12 Categories - Continued

Finishing up with the other 6 on my way to Mobile, Alabama (flying, not driving). No blogging and driving for me.  Many of my top 12 categories will clearly overlap and show some duplicity.

No. 7 - Knowledge/Skills.  Many early preppers will think of this asset as being limited to tactical SHTF related skills.  I'll have to admit they do make for a good movie to have McGyver like skills from a paperclip and shoestring.  But more experienced preppers have learned that the "boring" skills like gardening, fishing, and meditation are real skills that sustain life and survival tolerance.

No. 8 - Safety.  This is a little different from Security which was  mentioned earlier as No. 5.  The safety category contains more ideas and and items for maintaing physical health.

No. 9 - Threat Specific.  Several components of can easily be included in the No. 1 Priority category, but let me attempt to differentiate them.  Preparing for a house or apartment fire is a little differnt and much more unique than preparing for a grid down scenario. or hurrican evacuation.  They certainly share many similarities, but for obvious reasons should include prepardness items unique to the threat.

No. 10 - Equipment/Tools.  As a former Boy Scout and outdoor enthusiast, I know this is the one the a lot of preppers fall in love with, so it needs to clearly fit in the right order and priority to avoid spending a lot of money on all the wrong things at the wrong time and for the wrong reason.

No. 11 - Travel.   Freedom and ability to move with an acceptable risk or danger during an event or to avoid a threat is a great way to create alternative and contingency preparedness plans.  There will be local, mid-range and long-range, one-way and round-trip assessments to read about in the near future.

No. 12 - Communication.  Somebody had to be last, needless to say not the least.  Communicating within hours of an event are very important to survival.  In a longer term situation, communication can also help keep you from going crazy by interacting with family and friends.

12 Categories that Must Be a Part of Your Prepardness Plan

Sunday's are a pretty relaxing time for our family and I get a chance to review some prepper sites and watch some YouTube videos for research and further our knowledge.   Often, I get pretty easily distracted and find myself just wandering from prepper thought to prepper thought.   So far, I've written a couple of posts on APN, looked at craigslist for barter items and cheap water barrels, created a medicine bottle fishing kit, and even a little research on fish antibiotics.   I seriously hope that I'm not the only one in this category.

Then the reason and purpose for starting the Dark Cloud Survival blog hit me!  This tool was to help me learn and get better at a personal level (and maybe help someone else too).  Here are my twelve priorities I'll work to develop and expand with some detail in the very near future.

No. 1 - Determine YOUR Priorities.  As described in the previous post, this will properly determine what you do first and set the stage for what should follow.  Give some serious thought, organize, and write it down.

No. 2 - Water.  For most people, this will be the common denominator for sustaining life in the immediate future after an event or threat.  It's extremely cheap right now.  Easy to store and practically can be stored indefinitely.

No. 3 - Food.  There is a place in prepping for a large variety of types of food and how they currently exist (canned, dehydrated, frozen, etc.).  I've found it practical to simply repeat what we do now.  My wife and I do plan on getting a dehydrator before the year end and experiment with prepared foods.  Our son has a condition which is triggered by preservatives and artificials, so we have to consider that with our food preps.

No. 4 - Shelter.   There seems to be a dramatic and even romantic buzz with those preppers who have a buried shelter or bug out location (BOL).  Even though my family has about 40 acres not to far away, we don't have the funds to invest into making it a fall back location.  We have reconciled bugging in for an immediate response and taking extra measures for security.  For most, your current residence may likely be your bug in location.  That's OK.   Just understand that it is the case and prepare accordingly.

No. 5 - Security.   I recently heard a phrase, "if you can't protect it, then it's not yours."   There is a lot of truth to that.  Although, the area of security can be easily divided into several subcategories to review, protecting yourself, your family, and your property will be a critical element in surviving a wide-spread threat.

No. 6 - Power/Energy.    Our lives are SO dependent upon the immediate and accessible power for darn near everything.  This component will also require some effective thought and evaluation to develop a plan to either do without or do with little.  Yes, the TV show, "American Blackout" was a made for TV drama.  I get that, but you may have heard that "life imitates fiction".  I do believe it was a good stimulator for what it might be like without power for your electric can opener.  Just saying...

I hope these top 6 are close to some of your important preps, but understand that everyone's will vary depending on several factors.  I'll share the rest with you a little later this week and look forward to expanding ideas and getting advice and ideas from the readers.

Have a great week and stay prepared!

Priority Prepping

Recently I compiled a pretty long list of categories and several subcategories of prepardness topics to write about to share with my readers and use to generate other advice from experts.  Wow!  Looking at my lists and notes, I can certainly see how someone new to the idea of self-reliance can easily be overwhelmed with no starting point in sight.  "Where in the heck do I begin?"

 

I created 12 major linked categories for prepping.  The last topic on my original list made more sense to move it straight to the top.  So my No. 1 prepper topic is... Determine Your Real Priorities.

 

"Well, that's a no brainer" many experienced preppers might say.  But let me explain more about what I mean by using this as a number one, top of the list, A1 item to start becoming more prepared.

 

There is a lot of information about how water, food, and shelter are keys to surviving a emergency situation or threat.  And they are certainly on my list as well.  However, if you already have an aquifer well on your 10 acre property,  water will probably be much further down your priority list.  The best  example I can relate is the immediate and critical life sustaining items that are needed well before getting to how much drinking water you have stockpiled.  If you have a severe type of diabetes, insulin or an insulin pump become item A1 in preparing for an emergency situation.  Without it you may have a few hours up to a few days to live depending on the severity of the disease. 

 

Similarly, people that require supplemental oxygen, shouldn't spend time thinking about what type of ammo is best for home defense.  Their survival A1 priority may be determining the resupply, availability, access, and cost for oxygen in an emergency.   After they have developed some viable solutions for O2 as their priority, they can move on to other items down their own list.

 

Too often many preppers think about the wrong things, in the wrong order and overlook the real need for survival.  An true and accurate assessment of your unique situation and survival needs will reveal what you need to be focused on first, second, and so on.  Someone living on the east coast having plenty of beans, bullets, and band-aids would be a little short sided if they did not have a primary and secondary evacuation route planned out. 

 

Developing a prepardness mindset is much more that getting stuff.  It is actually more akin to creating a strategic and tactical contigency plan for your family.

Getting Started!

Over the last several months, I've really become interested in the prepardness and survival community.  I've been a prepper for over a year and still have tons to learn and do and share.  I believe sharing is a good way to learn even more from experts in the field.  So I've created an OPSEC identity to connect with others in the virtual prepper world.

This blog is just the beginning of collecting and sharing information about the world and how to prepare and survive.

Thanks for visiting and stay tuned.  More posts to come !

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