Getting Started with Preps

What to prepare for is a question that can be hard to answer. It will largely depend on your environment and personal circumstances. Getting started means looking at the kinds of scenarios that you might find yourself in and then listing them in order of likelihood. I live in Michigan. As such, I think the most probable situations I might face are severe thunderstorms with extended utility outage, severe winter storms that again disrupt utilities and disrupt travel and the re-supply of local stores, and tornadoes that damage my home, make travel difficult or impossible and destroy utilities.

Fortunately, by being prepared for the worst, such as SHTF situations, the more likely emergencies are more easily navigated. What a focus on the small ones does is give you some idea of the directions you need to go to begin to make preps. What do you need to live? Shelter, Water and Food.

Without shelter the elements can take you in a few hours. A bad storm can put out windows and open your home to the elements. A tornado can take off the roof or level your home. This would leave me, mama, and the crumb snatchers exposed to the cold and the wet. That is un-cool and is thus to be avoided. I keep plywood, nails and screws on hand to patch holes or section off part of the house if necessary in the event of minor damage.

I also keep a six man tent (read sleeps four and a small cat) in a military duffle bag (the kind with two shoulder straps), along with a couple of mess kits, a camping stove, fuel bottle, a camping water filter, a collapsible two gallon water jug, a sturdy knife, a folding shovel, a complete pair of sweats, shorts and shirts and socks for each of us (I gave up on shoes they took too much space), four ponchos, 50 ft of paracord, firestarters, a firesteel, a candle, two multi-tools, fishing line, hooks, needles and thread, four wool blankets, a pack of Wet Ones wipes, two rolls of TP, a bar of soap, two mini-maglights, ten feet of wire, 8 Cliff bars, a can of Mountainhouse stew, and a wind up radio. The thing is packed. Save space by putting things inside other things. The firesteel, firestarters, candle, paracord, and wire go in one mess kit. The fishing line, hooks, needles and thread and Cliffbars go in the other mess kit.

In another bag I have four 0 degree sleeping bags and a multi-tool, a roll of sheet plastic, and a box of 9mm pistol ammunition and a box of .22LR. (only ammo goes in the bags, the hardware stays with me). This makes for a light but bulky bag. I figure that in the event of a tornado, if I can get the family into the storm shelter with these two bags, we should be able to last for about four days on our own, even if the house and it contents were lost.

Luckily, tornados don’t usually hit in the dead of winter where we live. Lesser storms would probably leave the house in good enough shape to shelter in it (in whole or in part). I’ve tried to provide for the survival basics in the bags. Shelter, water (or at least the means to filter and/or purify then store it), and food. I think this is a decent start for anybody. Think about a probable emergency and cover the basics. This will put you ahead of a lot of people.