March 2012 in Review, Part II: Bug Out Bag Upgrade

As I discussed in this post, I am in the process of upgrading and updating our bug out bags (BOBs). One thing the show "Doomsday Preppers" reminded me of is that preparedness isn't all food storage and gardening. (It also reminded me NEVER appear on reality TV.) Those are my favorite parts of prepping, so of course I have been focusing my attention there, but I can't neglect other important (but comparatively boring) areas.


Bug Out Bag Upgrade

The first item that I upgraded was my backpack.

TETON Sports Explorer 4000 Internal Frame Backpack 

I chucked the uncomfortable, conspicuous red backpack my emergency kit came with and tried this one out. It holds a lot and has enough pockets and compartments to keep everything organized. You can easily adjust it to fit your body comfortably and it is relatively inexpensive. It's definitely a keeper. 


My next purchase was a nifty survival knife.
 

Gerber  LMF II Black Infantry Knife 

 I am by no means an expert in weaponry, but I think this knife is pretty cool and very useful. You can use the end to break glass or as a hammer. There are holes in the handle so that you could lash the knife to a stick and create a spear. The sheath has a built in sharpener and can attach to a belt or even strap to your leg if you're going for a full-blown Rambo look. It's a quality knife and made in the USA. 
Lastly, I tucked a coil of paracord into my new BOB. I'll continue the upgrade over the next few months.
Anyone else updating, upgrading, or building a bug out bag? What are you adding?

Bug-Out Bag Redux

One of the tasks I aim to complete over the next several months is an overhaul of our bug-out bags. Bug-out bags (also known as G.O.O.D. bags and 72 hour kits, among other names) have the essentials you need for survival in the event you need to evacuate quickly or simply hunker down in place for a few days.

Our bug-out bags were the first preps I completed back when I was a wee baby prepper. I based them around these kits from Emergency Essentials.

The Trekker II Emergency Kits from Emergency Essentials 

The Trekker II kits have supplies for two people; we are a family of six with several small children. I bought extra sets of certain supplies (ration bars, emergency blankets, etc.) and added in things like diapers and formula. Then I created an emergency binder with vital information such as phone numbers, photos of each family member (in case we get separated), insurance information, and so on.

And that was that. Our BOBs have sat in the floor of our closet for a year and half. I have added a few odds and ends but I haven't truly updated them. The clothing I packed for my children is now two sizes too small, the family photos show an infant Baby Dear who doesn't much resemble the ornery man-child he is today, and I never replaced the flimsy multi-tools included in the kits with proper cutting instruments. Oops. Naughty prepper.

It's time to update and upgrade our BOBs and emergency binder. Here's the plan:

Bug-Out Bag Update Checklist:

1. Emergency binder - Check all information for accuracy. Update with new photos, financial information, etc. as necessary. 
2. Double-check to make sure all components (ie. flashlights, headlamps) are still functional. Make sure those darn Aqua Blox aren't leaking and consider a switch to the water packets mentioned by Bitsy. 
3. Update clothing and shoes included in bags. Make sure they are appropriate for the season. Add extra pairs of socks for Hubby Dear and I. 
4. Make a few upgrades. See below. 

Upgrades:

1. Backpacks - The bags included in the Emergency Essentials kit are inadequate. Not only are they on the small size, but they are also very uncomfortable to wear when fully loaded. I want to try out some new backpacks that will better distribute a heavy load. 
2. A better knife - The kits came with two generic multi-tools. I am far from knowledgeable when it comes to topics like a proper survival knife, but even I know that I wouldn't want to depend on the flimsy blades that came with my kit. 
3. Another way to purify water - The kit came with a few water purification tablets and some of the notorious Aqua Blox. I'd like to get a hiking filter so that we could drink whatever water we come across on the go. 
4. Some cordage - Our kit currently doesn't have much rope or other cordage. Cordage is just too handy not to include in a BOB. 
5. Upgraded electronics - The flashlight, headlamp, and radio included in the Emergency Essentials kits are pretty cheap quality. I'm looking for more sturdy replacements. I'm also considering getting a solar battery charger.
6. Sleeping arrangements - Our BOBs currently include plastic tube tents and mylar "sleeping bags". If we ever really had to use these, we would be less than comfortable. I'd like to find light, compact, and warm sleeping bags. If we have room in our bags, I'd like to get a better tent as well. 

I still think kits like the one pictured above are a wonderful beginning for those newly-converted to preparedness. If lack of time and zero know-how are obstacles, these kits are great. Buy them and you're set. Just don't forget about updating them like I did and you might consider upgrading a few of the crucial components.

If you have not checked your bug-out bags recently, why not take this opportunity to make sure they are ready to go? Are you set for an emergency or are you overdue for an update?

Quick Tip: Add some freebies to your Bug Out Bag

Some of the freebies in my BOB: shampoo and conditioner, lip balm, deodorant, and lotion

In the first incarnation of my bug-out bag, 72 hour kit, or whatever you want to call it, I didn't include any toiletries. I figured that if I was hunkering down in the woods somewhere, I probably wouldn't care if my armpits were springtime fresh.

That may well be true, but springtime freshness never hurts, especially when you can do it for free. Lots of companies offer free samples of their products in convenient travel sizes - perfect for your BOB!  The Krazy Coupon Lady and Money Saving Mom are two sites that frequently post offers for free products. As a bonus, the freebies often come along with high-value coupons to aid your stockpiling efforts.

In a SHTF situation where we have to break out the BOBs, I can now comfort myself with the fact that my lips won't be chapped! ;)

Month Three Preps

I've spent my money for Month Two so it's time to think about spending next month's money!

1) Get more cash and add it to our Bug Out Bags (BOBs).
2) Buy a box of trash bags.
3) Get a roll of heavy mil plastic sheeting and a roll of duct tape. Use it to prep for possible sheltering-in-place.
4) Buy butane refills for my Zippo lighter.
5) Buy maps for both vehicles + BOB.
6) Buy the remainder of items for my van’s emergency kit.
7) Continue to buy items for food storage.

My original plan for Month Three had me buying a bunch of food storage containers for my pantry and a Brother P-Touch label maker. That's the OCD organizer in me.

I decided that it was probably more important that I store up food. With my luck, TEOTWAWKI would happen and all I'd have to show for it would be a bunch of plastic with nothing in it! And with the threat of hyperinflation looming, food prices are only going to rise. It's best to stock up NOW on the essentials of life. However much Snapware makes my soul sing, it will not sustain me in an emergency. :)

Water storage and protection from nukes

I finally completed my prepping purchases for this month. They fall into two major headings, water and nuclear preparedness. I'll discuss each in turn.

WATER

Why store water?

Water is one of the most important items in preparedness. You can't survive very long without water and yet it is something that we all take for granted. We just expect that clean, safe water will always flow out of our faucets. That is something that you absolutely cannot count on in an emergency. Municipal water supplies could be contaminated or they could be out of order. If you are on well water, a loss of electricity would cut power to your pump. A major local, regional or national power grid outage would then leave you up a creek without a paddle. Bottled water is one of the first items to get sold out in anticipation of a hurricane, snow or ice storm. Be ready ahead of time!

How much water to store?

You should count on at least 1 gallon of water per person per day. That gives you enough water to drink as well as some for basic hygiene and cooking. Most sources that I have read recommend that you store a minimum of two weeks worth of water. For our family that would be:

6 people x 1 gallon per day x 14 days = 84 gallons

How do you store water?

I have decided to accomplish this in a couple of ways. First, I purchased a 55 gallon barrel.

It is important that your water storage containers be made of food-grade materials. You should never store water in something that once held anything you would not put in your body (gas, cleaners, etc.). I chose to buy our water storage containers but you can use clean and empty pop or juice bottles. Some people are able to get barrels that held syrup, etc. for free from restaurants. Be sure to clean your containers thoroughly if you go that route and again, make sure the containers are of food-grade plastic.

You also need a way to open and close your barrel plus drain out the water. The barrel has a valve on top that you need a bung wrench to open.

Water weighs over 8 lb per gallon, so it will be very heavy when the barrel is filled. You do not want to be fooling around should you have to use your water in an emergency. You can buy siphon pumps or siphon hoses. I chose to get a simple hose. You can buy the barrel in a combo with the siphon and wrench from Emergency Essentials. I was pretty pleased at the price point and it was quickly delivered via Fed Ex to my residence.

It is space efficient to store a lot of water in a large container but at approximately 455 pounds when full, it is definitely not portable. What if we need to bug out? I found the basic water storage kit sold by Emergency Essentials to be an easy and economical way to get five 5-gallon storage containers.

The kit consists of heavy duty mylar bags that have a spout. You fill the bags with water and place each one in a cardboard box. The boxes have handles and stack easily. The kit is reuseable and seems like it would be pretty sturdy as long as your basement or other storage area stays dry.

This is what my storage area looked like with my storage containers filled up and ready to go.

I went ahead and placed some cardboard underneath the water barrel. Many people recommend that you have some sort of separation between your plastic water containers and the concrete floor. The thought is that chemicals from the concrete can leach through the plastic into your water. Other folks think that as long as your concrete is not getting heated up (ie. from the sun, outdoors, etc.) you are fine. I chose to put a layer of cardboard underneath my water barrel even though our concrete stays cool all year long. Another solution to this problem is to rest your barrel on top of some 2 x4s.

If you're adding it up, this totals 80 gallons of water and my family needs 84. We do have an additional three days' worth of water stored in our BOBs in the form of Aqua Blox. Should we need even more water, we have two 40 gallon water heaters. You can also use the water in the tank of your toilet (not the bowl!). In all, we have enough water for nearly four weeks.

In the future I plan on buying a large Berkey water filter for more long term solutions. While we do not have a natural source of water on our property, we do live in an area where there are many farm ponds nearby. If TSHTF, we could haul in water from those ponds or a nearby public lake and then filter it. We also have some water treatment tablets and bleach that could be used to disinfect suspect water if necessary. Boiling water once you filter out the big particles is always an option as well.

Do you need to treat your water?

Generally speaking, if you are filling your water containers with water from municipal supplies, you do not need to add any sort of water treatment. You do, however, have to rotate your water, dumping it out and refilling your containers every 6 months to 1 year.

If you add this water preserver sold by The Ready Store, however, you can extend the time water stays fresh in your containers to 5 years. I don't know about you but I don't have the time or inclination to dump out 84 gallons of water every year, so this was a good investment for me.

Another thing you should think about is how you are going to fill your water containers. Most garden hoses are not considered safe for drinking water. They can have lead and other chemicals leach out of them or even harbor mold and mildew. I went ahead and bought a couple of water-safe, mold resistant hoses. You can find these online at emergency preparedness stores or even at your local Wal-Mart in the RV or garden section. In the end, filling our water containers from our regular garden hose probably wouldn't be a big deal, but better safe than sorry in my book. After all, that's why I'm a prepper.

NUCLEAR PREPAREDNESS

This next purchase may seem kind of random or paranoid.

These are Iosat tablets which consist of potassium iodide. If there is a nuclear incident, it will flood your thyroid with iodine so that it does not absorb radiation. There are dosages on the package for people of all ages and the medicine can be stored for up to seven years before you need to replace them.

People tend to be much less afraid of nuclear radiation than they were decades ago. The Cold War may be over, but the recent arrest and deportation of those Russian spies living in the US should remind you that Russia isn't exactly our best friend. Rogue states like Iran and North Korea certainly have the motivation to launch a nuclear attack on the US. Terrorists of all stripes would definitely like to do so.

I'd like to think that, living as I do in the middle of nowhere, we'd be safe. There is no guarantee, though, particularly when you consider the effect of weather systems. The BP disaster in the Gulf of Mexico illustrates how weather, wind, and ocean currents can spread a localized disaster over a huge area. There are also nuclear power plants dotted throughout the country. They, too, could be a source of a nuclear emergency.

Of course there is much more to consider when it comes to nuclear preparedness. Many of the other preps I'm doing would be essential: water storage, food, hygiene, etc. A great resource and one that is available for free is

Cresson H. Kearny's Nuclear War Survival Skills.

That's a long post but one I hope will be helpful to those of you starting out your preparedness journey. My Month Two Preps are complete.

Month Two Preps

Now that my Month One Preps are mostly complete (our van emergency kit is a glaring omission, I will admit), it's time to think about Month Two.

Month Two Preps:

1. Get $20 in small bills to add to BOBs.
2. Continue to build our three month supply of food and other essentials.
3. Reorganize our storage room. Clear out junk, donate unnecessary items and consolidate to make room for food and water storage.
4. Buy Iosat tablets for the whole family.
5. Buy items necessary to store 2 weeks worth of water for our family - barrels, siphon, water conditioner, etc.
6. Fill water containers. Store appropriately in our cleared out storage room.

Month One Preps, Part Three: Bug Out Bags

I thought for a long time about the best way to assemble Bug Out Bags. Some lists you'll find out on the Internet are very much military inspired and list every component down to the type of heat you should be packing. I definitely will be investigating firearms at some point, but my inherent clumsiness and complete lack of experience precludes me from including them at this point.

I decided the easiest thing to do would be to order a prepackaged emergency kit and personalize it. My large order from Emergency Essentials (which also included the items for our Vehicle Emergency Kits) weighed over 70 pounds!


The emergency kit I ordered was their "Trekker IV", a mid-priced emergency kit for four people. Since we have six people in our family, I then ordered additional items such as rations, water, ponchos, etc. for another two people. I don't think that Baby Dear will be eating emergency rations for a while, but I wanted to have them on hand now rather than forget about it for the future.

The kit includes two backpacks and you arrange the items in them as you desire. It really does include many items and covers the vast majority of the ones you will find on Bug Out Bag checklists.

The only weakness I really found was the multipurpose tool in the kit. I found it to be pretty flimsy in comparison to one we already have kicking around the house. I wouldn't want to have to depend on that tool for my survival. I'm planning on upgrading that at some point in the future.

One of the items I added to the kit was this flashlight/cell phone charger. If you crank it for 1 minute, the flashlight will work for 30 minutes. The cell phone charger could be really handy since our cell phones tend to run out of juice right when we need them.




These are the emergency food rations the Trekker IV kit contains. Some of the more pricey kits Emergency Essential sells include MREs. That is something I may buy down the road, but for now these rations will do. They will keep us alive anyway. My oldest two children are begging to try them out.




I bought a box of 20 N-95 masks. These are good for preventing dust inhalation or infectious disease transmission. Hubby Dear is in the health care field and told me that if you have facial hair, it is nearly impossible to get a N-95 mask to fit correctly, which is something to remember. During the Swine Flu epidemic, he was unable to wear one over his beard at work. Nonetheless, these are important to have on hand.







The final addition to our BOB was my emergency binder, which I explained in this post. It contains all the information we would want to have on hand if we hand to evacuate in a hurry - family phone numbers, insurance information, etc.

The two backpacks that make up our primarily emergency kits are very heavy. None of our children could possibly carry them and they would wear me out in a hurry. I guess I had better start lifting weights!

I made another backpack that contains diapers for Sweetie Pie and Baby Dear as well as formula. That backpack could be carried by either of our two oldest children. There are two other backpacks that contain changes of clothing and shoes for our entire family.

Finally, I am building up a store of cash to carry in the BOBs. I've started our stash with the $30 we were paid for being a Nielsen family. Each month I intend to add to the cash using small denominations only. Right now I'm planning on putting about $200 in the BOBs and storing additional cash our safe. Eventually I'd like to have around $1,000 in cash stored at home. We already have a substantial emergency fund in the bank, but if SHTF that may not be accessible.

So that's our Bug Out Bags.

Questions from a child

We got a delivery from Fed-Ex this morning that included many of the elements that are going into our bug out bags (more on those in a future post). My oldest child, The Thinker, was confused.

"Mom, if you and Dad have been married such a long time, why are you just now getting this emergency stuff? Shouldn't you have all of this already?"

I had to answer honestly - we hadn't really thought about being prepared for emergencies until recently. Hopefully prepping will become such an ingrained part of our family culture that when our children go off on their own they will naturally do it. They shouldn't be married for over a decade before they get their act together.

Off to make our bug out bags...