The Survival Weekly Dispatch - Volume 13, Issue 16
Hey folks, thanks for checking out the newsletter this week. Last week was quite eventful around here. On Friday alone, we had seven tornadoes touch down in southeastern Wisconsin. All told, there were something like 150 tornado warnings throughout the storm front from Texas through northern Michigan and beyond. We were fortunate that everything kind of went around us. We got some wind and rain, but nothing too severe.
Other areas are still cleaning up. There has been some pretty severe flooding, as well as at least one train that was pushed off its tracks by a washout on the tracks in Janesville, Wisconsin. Thankfully the train was carrying corn and grain, not people nor toxic chemicals.
All of this is just another reminder that Mother Nature loves to keep us on our toes. Because of that, it’s important to do what you can to be ready for storms. I wrote up an article for GAT Daily detailing some great resources for staying on top of the weather.
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A few days ago, I watched a video from someone showcasing her bug out bag and explaining some of the gear. It was just one episode from a three-part series of videos where she fully unpacked her bag and detailed all of the contents.
Yes, it took her three videos to get through the pack’s contents.
Among the items shown in just this one episode:
A minimum of three different LED lanterns, two of them battery operated and one solar.
What looked to be at least 16 AA batteries to power the lanterns.
Three separate 72-hour kits of freeze-dried food. Meaning three bags, each of which contains enough food for one person for 72 hours. These bags are very large and bulky. Out of curiosity, I looked them up online and they run about $30 each.
Mess kit, along with several extra plates and utensils.
Walkie talkies with charging cords.
Two Lifestraws as well as a Sawyer Squeeze filter.
There was more as well, on top of whatever was covered in the previous videos. And everything is packed in its original box. She said she does that so that she can use the boxes as “kindling.”
The backpack is enormous, and it’s covered in add-on pouches. My impression is that she collected several lists of bug out bag contents found online, bought every single thing listed on each one of those lists and then jammed it all into the largest backpack she could find.
I’ve seen smaller packs and lighter loads from people trekking the Appalachian Trail from end to end. I would bet large sums of money that this woman has never once put this pack on her back and walked a significant distance.
Please, folks, you gotta be realistic about your preps. If you can’t pick up and carry your bug out bag for any reasonable distance, what good will it do you in a real evacuation? I mean, yeah, the hope is that you’ll be able to use some sort of modern transportation to get you to safety. But you’ll still need to lug that bag around. If it’s large enough to house an adolescent child, it’s probably too big, just sayin’.
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Travel tip -- If you’re traveling by plane and you leave your car at the airport, do what you can to park it on an interior level of a parking structure. This will provide a degree of protection from weather events, such as hail or even objects being blown around. I saw a post on Facebook showing lines of cars at an open-air parking lot at an airport with windows shattered by hail. This was followed by some torrential rains. Coming back from a trip and finding that in the parking lot wouldn’t be a fun time.
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Reminder -- Prepping isn’t a spectator sport. I and others can give you guidance, but you’re going to have to do the bulk of the heavy lifting. That’s sort of what self-reliance is all about. We educators are happy to help and do what we can, but you’re going to have to participate.
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I recently reviewed the Orlando Special boot dagger from RMJ Tactical for Tactical Knives. You can read the review for free here.
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For our hike over the weekend, my wife and I went to White River County Park in Lyons, Wisconsin. We’ve been there a ton of times over the years. After the storms last week, I wanted to see how high the water might be. Turned out a few sections of the trail were entirely underwater. We backtracked once, then went bushwacking a couple of times to get around the flooded areas. What you see here is normally a wide, flat trail.
Survival Tip — Evacuation Cash
This stems from a brief conversation I had with someone on Facebook last week. He’d posted some info about the bug out bag he’d put together, including a detailed list of the contents. That’s always cool, because many people just post a photo of a pile of gear and say, “What do you think of my BOB?” That inevitably leads to several comments like, “What’s that green blob in the upper right corner?”
Anyway, one of the items was a $100 bill. The only other cash mentioned was a single dollar coin. I pointed out that if he had to spend cash on something in a hurry, if the other person doesn’t have adequate change, than you’re spending that $100 bill on something that might actually cost far less.
We’ve talked before about the need for cash in a crisis. My standard recommendation is to have enough money immediately accessible to afford:
One full tank of gas
One or two nights in a decent motel
Meals on the road for a few days
Little to none of that should be big bills. Keep it to $20s and smaller, ideally a good mix of $10s, $5s, and $1s. This way, you can get reasonably close to the purchase price of things without worrying too much if change isn’t available.
Also, in a true emergency, use credit cards as much as possible and reserve the cash for places that won’t take plastic. This will hopefully help stretch your cash further.
Backwoods Survival Guide Magazine
For those new to my little corner of the Internet, I am the Editor in Chief for Backwoods Survival Guide magazine. Here is the cover for the current issue available in stores right now.
You can find Backwoods Survival Guide just about anywhere magazines are sold, including:
Walmart
Publix
Walgreens
Rite Aid
CVS
Tractor Supply
Fleet Farm
Barnes & Noble
Questions, Comments, Complaints, Concerns?
I am always just an email away - jim@survivalweekly.com.