Surviving a Disaster in the Urban Jungle

from Ready Nutrition by Tess Pennington

Riots, hurricanes, earthquakes, even severe power outages have all occurred in different cities across the country and have all left their mark upon citizens who dealt with the aftermath.  Many urban inhabitants do not realize how quickly “the system” can deteriorate.  Along those same lines, after  a disaster, the usual civil nature of  those occupying a city devolves into an unorganized mess of chaos.
For instance, many remember the L.A. riots that occurred in 1992 because of civilian frustration at the local government level.  When the civilians were angered about the verdict of a trial of officers, within two hours there were riots, looting, fires and chaos that broke out. Over 50 murders occurred during the L.A. Riots.
These breakdowns of the system eventually lead to waves of crime.  Typically those that are creating the chaos are ill equipped and unprepared to survive in such surroundings.  Desperation will be a reason to legitimize aggressive force to steal, loot or kill if need be.  The assistance of government agencies could be delayed as they are dealing with the influx of crime and other city related  matters.  Depending on the circumstance, citizens may realize they are on their own and left to fend for themselves.  And those that choose to bug out or stay in place may have a major survival situation on their hands.
The most important asset to have in a situation such as this is to have the capable skills and know-how of getting out of harms way.   The best advice in surviving the aftermath of a urban disaster would be to stay away from the crowd, keep your head down and immediately seek safety.
If a person must stay in place, having the following disaster items and equipment will make the situation more bearable:

• Have a emergency plan in place.
• Stock up on a basic short term food and water supply.  Having a stockpile of food will eliminate the need to go out and brave the crowds.  In addition having alternative cooking sources would be beneficial in that electricity could be cut off (i.e. fuel camping stoves, hot plates, compressed trioxane, etc).  In the event of food shortages that are expected, the skills and equipment to cook without alerting others is a life saving skill to have.
• Buy emergency items now – This is basically any item that would be of benefit in a survival situation (tent, bug out bags, flashlights, candles, lanterns, etc.)
• Keep your fuel in your vehicles filled up in case you decide to flee.
• Prepare to protect your family with different security layers.  Any type of self defense would be beneficial in a situation such as this.  In addition, the family owns firearms, then making sure they are clean and loaded may help ward off unwelcome guests.

Once all resources have been depleted in the city, the remaining occupants will flee the city and survival will become even more arduous.  Evacuating the urban areas to safety will be a journey in itself.  Here are some tips to staying safe if bugging out of an urban area:

• Know your evacuation route and plan before you leave.  Having a clear and concise plan will keep you as organized and efficient as possible.  In addition, plan for an alternate route.  Let’s be honest, in an emergency situation nothing ever goes as planned.  Have maps, GPS or compass to assist in guiding you to safety.  Try and stay off the major roads as much as possible.  This is where many crimes will take place. 
• Have a planned shelter to go to.  Whether it be a family member’s home, a friend or an out of town relative, make plans beforehand.
• Efficiently pack a 72 hour kit  and if you are evacuating in a vehicle, prepare a vehicle 72 hour kit. 
• Have extra fuel stored and ready to go.  Try to anticipate reasons that you would need to stop the car and prepare for them.  Stopping the car makes you vulnerable to the outside and groups that may be around.
• Expect the unexpected and mentally prepare.  Survival is 90% psychology.  Mentally preparing oneself, as well as staying flexible to the situation will help a person stay focused on surviving.

Surviving the urban jungle is not for the weak hearted.  The reality of the situation is whether you bug out or bug in, there are risks.  Those that are looting, stealing and being destructive will more than likely travel in large gangs and be heavily armed.  Therefore, setting up a perimeter and combining forces with others would be advantageous on your part to fight this horde off.  Morals, ethics, religion all are forgotten when a person cannot have basic needs met.  Preparing oneself for the possibility of a urban survival situation will increase your survival chances exponentially.

Related Reading:

• Prepare For the Worst – Mandatory Evacuations Planned for Louisianna, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida
• What To Do If a Society Breaks Down
• Are You Ready Series: Emergency Evacuations
• Are You Ready Series: Snow Hurricane
• Long Term Disasters Will Have Clear and Present Dangers

Giving pills to cats and dogs.

from Wilderness Survival Forums by hunter63

Having had to give pills to several cats and dogs in my life…I really identified with this article:
1. Pick up cat and cradle it in the crook of your left arm as if holding a baby.



Position right forefinger and thumb on either side of cat's mouth and gently apply pressure to cheeks while holding pill in right hand. As cat opens mouth, pop pill into mouth.

Allow cat to close mouth and swallow.


2. Retrieve pill from floor and cat from behind sofa.



Cradle cat in left arm and repeat process.


3. Retrieve cat from bedroom, and throw soggy pill away.




4. Take new pill from foil wrap, cradle cat in left arm, holding rear paws tightly with left hand.



Force jaws open and push pill to back of mouth with right forefinger. Hold mouth shut for a count of ten.


5. Retrieve pill from goldfish bowl and cat from top of wardrobe.





Call spouse in from the garden.



6. Kneel on floor with cat wedged firmly between knees, hold front and rear paws.



Ignore low growls emitted by cat. Get spouse to hold head firmly with one hand while forcing wooden ruler into mouth. Drop pill down ruler and rub cat's throat vigorously.



7. Retrieve cat from curtain rail.


Get another pill from foil wrap. Make note to buy new ruler and repair curtains. Carefully sweep shattered figurines and vases from hearth and set to one side for gluing later.



8. Wrap cat in large towel and get spouse to lie on cat with head just visible from below armpit.



Put pill in end of drinking straw, force mouth open with pencil and blow down drinking straw



9. Check label to make sure pill not harmful to humans and drink one beer to take taste away. Apply band-aid to spouse's forearm and remove blood from carpet with cold water and soap.



10. Retrieve cat from neighbor's shed.



Get another pill. Open another beer. Place cat in cupboard, and close door onto neck, to leave head showing. Force mouth open with dessert spoon. Flick pill down throat with elastic band.


11. Fetch screwdriver from garage and put cupboard door back on hinges. Drink beer. Fetch bottle of scotch. Pour shot, drink.



Apply cold compress to cheek and check records for date of last tetanus shot. Apply whiskey compress to cheek to disinfect. Toss back another shot. Throw tee-shirt away and fetch new one from bedroom.


12. Call fire department to retrieve the cat from the top of the tree across the road. Apologize to neighbor who crashed into fence while swerving to avoid cat.



Take last pill from foil wrap.


13. Using heavy-duty pruning gloves from shed, tie the little *&#%^'s front paws to rear paws with garden twine and bind tightly to leg of dining table. Push pill into mouth followed by large piece of filet steak. Be rough about it. Hold head vertically and pour two pints of water down throat to wash pill down.





14. Consume remainder of scotch. Get spouse to drive you to the emergency room. Sit quietly while doctor stitches fingers and forearm and removes pill remnants from right eye. Call furniture shop on way home to order new table.



15. Arrange for RSPCA to collect mutant cat from hell and call local pet shop to see if they have any hamsters.




How To Give A Dog A Pill

1. Wrap it in bacon.

2. Toss it in the air.


No smitte............

From Beginning Prepper To Fully Stocked

from Survival Preparedness Homesteading Forum by UncleJoe

From From Beginning Prepper, to Fully-Stocked Retreat: What to Buy, and When, by Scott in Wisconsin - SurvivalBlog.com

Here is an interesting essay to give you some guidance whether you're preparing for a weekend blizzard, a medium term disruption of services or a long term lifestyle-changing event.

Here are the highlights:

It's easy to see that the world may be heading for more trouble, and we need to prepare for hard times ahead. But it can be daunting to decide what to do, what to stock, and when to get it.
I've been working at this a while, and I've figured out a simple balance in what to buy, and when to buy it, that I think will help other Preppers move ahead with confidence.
You could call it my 100/1,000/10,000 system, and I hope it helps you get going, and get to a place where you feel more prepared for the tough times ahead.

Step One
Step one is to become a "100 level" Prepper. If you're not there, you're helpless in the event of even a minor disruption. Luckily, you can get to the 100 level fast, and inexpensively.
At the 100 level, you're prepared for a brief disaster. You have some food and water, you can keep warm, travel, and protect yourself in the very short term. It's a start. The bare minimum.
Here's what you need: 100 cans of food, 100 bottles of water, 100 lbs of fuel, 100 rounds of ammunition, 100 silver dimes, 100 dollar bills.

Step Two
Now, it's time to strive for the 1,000 level Preparation. This is the point where you and a couple loved-ones can handle a significant breakdown of civil society. 9-12 months without our accustomed infrastructure will be survivable at the 1,000 level Preparation.

Here's what you need: 1,000 pounds of food, 1,000 gallons of filtered water, 1,000 lbs of fuel, 1,000 rounds of ammunition, 1,000 silver dimes, 1,000 dollar bills.

Step Three
This is the 10,000 level preparation, and it will enable you to keep a dozen adults safe and healthy for 2+ years. How cool is that?
Why a dozen adults? If things really fall apart, you'll find friends and family at your door, asking to be taken in. You can either plan on sending them away, or you can plan on taking care of them. I suggest you plan on taking care of them.
Besides, you'll need a dozen adults to protect your retreat/home. You can't stay awake 24 hours a day guarding your stash. You can't be watching in all directions. There will be troublemakers to deal with. You need time to sleep, regroup, cook, wash, garden, play. That means you'll need help. Stock enough food for them, and they will come.
Why 2 years? Because it may take that long for things to settle out. It may take that much time for you and your friends and family to learn to grow food, and hunt and trap successfully. There's a lot to learn, and you don't want your first crop to be a matter of life & death.

Here's what you'll need: 10,000 pounds of food, 10,000 gallons of drinkable water, 10,000 pounds of fuel, 10,000 rounds of ammunition, 10,000 silver dimes, 10,000 dollar bills.

Basic Firearms Part 4: Proper Sight Alignment or Sight Picture

from Adventures in Self Reliance by Angela

1 person liked this

Remember the short Basic Firearms series?  If not (it was a long time ago), here's part 1, part 2, and part 3.  Now, I'm back with another installment.  Sight alignment.  This is hugely important if you ever want to actually hit what you're aiming at, and it's really not that difficult to understand.  In fact, you can teach your children as young as 4 or 5 years old about sight picture.

Here's how it works.  Most every gun has a rear sight and a front sight.  The most common exception to this are scoped rifles.  Today we're talking about iron sights, or the sights that are built on the gun, not scopes.  Gun sights are not all the same, but they are generally variations on a few basic designs.

One type of rear sight is called an open sight.  It has two sides of some sort and a notch or space in the middle. A lot of times the rear sight looks like a rectangle with a little half circle cut out in the middle top.  Another type of sight is called a peep sight and is made of a little circle that you look through. 

Each rear sight will have a coordinating front sight.  The front sight is made to fill the space between the sides of the rear sight.  Or on a peep sight the tip of the front sight will be centered in the peep circle.  It can be blocky and square or look like a stick with or without a ball on top.  Make sense? No? That's okay. We've got pictures. 

These are all types of open sights--not peep sights.  A standard type rear sight on a rifle:

And the coordinating front sight:

Here's a fun one.  Just ignore those crazy prongy things at the sides--see it still has a notch in the middle?

And the coordinating front sight side view and looking down the barrel:

Here's a rear sight real similar to the first one--this one's on our Daisy BB gun:

But the front sight isn't metal, it's fiber optic, so instead of seeing a stick when you look down the barrel you see an orange dot.

And here is a real common type pistol rear sight.  Same notch cut out, but this one's a little wider.

And the front sight.

Now we know what a front sight and rear sight is, let's line them up. You want to put your face in such a place as to be able to see down the barrel of the gun with the eye closest to the barrel.  If you want to get a tad more complicated, this should be your dominant eye.  We'll find eye dominance in another post so then you'll know which way to hold your gun. :)  On a rifle, your cheek should be resting on the stock to get this alignment.  A handgun you just hold up where your eye can line up with the sights.  Got it?  Now you're going to move the barrel and/or your face to put that front sight right in the slot of the rear sight as you look down the barrel.  Then put your nice, lined up sight picture on your target.  Now, your brain might get confused because the rear sight, front sight, and target are all different distances from your eye so you won't be able to focus on all three at the same time.  That's normal.  You want to focus your eye on the front sight.  Like this drawing:

image from tacticalprojects.com

I took some pictures also, but I cannot tell you how difficult it is to get a picture with the sights properly aligned.  You think your eye has trouble focusing, try it with a camera!  But here are a few anyway.  This first one is with the fiber optic BB gun sight.  You can kind of see the orange dot through the rear sight.  It's a little high, so if I were to shoot with my sight picture like this my shot would hit high on the target.  You want that orange dot right in the notch so the top of the dot and the top of the rear sight all line up across the top.

 

Next are some shots of the pistol sights.  It was a little easier to get pistol pictures since the sights are closer together, but not so easy holding the gun steady with one hand and the camera steady with the other!  First picture the front sight is way too high.  You'll be clear off target with this one.

 

Here we got the front almost down where we want it, but it's a bit off to the right.  AND you want to be focusing on the front sight, but the camera didn't listen to instructions.

Oh, camera, you finally got the front sight focused in!  Too bad it's too far left and just a tad high in this one or it would be a good picture.  I only spent forever taking pictures like this and finally had to quit to save my sanity, so that's as good as it gets. ;)

It's really much easier to draw a picture.  That's what I do when I'm teaching my kids about sight picture.  I actually draw a picture.  Like this:

 

Okay, I had a little too much fun with that one.  But really, if you could get a head shot in that last picture instead it would sure make for nicer meat. ;)

And here's a diagram that's drawn a little more precise than mine and also includes alignment of a peep sight as the only peep sight I have right now is on my bow and no way was I going to try to take photographs of that!  Although, I don't agree with their first and third target alignment pictures.  I like to put the center point of the sight on the center point of the target.  If that doesn't hit right on the target, then I'd adjust where I place the sight picture in relation to the target accordingly.

image from www.reedstargetshootingclub.co.uk

Now, some homework.  You have to love shooting homework.  Go shoot something without a scope on it.  Don't try to hit anything too far away for starters, just get your sight alignment figured out and see how you do.  And if you already understand it, teach it to someone who doesn't.

Mystery Medication

from Perpetual Preparedness by Gary W Kibble

“I was under medication when I made the decision not to burn the tapes.” - Richard M. Nixon

A year ago my wife looked inside a pill bottle and noticed that one of the pills didn't belong. It was a different shape and color and size. There was no way she was going to swallow a mystery pill. Instead we brought it back to the pharmacy to point out an error in their quality control.

If you encounter an unknown pill and want to discover what it is, the National Institute of Health has a Beta website with pills organized by color, shape, etc. http://pillbox.nlm.nih.gov/

Bottom Line

I'm not sure exactly why this website exists (except for pharmacists). What person is going to say, "Hey, I found this cool looking pill on the sidewalk? I think I'll research what it is and then swallow it."

Perhaps it's useful if you find an unlabeled bottle in your medicine cabinet? Or pills that your child/spouse is hiding?