My name is Butch C. and over the past several months I’ve spent a fair bit of time getting up to speed on the latest survival and preparedness techniques and theories. Thoreau and I have been working together on this and while we live on different coasts and have different short-term concerns (hurricanes vs. earthquakes, etc…) we’ve found that many of the supplies and skills we need are the same. We’ve created this blog to share our experience with you, hear your feedback, get your advice, and to allow you to follow us as we continue to learn, grow, and make ourselves even better prepared. After all, preparedness is not something that comes from a weekend shopping trip to CostCo and a quick read through an army field manual. True preparedness takes time, patience, and dedication.
You should keep in mind that we’re a couple of pretty ordinary guys. We don’t live in “off the grid retreats” or spend our weekends training with a militia. We go to work, we spend time with our family and friends, take in the occasional movie, and live what most would consider regular if somewhat boring lives. We do, however, pay attention to what goes on around us and we both agree that just a little hiccup in the system (medium term power outage, bad storms, earthquake, etc…) could turn our otherwise boring lives into a bit of a struggle. This is why we PREP. But we do it in a Reasonable way and that is what we are trying to share here.
Once I became aware of survival and preparedness it was like taking my first glance at a large multi-faceted system that includes; political forces, State and Federal laws, economics, supply chains, energy policy, weather, geologic movement, social networking, local economies and tensions, etc… I suddenly saw how tenuous the current infrastructure, economy, and social structure is. There are a huge number of scenarios that could negatively affect people’s lives. These range from minor events that may impact us for only a very short time all the way to major disasters that could set our way of life back by over 100 years.
As I see the bigger picture, I try to prepare most thoroughly for those events I estimate are most likely to affect my family. I then add skills and supplies on top of this “base” to prepare for more serious but less likely scenarios and emergencies as I deem appropriate (and there should be a great deal of debate on what I deem appropriate. I constantly question myself!). If I were to sketch out my personal “preparedness scale” it would be pyramid shaped with the largest part, or base of the pyramid, comprised of basic material necessities and core preparedness skills to match. I would apply a smaller percentage of my survival assets and training time -on a sliding scale- to the less likely, but admittedly more serious, major events that require long-term survival off the grid and possibly in a hostile environment. In short, I’m all about being as prepared as possible for any event that requires me to be self sufficient for up to 2-3 months. Now don’t get me wrong, I would love to be able to buy a retreat in a remote area or even to move to a country house in a small community that I felt would rally in times of emergency but my personal finances don’t allow for a second home and it would be tough to relocate with my job. Still, this remains “on the wish list” and I will certainly be talking about what’s happening with real estate, architecture, regional issues, etc… as I see articles or other information of value.
Welcome to our blog,
Butch C.
H. Thoreau
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