Emergency Communications: 10 Types

Everyone should have an emergency communications plan.  When disaster strikes, one of the first things people want to do if you are in the disaster area is let loved ones know you are all right or, if you aren't in the disaster, ensure that loved ones who are in the disaster area are all right.  Here are ten ways to stay connected during a disaster:

1. Leave your itinerary with a responsible person and check in regularly.  If you will be on a remote trail or in a foreign country, leave a fairly detailed itinerary with a responsible person who will know if and when to send for help on your behalf (ie: if you don't check in within a reasonable amount of time, the friend or relative can call the consulate, call the ranger station, etc and get a search started for you).
2. Assign one responsible friend or relative to be your "emergency communication hub person."  During a disaster you may not be able to check on friends or relatives in your immediate area (cell towers are overloaded, phone lines are down) but you can often call long distances without a problem.  Give this person's contact information to all family members and in the event of a disaster everyone can check in with the designated emergency contact person.
3. Consider a GPS locator such as a SPOT 3.  These devices allow you to bounce messages off a satellite to let people know you are fine or to call for help.  Although not common or practical for daily use at home, these are often used when people are way off the beaten track.
4. Get a HAM radio and the training to use it.  Almost exclusively during major disasters, HAM radios work when all other forms of communication don't.  Start here.
5. Always keep your cell phone charged.  Everyone uses cell phones these days and often, even if cell towers are overloaded with calls, you can still send text messages during a disaster.
6. Consider a land line.  I haven't had a land line in ages but these can be very useful during a disaster, especially if they are buried lines.  A land line (with a hard wired phone, not a cordless phone) does not require electricity to use and be used to make calls during a disaster.
7. Use your internet.  Again, depending on the type of disaster, if you still have internet access, you can connect with people (either via Twitter, Facebook, email, computer-to-text, Skype, etc) through your computer or tablet.
8. A satellite phone can be helpful during a disaster.  I say they can be helpful because there is good reason to use these phones (calls are bounced off a satellite so you don't need to rely on cell towers or phone lines) but there are a host of drawbacks as well (they are expensive to keep, use, and maintain; you need a way to keep them charged, you need direct access to the satellite which means you need either a fixed antenna that is still standing or need to go outside to use them, and the satellite needs to be working and in position to use).
9. Use a people finder.  After a major disaster there are a couple of reliable services that are used to connect displaced people with loved ones who are searching for them and vice versa.  Check out Google Person Finder and the Red Cross Safe and Well websites.
10. Use a runner or be a runner.  When all else fails, the only way to get your message out may be via your own two feet (or the feet of another).  In this case, you want to be in good enough physical shape to be able to travel a distance--via foot, bicycle, etc--in order to seek help or communicate with others.

10 Survival Lessons from the Philippines Typhoon Disaster

Many cities and towns that were devastated by the huge typhoon that hit the Philippines a few days ago are just barely starting the recovery process.  As the news keeps coming from the devastated area, here are 10 random take-aways to help you with your survival planning:

1. Can you swim? It's a good skill to know and can be useful during such a disaster (many people who were washed away in the tidal surge had to swim for their lives).
2. Water is a critical necessity after a disaster, how will you procure yours? (Hint: water purification tablets, a simple water purification system used by backpackers, and bottled water are good options).
3. Can you evacuate ahead of a disaster?  Some people can't afford to, some people don't want to leave their homes.  If you can afford to evacuate do so, stuff can be replaced, you and your family members can't.
4. How will you get food after the disaster? (Will you raid stores for scraps?  Will you have a week's worth of food in your BOB?).
5. How will you contact your family after a disaster? (Note: when everything--cell towers, land lines--are washed away a HAM radio comes in mighty handy).
6. How will you take care of your medical needs after a disaster? Consider pre-planning: stockpile necessary meds, get a tetanus shot and make sure your vaccines are up to date; and post-planning: avoid drinking contaminated water or wading in contaminated water, have a first aid kit in your BOB, have some basic medical skills, etc.
7. How will you shelter yourself after a disaster?  In the case of hurricanes and typhoons, everything is washed away.  Do you have a tent/sleeping bag in your BOB?  A tarp?  Can you fashion a shelter out of the stuff you can find around the disaster area?
8. How will you protect yourself after a disaster?  Mostly people will be doing what they need to survive and usually people are good about helping others out but if you have food and water and shelter and many others do not you may need to either hide yourself and what you have or defend yourself and what you have.
9. Do you have basic survival supplies?  A whistle?  A mask or bandanna to cover your nose and mouth?  Matches to start a fire?
10. Can you work with others?  Coordinating efforts can help you and others to survive by building shelters together, protecting your area from looters, etc. 

What Should You Do When Someone Is Breaking Into Your House?

So you wake up in the middle of the night and think someone is breaking into your home.  What do you do?  For an example of what not to do, see this article about a recent shooting outside of Detroit that made national headlines.

Now that we know we don't panic and start shooting things that go bump in the night, here are some things to consider if you wake up in a similar situation:

BEFORE

• Set up your home to deter break-ins ahead of time (a security system, floodlights on a motion detector, dogs, etc).
• Don't invite strangers into your home (you don't want them to "case" your place for a future visit).
• Don't be known as the guy with the extensive gun collection, the guy who buries gold coins under the floorboards, etc.  This will draw thieves to your home because they think it will be worth the risk to break in.
• Take a self defense course, tactical shooting course, etc.
• Know what you city, county, state self defense laws are.
• Have insurance.  Stuff is replaceable, people aren't.  Insurance will pay for it.
• Practice with your family: lock down drills, there's a burglar in the house drill, fire drills, etc.
• Make it a habit to lock all doors and windows before you go to bed every night.

DURING

• If you have reason to believe someone is breaking into your home, call 911 immediately (you want them en-route before you take further action).
• Arm yourself (with a firearm, baseball bat, Mace, etc...your choice).  Of course you practice frequently with your chosen armament and "accidents" aren't going to happen.
• Know where the family is and gather everyone in one room if possible.  You don't want the "burglar" to be your kid who forgot his key and is trying to break himself into the house so he doesn't have to wake you.
• Listen to what is going on.  Obviously everyone should remain silent so as not to let the burglar/home invader know where they are.
• If you can, lock everyone--yourself included--into a bedroom or safe room.  Yes, I know many states have "Stand Your Ground" laws that are quite liberal and you don't have a duty to retreat but by doing this there is #1, no possibility of shooting a family member because you will have one target area (the door) where you will be shooting, and #2, someone breaking into your locked bedroom is a slam-dunk self defense case when it hits the DA/prosecutor's desk.
• Consider other options besides confrontation.  Some people may be so pissed off at this point that they want a confrontation with a would be burglar/home invader but consider that other options may be a safer course of action.  Hiding or escaping the premises may be better choices in some cases (for example, for unarmed children, or if your only weapon is a hunting knife, etc).  
• Should you just give up and be cooperative the home invader?  Some people say this is a course of action, I think it is more of a death wish.  Your average burglar is going to flee when things get hinky.  Someone on drugs may be aggressive and kill you no matter how cooperative you are.  Home invaders tend to like violence so the run/hide/fight thing might be your best option.  Generally the type of criminal you are going to run into isn't going to know what to do with a captive, they will probably panic and it won't end well for you (for the very good criminals who are seeking only your cooperation....well if you would be such a target you would probably already have your own security consultant and wouldn't be reading this blog).
• If you must confront a burglar/home invader you want to do so legally (ie: they are in your home not just walking across your property), quickly (you want the element of surprise on your side), and decisively (Firearms are decisive; a fist fight isn't.  Obviously each situation differs, the sound of you chambering your shotgun may send the criminal fleeing, on the other hand they may have a firearm as well and you don't want to get into a "fast draw" match with someone).
• Most importantly, you want to follow the same common sense shooting skills you already know: don't point your firearm until you are ready to shoot, keep your finger off the trigger until you are ready to shoot, don't shoot at something you can't identify (if someone is shooting through your door you have an obvious threat, if, on the other hand, you hear someone creeping around outside your door, shooting through the door at a noise is not something you want to do), aim for center mass (no shooting up in the air to scare them or "winging" them...if you are shooting you are in fear for your life and you need to stop the threat immediately).

AFTER

• Hopefully you can run the person off without needing lethal force (I like dogs, they are a threat without being a threat threat).  There is no glory in killing someone and it will impact you pretty much forever should you have to do this.  After the threat is neutralized, wait for law enforcement.  Don't present a threat to them--they don't know the guy with the gun (you) are the homeowner and not the burglar.  Answer their questions with factual, short answers (don't guess, speculate, editorialize, show off, say the dead guy deserved it, or anything like that--what you say can be used against you in court).  If you need a lawyer, call one (this varies a great deal--in some areas/situations the DA/prosecutor will not charge you, in others, prosecution is much more likely).
• Realize that after a lethal confrontation you may have some sort of PTSD.  Work through it, get help with it.  
• Be prepared for the media.  Unfortunately there isn't much you can do to "prepare" but high profile shootings will bring the media out of the woodwork and they can be a significant problem to deal with. 

Bottom line: there is no clear-cut course of action when it comes to someone breaking into your home.  Each situation is different and and these situations are quite fluid and changeable.  Preparing ahead of time is your best defense, and if things go from bad to worse only you can decide what the best course of action is for your situation.  

Procuring Your Own Food

I came across this article on CNN yesterday and I was appalled that #1) as many of the 16000 commentors said, CNN probably picked the worst family to use as an example because two of the four people in this family who already can't make it on $800 worth of food stamps a month also can't work (but apparently they can make babies...yeah America), and #2) one in seven Americans are on food stamps (that's about 15% of the entire population!), and #3) people think it is the government's job to feed them and their kids (o-0).

Now I don't have a problem with my taxes going to help feed the very old, the very ill, the very disabled and recent widows/widowers but I do have a problem with able-bodied people who can't lift a finger to help themselves.  Or worse, those who already can't help themselves yet they continue to produce kids that they can't feed (a majority of those 1 in 7 on food stamps are children).  Which pretty much makes my blood boil (and, judging from the comments in the article, I am not alone).  So now that I've got that little rant out of my system, today's topic is about procuring your own food.

Years ago, welfare and food stamps weren't an option (very many years ago).  Then came "entitlement programs" which included food stamps for the poor.  There was a huge stigma to using food stamps back then and no one that I knew--even the very poor--would accept such a handout from the government.  My single mother worked three or four jobs at times just to put food on the table as going on welfare simply was not an option (people had quite a sense of pride back then.  Apparently that is gone today.  OK I'll stop ranting).  So how did these rural and urban poor who, by all accounts would have qualified for food stamps, put food on the table?

• They grew their own food.  Many people had gardens ranging from what they could grow around their inner-city house or apartment to multi-acre fields of fruit and vegetables.  My grandparents always had a huge garden, orchard, and berry patches.  They also grew some of their own meat and dairy in the form of chickens, pigs, goats, and cows.
• They traded for food.  Right next to my grandfather's farm was another farm (and another and another; this was farm country after all).  That neighbor had honey from his own hives which he traded with neighbors and which his wife gave away as gifts.  Each neighbor also grew unique items that the other neighbors didn't grow so that they could use these items for barter (or course they also grew the same crops which amounted to quite a bit of rivalry if someone's crop came in earlier/grew bigger/etc).
• They went hunting and fishing to put meat on the table.  Although this looked more like a fun social activity that the guys (and some of the women) would engage in, it was these efforts that filled up people's freezers (if I had a nickel for every smelt I cleaned in my lifetime...).
• They foraged for food.  Pretty much nothing was off limits when it came to getting free food--dandelion greens, wild mushrooms, huckleberries, blackberries, nuts from abandoned trees in the city.  They would also glean other farmer's fields at the end of the harvest so basically nothing went to waste.
• They preserved their own food.  Once they had all of this food together (and since food came in seasonally, in waves, they would end up with A LOT of a particular item at one time...zucchini, tomatoes, berries, etc.) they would preserve the food to make it last from year to year.  Some people has smoke houses, every farm had a huge freezer, every farm wife had the tools, skills, and knowledge to make jams, jellies, preserves, and dehydrated items such as jerky and fruit leather.  Sausage making was a big deal (and another occasion to generate a rivalry). I remember one uncle, from the "old country", made enough sauerkraut for everyone.  It was a communal effort but also a self-sufficiency effort (both of which seem to be lost these days).
• They only bought the basics.  I don't believe my grandparents ever bought a pre-made, pre-packaged food item in their lives.  If they wanted pizza, they made it from scratch, if they wanted a chicken dinner, they made that from scratch.  If they wanted candy, a cake, or any other item that people these days would buy at a fast food restaurant or from a grocery store, they made it from scratch.  Their entire shopping list consisted of a dozen or so basic items from which everything else could be made (flour, sugar, oil, coffee, chocolate, spices, etc).

Sadly these skills seem to be lost on the majority of the population these days.  I'm sure some pundit from centuries past is rolling in his grave right now, shaking his head in disgust, thinking this population has lost the ability to even feed itself.   Which brings us to future posts with a more "survivalist" bent because once you can provide food for yourself, in the event that the government for some reason stops doing this for others, you will need to protect what is yours (case in point).