So, you want to be ready for when your world gets turned upside down. When everthing around you is tense, people are panicked, the neighbour’s dogs have been barking since yesterday, the power is out, and you’re thinking: “Gee, I sure am glad to be a prepper.”
What exactly will that look like, really? We’ll go over some scenarios, but first I’ll quickly cover what this blog is about.
About the blog
Before I even get that far, I should mention I’m Australian. From Melbourne, specifically, which means the majority of what I’m going to write assumes you live in the western world and that your society, like mine, is normally fairly stable. Along with that, I’ll assume you have access to similar supplies and infrastructure to me.
the idea of being a survivor – someone who was armed with the knowledge and the wits to make it through the end of days – is satisfying on a primal level
I love science fiction. I’ve read some fantastic post-apocalyptic books, such as Devon C. Ford’s best-selling “After it Happened” series, and I’ve read some not-so-fantastic books, which even the authors acknowledge are totally unplausible. Yet I still loved them, because just the idea of being a survivor – someone who was armed with the knowledge and the wits to make it through the end of days – is satisfying on a primal level. But, there are a lot of preppers out there wearing tinfoil hats, stuffing cash into their mattresses, and raving nonsense on Facebook about chemtrails and Covid shots affecting their 5G reception. Look… I don’t really know what to say to that. It’s really not hard to get to the truth once you accept that strangers with zero credentials on Facebook and YouTube aren’t reliable sources of anything.
I’m not going to try and debunk conspiracy theories here on my blog. I am going to draw on what I think is a broad set of practical life experiences, including serving in the military, diesel mechanics, software engineering, hunting, and epidemiology (the study of transmissable diseases), and use it to share not just general tips and suggestions, but to provide a rationale and a reason for doing things – and for not doing things – in order to build a resource that will help you build not just a physical set of tools but also a mindset fit for survival.
I’ve gone off on a tangent but I feel it was an important one to lay down. To summarise: I’m not here to entertain conspiracies, which means I’m also not here to talk about preparing for something that will never happen.
quick disclaimer: I’m not an expert survivalist, or economist, or future-seer, so any advice you take from this blog is done so at your own risk
With that out of the way, let’s consider some possible scenarios. I’ve written this list in a descending order of how likely I think these scenarios are to happen
Potential Disaster Events
- Natural Disasters: Hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes, floods, bushfires, and droughts are all common natural disasters that can subject us to short or long periods without access to basic necessities such as water, food, electricity, and shelter.
- Societal Collapse: This generally means a complete breakdown of society due to economic collapse, political turmoil, or large-scale violence, and is a broad term that can cover a number of other points here. As prepping for these scenarios will generally be fairly similar, I’m including it on its own here near the top.
- Public Health Crises: Disease outbreaks (pandemics) require people to be prepared with adequate supplies of hygiene products like hand sanitizers, masks, disinfectants, as well as stockpiles of essential medicines and medical supplies for first aid treatment at home. Additionally, knowing how to isolate from others will be a critical necessity during these events – something that COVID-19 has proven most of the world is terrible at. Perhaps the biggest challenging in being prepared for a pandemic will be in beleiving it exists at all?
- Power Outages: Prolonged blackouts caused by severe weather conditions, accidents at power stations, or deliberate acts such as terrorism can leave families without electricity for days or even weeks. This is probably the easiest scenario to prepare for by having a backup generator, solar panels, or other source of energy, however, long-duration large-scale outages could have knock-on effects – see Societal Collapse.
- Civil Unrest / War: Large scale protests, riots, invasion by foreign military, or acts of terrorism can quickly escalate into violent conflicts leading to disruptions in law enforcement services and other essential government functions. Being prepared with self-defense skills and equipment may be necessary during these events. Other events such as service outages or food shortages could easily lead to civil unrest.
- Food Supply Disruptions: Natural disasters, droughts, pests, diseases affecting livestock or crops, political conflicts leading to trade embargoes, and other factors could severely limit food availability in certain areas. Having a well-stocked pantry with canned foods, grains, legumes, and other staples will be essential for surviving short-term events, however, surviving long-term disruptions would likely be dependent on farming to some extent.
- Cyber Attacks and Infrastructure Failures: Dependency on technology has made modern societies vulnerable to cyber attacks that could temporarily shut down essential services such as transportation networks, hospitals, banks, and even entire cities. Being prepared with contingencies for communication, travel, and financial transactions can help mitigate the impact of these events.
- Water Contamination: Natural disasters like floods or earthquakes may lead to contaminated water supplies due to broken pipes or leaching from polluted sources into reservoirs. Biological attack could also cause contamination. Having access to clean drinking water through filtration systems, purification tablets, and bottled water will be critical for survival in such situations.
- Personal Emergencies: Accidents or unexpected illnesses can happen anywhere and anytime, so it’s important to have a bug-out bag packed with survival gear such as clothing, blankets, food, water purification tools, first aid kits, flashlights, multi-tools, fire starters, maps, cash, and contact information for family members. An event like this could be caused by something as simple as termination of your lease, displacement due to domestic violence, destruction of your home due to severe weather, etc.
- Nuclear Fallout: While the probability is low, it’s still important to be aware of nuclear threats from hostile nations or terrorist groups. Having a shelter stocked with supplies like radiation detectors, potassium iodide pills for thyroid protection against radioactive fallout, and understanding basic Radiological Protection principles would greatly improve your odds of survival in such a scenario.
- EMP: This one I’ve left until last, partly because it’s such a popular topic among Preppers and in science-fiction, and partly because I my view toward it is gonna be controversial. It’s extremely unlikely that a solar flare or coronal mass ejection (CME) could be capable of triggering an EMP large enough to adversely affect the average person. Really. You’re statistically better off being prepared for dealing with a shark attack – and even then, dying by getting bonked on the head by a coconut will still be statistically more likely. As technology advances, devices and power grids have become less vulnerabe to the kind of EM that solar interaction with the atmosphere is capable of generating. In the modern day, such an event could plausibly only cause minor disruption to GPS and satellite communications and a few localised power outages, which would hardly have a significant impact on our day-to-day lives (except maybe google maps!). A deliberate EMP attack on the other hand isn’t totally impossible, but even so will likely only affect a relatively small group of people. Even so, I think the other methods of attack that will accompany an EMP are going to be more important to deal with and be prepared for. While I don’t believe it’s a form of attack to likely ever be used, to be prepared for it won’t require any special preparation not already covered by the other points above. Preppers love to mention the value of Faraday cages, but let me ask you this: How badly will you need your social media electronics when you have no internet or power grid and a foreign military is marching thousands of troops through your town, shelling all of your infrastructure into oblivion?
Pandemics
Just remember that prepping only helps if, when a situation does arise, you actually take it seriously!
I want to touch one more time on pandemics, partly because it’s close to my heart. Viral outbreak is something the world has now seen and dealt with first hand thanks to COVID-19. Many people, especially a lot of Americans, shrugged it off as trivial. A lot of that was due to the misinformation getting around like wildfire. Even after witnessing hundreds of thousands of people die, a large portion of our society continues to beleive it was all a conspiracy or fake news. I said I wouldn’t try to debunk conspiracies here and I won’t, but those people are intentionally ignoring the impacts they witnessed first-hand on the health system, infrastructure, and the economy. The disease didn’t break our society but it did prove just how fragile it can be. Perhaps even scarier than society’s fragility is the number of lives that can be lost while everyone carries on as normal! During the period of peak infections, hospitals were completely inundated with patients, access to groceries was limited and in some places totally cut off for days at a time as people panic-bought, there were riots, mass burials, and eventually inflation and corporate greed saw the cost of living and general goods go through the roof, causing further crises elsewhere.
COVID-19 globally had a mortality rate of just 1% – hardly scary on paper. And yet, look at the impact it caused and imagine a virus with a mortality rate of, say, 10%. Or even 5%. All I can say is, the impact of such an event will rapidly wipe the grin off the faces of non-believers when they find themselves coughing up their lungs and getting turned away at the hospital (it was ever so satisfying seeing the public figures advocating COVID-denial fall seriously ill with it).
This is definitely a scenario to prep for. Just remember that prepping only helps if, when a situation does arise, you actually take it seriously!