Good day and welcome aboard. Are you new to preparedness? Maybe you once hung out in the shadows and didn't take the preparedness process to be much of a need in your life. Why would you? None of your family or friends prepared and they laughed at those who did. That noise you hear is not thunder. I digress. So, from this point forward lets forget where you came from and what you once believed. The point is you are here and you need to know what you need to do as a minimum to get started.
Time and resources may be limited so you need to focus and get moving forward. You took the first step by acknowledging a need to prepare yourself and family. Because you started late, the resources available to you could be extremely limited so you will have to work around what is available. You may also have to work around travel restrictions, higher virus areas, homelessness, unemployment, and other factors. Adapt and adjust. If you don't, you will become a statistic. Why? As I often say, "I don't like making predictions but..." As I have often told Ms. Lucy and Festus, "my gut is churning and I don't see a rosy ending for the remainder of 2020." So much damage has been done to our nation already and a $2-6 trillion dollar stimulus is not going to make it all better.
I have been communicating with several of our Patriot readers, both ladies and men, and they are turning up the energy to their preparedness planning. I pray we are wrong but I don't think this story is going to have a good ending this year. Simply watching how easy the media triggered a massive panic with many of our citizens should scare the socks off your dog.
A lot of what you can do will depend on the above factors and your available resources to purchase resources. You will have to determine how much you can spend at what speed. Just know, the world is not going away and you must step up now and be a leaders. There are lots of plans you will need to build down the road. For now, you need the basics. Water, food, shelter, and security. You will have to to decide your own medine needs. If you have medicinal needs and have questions please message me.
I would normally recommend in this order, water, food, shelter and security. With everything taking place in America I would put things in this order. Water, security, food and shelter. I hear it now, "But Bravo Echo, they can't eat a gun." Of course not. You also can't eat food if you are injured or dead. Read the news. State by state is releasing prisoners early because of the virus. Prisoners are hungry and need a place to sleep. Knock, knock, knock. Are you ready? Get yourself protected. Remember, you are protecting your family now. Face it, you may think the world tomorrow is going to be the world you remember yesterday. Get over it. Lose the normalcy bias. Protect yourself.
As you start preparing, always keep in mind "one is none and two is one." If the first one breaks, then what? Have a spare for everything, to include your plans.
1. Water - you need two to three gallons of water per day. Multiply that by the number of folks you are quarantined with. Okay, you have water provided. I just shut it off, now what is your plan? Bottled water is like a run flat spare tire. Worst case. Find things you can store water in around your home or apartment. Gallon jugs, bathtub bladders, 15 gallon coolers, non-scented bleach to treat the water you get from a stream, pond or river. You could also use water filtration tablets, a Berkey water filter or a life straw. But, you must know how to filter water, treat water, boil water, to stay healthy. Then you must know how to move it from the source to your residence. You get the point. You must have water to stay alive.
2. Security - As I stated above, you are going to need protection. But, don't simply buy a weapon just to buy one. Talk to a friend or trusted gun owner who can offer help or suggestions. If you don't have any friends or family gun owners near you or close by, consider moving. Just kidding. Sorta. If you are 5' 5" tall and weigh 100 lbs, you don't want a weapon that is going to cause you more harm or injury than the person at your door. Get my point? You also want to start building a security plan. This applies in an urban apartment or rural farm. You want to build a layered security in depth plan. Keep these fine things in mind with everything you do in security. Deter, detect, deny, delay and defend. Use humans, physical barriers, technology, animals, trees and shrubbery, humans, tires, broken bottles, .... Get my point? Get outside the box and think to yourself.."If I am the bad guy, how would I rob me? Or hurt me? Or steal from me?" What is your weakest link?
3. Food - Start with seven days to ten days. Quickly expand to two weeks. Even quicker expand to 30 days. Now, build upon this plan. Buy long term foods. Dry foods. Things requiring minimal effort to prepare. Consider calorie and protein. If you are in this phase and need a food calculator message me. Along with canned foods and boxed meals you may like, consider bagged dry goods such as beans, rice, and rice and beans. Forget buying the 50 lb bags from the box store. Sold out. But, you can buy 1 lb bags and add them up to equal larger quantities. If time permits you can buy Mylar bags, oxygen absorbers and pack the bags with dry goods for longer storage life. Understand, I'm simply hitting this topic. There is a lot more to this process for long term stroage. Also consider pressure canning fresh meat, chicken and pork for longer shelf life storage. This offers you protein. Lastly, buy seeds. You want long term non-GMO seeds because you should be going to your local Co-Op and buying fertilizer and anything you need to treat your soil to start a garden. This is work but your effort should yield you fresh produce and you take different steps to preserve your produce for the future. If you can't grow a garden, grow box or bucket plants. Be creative. Get outside the box and think, this is my survival.
4. Shelter - You need to remember, one is none and two is one. Will you bug in or bug out? Can you survive at your current location? If for some reason you must flee, where will you go? Now is the time to figure out two alternate locations. And if you flee, what will you take? Can you carry it with you? Consider establishing a cache to place extra resources in a central location that you can reach to resupply. Depending on your geographic location you will need to identify your ability to heat and use the property long term. A shelter can be anything to protect you from the elements.
5. Medicine - You need to determine your medical needs for you and your family. Take classes, watch YouTube, talk to local EMT types. Invest in a quality medical kit.
Here's a few checklists I have on the website you can check out. Always remember, checklists are suggestions one can use to then build a personalized list.
This should get you started.
Remember, time is passing and you have some catching up to do. Never panic. Keep calm and be in control. Have faith and place yourself amongst like minded positive thinking people. As a last lil tidbit of information, you will need 188 rolls of toilet paper or 65 phone books, neighbor who likes you. I hope they do. consider this, about 95% of all paper products in America comes from China. Pretty crappy huh?
Be blessed,
Bravo Echo Out
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