The Survival Weekly Dispatch - Volume 11, Issue 2
The snow is piling up....
Hey folks, thanks for checking out the newsletter this week. I’m writing this Tuesday afternoon and we’re in the throes of Snowmaggedon 2024. Well, kinda. We were supposed to get 1-3 inches overnight last night, and there was maybe a half-inch on the ground this morning. They’re predicting 4-6 inches today and I’d say we have maybe two inches on the ground right now at 1PM. But it is coming down pretty heavy, so we’ll see how it all shakes out. Either way, I’m glad I don’t have anywhere I need to go today.
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Prepper Tip -- A very common bit of advice you’ll find on prepper social media is that your bag or pack should not look tactical nor high-end. A backpack you might find on the average high school student is often recommended. The reasoning is that those sorts of bags won’t catch anyone’s eye, and thus you’ll better blend in to the crowd.
In reality, the appearance of your pack doesn’t matter a whole lot in the grand scheme of things. For starters, tactical style bags are a lot more common than you might realize. A prepper friend of mine was on vacation in Florida last week, checking out Universal Studios. He reports seeing all kinds of different styled bags and packs, including tactical backpacks and sling bags. I know when I visit my son at college, I see the same thing.
On top of that, if the concern is that in the wake of a crisis someone might see your tactical pack and decide you’re probably carrying stuff worth stealing, guess what? Anyone carrying any sort of backpack will be presumed to have something valuable inside of it, whether it’s from 5.11 Tactical or the Disney Store.
If you’re going to carry a pack, your primary concerns should be whether it fits your body properly and thus is comfortable to use, and that it fits the things you want to carry inside of it. Appearance isn’t nearly as important. I mean, if you’re really concerned about it, you could dirty up the pack, giving it some stains and scuffs, maybe adding some duct tape patches here and there. That might make it look less appealing to some. But at the end of the day, how it performs is far more important than how it looks.
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On the work front, it has been fairly quiet. Submissions are starting to trickle in from our writers, but their deadlines don’t really start until next week.
Prepper Survival Guide 21 should start showing up in stores at the end of this month and Backwoods Survival Guide 26 will follow in early February.
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Free Training Opportunity #1 – I will be teaching a Prepping 101 class on February 15th, beginning at 6PM, at Matheson Memorial Library in Elkhorn, Wisconsin. The class will run about 90 minutes, plus time for some Q&A. We'll cover putting together a food pantry that makes sense, the four pillars of financial preparedness, ways to improve your home security, and what to have in your vehicles in the event of an emergency. That's not all, either, as we'll also be discussing water storage, stocking up on critical medications, and where you might consider stashing additional supplies, just in case. Attendees will receive checklists to help them organize their plan at home.
Registration is not required. Just show up at the appointed date and time. This class will not be available online. In person only, sorry. Please feel free to share this with friends and family who might be interested.
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As many of you know, my wife and I have been doing weekly hikes for several years. We started back in November of 2016. We just up and decided that we wanted to spend more time outdoors and figured hiking was a great way to do so. We picked a random weekend to start and said we’d do it for a full year, and we’re still going strong today.
I tell you that to tell you this.
You don’t need to wait until some specific, magical date to make a change in your life. Nobody will care if your journey to a new you started on a Tuesday in the middle of the month. They’ll care that you’re still around to celebrate that anniversary a year, two years, five years, ten years from now.
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Free Training Opportunity #2 -- A colleague of mine is the Emergency Manager for Portage County, Wisconsin. He’s arranged for a FREE two-day (12 hour) class called Disaster Preparedness and Survival: A Guide for Individuals, Families, and Communities. It be held March 23-24, 2024. I believe the class will run roughly 8:00am-4:00pm on Saturday, and 8:00am-Noon on Sunday, but that’s not been confirmed yet. Here’s the description:
This course is designed to prepare individuals who may be directly affected by a disaster help themselves, their family and other community members. Participants will learn how to develop a family preparedness plan, practice self-rescue, perform search and light rescue techniques, and understand the recovery process.
I plan to attend this class myself. The location will be at the Portage County Annex Building, at 1462 Strongs Avenue, Stevens Point, WI 54481. I’m told that the class will run roughly 8AM-4PM the first day and 8AM-Noon the second day.
Registration is required. Here’s the link. Scroll through to find the Stevens Point session and follow the instructions to register. The title for the class online is slightly different -- When Disaster Strikes: Prepare, Act, Survive – but I’m told it will be changed soon to reflect what I posted above.
You will need to sign up for a FEMA SID (Student ID). You’ll be prompted to do so during the registration process.
This is an in-person class. Attending virtually is not an option at this time. This might be a great opportunity to network with others, as well as learn some new things.
This is all of the information I have at the moment. If you have any specific questions, I’ll gladly connect you to the host for this class, just drop me a message.
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I have been asked to speak at Wisconsin's 56th Annual Governor's Conference on Emergency Management and Homeland Security. The topic I’ll be addressing is what I’m calling Ground Level Preparedness. Many Emergency Management types are operating at a high-level, maybe a step or two removed from the streets, so to speak. So, what I wanted to do is share some tips and techniques that they could then pass along to the people in their counties and communities to help them be in a better position if disaster were to strike.
I strongly believe in the concept of community resiliency. The math is simple. The greater the number of people in a community who are prepared to handle a crisis, the greater the amount of emergency resources that will be available for those who truly need them.
If you have any special tips or suggestions I might be able to share (with credit, of course), feel free to send them over. I’m not looking for common advice, like stock up on food to last a few weeks. Rather, I’d love to hear some new tidbits that not everyone probably knows. I’ll compile a list of the ones received and share it all in a future edition of the newsletter.
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We took our hike this week at a nearby state forest. There was a bit of snow on the ground, just enough to make us pay close attention to our footing in some sections of the trail.
Survival Tip – Winter Storm Prep
These are some of the things we did to prep for the storm.
Snow removal gear – When we have bad weather coming in, we usually put one snow shovel on the front porch, so we can use it to dig a path if needed. The other stays in the garage. They likely won’t be needed, but I’ll get out the ice choppers, too. I pulled the snowblower out from the shed and made sure it started. One of the tires was low, so I inflated it.
Salt – we have a couple of buckets of road salt leftover from last winter. One goes to the front door of the house and the other by the door in the garage.
Yard cleanup – we have a couple of dogs, so I cleaned up the “land mines” in the yard. I also did a lap around the house to check for any garden tools or other items that might have accidentally been left out.
Fuel – I filled up the gas can for the snowblower and made sure our vehicles were good to go as well.
Food – We’re pretty well set on food already, but I made a pan of brownies, just ‘cuz. I’d toyed with the idea of making chili or chicken and dumplings, but never got around to it.
Vehicle gear – I'm not planning on any of us going anywhere, but you never know. All of the standard emergency gear is in place in the trunk or back seat.
Charge electronics – All phones and other devices were charged, including the Jackery solar generator.
This will be the first real snowfall of the winter. We’ve had a dusting a couple of times, but nothing really notable. Hard to believe we're into January already and this is the first snowstorm of the season.
Prepper Survival Guide and Backwoods Survival Guide
For those new to my little corner of the Internet, I am the Editor in Chief for both Prepper Survival Guide and Backwoods Survival Guide magazines. Here are the covers for the current issues that are available in stores right now.
You can find them just about anywhere magazines are sold, including:
Walmart
Sam's Club
Costco
Publix
Walgreens
Rite Aid
CVS
Tractor Supply
Fleet Farm
Barnes & Noble
Subscriptions to both titles are available here.
Questions, Comments, Complaints, Concerns?
I am always just an email away - jim@survivalweekly.com.