New Affiliate: White Wolf Survival Supply

     It is my pleasure to announce a new affiliate to NYC Survival; White Wolf Survival Supply.  They are a family owned and operated survival based website offering items that are handpicked by their Army Veteran proprietor/father, and tested by the family for usefulness, and practicality.  They do their best to supply items for their customers that they themselves suggest, and use as survival/emergency preps.  They are a new site, and as such are constantly updating their catalog, so check back often.

     It is my personal opinion that we should do our best to support family-owned and operated businesses either near our homes, or online.  By using your money to support them, you are doing your part to say "no" to the world-dominating...I mean, greedy.....oops, my bad...mega corporations like Wal-Mart.  Click on the link above, or on the banner in the sidebar to be sent to their website.

Quick Pick: Super Siphon

     Keeping a few siphon's around is a very important, and useful prep.  To make a siphon all one really needs is a tube of some sort, a container placed lower then the actual liquid, and suction (typically your breath.)  This is useful in many situations to move, or remove liquid from hard to reach locations. 

     For the survivalist, realizing that a disaster can be 'long-term' is an all to real possibility.  A siphon can be paramount in helping to obtain very necessary liquids like; water, and fuel.  These two liquids will be like gold in any disaster, and difficult to obtain.

     I suggest the following siphon, not because siphon's will be hard to come by, but because anyone who has siphoned a liquid by creating a vacuum with their breath can tell you; you end up with the liquid in your mouth.  Not only is this a big problem with things like gasoline, but it can also be a problem if you try and siphon 'dirty' water.  The following siphon alleviates this problem instantly by providing the tube with an easy to use pump attached to the tube.  It sill allows the tube to be lightweight, and cheap which is an important trait in any prep.  In times like these, where the only certain thing left is uncertainty, do your best to make sure your prep's cover a wide range of possibilities.

Pandemics & New York City

Renjith Krishnan-freedigitalphotos.net

     I came across this article recently as I was reading one of the many news sites I sift through daily.  Though I am typically not a fan of Yahoo! News, I make it a point to take in as many differing points of view as I can.  That way I can attempt to not be swayed by one side or the other, finding my own version of the truth.

     To me, this type of article does not scare me as it might some people.  Rather it serves as a quick reminder to re-check my emergency preps that deal with pandemics.  The recent nuclear disaster in Japan has proven that 90% of the population of this country prefers to wait until the last possible moment to deal with a disaster.  The whole mass iodine (KIO), and powdered milk sell off (at ridiculous prices) was a great example of that.  The funny part about the iodine is that most of the people that bought iodine pills don't know why you would need them, or even when the proper time to take the pills is.  

     I will tell you now that waiting for a plausible disaster to happen, and then preparing for it is a very bad idea.  For example; if you live in an area prone to earthquakes, make proper preparations!  It is truthfully the crux of why people like myself are preppers.  We like to use reason, and take control of our lives by not having to rely on others.  By waiting till it's too late, you will be susceptible to outlandish prices, and a complete and total lack of said supply.  You also allow yourself to be taking advantage of by others because of your desperation.  Desperation in any form is not good, and is one of the most detrimental states of being.

     Preparing ahead of time can be easy, and relatively cheap.  Most supplies, especially those supplies that don't have much demand right now can be just a few dollars, and extremely easy to acquire.  The trick is to know what would be important to the masses during a disaster.  Next is to figure out what types of disasters are most pertinent in your area.  Here in New York, there are unfortunately numerous possible scenarios that we have to contend with.  Putting your preps in order of most realistic (i.e. loss of utilities due to a strong storm.)  To possible, but less plausible (i.e. meteor strike).  One of the fundamental things to keep in mind is that certain preps would be important to everyone during any disasters.  Things like; potable water, food, and sanitation are constants, and should be your first priorities.

     A pandemic would have a dramatic effect on a major city like ours.  Worldwide, or even a regional pandemic can make its way into NYC fairly easily due to the amount of travelers we get on a daily bases.  It would shut down everything, and would almost certainly cause a mandatory quarantine.  These quarantines can last upwards of three months, or more.  Most people would assume they could bug-out, even those people who don't know what the term "bugging-out" means.  Bugging out is not very realistic, as the island would most likely be "locked down" fairly quickly leaving us to fend for ourselves.  Even if you had the foresight to bug-out before a quarantine, there are no guarantees that the pandemic won't find you.  Your best bet would be to hunker down in place with your supplies, and 'ride it out'.

     So what supplies would be important to prepare you for a pandemic, other then the obvious, and hopefully already in place fundamental supplies of long- to medium-term water procurement, and food?  Here is a list of a few of the most important items you should have as a part of your preps.  They are easily found on Amazon, or at your local Duane Reade/pharmacy as of right now:

• N95 Mask - There are a few options of size, and grade when buying these.  It's up to you what you decide.  You don't have to break the bank in my opinion.  You also don't need to buy hundreds of them, as you hopefully will be able to bug-in for the required amount of time, limiting your contact with the outside world.  There is also no guarantees that these would work, due to no way of knowing what way the virus could be contracted.  History has proven though that the most devastating virus's are typically those that are able to be transmitted through the air (i.e. coughing, sneezing.)  Make sure to buy smaller sizes if you have children.

• Rubber Gloves - Pretty self explanatory.  You would need these if you were to touch any contaminated liquid, or materials.  Also important if you have to deal with dead bodies, which is an unfortunate reality.
  
   
• Bleach - Love it or hate it, bleach is still one of the most effective ways to kill bacteria, and viruses on surfaces.  You can put it in a spray bottle and cut it with water to sanitize all the surfaces of your apartment.  Also good for sanitizing anything you bring into your humble abode that you get from the outside world.      
 

• Plastic Sheet or Contractor Bags - These would come in handy if you had to quarantine a person in your house or apartment.  It could also be used to wrap up dead bodies if someone passes due to the conditions.  You should also have a few rolls of duct tape in the apartment to seal the bags.  Duct tape has a million uses, and you should always have a good quality duct tape in your apartment.

     Another thing to remember is that if you have to quarantine in your house or apartment, you will need a way to defend you, and your family.  Most New Yorker's will not be anywhere near prepared for something this devastating.  If you are in your apartment making great smelling food, and it's lit up like Christmas, you're probably not going to make it.  Doing things like eating food cold, and keeping a low profile will be of the utmost importance.

     Spike TV has a great show on how to deal with pandemics linked here.  I definitely suggest watching it with your loved ones.

     Pandemics are a realistic threat that humanity has faced in the past, and will almost certainly face again.  When it comes to pandemics, it is not a matter of if, but when...

Beautiful Berkey

     It’s often discussed by survivalists about how important water is.  We constantly hark on its significance, and recommend you store at least a few gallons in your home for emergency use.  Why all the fuss?  As the saying goes “water is life”.  Without water, most adults would die within three days.  To put it into a bit of perspective, you can last upwards of thirty days without food (though I know some people around these parts that may last a bit longer due to a massive amount of reserves they have accumulated around their midsections.)  Spend one day without water, and you’re in a world of hurt between headaches, and muscle cramps.  By the end of the second day, you will be in so much pain, and have so little energy that you will probably not have the drive to search for a solution by the third day.

     In Manhattan, large quantities of emergency water storage are just plain out of the question.  We can’t keep 55 gallon rain buckets, and we don’t have the space for anything but a few months worth.  The good news is that we live in a fairly wet area, seeing an average annual rainfall of anywhere from 40-50 inches.  How does that help?  Well unlike places like LA, who receive an average of about 15 inches of rainfall a year, we do OK.  We can ration said rainfall as a supplemental source of water to be used in everything from consumption to cleaning.  Granted you have to be prepared for the rain with buckets and tarps, but we are preppers after all.

     To city dwellers, rain really is the only option we have for fresh water as our rivers have salt, and any fresh water the island had, is long polluted and covered over.  Drinking salt water by the way is a quick road to death.  For people that think they can use a distilling method to get fresh water out of salt water, obviously never tried it as it takes an enormous amount of fuel.  You could technically get a desalinator, but they are expensive.  Not to mention that a desalinator require a lot of maintenance, and do not remove pollutants.

     So that leaves us with only one option: make a rain catch.  A rain catch is simply a way of using a container to catch as much water as you possibly can from a rain storm.  I will do a post in the future giving more detail, but to give you an idea, I linked a video here.  Rain is potable (for those of you who don’t know, it is pronounced “poh-tuh-buhl”, can’t tell you how many people say it wrong) out of the sky.  You start running into problems of water getting contaminated as soon as it touches things like a gutter, or a roof.  You can handle this a few ways.  The smart, and efficient way, especially if you are forced to bug-in for a long period of time, is to use a filter.

     That leads me to the point of this post; The Berkey Water Filter.  A long lead in, I know.  Berkey’s are the preferred filter by many in the survivalist/prepper community for good reason. They filter out the things in water we don’t want in there like chemicals, and harmful microorganisms.  And leave in the things we do, like minerals.  Berkey's also give you the option of attaching an additional filter to take out almost all of the fluoride our state adds to our water if you so choose.

     I have owned a Berkey System for a while now, and can honestly say it was one of the best purchases I have made since awakening to prepping.  If you are new to prepping, or have been practicing it for a while and have not yet gotten to your filter, put off some supplies and buy a filter as soon as possible.  In fact, it is my personal opinion that a water filter should be one of your first preps, especially as a New Yorker.  I say this for a few reasons.  First and foremost, as I mentioned above, water is exceptionally important to survival, and having an easy way to make water potable is ideal.  Second, our tap water in NYC is a real question for concern.  Since the main water tunnel to the city is antiquated at best, and the pipes in many of the cities pre-war buildings are old, there is a big, not often talked about problem of lead in our water.  Lead is not the only metal, but it is the most prevalent.  (I wrote an article here, giving a bit more background on the city’s water problems.)  Not to mention, people are not always told by the state when the tap water has been compromised.  Case in point linked here.  There are even more cases if you want to do your homework.  The third reason for owning a good filter is that not only will it keep your tap, and rain water potable, but it can also be used to filter your stored water.  This will allow you to not have to add chlorine to your stored water to keep it from growing things like algae if you choose.  The next, and last (though I could go on and on) reason for owning a Berkey, is that it will be a prep that you will put into use on a daily bases.  What I mean by that is; I drink a lot of water.  So I get to feel a sense of accomplishment when I pour myself a nice, clean drink of water multiple times a day.  Did I mention how good the water tastes?  Damn good.  Hard to explain, but I find it much lighter and softer in taste.  It makes tap water taste strangely polluted, and sweet in comparison.

     To get one of these amazing filters, you can either click the link here, or use the banner on the top right hand side of this blog.  I suggest buying a Berkey from LPC Survival Ltd.  They are a great company, and have always gone above and beyond for all their customers, including me.  Jeff “The Berkey Guy” is extremely professional (not to mention, nice), and is one of the exclusive authorized dealers of Berkey’s in North America.  Feel free to ask him any questions as he is quick to respond via e-mail or phone.  You can see on their site the different sized Berkey’s, and what size they suggest per the amount of people in your family.  They can be a bit expensive, but are in my opinion, relatively cheap in comparison to other filters on the market.  You can also buy a few back up filters, leaving you with the ability to filter many gallons, and years worth of clean potable water.  Which makes a Berkey an easy one stop solution for procuring life-long clean water for you and your family, and a bit of a warm fuzzy feeling feeling allover.  Stay hydrated...

My Take:

     As many people of the world watch Japan go through this disaster, I wanted to take the time to discuss what I have learned from this extremely unfortunate event. 

• First and foremost, my heart goes out to all the people affected by this disaster, and I truly feel for them as a fellow human being. 

• What I believe is one of the most important lessons learned from these kinds of events, is that nature has no bias.  Old, young, rich, poor, we are all the same, and when nature changes violently, people die.

• The Japanese are a very stoic and proud people.  The way they have handled this from the beginning has made me respect them beyond words.  They are an amazing group, and I wish American’s could be that responsible and respectful.  We are unfortunately not that evolved as a nation yet.  These people are currently teaching all of us through their example.

• The tsunami showed a hidden secret of preparation that the survival/prepping community does not like to talk about.  Why prep, when all preps can be washed away or buried in an instant, leaving you with nothing but the clothes on your back?  I think the survival community is at a loss for words in a way.  Here many of us are, telling you to prepare for the change that is upon us and a series of disasters seems to have blindsided the most prepared country in the world.  Leaving the obvious question; what good did all those preps do?  The true answer to those questions is that their basic preps didn’t seem to do much (I’m not talking about their infrastructural preps, those saved countless lives obviously).  Does this mean don’t prepare then?  No, it should if anything broaden your horizons as a prepper.  As preppers, we know that we can only control how prepared we are for disasters.  We can’t control all other variables.  Things like if you are at home, or work, and if you’ll even survive the initial disaster need to be let go of because they are out of our control.

• With having said that, nothing beats knowledge.  Any disaster preps you have on your person or at home are a bonus.  If you happen to have a knife, and a way of starting a fire on you when you survive the initial disaster you are way ahead of the curve.  If you are in your underwear with no shoes, you better have the knowledge and the know-how to build shelter and get a fire going as soon as you possibly can.  As the saying goes in outdoor survival; “knowledge is easy to pack as it weighs nothing, and is always with you.”

• One thing we seem to not realize is that the Japanese people themselves were prepared, and that preparation saved countless lives.  If that quake happened anywhere else in the world with that many people living in close proximity to it, the losses would have easily been double.

• The nuclear disaster, which was a disaster as soon as the first bit of radiation leaked, is actually not the fault of the people, but of the bureaucratic nature of their government (who is strikingly similar to ours with their smoke and mirrors.)  I’m pretty sure the people were not thrilled to live next to nuclear power plants on an island with so much seismic activity.  Like here though, they accept what they are told, as long as they can buy things and power up their many toys.  (Quick Rant: My quick fix for our many ridiculous power solutions for this planet is simple: stop using so much power.  By the time we reach an agreement about what is right or wrong, there will be nothing left to power.)

• Redundancies and back-up plans are never a bad idea.  If you live in an area prone to flooding or earthquakes, then you need a fall back location.  Having a second or third location with supplies, and making sure to not put all your eggs in one basket are the only way to be sure that you’re covered.  Is this possible for most people?  Of course not, but it is something to consider.  Don't forget that you could always rely on close family members, and keep supplies there if they are OK with it.

• Killing a dead horse here, but make sure to always have your ECB and BOB stocked and ready to go. 

Update...

     I have not stopped writing, and I can assure you that I have not run for the hills… yet.  Not that there are many hills to run to around here, but I digress, already!  I have been spending the remaining days of winter planning on my spring and summer outdoor trips, and truly immersing myself in research.  Survivalism is a tricky thing.  When reading and practicing all of the things I do, I can’t help shake the feeling that we as a race have truly allowed ourselves to be placed in quite a jam.  When the picture starts to unfold, and the fog starts to lift, it is amazing to see how we have lost control of the train.  When you strip it down, and realize that the only way to feel a bit more in control is to prepare for the coming change, you start to ask yourself: how did we as a people get here?  Being a student of history, and having a very good understanding of human behavior, I have a good idea.  You the reader, could get to the bottom of that question if you so choose.  Remember though, some people believe ignorance is bliss. 

     As preppers and survivalists, the how and why need to be let go of, because our true focus surpasses it all.  Pointing fingers and playing the blame game are a waste of energy.  We need to continually remind ourselves and others that preparing for whatever disaster large or small is the only way to ensure our future and to take the little bit of control we have back from those who attempt to take it from us. I am in the process of writing a post on my thoughts of the recent disaster in Japan, and what the survivalist community in America can learn from it.  I have also read the LDS Preparedness Manual and suggest you do the same.  You can find it online here.  It is one of the best resources available to preppers of any level.