The Survival Weekly Dispatch - Volume 13, Issue 30

Hey folks, thanks for checking out the newsletter this week. I’m writing this late Monday evening. Earlier today, a powerful tornado ripped through Winnebago County, Wisconsin. The photos and video coming out so far are absolutely devastating. This has been a violently stormy summer in this area.

Today’s storm highlights the need for an evacuation plan. Not that you’ll hightail it out of town at the sight of a funnel cloud, but rather if said funnel cloud damages your home, where would you go? How would you get there? What would you bring?

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Speaking of that storm, once again people are commenting that it came out of nowhere and caught everyone by surprise.

But it didn’t come out of nowhere. They’d been warning about severe weather since the tail end of last week. I follow a few different meteorologist pages on Facebook and all of them were predicting some nasty stuff to hit Wisconsin on Monday.

One of the problems, and we’ve talked about this before, is complacency. Several times recently, forecasters have been saying we were going to get nailed by severe weather, and then nothing happens. The models were off, the wind shifted, whatever. When that happens a few times, people start not paying attention when you’re hollering about the potential for bad weather.

Pay attention to weather forecasts. Be weather aware when bad stuff is predicted. Better you’re watching the skies and nothing happens than ignoring it and being caught by surprise.

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As it stands right now, I have three in-person events for the second half of the year. All are free to attend and require no registration ahead of time.

Wednesday, 8/12/2026

• 6:30PM

• How to Prepare for Disaster

• Muskego Public Library

• S73W16663 Janesville Road, Muskego, WI

Wednesday, 9/9/2026

• 6:30PM

• Prepping 101

• Lake Geneva Public Library

• 918 W Main St, Lake Geneva, WI

Saturday, 9/19/2026

• 9:00AM-12:00PM

• Walworth County Preparedness Expo

• Elkhorn Area High School

• 482 E Geneva St, Elkhorn, WI

If your library, church, civic organization, or other group might be interested in hearing me yammer on for an hour or two, give me a shout.

* * *

“Disaster professionals have a saying: War is the mother of all disasters. Earthquakes destroy buildings. Pandemics overwhelm hospitals. Floods devastate communities. War does all of these things, all at the same time.”

Great article here about the importance of civil defense programs.

* * *

I now have a literary agent for the first time in my career. Late last week, I signed a contract with Julie Flanagan and the Creative Artists Agency (CAA). We’re already making plans for some pretty cool projects.

* * *

What seems like a lifetime ago, I spent several years working in retail loss prevention management. While the bulk of the work centered on protecting the physical assets of the company, particularly the merchandise being sold, the safety of customers and employees was also paramount.

One of the last things I did before I left that line of work was to organize a Safety Fair at my home store. It was a lot of fun and we had a good turnout from the community. A service that we offered during the fair was to set up child ID kits for parents. These consisted of small folders where the parent would fill out the child’s information and add a photograph. Now, this was back in the 1990s and digital photography was still in its infancy. We used Polaroid instant cameras to snap photos for the folders. We also had a police officer on site to do fingerprints for the folders.

These ID kits can be very helpful in cases of missing or abducted children. You can download one of these kits here.

That link should take you directly to a PDF you can download and print. Fill in your child’s information and keep this document in a safe, but easily accessible, location. Update the photo about every six months. Maybe add it to your to do list when the clocks change. For the fingerprints, call your local police department’s non-emergency number and arrange to meet an officer at the station. Hopefully you’ll never be in a situation where those fingerprints will be necessary, but better to have them and never need them.

One more related tip. Any time you’re going to a crowded event with your kids, such as a county fair, take two seconds to snap a photo of them before they run off to meet their friends. This way, if you lose track of them, you can show the security staff exactly what they look like, including what they were wearing when you last saw them.

* * *

My latest book, Common-Sense Everyday Carry, should be shipping now from Gun Digest. It releases on Amazon August 4^th, and should be available through any other bookseller of your choice.

* * *

Our hike over the weekend was a warm one. It was about 90F, with a heat index of 100F. We went to Glacial Park Conservation Area near Ringwood, Illinois. It was a nice walk, but it was like hiking in a sauna. I can’t wait for fall.

Survival Tip — Practice Makes Perfect

I wish I could remember where I read this analogy, but it goes something like this. Spending a ton of money on firearms, ammunition, and accessories, but never training with them, is like spending a ton of money on lumber and tools, then planning to build a house even though you’ve never even used a hammer before.

The same holds true with just about any area of endeavor, of course. Whether we’re talking about self-defense, carpentry, food preservation, scratch cooking, heck even just simply hiking, the more you do it, the better you’ll be at it. Conversely, you can’t expect to do it well if you’ve never done it before.

Investing in books and gear is great, no doubt about it. But reading those books isn’t enough. Carefully curating stacks of gear isn’t enough. Watching endless videos isn’t enough. You need to put in the dirt time. That’s the only way you’re going to learn, refine, and retain the skills.

Make concrete plans soon to start investing in yourself.

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.