Fact: Your Chances of Surviving a Post-Collapse Urban Environment are Slim

Fact: Your Chances of Surviving a Post-Collapse Urban Environment are Slim

Stay in a state of grace Our Lady of Akita said the good as well as the bad will perish.  It is not how long you live but how well you live

Simply put, urban survival will be quite a bit different from survival in a remote wilderness area or even a sparsely-populated suburban area. Let’s game some options, remembering that these options are general. These actions aren’t specific to the type of breakdown of society (external by an attack from a foreign nation, or internal from economic collapse, for examples).

So, we have our collapse. Let us “X” out a nuclear war/nuclear terrorist attack, as we can deal with all the other scenarios in variables without radiation to contend with. Let’s identify the largest challenges faced for that high-rise apartment resident in Manhattan, or the family in the brownstone on the South side of Chicago. First, let’s game the scenario:

After “The Day,” the city was almost completely without power. You and your wife and two children were not able to leave town. All mass transit was halted or discontinued. It has been three days, and your family has been listening to static on the radio for the most part, with “campy” pre-recorded disaster broadcasts that have not been helpful or informative. One of your neighbors left this morning after saying goodbye: he and his family had a boat, and they were heading out of the harbor, hoping to use one of the major rivers to make an escape.
They didn’t have room to take you or yours, but you wanted to stay put and not follow your neighbor’s idea: that there were plenty of boats whose owners were not going to use them…probably dead following the rioting and civil breakdown. You’re beginning to think you should have listened to him. Now you can hear angry voices outside, and you go to the window. A mob has gathered at the top of your street! They’re armed with rifles, bats, axes, machetes…and there are about 500 of them. As you watch, they’re making a move toward the first house on the opposite side of the street. Your house is less than half a block away. There are no more cops, no more laws, no more order, and no help will be coming…on The Day After Doomsday.

Sounds pretty bleak, huh? That’s because it is unless you keep a cool head about you and stay in focus. Here are your primary tasks, and in this order:

1. Defense: without a clear plan and the means to execute that plan, you’re going to have problems.
2. Secure Domicile: in itself a part of the defense, as if you live in an easily-entered structure, you’re going to need to fortify it and have a security system and a guard/lookout schedule.
3. Food and Water: always critical. We touched on some of this in the last segment with water. You should have at least a one-year supply for each member of your family of nonperishable food.
4. Medical supplies and equipment: This entails the ability to perform first aid, to perform long-term supportive measures, and both short and long-term definitive care for special needs members of the family.
5. Cohesion: your family needs to function akin to a well-oiled machine, as best it can. Faith will be a key element: in God, in one another, and in what you are doing. The inner discipline for each family member and for the group as a whole are key to enabling success for you and ensuring your survival.

Now let’s talk about what you’ll be facing, keeping in mind we already did not specify what type of disaster caused the end of it all. A nuclear war will have radiation and probably foreign invaders at some point.  An asteroid impact will have traumatic weather catastrophes and cataclysmic effects all over. What we are focusing on here is a city that is (for all intents and purposes) physically “intact” but is no longer functioning…its infrastructure is crippled, the social order is defunct, and chaos is the word for the day. What are you facing? Here are some of the challenges:

1. Complete lack of food outside of your supplies: akin to a swarm of locusts, people will descend upon the grocery stores, convenience stores, dollar and discount stores, and big box stores…until the stores are no more…looting everything and anything they can grab. Happened in New Orleans, I’m here to tell you…and it’ll happen again. Dogs, cats, birds, and anything else that crawls, walks, flies, or runs…will be eaten. All of this within the first week to two weeks.
2. Cannibalism: when the disaster strikes, there will be a lot of people who will actively hunt other humans for food. For those smiling naysayers, you may wish to read about the Donner Party, the Andes aircraft crash, and numerous other accounts of such things. You can take it to the bank that it will happen again…and the “Drive By” also becomes the “Drive Thru.”
3. Disease: it is a well-known fact that dead bodies, poor sanitary conditions, and lack of clean running water and working sewers will all contribute to diseases. Typhus, E. coli, and plague will all return…diseases that are not a threat will quickly become out of control after the SHTF.
4. Bad Guys:  Lots and lots of bad guys (and gals, not to leave you out of the loop!) doing really bad things and trying to do more bad…to you and yours. We’re going to do a piece just on this, so I’m not going to burn out all my fire at once. Suffice to say there will be gangs and small packs of “opportunistic entrepreneurs” out roaming the streets of your town…and they’re not looking to sell you on “Amway.” They’ll take what they can…including your life.

So, what to do? Well, here’s the first step to defeating all these factors:
Have a plan, and work that plan until it takes effect, and get out of town!
You’ll need to train, game out the scenarios, and work on your preps if you must hunker down. The best thing to do is get out of the city or town. In a high-rise apartment building, you’re going to be very limited in what you can take out of there effectively if the vehicles are not working and the electricity is out. It’s hard to carry hundreds of pounds of gear and supplies down a dark staircase fifty stories and then escape a city in ruins or turmoil. The odds are against it. The key is to have a place…a safe place with supplies that you can reach…and when the time is right, get out of that city.
It will be important to form teams, within your own family, and potentially including others who live near you of a like mind. Here’s a rule to follow:
No “free rides,” any allies outside of the family must have their own supplies and be self-sustaining to be a legitimate ally.
You must trust them implicitly: A real trust, not the BS handshaking of men and the hugging of women once a week at a card party or barbeque. No, a real trust based on knowing them well, and for as long a time as possible.  You don’t want to undertake an endeavor, and then end up at the rendezvous point, and having them kill you and take your supplies. Gasp! Ohh! Perish the thought, right?
Wrong: Know that human nature means in a disaster a “switch” can be flipped at any time and those you thought were your allies are now attackers.
You’re going to have to get together with your family and the other family or two who are on your “team” and figure a way to exfiltrate out of the city with as many supplies as you can carry. Most of the gangs will be looking for easy pickings, therefore if you present a unified defensive posture…everyone knowing their functions and carrying their weapons and moving as a unit…this will dissuade them. Wolves usually prey on the young, the weak, the old, and the sick first. Men are no different. They would prefer a bunch of fatsos sitting around in their living room with their supplies than a group of families that has their “S” together and can defend themselves.
This is not to give you false bravado. There are skills you need, happy family, to be able to make it through. I hope one of your family members is a veteran. If not, seek one out and pick up some training.
“Thank you for your service,” is the BS line that everyone uses on you when they haven’t served…it makes them feel good when they say it to you…as if they have checked the “patriotic block” on a form.
You’ll really thank a vet if you’re trained by one. How about this for an idea? If there’s not one in your family or on your “team,” then find one…and pay the veteran to train you. I can see the frowns now. Nobody likes to open that wallet. I guess you’ll have to weigh what is more valuable to you and determine where your priorities lie.
Thank the veteran with more than lip service in this instance, and learn valuable skills that you could have picked up if you had served. You will need some combat skills, such as how to work as a fire team, how to clear a room, and communication between members, be that vocally or with hand-and-arm signals. In the end, it will be up to you, and you will only receive in proportion to what you extend of yourself.
You’ll need to practice and drill getting out of your locale. You’ll also be wise to equip your team (your family and another family working with you) with Motorola’s and stick them in Faraday cages until it’s time to move out. There is still time to game and implement this thing; however, the more quickly you move on it the smoother you can make it for yourself and others. The time to be prepared is yesterday, and the disaster can come tomorrow.

How to Survive for Years in a Post-EMP World

In recent months, those threats have become more and more serious. Just this year, North Korea succeeded in testing their first multi-stage missile, with the range to reach the United States. Within weeks of that event, they tested their first hydrogen bomb, proving that they are much closer to having the capability of raining nuclear fire down on the United States, than anyone would have believed.
But we may not have to worry about nuclear bombs taking out our cities, as North Korea has changed their tune. Now, for the first time, instead of talking about blowing up our cities with nuclear weapons, they’ve started discussing using one of those bombs to create a high-altitude EMP and take out our energy grid.
This would be a much more devastating attack than any attack on our cities by nuclear-tipped missiles. While such a conventional attack could kill several million people, an EMP exploded 250 miles above central Kansas could ultimately kill somewhere around 300 million people, simply by taking out the power grid for months and months. Most people would die of starvation and lack of modern medicine.
This is the great risk of our time. Whether or not it actually manifests itself is something we won’t know until it’s too late. Personally, I’d rather not wait until then. So, the big question facing you and I is: Are we ready for an EMP?
We must assume that North Korea is close to being able to launch such an attack and that they will do so sometime in the near future. We also need to assume that our anti-missile defenses, which were not designed to deal with a high-altitude EMP, will not stop the attack. Any other assumption is too much of a risk to take. While I hope they won’t attack or if they do, they won’t be successful, I’m not going to wait to find out.
With that in mind, what should we be doing in the limited time we have available? If we assume that the attack will happen in 30 days, what final preparations should we make in that time?
Stock up on Food and Other Essential Supplies
The only food that you’re going to have is what you have in your home and what you can grow. So if you don’t have enough food (and none of us do), now is the time to buy some more. Stock up on non-perishable foodstuffs, especially the staples. And learn to garden!
But don’t just stock up on food. All other expendable supplies are going to be in the same boat as food. So be sure to buy toilet paper, soap, medical supplies and anything else you are going to need for the next 20 years or so. While local manufacturing will begin to kick in after the first year of a downed grid, it’s going to take a long time for supplies to be readily available again.
You won’t need to worry as much about tools, clothes and other non-expendable items. As people start to die off, those items will become readily available. One of the important skills in a post-EMP world will be scavenging, which will become the main source of supply for many years.
Buy Gasoline
Many people are saying that cars will not be running after an EMP, but the report of the EMP commission says otherwise. Cars will most likely run, but gasoline will be a problem. Even worse than being a problem for cars, we’ll need gas for lawn mowers, chainsaws, roto-tillers and other power tools.
Unfortunately, gasoline doesn’t store well, especially in plastic gas cans. However, if you can put that gas in a full, sealed metal drum (55-gallon drum) it will keep considerably longer. There are also additives which you can add to the gasoline, extending its shelf-life.
Make Sure You Have a Water Source
Clean water will be one of the biggest problems in a post-EMP world. City water supplies depend on electricity to pump the water in almost all cases. Unless you happen to live downhill from a reservoir that is providing your water, your city water will dry up.
Rainfall, local rivers and lakes or a well are your best sources of water. But make sure that you have plenty of capability to purify that water, as you may need to be purifying it for many years to come.
Get Some Solar Panels
If you don’t already have them, it’s a good time to invest in some solar panels. While much of our electronics will be fried by the EMP, that won’t really be the big problem. The loss of the grid will be. You can always put away some electronics, safe from the EMP, and use them afterwards.
A typical solar power system is used to charge 12-volt lead-acid batteries and then the power from those batteries is boosted up to 120 volts AC through a voltage inverter. While the batteries and the solar panels will probably survive the EMP, the solar charge controller and the voltage inverter probably won’t. So, make sure that you have spares, hidden away in your faraday cage.
Buy Spare Electronics and Store Them in a Faraday Cage
Speaking of a faraday cage, if you don’t have one already, now is a good time to create one. A galvanized trash can works well, although a metal filing cabinet, storage cabinet or toolbox can work just as well. The only thing you need is an enclosed metal container, with the ability to insulate the contents from the walls of the container.
Besides your spare solar charge controller and voltage inverter, you should consider having spares for other critical electronics, such as a computer or tablet filled with useful survival information, medical devices, a pump for your well, a grain mill and even a CD player. Whatever electronics you think you need for survival should be in that cage.
Get Cash and Silver
Most of the money in the world is nothing more than electronic money. What that means is that once the EMP hits, most money in the United States will be gone. While I’m sure there are secure copies of all banking records somewhere, it will probably be years before anyone can get into them. So, the only real money that will exist is either paper or precious metals. Of the two, precious metals are much more secure.
I make a habit of keeping precious metals in the safe, just in case. That way, when some form of commerce starts back up again, I’ll be able to take advantage of it. I suppose the little bit I have will make me into a rich man for the first time in my life.

 

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