It’s that time of year. Summer. When I have too much time on my hands and my mind wanders to thinking about what could go wrong. I am, by nature, a ‘worst case scenario’ person, so time to think is not a good thing.Thus, it was early August 2021, when I first wrote Prepping for the Worst:
I don’t mean to alarm anyone, and I’m not panicked. I’m just concerned, and thinking the unthinkable….The pandemic made clear we live on a thin line that can be disrupted. It’s not unthinkable that our key systems — the electric grid, natural gas supply, gasoline — could fail or be taken down by hacking.Add to it a federal government bent on weakening the nation as a matter of ideology, and the once-unthinkable is thinkable.So all in all, I no longer view “preppers” as crazy. Maybe they were right, just early. Better early than late.I don’t plan to be late.
My prepping really hasn’t been for the “worst case scenario” – it’s been for the most likely bad scenario, mostly focused on energy grids on which we depend, and food. (I know, readers always tell me to focus on home defense, but that’s not something we talk about.)
It was on July 31, 2022, when Legal Insurrection held a webinar on Prepping For The Worst – Basic Survival Strategies For Everyone, featuring ‘The Prepper Mom’ Lisa Bedford, which exposed my weakness: Water.
The presentation also focused on relatively short-term (30-day) preparation, rather than what it would take to live completely off the grid for longer periods in case of complete collapse. I think people need to be prepared for a longer period, but for most people in most places, the first 30 days are critical.While personal security was addressed in passing, this was not a self-defense presentation. That’s another issue which needs to be discussed separately.Last but not least, her presentation focused me on water. Water. And more Water. It’s the hardest thing to do in many ways because water is such a critical immediate need and the quantities needed are more than most of us have handy. So water solutions are something I’m definitely focused on:
“It’s easy to buy 30-days worth of food. That’s easy. It’s the water that really worries me.”
I’m not alone. An estimated 74 million Americans are preparing for some level of disaster:
Prepping is big business, with roughly a third (29%) of the adult population in the US dropping a collective $11 billion in the last 12 months on emergency preparedness, according to a Finder survey.The most commonly bought survivalist items are literally the basics: food and water. About one in five (21%) Americans says they bought staples. After the run on toilet paper during the pandemic, it’s little surprise that this creature comfort is the second most commonly purchased item at 15%. Rounding out the top three most popular items with survivalists are medical supplies at 14%.
The Daily Mail focused recently on doomsday bunkers in South Dakota, and the question of where to go when it hits the fan. These bunkers look enticing, but I’m not there yet, but if it gets to that, then where to go? Having a place off the grid with food, water, and heat resources is Plan B. Right now I’m focused on Plan A.
My mind has been wandering lately, but it wasn’t until earlier today that I decided to write again about prepping, when I saw this NYT article, U.S. Hunts Chinese Malware That Could Disrupt American Military Operations. What jumped out at me wasn’t that the Chinese government is planting malware in our systems, just as I expect (hope) we are doing to theirs. It was the seeming obliviousness to the threat to the U.S. economy that spurred me to write:
There is a debate inside the administration over whether the goal of the operation is primarily aimed at disrupting the military, or at civilian life more broadly in the event of a conflict.
Are you kidding me? I couldn’t code if my life depended on it, but it’s obvious that if we ever get in a hot cyber war with China they are taking down our electric grid as the first shot, and that will start everything spiraling downward. Of course our civilian infrastruture will be a prime target, and if this administration is too stupid to see that, we are in worse shape than I thought.
So all day I’ve been focused on this. Did a food check, and realized a lot of the canned goods I bought in 2020 are only a year away from their sell by dates, so time to start using that supply and restock. I’m good on other food, but that damn water is still a problem because I’m such a procrastinator.
We have a shallow well on the property (featured image), and a major goal this year was to test it and to see if, with proper filtering, it could be a usable bad-case-scenario water source. I haven’t done that yet, but by the fall I will. I promise.
Of course, there’s the other non-natural disaster to worry about – government and ‘woke’ corporations. Prepping for that needs to be part of a plan – what if like in Canada your access to your bank accounts and all your financial resources were cut off? Trudeau Provides The Template: Large Majority of U.S. Democrats Support Canada’s Crackdown On Protests.
Anyway, I have stuff to do. A lot of stuff.
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