Well, as this is a “happenning” (as we used to say in the '60’s…), I assume there will be an award, or at least a gold star, for the one with the most amazing after-action report. I suggest extra points for how many immediate neighbors you get to join in with the exercise. Lots of folks like a bit of a challenge and a break from the day-to-day sameness. Community-building…Aloha, Steve
ps- thoughts and well-wishes to all the folks suffering from the Cal fires…
‘People also forget that - anytime you leave you may never go back.’
So true. Or you may at least be delayed and caught unprepared, and stuck relying on unprepared others.
I was caught out one year away from home, while town was closed off due to a bushfire.
Partner and young child at home, and older relative living nearby, with me locked out of town overnight. Luckily just overnight. Young child and older relative evacuated out of town - in the opposite direction to me, while partner and another relative prepared to stay and fight fire. I was on the phone instructing partner what to pack to be evacuated with the others. Boy was that a test of our communication skills. Amidst a stressful situation I needed to use recall/memory, and clarity in explaining description and location of important items. I needed to confirm the item I was describing was what had been found. And to make it happen FAST. ‘Don’t ask why - just grab it’ I recall demanding down the phone - not everything looks as it seems sometimes, and unless you have written instructions or your partner is aware of everything that’s important they may have questions that are unnecessary at such a stressful time. The back glass window of the car was broken as partner tried to cram things in, and where was the cat…
I had only the clothes on my back, my handbag and phone. But was able to stay with a relative in a safe place. Power did go out there so there was no TV or radio for updates (this person does not prep). Once our phone batteries went flat that was it. I would much rather have been staying the night with someone who had a radio, torches, candles even, and more than a day of (mainly junk) food in their pantry.
Once seperated from others stress becomes worse because you worry about them. Isolation in an environment where there is nothing constructive you can do is frustrating and agitating.
If you are prepared you can help others in their time of need, not add to their stress.
Forget about # 3.
This is Australia. I live in a town and have had mental illness in the past. Just the usual common stuff.
So no guns for me. Zip, zero, nada. Even a shangai is on the verboten list over here. Female. Small, weak (working on that) but at least agile and hopefully a little bit intelligent. No military combat or street fighting experience. No martial arts skills worth mentioning - yet. Last shot a gun 20+ years ago. Know 3 people with firearms, varying regularity of use and skill levels.
However the best I can think of in 2 minutes right now is to contact a certain couple of people I know who have access to 1) certain substances and 2) town water supplies. Perhaps ‘adulterated’ water supplies would stop an invading army. Water supply for. said major town is a lot closer to us than it is to said town. Our town water comes from another totally different area. Moral dilemmas - well maybe save that for the debreif afterwards…
Or take the boat to the nearest ramp and do an Arthur…
Great scenarios THC. Excellent food for thought.
Thanks to Chris and Adam for creating this challenge. I recently found myself on Cape Cod at my aunt’s house in the middle of a tornado warning. They have done zero prep so even finding flashlights was a challenge as we made our way to the basement. I pulled my headlamp out of my daypack. I never travel without it and people laugh at my all the time. Never mind the challenge of getting my family to take the warning seriously. One of them didn’t even want to get out of her pajamas. I must say how thankful I was for my calm mindset as I figured out what to do and encouraged my family to join me. Emotional prep is so, so key.
While I felt safe in their basement, I struggled with how to get up to date information on what was happening. They didn’t have transistor radios. The power stayed on so while we were still upstairs we could watch news on TV until the volume of rain eliminated satellite reception and hence TV. The big surprise for me was that I could not find a single local radio station streaming coverage on the internet. During the Sonoma County fires, one of the local radio stations provided awesome and essential coverage of what was going on via both over the airwaves and on the internet. I realize that when I get home (still traveling) I need to learn which local radio and TV stations in the Ashland area cover local events.
This experience begs the question of what we travel with and what happens when we are in an unfamiliar location. I’m a big fan of the Survival Blog’s Ultimate Altoids Tin Survival Kit. I gave these as Christmas gifts one year. People thought I was really nuts. I had fun gathering all of the items and I had to use a small pouch for each one because for the life of me I could not get everything to fit in the Altoids Tin. I have turned to this thing on a number of occasions.
Anyway, maybe someone out there will learn something from my recent experience.
A SWAT team attempted a no-knock raid on a drug dealer. However, since the resident was in a brick house in the city and had a steel security door, they just managed to bend his door with their battering ram and threaten him. Since he was in fact not the drug dealer they were looking for, as they had visited the wrong address, he told them to have their department call him and he’d let them in if they were really cops. I hear impersonating police has been popular in the past decade or so among criminals.
Suggestions for new chapters in Prosper!:
Soul CapitalObstacles to Bhakti Yoga Practice
That is to say the practice of directing supreme Love towards God.Would love to know who’s photos are placed on your Puja tables.
[do I hear snickering?]
Lastly, is it me or are there few black and brown people in the “resiliance movement”? (we all know the asians are armed to the teeth with T-Bills)
Is there a certain type of person who prepares, or makes the effort to prepare a priority?
Myers-Briggs Personality type?? Starsign - Virgo??
I would be curious to know if there are any psychologists here with any info on this.
Every year in our part of Australia we are reminded to be prepared for fire season. Sometimes reminded in Winter if the Burea and conditions forecast a bad Summer. CFA, Emergency Vic and other organisations reach out to the public online, via TV, radio, print media, etc. The add below was on Facebook. Some of these adds would actually trigger a person with fire related trauma.
The local CFA in my area will even come to your home/property for free and offer advice on what to clean up, how to maintain your yard, and other important actions.
Is it really that hard to take the time, and why don’t we all just do it considering the consequences.
Is it like writing a will, and admitting we are vulnerable.
Or is it just the Kardashians and other bread and Circuses are more fun…
Unlike being hit by a meteorite there is actually a very high probability of being afected by fire in my part of the world.
My neighbour on one side is currently voluntarily cleaning up the front yard of neighbour on the other side. We are mowing their grass and killing down their overgrowth that buts onto our fence. Part of the joy of good relationships and community building is we can all help each other for the greater, and safer, good.
I think this is a superb idea, one that we all agree is important but is all too easy to forget to actually do. Jack Spirko at the Survival Podcast has a good podcast episode on ten ways to test your preps. Of course, planned power outage is top of the list. Perhaps it is worth listening to again to see if it yields any ideas for how to structure the PP Challenge.
http://www.thesurvivalpodcast.com/tsprw-007
newsbuoy wrote:
Lastly, is it me or are there few black and brown people in the "resiliance movement"?
SagerXX wrote:
newsbuoy wrote:
EXACTLY
double post
I live in CA and know of some of these ares that have burned badly right now and last year. While there are some places where they are in the woods, I think what you are not noticing is that we have (are) having whole neighborhoods that are totally fire safe in any sense of the word being burned down. Not in the forest, the neighborhoods in Santa Rosa, Napa, Malibu – those houses are not in a forest, and they were cleared, surounded by cement many of them, look at those Malibu Houses, you cant get more cleared. And, they had tile roofs and stucco ( cement ) exteriors sides. Not exposed wood. Did not matter. Maybe it was the attic vents. Wind carried embers to the houses in those places. It was not lack of clearing !! You know, we realy are not that stupid. Maybe having vented attics is stupid, I am sure someone is tallying and studying this, I dont know, I just wonder, we all speculate and wonder and do what we can. My house has no attic, so no attic vents, and I have sealed my crawlspace, which may or may not make it out of county code compliance, so no vents to my crawlspace under the house either. But, most houses have venting or they would rot.
I live in a wooded area in CA, I have never been to Paridise, it is by the woods, and I am sure they have clearing by all the houses, everyone does, you would get cited. Pg and e hires tree companies and clears branches by the powerlines by the roads. The fire personell, early in the season before they are actively fighting fires drives around and if they see a private property without clearing, they go tell the property owner. All of this is helpful, but it will not stop a wind carried ember from falling on your fence, or your barn or house and catching it on fire necessarily. Sometimes in the woods the fire just gets so hot that trees explode ahead of the fire, the fire hasnt got there yet, the embers did not ignite it, the heat just made it explode.
and, btw, these fire prep’d neighborhoods burning to the ground is a new thing. Not something I have ever seen before
Mntnhousepermi - all types of preparedness, however the fire example is just one that is in our faces at the moment. You guys actively over there, and us over here preparing for Summer after a dry, warm winter.
I feel as though your response contains some agression toward me. As if you are insinuating I think Americans, or yourself specifically are stupid. Quote: ‘‘we really are not that stupid.’’ I think this is because you have assumed I don’t know how fire works.
Perhaps you guys over there are experiencing conditions (climate change?) new to your areas and your building codes are playing catch up as ours have in some areas by learning the hard way. In Oz, homes have burned down many times over the years, homes that are not ‘run over’ directly by the path of a spreading fire. But homes that are attacked by falling embers miles ahead of the active front, as you state, (or have had eucalypt or cypress trees nearby explode as their volatile oils get hot.) We know that’s how fires spread so rapidly and morph into giants with multiple fronts, and take out urban areas. And once one home goes, if there’s nobody there dealing with it a whole street can be lost. Lots of examples in oz. Even in our capital Canberra a few years ago.
Ember attack and radiant heat effect are well understood to be a major danger and part of the reason we get on high alert over here when there’s a fire 50miles away. I dunno if you guys issue code days over summer re. fire risk but we do. And the right weather conditions are an alert to action and decision making even without a fire occuring. making the decision to stay home or leave before a fire even breaks out on a high code day. That decision sometimes needs to be made the day before an extreme risk day. Inconvenient - yes. Tiring & tedious - sometimes. Do most people care to pay attention or bother - No. those are the unprepared. Those who are prepared monitor the fire app on their phone all day at work, school, wherever they are, or stay home for the day.
If you live in town, treed or not you need to plan to either leave and hope lady luck is on your side so you have a home to return to, or stay and hope your plan and preps are adequate and you survive. This includes having a well thought out fire plan, reliable grid independant water source (all those swimming pools are great), safest place to shelter, assessing your emotional and physical fitness honestly, dressing appropriately, and testing your firefighting gear, even before a fire. Fire fighting here is often about spending hours putting out embers before a front reaches you, sheltering from radiant heat as the front passes, then going back out ASAP and putting out spot fires and maintaining a watch for hours aftewards.
It is well known here to anyone who has cared to investigate their fire planning that brick homes are not as fireproof as people think, and offer a false sense of safety to their owners for the very examples you list… Eaves, guttering, weep holes and venting are all areas of concern, as you state. So are fences, and improperly screened windows that crack or explode from the heat. Even if you are sheltering while a front passes over you you are meant to be ready inside to put out a fire from a window that breaks, or starts from another entry point. Over the years our codes have been altered to eliminate flammable materials as much as possible and include wire screening over ‘vent’ type areas, under deckings etc. But there are a lot of old homes here. A rural property can be easier or harder to defend than an urban home. We talk about defensible space, whereby the building can be a place of shelter and given the attention it needs to put out a spot fire if the space around it is inflammable and requires minimal monitoring. Plenty of weatherboards with vigilant prepared owners have survived while unattended brick homes next door have burned.
I’ve set up water supplies and fighting gear before code red days and been laughed at for ‘being paranoid’, evacuated and stored for others valuable and irreplaceable objects including pets, put out falling embers, been awake overnight monitoring distant fires and weather, filled gutters with water, and watched my parents prepare to sacrifice their home so they could save their milking shed, so I probably know a bit more about fire preparedness than the average celebrity in Malibu.
One thing we are warned about over and over is not to leave evacuation to the last minute. But every year that happens and people die.
I’m not going to go on as it seems I’ve touched a nerve, however preparedness for ANYTHING also includes personal responsibility and research, and a good dose of what if thinking and paying attention to the world around you. Unfortunately there are plenty of ‘stupid’ people around, no matter what part of the world you are in, where stupid simply means assuming there will never be a flood, fire, tornado, gas leak, personal attack, or one of a number of other things occur in their space. Some people have just never been unlucky enough to be faced with an emergency, until the very first time when it can be too late to learn.
To me over here it seems as if urban America has been caught off guard with similar outcomes as have happened over here in the past. Humans can be slow learners, and we don’t like to worry about stuff that isn’t here and now a problem.
Personally I hate fire. It’s been the most frequent risk to my life and that of my family so far, and causes me the most worry and concern every year. More than snakes!
Hopefully you and your family are safe this Autumn.
I know australia has more experience with bad fires.
timing is everything - we are still digging out our dead with a town wiped off the map and you wrote
"…Is it really that hard to take the time, and why don’t we all just do it considering the consequences.
Is it like writing a will, and admitting we are vulnerable.
Or is it just the Kardashians and other bread and Circuses are more fun.… "
Not what you say to a people still out with the cadaver dogs, going one burned to the ground house to the other.
And, the swimming pool area is not the same area as the Northern CA area, the northern CA area was a much lower income area. Down by LA they have these crazy hot winds, other parts of CA that was previously not normal, etc… etc… but, the pint is it is not time to analyze it yet. We will, and yes, we always look to australias experience, as it may apply, but they are also very different, – but, right now is not that time
…all this survival stuff. Here of all places is the place to practice “nondoing”. Where your eyes are, so there will also be your heart. Should we be prepared, yes, absolutely. Should we test our “preps”, absolutley. But don’t let it take on a life of its own, because it certainly will. It will become the lense throught which you see the entire world after a while. It will distort your whole life. What is the point of surviving after all, but to live.
What has our ecological, energy, and economic awareness taught us? That what we are doing now is not sustainable. So live sustainably, remove ourselves from those systems that cannot be fixed, building lifestyles and networks that are resilient becasue they sustainable. Survivability is a byproduct of living sustainably, not vice versa. Isn’t that where 98% of our effort should be?
The most likely traget of our armaments will be our neighbors hungry children and not a marauding Chinese army, if things really do go totally to pieces. Economics is just a shadow of the real economy. Stay with what is real, stay with what you love.
Treebeard responds well – imho – to the tone at PP over the last few weeks… I’ll walk away into the woods before I put bars on my windows and load up with guns and ammo… While I don’t expect everyone to stop driving/flying and start raising much of their own food, I do expect that everyone here knows that it is what is required in order to transition to a sustainable world.
They exist! I thought this was a super interesting read - seems as though POC preppers have slightly different reasons for doing what they do than their Caucasian counterparts, but many details are the same.
The most likely traget of our armaments will be our neighbors hungry children and not a marauding Chinese army, if things really do go totally to pieces. Economics is just a shadow of the real economy. Stay with what is real, stay with what you love.Which hungry neighbors were you thinking of? Probably these: I already have neighbors like that (updated for 2018). I have a response and a plan for them, and it doesn't include weapons. Have you considered that one day you might have hungry neighbors like these: I have some neighbors like these two, but they don't openly roam the streets (yet). They do what they do mostly under cover of darkness on "hit and run" raids. I have some plans for those kinds of hungry neighbors too, and they include the morally justifiable use of deadly force to meet deadly force directed at me. See, my weapons don't shoot themselves or choose their own targets. I do that. I daresay we might all be wise to have plans for all kinds of hungry neighbors. And I embrace and accept anyone whose moral foundation leads them to pacifism even in the face of terrible evil. I respect the choice of pacificism, but I choose something else. When things really go to pieces I daresay we would be wise to stay psychologically, emotionally and spiritually honest and flexible enough to anticipate, plan for and respond to all kinds of potentially shocking developments. You know, plan for the worst; hope for the best (aka "concurrent planning"). I agree, a cheesy remake of "Red Dawn" in real life here in the USA is highly unlikely. On the other hand, the 800,000 killed in the 1994 Rwandan genocide (mostly with machetes and fire) was highly unlikely until it happened. The Bosnian civil war was highly unlikely until it happened. WWI was highly unlikely until it happened. I am absolutely convinced that we have set ourselves up for the worst 20 years in the history of humanity because of our terrible choices regarding the Three E's, so whatever's coming our way is highly unlikely (at least by conventional thinking) and will catch us off guard in many ways no matter how well prepared we are. "Welcome to the Hunger Games. And may the odds be ever in your favor." Hungry Rwanda survivor
I have only just discovered there is an alternativve fire thread running, and seeing more news of a greater unfolding disaster.
However, my comment about why we don’t just do ‘it’, referred to prepping in general, and was rhetorical, not accusative.
and,
The comment about the Khardashians and bread and circuses was an observation of the population’s general malaise towards anything serious in life and not fun.