The preppers survival bi.., p.9
The Prepper’s Survival Bible, page 9
What is Survival, and How is it Different from Prepping?
Preparing and learning survival skills is important for everybody. Even children in the scouts are taught these things. It is not because we expect them to survive in the wild, but we at least want them to be prepared and be familiar with the basics. When a disaster strikes, especially when sh-t hits the fan, all the learning and knowledge is forgotten amidst the chaos and panic. Only your prepping can save you at that time. Therefore, prepping is very important for survival.
Now the question arises what is the difference between survival and prepping. Prepping means making yourself ready for survival. It means doing everything in your power to be prepared for survival. It may include storing food, water, medicine, and other necessary supplies, building alternative ways of producing food and energy for off-grid power situations, learning basic survival skills, self-defense, etc. Whether a person knows it or not, everybody is preparing for survival in one way or another. A simple act such as keeping a first aid kit in your car or at home is also prepping.
Three basic ways in which you can get yourself geared up for survival are;
Growing your survival knowledge and skills
Mental and physical health for survival
Prepping your survival pack
Growing Your Survival Knowledge and Skills & the Rule of 3
Having enough knowledge about prepping and survival is the first step towards actual survival. We can divide survival skills into two basic categories. One includes surviving in the wild, while the second includes surviving worst-case scenarios when sh-t hits the fan.
Preparing for the first category is quite easy. You can learn about it from many survival books or learn about it online. Many people have done that, and they share their stories on online platforms, which you can benefit from. When we think of surviving in the wild, our major concerns include;
Hunger
Thirst
Climate
Terrain
Physical and mental health
These might be the major problems that you will face in the wild. You must be fully prepared for them. Put them at the top of your list of skills you need to learn. You can get all the knowledge you need from books and the internet. The information is available free of cost.
Another thing you can do is discuss it, either with your group of friends or with your family. Sit with them, present them with various scenarios, and ask them what they will do to survive. Prepare a list of all the suggestions.
Picture yourself in the wild without any shelter, food, or water. You don't have any phone or other means of communicating with anyone. You are all alone. Think of what will be the first thing that you will do. Before you can think of anything, panic will start rising, and you will go into a shock. It means sh-t has hit the fan. There is a rule of three regarding the time frame that everybody should know to prepare for survival. It states that an average person can survive;
90 days without security
Three minutes without the air
21 days without food
72 hours without water
180 minutes without shelter
When you start prepping for survival, it's best to think of worst-case scenarios like being stranded alone on an island or in a jungle without anything. If you can think of ways to survive such a scenario, you can survive anything. It is more important to learn survival skills than store supplies for such cases. If you know a solution to every possible problem, you can survive. There is an alternative to everything. Basic survival skills include learning how to shoot, how to cook food, how to do hunting or fishing, how to purify water, how to manage your finances, how to harvest energy from sun or wind, how to tie different kinds of knots, how to start a fire etc. All of these are very important for survival.
Mental and Physical Health for Survival
Another important skill that you need to learn is mental and physical preparation. Worst-case scenarios or disasters are called when sh-t hits the fan because when such a disaster strikes, there is panic and chaos everywhere. It disturbs a person's mental health, indirectly affecting their physical health. He cannot think straight. So, in such a scenario, the flight or fight mode takes over the thinking and desperate times make people do desperate things. However, such a situation can be avoided through the right training and knowledge. With the right skills and training, you will keep yourself calm, positive, and confident and think clearly about the necessary measures you need to take for survival. It doesn't mean the stress goes away. It means that you can think clearly amidst all the stress and pressure. Such type of training is given to soldiers in the army and doctors to remain calm and think clearly during emergencies.
Basic training is available online. You can take the training to help keep your mind calm and body strong. Both mental and physical health is really important to survive a crisis. If you have a calm mind and a sound body, you can bear stress and work on your survival.
Prepping Your Survival Pack
Nowadays, prepping has become quite easy with all the equipment necessary for survival available online and in the markets. While looking at some items, you might wonder whether you will need them, but believe me; you will need all the stuff you can gather during your survival. You should keep in mind that if you are at your home during a disaster, you will probably have all the supplies you have stored, and it would not be so difficult to survive because you will have all the necessities. However, if you are alone on an island, in a desert, or a jungle, you will not have a stockpile of items with you. If you get lucky, you might be able to just grab a bag of essential items. Therefore, always keeping a bug-out-bag ready for such situations is important. It should contain all the necessary items and should be easy to carry. Keep a bug-out bag at your home, work, and even in your car. When a disaster strikes, you don't know where you will be, so it is better to be prepared. Bug out is a term used by the military, which means leaving a place quickly with only basic things. In simpler terms, it means to evacuate. A bug-out bag should be light in weight and contain all the necessary items.
Under other conditions, it is recommended to prepare a minimum of 72 hours supply. You can keep all the necessary 72 hours items in a 72-hour rush backpack. It should contain all the essential items such as;
Food bars
Medicine
Extra clothing, especially warm socks and jackets
Self-defense items
Heat- fire flint and fire accelerants
Maps
Money
Important documents
Shelter- a sleeping bag, foil heat cover, or a portable tent
Water bottles
Water filters such as LifeStraw
Tools such as pocket knife
Flashlights and candles
Means of communication such as a radio
Other necessary items and tools that you might need
Another thing that you need to prepare is a preppers kit. You can keep it in your car, home, or workplace. You can keep all the items in a small tin or a bag and keep them with you. It is also known as a mini bug-out-kit. It should contain necessary items such as;
Water tablets
Tape
Waterproof matches
Can opener
Needle and thread
Rescue whistle
LED light
Signal mirror
Different badges
Fishing line with hooks and sinkers
Mini-compass
Small foldable knife
These small items may not seem necessary, but they will be very helpful in collecting food, and water, making fires, building a shelter, etc.
However, if you are prepping for worst-case scenarios, you need to do more than prepare kits. It would help if you stored supplies for a long time, say three months or a year. You need to find a suitable shelter, such as a bunker, and you need to learn all the survival skills to help you survive.
Survival is about community, family, and knowledge
For survival during worst-case scenarios, you need your friends, family, community, and all the knowledge you can get. If you have a good interactive community, you can work together to prepare for survival. It will result in a stronger community that is better prepared for a disaster. Try to engage yourself with your community or other survival groups. When you meet people with the same motives, you share your ideas and benefit from others' knowledge and experience. The main objective of everybody while prepping is to protect themselves and their families. Family is everybody's priority, so you should do everything you can to prepare yourself and your family for survival.
Shelter
Besides food and water, shelter is the first thing you should look for while prepping. You cannot survive without shelter. It acts as your safe place, hiding spot, comfort zone, and place where you can store all your supplies. It is impossible to survive without shelter in areas with extreme weather conditions. Some places can be too hot; others can be too cold to survive. Therefore, shelter is a basic survival need. If you have your own home, there is no need to worry. Try to make it secure to stay at your place during a disaster. However, there are some cases where you have to evacuate to another place or survive in the wild; for such cases, you need to learn how to build a shelter. It doesn't necessarily have to be luxurious. Just a basic shelter to protect you from bad weather and a harsh environment would be enough. You can build a simple hut from debris. It will be enough to keep you dry and warm.
How To Put Up a Survival Shelter?
Following are some simple steps by which you can build your survival shelter;
Decide the location
The first thing is to choose a place which is low humidity and flat. Make sure there is no water body next to it, or it is not underneath a cliff. Also, it should have a sound spot for making a fire close to your house. You can choose a well-hidden or visible place depending on your needs.
Identify and analyze Your Needs
Before building, analyze your needs. The amount of people that are there with you? How is the weather? Is it too hot or too cold? Do you need the shelter for long-term use or just temporarily? The amount of time do you have to erect a shelter? These are some things that you need to analyze before building a shelter. Also, see if you can access all the tools you would need.
Select the Type of Shelter
Decide which type of shelter you want to build. Depending on the number of people, place, and weather, you can choose the type. Here are some examples of shelters that you can build;
i. The Tarp Shelter
You only need a plastic sheeting and some strings to build this shelter, or you can use a rain poncho to build it. It is simple to build, takes less time, and is suitable for bigger groups. However, it has some disadvantages as well. It does not offer shelter from wind, rain, or animals. It can be easily broken.
ii. Tarp Tent
To build this tent, you need to tie the cords between trees and place your sheeting over it. Use rocks and sticks to attach the sides. It can protect you from rain and is simple to build. However, it does not offer shelter from wind or animals and can be easily broken.
iii. Tarp Teepee with bars/poles
For this, you need large branches which could act as poles. Fix them so that they are in the form of a teepee. Wrap the sheeting around the poles and fix it. It can accommodate large groups and can offer you protection. You can also light a fire within it. However, it would help if you had a very big tarp for this, and there will be a hole in the teepee from where rain can get in.
iv. Tarp Teepee without bars/poles
You can build a tarp teepee without poles. Fold your tarpaulin in the form of a triangle. Insert a rock at the triangle point and attach some strings around the rock. Hang it from the tree and attach the bottom of the tarp with some rocks.
v. Snow Shelter
If you are stuck outside in the snow, you can build a snow shelter. For this, look for a tree. Please select a branch and prop it against the tree-trunk at a forty-five degree angle. Remove the snow away to form a wall. Grasp another branch for support. Spread the tarpaulin over the branches. It will keep you heated.
vi. Tree-Down Shelter
It is very easy to build and acts as an easy camouflage. Find some fallen trees and cover them with your tarp to make a shelter. It can save you from rain as well snow. However, you may find bugs and other insects there.
vii. Hammock Sheltering
This type of shelter is above the ground. It can protect you from animals and other type of insects. It can be made from a tarp tent. You improve your hammock with extra clothing to provide insulation. However, it does not offer protection from rain or snow.
viii. Type A Framing Brush Shelter
It is suitable for temporary survival. It can accommodate a one human easily. It is quick and simple to build. Take a long branch and prop it on a tree piece or log. Take smaller branches and lean them against the larger branch. Add leaves or other branches on top to cover it.
ix. Debris Tipi Shelter (Teepee)
Take three large branches and prop them to make a tripod frame. Add some more branches. Keep adding till the whole frame is covered. Add some leaves on top. It is easy to erect and suitable for a large group; however, it requires many branches and cannot protect you from wind or cold. Also, you cannot light a fire inside it.
x. Debris Lean-To
This type of shelter is suitable for a large group. You can turn it into a long-term shelter as well. However, it does not keep body warmth inside, so it cannot protect you from cold. It is also not suitable if you are in hiding.
xi. Brush the shelter with a smoke hole
There are several ways to create a shelter with smoke holes. You can add holes in any type of shelter as long as you can light a fire. It is not recommended to light up a fire in your shelter unless necessary.
Finding And Purifying Water
Pure and clean drinking water is necessary for survival in all conditions. However, it becomes unavailable during most disasters, and you can get seriously ill from drinking dirty water. A person cannot survive for more than three days without drinking water. Therefore, it is recommended to store as much water as you can. Store it in large tanks in a clean, dry place. If you are stuck in an area with no water supply, try to find a water body nearby. But you can't drink water directly from the water body. Apart from dirt and other particles, it contains bacteria and other microorganisms that can make you ill. So it is better to keep water filters with you at all times. Keep a portable water filter such as LifeStraw in your bug-out bag to get clean drinking water everywhere.
Starting a fire
Learning how to make a fire is a basic survival skill. It can serve various purposes. You can use it for cooking food, keeping yourself warm, boiling water, keeping away wild animals, and signaling for help. Almost everybody is familiar with making fire using lighter or matches. However, you may be stuck in a situation with no lighter or matches. So, you should know how to start a fire using other basic things. You need to know many things before starting a fire, so it is recommended that you get a thorough knowledge first.
Finding Food
You may find yourself in a situation where all your food stock runs out or in the wild with no food available; you might have to rely on your surroundings for food. You can hunt or go fishing for food. You can also survive on edible plants that grow in the wild. They include various berries, nuts, mushrooms, fruits, etc. However, you need to be very careful while choosing plants in the wild. A lot of plants may seem edible, but they are poisonous. It is better to learn about them beforehand. The best way is to take a book on edible wild plants on a walk and try to spot the plants around you. With good practice, you will differentiate between edible and non-edible wild plants.
72-Hour Emergency Food Kit Supply
A human being can survive 30 days without food. However, no one wants to do it, especially when food is easily stored. Along with shelter and water, food is one of the primary things preppers prepare for. Preppers who prepare for worst-case scenarios prefer to store food supplies for about three months to one year. However, most preppers prepare a two weeks supply. A two weeks supply is usually enough to survive during a disaster. For this purpose, you need to store some extra food that you eat every day. Make sure the food items have a long shelf life.
For short-term emergencies, it is recommended to have 72 hours supply of food ready. It is a supply for three days.
What you might find in a 72-hour food supply
While preparing a 72 hours supply kit for food supply, it is better to first calculate the total calorie consumption of your family. For each person, consider 2500 calories per day. This way, you can keep the food supply kit ready according to the calorie needs. It is better to stock up on lightweight snacks which are easy to carry but offer a good calorie amount. So, you might need items that you can easily fit in your bag. Divide the calorie count for each person into three meals for a day; breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Make sure the items in each meal are interchangeable.
The DIY route, MRE, or freeze-dried food?
Most of the items in survival kits are freeze-dried food or MREs. They are lightweight and offer good nutrition plus great taste and variety. You can mix the freeze-dried items and MREs with the normal food. This way, you will have more variation. Many companies also provide a 72-hours food supply kit consisting of freeze-dried items. You can purchase the kit directly or prepare your kit yourself.
