant, why privy pits should always be dug at least 20 metres downhill from your source of drinking water, and how to construct a rudimentary microscope to demonstrate for yourself the existence of these invisibly small bacteria and protozoa.
Thank You!
Thanks again to Dr Lewis Dartnell for taking the time to answer our questions, if you want to find out more about the book, you can check out The Knowledge here:
Some well-seasoned, cast iron cookware and a carefully constructed fire offer just about everything a chef could want. However, you’re not going to lug cast iron pots and pans around to make a camp kitchen when you are bugging out. For solo, long distance, treks into the wilderness, smaller, portable stoves are more appropriate. In this article we’ll discuss lightweight, reliable cooking stoves, small enough to fit into a bugout bag. We’ll also highlight options that utilize clean burning and renewable fuels and even show you how to make your own alcohol-stove fuel at the end of the article with a moonshine still.
General Stove Types
There are at least half a dozen fuel sources and hundreds of stoves and gizmos available to choose from when selecting portable cooking equipment. In general, backpacking stoves are either heated with liquid or gas fuel. While solid fuel is much less common, there are a few options in that category as well. Liquid fuel stoves in the United States are generally designed to burn white gas (Coleman fuel).
A basic Coleman Fuel Stove
Internationally, liquid fuel stoves are adjustable so that they can burn kerosene and other fuels as well. Gas stoves almost always use isobutene. Most portable solid fuel stoves are designed to burn prepackaged pellets, but a few models are set up to burn wood (in the form of small twigs).
The nice thing about white gas and isobutene stoves is that they’re very easy to use and they provide plenty of heat. In short, they make cooking on the go very convenient. However, the downside is that all of the most popular liquid and gas stoves utilize petroleum products as the fuel source. Solid fuel stoves provide less heat but still offer convenience. Though, pellets designed for the solid fuel stoves generally utilize petroleum products and binders as well. The problem with petroleum based fuels is that they will quickly become a finite resource in the event of a SHTF scenario. Also, the process of producing such fuels isn’t very environmentally friendly.
By our account, there are only two extremely lightweight, extremely portable backpacking stove options that utilize environmentally friendly and renewable fuel: solid fuel stoves designed to efficiently burn wood, and alcohol burner stoves.
Portable Wood Stoves
Portable wood stove operation is very easy. Find some dry twigs, break them down to the appropriate size, and feed them into the bottom of the burner. It requires some scavenging and the fire must be constantly tended to because it will be very small and wood needs to be constantly fed into the burner. However, the fuel source is free, renewable, environmentally friendly, and generally easily obtainable. One of our favorite portable wood stove options, which we have reviewed in the past is the Emberlit Wood Burning Portable Stove.
The portable, alcohol burning Westwind Stove will fit in any pack
Portable Alcohol Burner Stoves
Ultra-simple alcohol burner stoves are another one of our favorite mobile cooking options. The two biggest advantages of alcohol stoves are as follows.
The fuel does not need to be pressurized to burn and the stoves themselves have no moving parts. As a result they’re extremely reliable.
You can make your own renewable fuel for an alcohol burner stove. We’ll show you how below!
Bonus: Operating an alcohol burner stove is as simple as it gets. Simply set up the stand, place the fuel canister inside, take the cap off the canister, and light.
A combination alcohol/wood stove, the Solo Stove
Combination Wood / Alcohol Stoves
While completing research for this article we found this awesome dual fuel wood / alcohol stove. You can use alcohol canisters (if you have them) to start a fire and cook food or heat food nearly effortlessly. If your fuel alcohol supply becomes exhausted and you don’t have the time or provisions to make more, you can use the stove as an efficient wood burner.
How to Make Fuel For Your Alcohol Burner Stove
The good folks over at Clawhammer Supply provided the following simple procedure for making a batch of fuel alcohol for alcohol burner stoves. A still is required which can either be made (can be DANGEROUS!) or purchased in 1 gallon, 5 gallon, or 10 gallon models as a part of your prepping.
The following recipe is for a 10 gallon batch of fuel alcohol mash:
Yield:
2.5 gallons of 150 proof alcohol.
Note: If you are using the 1 Gallon Still we are giving away below, cut this recipe down to 1/10th to adjust for its smaller size.
Alcohol over 100 proof (50% concentration) is flammable, but its flammability varies depending on atmospheric pressure and temperature. As such, we recommend distilling your fuel to at least 150 proof for use in a fuel alcohol stove. A proof of 175 works the best. Once your fuel alcohol has been created you can store it in a glass carboy or you can pre-load it into fuel alcohol canisters, for easy get-away, should you need to grab your bugout bag and hit the road in a hurry.
What else can I use this alcohol for?
You can also use the recipe above to make fuel for small engines (such as a chainsaw) and even motorcycles or cars. The only difference is the proof. FYI: Proof is a number that tells you how strong alcohol is. To find proof, double the percentage of alcohol. For example, if you have a solution that is 50% alcohol, it is 100 proof. 100% alcohol is 200 proof. It also works in reverse. An 80 proof solution of alcohol is 40% pure alcohol. If you’re planning on using this fuel in a small engine, it will need to be distilled until it is roughly 195 proof and a desiccant will need to be added to remove the last bit of water in the fuel, raising the proof to 200.
Be aware that federal and state laws prohibit the production of alcohol for consumption (moonshine, whiskey, etc…). However, a federal permit for fuel alcohol is available. It’s free and is easy to obtain right here. Also, each state has its own set of laws on the topic of distilling and you may be required to obtain a state permit for fuel alcohol production, in addition to the federal permit. Be sure to research the distillation regulations in your state before purchasing a still or making alcohol to verify that you’re in compliance with the law.
The Spartans were renowned throughout the ancient world for their military prowess and disciplined lifestyle. They did not win every battle, but they did beat back larger forces to defend their homelands time and time again.
This ability came down to their dedication to preparedness, their whole society was geared towards it. Spartan men and women were trained from a young age to respect the community as a whole and dedicate themselves towards its preservation. This included training in warfare, foraging, adaptation, and conditioning oneself to hardship. They were in effect a nation of preppers! No wonder they were respected by their fellow Greeks!
Today we idolize the Spartans for their strength and discipline in books, movies, slogans, and more. But what can we learn from their culture of preparedness?
Learning To Survive At An Early Age
At age 7 Spartan children left their families to join the Agoge. This was a training program for both boys and girls that tested their strength and wills as well as taught them the skills they needed to serve Sparta as they came of age. The Agoge was renowned throughout the ancient world and powerful families from friendly nations vied to secure a place for their own children for 1-2 year stints.
Male Spartans had to endure thorough physical training to prepare them for war campaigns and the hardships of living in the field. Looking at the Agoge program that every boy Spartan had to pass through gives us some great insights into their mindset of preparedness. There are a lot of elements within it that we can draw upon when looking at how we prepare today as well as how we instill this mindset into our children.
Hardship was the norm
An especially important element of Agoge training was being taught to endure pain and hardship. Students were often made to suffer hunger, thirst, cold, fatigue and lack of sleep. Spartan boys were made to walk long distances without shoes, bath at the cold waters of the river Eurotas and wear the same piece of clothing year round. This was meant to condition them to the realities of wartime and is a valuable example for us today.
When prepping, being conditioned to hardship is a valuable asset. If you have to be on the move day after day evacuating from a disaster or terrorist act you will you be slowed down because you are cold, hungry, or your feet hurt? Are you ready for the hardship imposed by the removal of everything that is comfortable in your life? In order to be truly prepared we have to ready ourselves for such deprivation.
Flexibility and using the environment around them was expected
To be a Spartan boy going through the Agoge was to always be tired and hungry. In addition to the harsh physical training, they were constantly being underfed. To get the nutrition they needed the boys were encouraged by their teachers to forage from the world around them and steal from the kitchens. However, if they were caught stealing – even though it was encouraged – they were severely beaten as a punishment for failure.
For modern day preppers this shows how important it was seen to be able to feed yourself while on the move. Would you be able to feed yourself in the absence of a grocery store? Do you think you could liberate food from a watchful source without being caught if your life depended on it?
No rest for the weary
Even if they were able to fill their bellies, they still had an uncomfortable night ahead of them. This is because in their barracks, Spartan boys were not even allowed to have blankets to keep them warm at night. They slept on top of straw and reeds, which they gathered without knives from riverbanks, strengthening (and scarring) their hands in the process.
While this requirement would toughen up their limbs it would also show the value of using the environment around you to make what you needed. For us today we can look to our shelter building skills to emulate the Spartans. Are you able to build a shelter by hand in the wilderness? Keeping warm and dry after a day of hard walking gives you the opportunity to recuperate so you can be mobile again the next day. Shelter building with scavenged materials is an essential skill that all preppers should master.
Females Spartans were held to high standards as well
Female Spartans were trained in a variety of subjects both mental and physical:
Athletics – running, dance, gymnastics
Writing
Poetry
War Education
This program was aimed at building female Spartans into good citizens able to serve the state. Additionally their training prepared them for the mental hardship of being separated from their fathers, brothers, and children while they were off on campaigns.
Physical Fitness Was A Big Part
If you are ever caught in a situation where you have to bug out you will surely be put to the test physically. Just having your bug out bag packed and ready to go will not be enough, you need to actually be able to carry it until you reach safety.
Spartan Training
The Spartans put a huge emphasis on physical fitness in both in the Agoge training and throughout their entire culture. Both men and women were expected to maintain their fitness during their entire lives.
This emphasis helped define the Spartan soldier and enabled them to march for longer and fight harder, even against overwhelming odds. The Spartans won a great many of the ancient Olympic Games due to this commitment to physical fitness.
Students in the Agoge were constantly encouraged to compete against one another to weed out weaker members and push everyone to constantly improve. Female students would even be encouraged by their instructors to observe and mock the competitors to drive them even harder at their tasks. Agoge students were expected to gain proficiency at:
Distance running
Gymnastics
Jumping
Javelin
Discus
Wrestling
Combat
How Can We Train Ourselves?
So, how can we use this as inspiration for our own prepping? As with any challenge we need to train harder than we expect to have to endure when the test comes. This may mean taking your bug out bag for a walk on weekends to condition yourself to carrying it. If that proves difficult try just going for a hike without it until you can build up your strength to carry the load. My old mixed martial arts coach used to say, “sweat in the gym so you don’t bleed in the street” which captures this mindset perfectly.
A Lifetime of Dedication
For Spartans, their dedication led to a lifetime of service. All males who passed through the Agoge lived in state owned barracks and continued to serve in the army until age 60. They continued their own training and once experienced, the training of the next generation for basically their entire lives. From age 7 to age 60, ALL Spartan males would relentlessly dedicate themselves to the prosperity and preparedness of their nation.
Modern Day
Today as a nation we are obviously very far from this single minded focus. But, on an individual level can we seek to emulate this dedication? Would you start training your children at age 7 to serve the interests of your family day in and day out until age 60? Can we instill the proper mindset and pass essential skills and knowledge on to them in the face of our own distractible and fragmented culture? I know I will be trying to do so with my own children, it seems to be an immensely worthwhile investment. I will try to lead by example and show them the way.
Our Own Preparedness Mindset
Looking at these examples we can clearly see why the Spartans were respected among the ancient world and are still looked up to today. Their level of dedication and preparedness was truly impressive. The rigorous training they practiced and widespread commitment would be impossible to replicate for most modern day Americans.
It is however this mindset that preppers seek to emulate. In the modern world we can still train our bodies and minds to endure hardship, overcome mental and physical obstacles, and pass these values on to the next generation. Dedicate yourself to this as the Spartans did and you will be able to face any challenges that get in your way.
Your Thoughts?
Do you have a way of preparing that would make the Spartans proud? How do you prepare yourself physically and mentally to face hardships? Let us know in the Comments Section below, thanks!
With coronavirus spreading around the world, it’s understandable that people are searching for ways to protect themselves and prepare for the different possible outcomes of the spread.
The knowledge you acquire to protect yourself and loved ones in a pandemic survival situation has never been more valuable.
In this article, I am going to show you what preventative measures to take to reduce your risk of exposure before, during, and after a pandemic. We are also going to take a look at some of the Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) available to keep the chances of transmitting an illness as minimal as possible including kits like these:
Freedom Hill Pandemic PPE Kit
Ebola Virus Preparedness and Travel Kit
Personal Ebola Preparedness Kit
Understanding How Pandemics Are Transmitted
Knowing how a pandemic is spread is the first key step in planning to protect yourself from getting sick. Pandemics are generally passed on in 3 ways – through the air, through physical contact, and through contaminated food or water. Let’s take a look at these 3 methods and the illnesses that are transmitted through them.
Transmission Through The Air
Many bacterial and viral infections are transmitted through the air. This generally happens when a sick person coughs or sneezes, which releases the microbes into mucus or saliva droplets into the air. If a healthy person breathes in these particles, in they can become infected. Here are some of the most common illnesses that can be transmitted through the air in this manner:
Bacterial Meningitis
Chickenpox
Common cold
Influenza
Mumps
Strep throat
Tuberculosis
Measles
Rubella
Whooping cough
Protecting Yourself From Air Transmitted Infection
Wear a surgical mask – Note this does not filter the air, it is designed to protect splatter or spray from coughs and sneezes from entering your mouth and nose. To filter air one would need a respirator. There is also evidence that wearing a mask prevents you from unknowingly spreading disease via droplets if you are presymptomatic or asymptomatic.
Wash your hands if you come into contact with someone who has been coughing or sneezing
Make sure any rooms you share with a person who is ill are well ventilated
If you are caring for a family member that has contracted one of the illnesses mentioned above, encourage them to wear a mask and to wash their hands as often as possible
The second common transmission method is through physical contact with the bodily fluids of an infected person including:
Mucus
Saliva
Blood
Feces
Semen
Breast milk
Transmission may occur from both direct contact (touching mucus, blood, etc directly) or indirect sources (touching a surface, doorknob, or shaking hands with someone who has the mucus/blood/etc on their hands). Once you have made contact the pathogen can enter your body through broken skin or through your nose, eyes, or mouth. Here are some of the most widely known illnesses that are passed on via touch:
Ebola
Rhinovirus (common cold)
Hepatitis
HIV
Influenza
Protecting Yourself From Touch Transmitted Infection
Wash your hands frequently, especially if you come into contact with a sick person
Wipe down surfaces that have been contacted by a sick person with an antibacterial cleanser or bleach solution
Do not handle items that have come in contact with a sick person (clothing, bedsheets, medical equipment)
Wear gloves or other PPE if you think there is a high risk of encountering sick individuals or if caring for an ill family member
Transmission Through Contaminated Food Or Drinking Water
There are 2 main pandemics that are typically transmitted through drinking water:
Typhoid
Cholera
Both of these have been nearly eliminated from the western world by improved sanitation conditions and antibiotics but still regularly occur in less developed countries. In the event of a major disaster, there is the chance of these plagues returning again until our society is able to get back on our feet.
These are caused by microorganisms that thrive in unsanitary water and food. Modern water treatment techniques and food handling methods are effective at eliminating both types of bacteria.
Protecting Yourself From Food & Water Transmitted Infection
Practice hand hygiene after going to the bathroom and before preparing food
Boil water that you think may be contaminated or treat it chemically or with ultraviolet light
Cook food thoroughly before eating
Make sure your waste is being kept far away from your water source if you are setting up a camp
Prepping For Pandemic Survival
Now that we know what we are up against let’s take a look at what steps we can take to prepare and protect ourselves. We are going to look at the 3 stages of a pandemic – before, during, and after – and see what we can do to reduce our chances of exposure during each.
What to do before a pandemic
If a pandemic has reached towns in your area or a location where people in your community frequently travel to, it is a good time to start making preparations to limit your exposure to any potential carriers. You do not need to put your life on hold, but raising your level of vigilance will not hurt.
Wash hands your hands religiously
This is something we are going to see again and again through this article and throughout medical literature. Your hands are one of the most common ways that a pathogen enters your body so it is extra important to cleanse them frequently when a pandemic is on the rise. Try to instill the importance of this in your children as well if they are old enough to understand its importance.
Be aware of symptoms
Before a pandemic strikes is the best time to educate yourself on the symptoms that are caused by the illness. This will allow you to identify whether or not the people you encounter are affected. It also allows you to get medical attention to any family member who falls ill as soon as possible.
While it is good to know general symptoms for many illnesses, it is also wise to educate yourself on the specific symptoms of the particular pandemic that you see coming. If you are prepping for Ebola, you should be aware that Ebola’s symptoms are:
Nausea & vomiting
Fever
Unexpected bruising
Diarrhea (possibly bloody)
Redness in the eyes
Raised rashes
Chest pains and coughing
Stomach pain
Severe weight loss
Bleeding, usually from the eyes or other orifices (ears, nose and rectum)
Seek medical help immediately if you show ANY symptoms
You may see that a pandemic is approaching but not realize it has arrived until it is too late. Because of this, it is vitally important to seek professional medical help as soon as possible if you or a family member begins showing any symptoms of illness.
Get vaccinated if possible
If a vaccine has been developed for an illness that is spreading rapidly it is wise to take it as soon as possible. Not every illness mentioned above has a vaccine unfortunately and it will not help against illnesses transmitted by bacteria. But, if a vaccine is available this is really the only way to ensure that you are safe against infection.
Start planning for disruptions
If a pandemic becomes widespread there will be disruptions in everyday life. Some of these may be imposed to prevent transmission of the pandemic and some may be by choice to reduce your own risk. Some things to consider when planning include:
Schools may be suspended – plan childcare if you are going to still be required to go to work
Transportation may be disrupted – you may need to find alternate ways to get to your workplace. Avoiding public transportation is a good idea anyways during a pandemic, plan accordingly.
Discuss plans with work – talk to your boss about working arrangements during a pandemic. They may be planning to close the office or have employees work from home. You may need to work from home yourself to take care of a sick family member. Discuss these possibilities so you know what your options are.
Stock up on food and water – Having what you need at home means fewer trips to the store and less chance of exposure. Stock up on non-perishable items and clean water before panic hits and the shelves are empty.
What to do during a pandemic
The steps to take during a pandemic survival situation are primarily focused on avoiding exposure and keeping safe until it passes. With careful planning, good hygiene discipline, and a bit of luck we can maximize our chances of passing through a pandemic unharmed.
Avoid crowds at all costs
The more people you come into contact with, the higher your chances of exposure. During a pandemic crowds should be avoided at all costs. This includes avoiding:
Areas where people congregate
Public transportation – if you HAVE to use it avoid rush hour
Sporting events
Concerts
Stores
Schools
If you do need to go out try to stay at least 1 meter away from other people.
Wash your hands
Again, washing your hands is the easiest way to avoid getting sick. Wash your hands whenever you arrive at a destination, after you encounter a crowd, and especially if you come into contact with a person whom you suspect to be sick.
Wear Personal Protective Equipment (PPE)
If you do have to pass through an area where there is a crowd or it is likely that there have been sick people around, you may want to wear PPE to minimize the chances of transmission. This is also important if you are called upon to care for a sick family member. What you wear will depend on the nature of the pandemic as well as how you come into contact with these elements. We will cover PPE in detail below but for now, keep in mind that it is an option.
Have Your Stay At Home Plan Ready
Depending on the nature of the pandemic, it may be best to stay at home with your family instead of bugging out. Make sure you have a plan in place to accommodate this that includes food, water, and communicating with friends, family, and neighbors in the outside world.
If you are a single parent, coordinate with a caretaker to look after your children if their daycare center is closed
Make arrangements to work from home if possible
If you live alone or are caring for an elderly or disabled person make arrangements with another caregiver in the event that you yourself get ill
Make sure the phone numbers for your doctor, local hospital, neighbors, and family are posted prominently in the home
Avoid face to face meetings if possible, rely on phone and email to communicate
Postpone non-critical travel and gatherings
What to do after a pandemic
If you are fortunate enough to survive a pandemic you will be left with putting the pieces of the community and your own life back together. There may still be pockets of infection present, here is how we can avoid getting sick from them:
Avoid hospitals and medical equipment where pandemic victims have been treated
Do not touch the clothes, belongings, or bodies of those who were infected, wear your PPE if this is absolutely necessary
Contact local authorities to have the deceased disposed of properly
Remain vigilant when coming into contact with others, keep an eye out for lingering symptoms of the pandemic
Avoid coming in contact with objects or surfaces that may be contaminated when visiting a relative who may be recovering
Get vaccinated if a vaccine has been developed
How Personal Protective Equipment Can Protect You
One of the best ways we can reduce our chances of becoming infected by a pandemic is to wear Personal Protective Equipment or PPE whenever we need to come in contact with those who are infected. This PPE is similar to what we imagine a doctor wearing in a hospital and is designed to protect the most common entry points of bacteria or a virus into the body as well as minimize our chances of infecting others. If you are prepping for an ebola outbreak or any other pandemic, the PPE that I am going to discuss here is designed to protect your:
Hands
Eyes
Nose
Mouth
Exposed skin
Clothes
PPE For Your Hands
Dynarex Black Nitrile Exam Gloves
Kimberly-Clark Nitrile Powder Free Exam Gloves
Dynarex Synthetic Vinyl Powder Free Glove
Gloves are the most commonly used PPE to protect your hands from contacting an infected person or surface. These are a highly effective barrier against infection and should be worn whenever you are in an area where sick people have been as well as if you are caring for an infected person.
Gloves are typically made from vinyl, latex, or nitrile
They come in sterile and non-sterile (but still clean) varieties
If you working in an area with rough surfaces consider wearing two pairs of gloves, remove and replace both layers if one suffers a tear or becomes heavily contaminated
Even if you are wearing gloves be conscious of what you are touching. If you inadvertently scratch an itch or rub an eye with an infected glove this has a very high chance of transmitting the illness to you.
Also avoid touching things like doors and light switches with contaminated gloves to avoid cross contamination
Make sure your gloves fit snugly and allow you to use your hands as needed
PPE For Your Eyes
Uvex Stealth OTG Safety Goggles
Pyramex Safety Goggles Chemical Splash Anti-Fog Lens
3M TEKK Protection Splash/Impact Goggle
PPE designed to protect your eyes will consist of goggles that should fit snugly around your eyes. This will prevent mucus, blood, and saliva from a cough, sneeze, or other ejection from entering your body through your eyes.
If you are going to be wearing goggles for an extended period consider applying anti-fog solution before putting them on
Personal eyeglasses are better than nothing but do not provide the same level of protection as a set of goggles
If you touch a contaminated surface with your hands or gloves be very careful not to rub your eyes or touch the inside of your goggles
PPE For Your Nose & Mouth
3M Full Facepiece Reusable Respirator
3M Particulate Respirator and Surgical Mask
MSA Safety Works Multi-Purpose Respirator
There are two types of PPE for your nose and mouth. The more common one is a surgical mask. This is a semi-spherical shaped mask that is fastened around the back of your head by either tying it in place or with elastic straps. The mask should also pinch snugly around the bridge of your nose for a good fit.
Masks are generally rated based on how small a particle they will prevent from passing through, N95 is the most commonly used rating.
Note that a surgical mask WILL NOT filter the air. It is designed to stop fluids from splattering at your nose and mouth and to keep your own sneezes and coughs contained.
If you are worried about airborne pathogens you will need a respirator to keep you safe. This also fits snugly on the nose and mouth but actively filters the air you breathe. Respirators are generally more expensive than surgical masks but provide this extra level of protection.
Again, if you touch a contaminated surface with your hands be sure not to touch your face or the inside of your mask or respirator when adjusting or removing it
PPE For Exposed Skin & Clothing
Medline Basic isolation gown
Medline Industries Closed Back Coated Polypropylene Isolation Gowns
If you are going to be traveling through a crowd or have frequent exposure to people infected with the pandemic you will want to protect any exposed skin and prevent your clothes from becoming contaminated.
Wearing a gown or apron is the appropriate PPE for this purpose. These typically are worn by doctors performing surgery or in other environments where blood, saliva, or mucus spray is likely.
Gowns cover arms and torso and fasten in the back with ties.
Not all gown materials are fluid resistance. If you expect heavy soiling make sure you have a gown that is fluid resistant or fluid proof.
Gowns should be donned before gloves and the wrist of the glove should overlap the gown sleeve
Personal Protective Equipment Tips
Make sure your PPE fits snugly. It will not serve you well if it gets caught and tears as you move or inhibits your intended actions.
Have extra PPE on hand so you can replace damaged or contaminated items
Consider the type of exposure that you are most likely to face. Are you likely to face spraying body fluids, airborne contaminants or large numbers of infected people? Are you just trying to keep yourself safe during your commute? Will you be caring for a sick relative? Be sure to choose gear that is appropriate to your needs.
Make sure you put your PPE on before you are exposed to infected people, even before you leave your home if possible.
When done, remove PPE carefully to prevent cross-contamination. Do not touch the insides of masks, goggles, or gowns with contaminated gloves.
A full set of PPE is generally put on in a specific sequence to maximize protection:
Put the gown on first
Mask or respirator goes on second
Goggles go on next
Gloves go on last
Make sure everything is adjusted and snug fitting before you touch any contaminated surfaces to avoid having to make adjustments with contaminated gloves
After removing PPE be sure to wash your hands before doing anything else
Prepping For The Next Pandemic
Partnering these tips with properly used PPE should give you the best chance possible of making it through a pandemic unscathed, whether you are prepping for coronavirus or the next pandemic. Remember to use caution and common sense when considering traveling, congregating, or otherwise interacting with others and be sure to practice good hygiene to prevent a pandemic from spreading.
Please also note that I am not a doctor and this article is absolutely no substitute for sound medical advice. The majority of the information found here is publicly available from the CDC, Wikipedia, and other online sources. If you or someone you know is showing any symptoms of infection seek medical attention as soon as possible.
Your Thoughts?
Do you have advice for protecting your family during a pandemic survival scenario? Do you have PPE that you would recommend? Let us know in the Comments Section below, thanks!
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