GenXTalkin Powerful Answers to 5 Common Preparedness Questions

I’m trying something new today with our blog. Most of you know by now, Ed is out galivanting around the world allowing us to live vicariously through him… thank you Wilksie!

Ed’s alluded to a few upcoming items he’s got to talk about and reports from the field. I’m excited to see what he’s got for us!

Until then, I wanted to capture five of some of the more common questions we hear in the preparedness community, and answer them from my humble perspective.

So, let’s get started, shall we?

Why did you get into preparedness?

I was unknowingly being instructed in the ways of preparedness by both my mom and dad for most of my childhood. My dad lived out being prepared on a day to day basis, and it was very impactful living through multiple recessions and very little money.

If you want to hear more about my parents, I had the distinct pleasure of interviewing them in some earlier podcast episodes, when I was on a recent trip to the four corners area. You can find them here:

Link to Dorie Marshall Episode

https://podcast.genxtalkin.com/1819710/9636621-gxt-i-ep07-dorie-marshall

Link to Brooks Marshall Episode Pt 1

https://podcast.genxtalkin.com/1819710/9923054-gxt-i-ep08a-brooks-marshall-pt-1

Linke to Brooks Marshall Episode Pt 2

https://podcast.genxtalkin.com/1819710/9998293-gxt-i-ep08a-brooks-marshall-pt-2

When I left home, I ran into many scenarios in which being prepared would have been better, but I was not, and I suffered the consequences.

I’ve been robbed a couple of times while traveling.
I’ve been scammed by a three card Monty player.
I’ve been stuck in the cold, overnight, broken down vehicle, in sub-zero weather with very little heat or shelter.
And the lessons I’ve learned through those and so many more are what drive me today to be better prepared

As for preparedness itself, for me it all Started out as kind of a fun thing. Zombies, apocalyptic living, how would I survive, and so on. Of course, Y2K came with all those fears.

And then, there was this period we lived in a townhome community and ours was one of the only ones on the block that had a fireplace. Across the street there was this nice little family with mom and dad and two very small children. Weather was forecast to be in the single digits during a snowstorm and the power had been out for about a day and a half. And I remember going over there and offering for them to come stay with us if they started getting too cold. That was kind of an eye opener in that even in “normal” times, individuals and families could be hit with difficult choices.

I really just started doing my own prepping of sorts. And eventually my wife jumped on the bandwagon. We’ve been going strong with it for a couple of decades now at least.

What movies/shows or books influenced your preparedness planning most?

Preparedness Movies

There’s so many movies and books. 28 days later. That was actually one of my favorite and Still is one of my favorite, zombies movies with Cillian Murphy. The fact that it showed how quickly (28 days) things went to complete hell was impactful.

28 Days Later Movie - Zomie Apocalypse Preparedness — 28 Days Later Movie – Zomie Apocalypse Preparedness

World War Z. Again, very short timeline. And the way they portrayed a massive apocalyptic event that was impressive. I will say that the book was much better because it portrayed multiple scenes from a zombie apocalypse. The book itself is absolutely fantastic!

Movie – https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/world-war-z

Book – https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/8908.World_War_Z

And then I remember back in the 90s, there was a movie called Outbreak with Dustin Hoffman. Wow that was an impactful, epidemic type of movie. And the thing that was powerful about that one as well is how the government could come in and essentially enveloped this town and try to block people from getting in and out of the town. People in general would attempt to fight back and do what they thought was right.

https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/outbreak

Of course, so much talk has gone on about The Walking Dead over the past number of years. I would say earlier seasons, maybe up to season four were very good, but after that it kind of got a little weird. But same type of scene from 28 days later where the guy wakes up and finds that the world has completely changed.

Preparedness Books

As far as books go, there’s the old standby One Second After by William Forstchen. That is a very powerful book, primarily because the author himself is a historian and he has connections with government. And it was actually a bit of a sad story. He was part of this Commission that was tasked with finding out what would happen if an EMP were to hit the United States and how in what ways it might affect the US most. When his Commission was getting ready to approach Congress with their report, 911 happened. And so it all was forgotten. The only way he was able to present that information to the public was in a fictional novel. The result was One Second After. Absolutely fantastic book! And not just all doom and gloom. There’s a lot of successful things they did as a community

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4922079-one-second-after

Of course, Going Home, by A. American is a fantastic book for “get home safe” type of scenarios. This is more of a EMP type of scenario, but a fantastic book and the series goes on after the first book. I still love the first one the most.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17085384-going-home

And then there’s the Survivalist series with the Mason Raines character by Arthur Bradley. That’s an excellent book and book series. It explains how a US Marshall might respond. And not only how the goodness of a US Marshall might change the world, but also how certain evil might make the world worse. It also puts on display how you can fight back against evil in really successful ways.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18828336-frontier-justice

There’s companion gardening books and homesteading books that of course shouldn’t be overlooked to gain knowledge.

So, reading as much as you can about being prepared is absolutely recommended.

Shelter in Place or Bug Out?

This completely depends on the scenario. In our area, there is a potential, very unlikely, but a potential of nuclear attack or other nuclear type of threat. That said, the thought of sheltering in place might not be the best approach to protecting yourself and family. If it is known that a life altering event is approaching and the best bet would be to leave and leave quickly than bugout.

To Bug Out also typically implies, with haste! Hence the bug out bag to get out as quickly as possible. But this term bug out, doesn’t mean the same thing to different people. To bug out to some may mean, being instructed to do so by government agencies, like FEMA, to move yourselves and family to a government provided shelter.

However, for those who have planned and prepared ahead of time, to bug out may simply mean moving yourself to the next phase in your preparedness plan. Maybe you quickly move to your first bug out location, like another family member outside the affected area.

I suspect there are very few reasons why a person would leave the safety of their home to move to an unknown scenario, like a government shelter. When they could just as easily protect themselves within their known home and area.

A great thought heading into your planning is to have a decision-making tree that says if X+Y happens, then leave. But until that point, shelter in place and implement next steps in your plans. By the way, this can and should be a part of your everyday prepping as well. For instance, it’s much more likely for an area to be hit with a freezing storm or hurricane, causing power outage, than a nuclear attack.

But the same logic remains true. If X+Y happens, for instance, if power is lost in your local area due to a recent weather event, and all indications are it will be out for 3-4 days. Decide if it would be best to wait it out with generators, solar power, and cooking over a fire. Or if it would be better to “bug out” to a local hotel. Keeping in mind pets and other family specific cases.

If faced with an active shooter-type situation, would it be better to run and hide, or attack the shooter?

One thing I think we could all agree to is that nobody really knows what they are going to do when faced with this type of event, until they are there! Something that can help a person to understand their own potential in situations, is to train for them and place themselves into very similar situations.

Seek out training from local law enforcement
read books about real life scenarios
try to become more familiar with the real scenarios and how they shake out.

This may help you keep a sound mind when faced with potentially disturbing events.

There are several ways survival experts recommend responding to active assailants. By now many have already heard of the “Run-Hide-Fight” response.

“Run-Hide-Fight” response - Active Shooter Preparedness — “Run-Hide-Fight” response – Active Shooter Preparedness

First you run – to keep yourself alive
Next you hide – to make sure the assailant can’t see you
If all else fails, then you fight – to hopefully protect yourself and give yourself a fighting chance to survive until the end of the event.

But I would submit to the listeners some additional thoughts. My wife and I recently went to an active assailant presentation, and they changed it up a bit with some very good logic.

The main trouble with the “Run-Hide-Fight” philosophy is it puts into the mind of the person experiencing the trauma, from the very beginning, that they are a victim! So, the person’s mentality is already coming from a position of fear and possible death. I must RUN, I must HIDE! And then magically, somehow, they are next supposed to remove all that fear and then… start to fight!

So, the presenter challenged that approach with a new one.

“Avoid-Deny-Defend”

Simple adjustments to the words, but these are ACTIVE in their engagement with the assailant.

To RUN, in a person’s mind, means to RUN AWAY! But to “Avoid” means to actively understand from where the danger is coming. Then avoid that danger with the most logical approach. It may mean moving closer to the danger to move to the next step.
To HIDE also can imply, to cower, again prompting more of a fear reflex. But to “Deny”, can prompt a person to continually deny the attacker access to the area in which the resistance is located.
And to FIGHT implies this is your last chance effort to life – to fight like hell! But if your mindset is already one of positive, “I will get out of this danger safely”, then the natural course of thinking is to be defending yourself from harm.

Finally, if your mindset is actively engaged with the assailant or other danger, it naturally causes you to think and observe much better than if you were to simply RUN, HIDE or FIGHT! So that, after the event is concluded and you are safe, you can then TELL. You can inform authorities of what occurred with confidence. Your mental response is no longer “I’ve been a victim and will forever be negatively affected by this trauma”. But you’ve done your part to protect yourself and protect others through a difficult event.

What would be some means of preparedness communication in a post-apocalyptic world?

One of the biggest questions is how bad of a “post-apocalypse” world we are talking about here. If it’s full on mad-max or EMP (electro-magnetic pulse) type of world, that’s one thing, but if it’s an economic collapse, then the world might be affected in a totally different way.

Most thoughtful scenarios for what could one day become the “new normal” apocalyptic world are those that would happen over time.

Economic collapse
running out of fuel
adverse government takeover

These are more like “frog in hot water” events, and theoretically, persons, families, communities could prepare better ahead of time.

Begin to come closer together as a unit (family or community).
Begin recognizing existing HAM radio users and CB or walkie-talkie options that might be available within the area.
Establish codes that can be used between known group members to ensure messages are clear and reach the intended persons.
Establish ahead of time a means to power said devices, whether they be solar, wind, or other, this will be important for ongoing communications.

If the scenario is more EMP or CME (coronal mass ejection) type of event, there would be a more immediate result, and very little planning could have occurred. This could make things much more difficult, but still doable. First, consider planning and establishing a small faraday cage for EMP events. No need for massive bunker or house-sized locations for this type of protection. But understand EMP and CME enough to understand what devices could be affected and protect those devices.

For instance, although some speculate it is ALL electronic components within ALL newer vehicles that are susceptible to EMP, this is not likely the case (based upon testing that’s been done). There are certain components (perhaps a starter) that could be affected. So, if a backup of that unit itself is housed in a faraday enclosure, then the component itself only needs to be replaced and the vehicle is back up and running.

The reality is people have been communicating throughout time with images left for passers-by, or smoke signals, all the way to tying two cans together and 5G. There will always be ways to communicate, it will just require a bit of ingenuity.

It’s been fun answering these questions. It’s always helpful to exercise our minds to think through preparedness scenarios. If you get a chance to look us up on social media @genxtalkin, we’d love for people to comment their own thoughts. Our Youtube channel is also a great place to do this. If you get a chance, check us out and drop is a subscribe there.

For now, I’ll leave you to one last thought to always be preparing to respond well and recover faster.

Until next time, this is @genxtalkin, signing off!

November 18, 2021February 2, 2022

Discover The “5 Cs” of Survivability

In today’s blog post I’d like to start first with defining the difference between survivability and preparedness. Prepping or preparedness is generally a process and overall frame of mind toward being ready to respond in challenging times. This can mean preparing the home, your office, your car for most likely challenging situations that could occur.

In contrast, and as the name implies, survival or survivability is the likelihood of a person or group to survive those challenging times.

“Survivability can be defined as the ability to remain alive or continue to exist.”

Let’s consider the “Five Cs” of survivability within this context then. They typically imply a person is in these challenging times already, and with the presence, and proper knowledge of the use of these items, survivability can be greatly improved.

One more note before we launch into each of the “Five Cs”. Very often the “Five Cs” are discussed within the context of wilderness survival. Although necessary to understand this value, I’m going to challenge myself by adding in a few additional concepts around survival in more urban type environments as well…. Here we go…

Cutting Tools

Yes, a knife! But not just any old knife. There are many different purposes for knives; and depending on the challenge ahead, different knives might be recommended.

Those who like to fish, know that the proper knife can make the process of cutting line or cleaning the fish much more (or less) pleasant.

Many feel that a simple multi-tool will do the job, such as this one from Gerber, or Leatherman. A multi-tool added to a go-bag or get home kit is an absolute must. However, if you’re striking a magnesium stick to start a fire, a straight, fixed blade might be a better option.

Of course, I couldn’t discuss knives without at least touching on their value as a security tool. Having a small multi-tool with a fold out blade is not a very good answer when needing quick access for self defense. Again a good quality straight edge would be a better option. And in some areas and some purposes, even Bowie or machete-type blades have their values. Ed did a quick review of the SOG Seal Pup Knife at the following:

So, starting off, really consider what purposes you might have for a cutting tool and augment your bag(s) with the appropriate tools.

Combustion Device

Next, let’s talk about fire! It gives heat and light and within the right framework brings great comfort and happiness. But living within a city? Aside from a home fireplace, Is there really a need?

To answer the question simply, yes. But first let’s just talk from the perspective of history and skill. To have the ability, by multiple means, to start a fire, is a great feeling! Imagine yourself as Tom Hanks’ character in Castaway, standing up with arms spears wide, yelling out, “I have made… FIRE!”

It’s so much fun to learn the different ways to start it and keep it going.

Now, onto the actual ways to start a fire. Of course, there’s the ok standby, a lighter (or multiple lighters to be safe). This is always a good idea to have some lighters around and available. But they do run out of fuel, and often at the most inopportune times. One side note here, I recommend those with longer handles to reach into a kindle pile for lighting.

Another very popular way to start fires are Ferro Rod (possibly along with a magnesium block) with Striker, such as this one from Uberleben

Matt did an Unboxed Prepping Review of this little tool. Check it out here:

These are great, and with the proper experience, a person can start a fire just as quickly as a lighter and almost never risk running out of fuel. As with most other fire starting cases, it’s also important to have some fire starter material such as dry tinder, cotton balls in petroleum jelly, dryer lint, or those pre-made fire ropes (like this one).

Definitely consider adding these to your go bags.

To learn more about the difference between Ferro and Magnesium, check out this article

Ferro Rod vs. Magnesium: The Pros, the Cons & our Top Pick!

There’s another tool, called the piston fire starter that’s similar to the ferro rod solution. Only it requires a couple of pretty specific items first before it will work effectively. Namely, the char-cloth in the tip of the piston allows pressure to create a spark with the premade char cloth. It’s quite ingenious and actually pretty fun to test your fire making skills. I would not necessarily recommend it for a go-bag mainly because you would likely have a limited amount of char cloth, and a fairly limited number of opportunities for fire.

I’ll conclude this section with the more dramatic fire starter skill, the bow drill. Although there are plenty of videos of people (I suspect highly trained people) using a bow drill to start a fire in a matter of seconds. I also highly suspect this is in ideal conditions with dry wood, no wind, and an expert at the helm. Unless you practice this specific set of skills regularly, I would not recommend this being a part of any go-bag.

Cover

Next let’s discuss cover, aka shelter, aka tarp, aka tent… so many different ways to provide protection from the elements. If out in nature or even your backyard, a simple tarp, pole and stakes will do the trick to keep a person protected. If you read anything about thru hikers (eg Appalachian Trail), the tarp is often the best option for shelter. It’s cheap, compactable and stands up to just about any weather. However I would caution a user to try many different ways of setting it up in different conditions (wet ground, cold, extreme heat, rocky ground) to be better prepared when difficult times arise.

In emergency cases something as simple as an emergency poncho or bivvy (bivouac) sack might be good lightweight options. Both of these options are single person and not intended for the long term, or for protecting anything other than the person (meaning there’s no room for items you may have with you, like a backpack).

This leads us to some other more common options, the tent and hammock/fly combinations. The tent is seemingly as old as time. If you’ve got a good tent and rain fly you can be prepared for just about any type of experience. Of course consideration should be made to the number of people that would be housed in the tent. As well, weight can be an issue, especially if the disaster experience could cause any significant travel by foot. That’s said nothing beats a good quality lightweight tent for shelter in difficult times. With some of the newer cloth tech used in hammock, these are quickly becoming valuable, lightweight alternatives to tents. It’s very important to have available a rain fly along with the tent to keep it considered as an effective shelter.

In the most typical disaster situations, a person’s home is the best shelter available. So keeping up solid maintenance on the home is very important no matter the type of abode. And of course in certain areas of the country, special consideration should be given for protection of the home itself. Ideas to consider might include hurricane windows in those areas, lockdown devices on cabinetry and other items in earthquake prone areas, and bunkers for tornado areas. As well it might also be important to consider potential for civil unrest and how one might protect their homes.

Container

Next, let’s talk about containers. Containers come in many shapes and forms (e.g. backpack, canteen, water bladder, fanny pack, tote back, compression sack, and more). Depending on the potential scenarios, different types of containers may be needed. Survival in the wilderness would need some form of water holding device like a canteen, water bottle, or bowl. And water really is one of the most important aspects of survival. I certainly like the dromedary-type bags from MSR

These are super tough and with a bit more planning a sipping hose can be attached to allow you to hold your water in your backpack while still having access.

But keeping it simple, one can simply find a 1 liter Smart Water bottle and refill it while trekking from one spot to the next.

Aside from water containers, there are two additional areas of high importance. Backpack, or other carrying container, and cooking containers. For carrying containers, look for a solid backpack that’s lightweight and anywhere from 40-50 liters capacity. This will allow for relatively easy travel. These are great options for a backpack if you’re looking:

But even picking one up from a goodwill or a flea market can get the job done without breaking the bank.

If you’re stationary, or have access to a reliable vehicle (with fuel), then larger plastic bins work very nice for keeping items organized and moveable. These types of bins (sealable, with snap-shut features) are readily available at large chain resellers.

Now, for cooking containers, there are too many options to name here, but, I really would recommend one of these little kits you can get, like this one from Esbit:

Cookset with alcohol burner (pots without non-stick coating) CS985HA | pots made of aluminum (without non-stick)

This one in particular is helpful as it has two separate containers in one (cooking pot and drinking cup), as well as a stand and little brass burner, that accepts liquid or solid fuel. You can try to get by with just a metal cup and perhaps a little rocket stove, but nothing beats the comfort of one of these little premade kits.

Cordage

Finally, we get into cordage. Like containers, cordage can mean different things and serve many purposes. When in the wild, like being on a hike, it’s important to bring along an extra bit of cordage so you can hang any food up high in a bear bag, or tie additional items to your backpack. A nice roll of 550 paracord works quite well for most purposes, even a couple of hundred feet makes for a pretty lightweight and smaller package that fits nicely into any carrying container.

Recently, I’ve also found a number of interesting SpiderNet type cordage that makes it much easier to attach items to loops on your backpack. Begin that they are often composed of interwoven 550-type cordage, they can be hooked to just about anywhere on your pack with simple carabiner. Here’s an interesting one from Pack-Rabbit:

As well as those more traditional purposes for cordage, there are also some more obscure purposes. In first aid being able to tie a broken limb to a splint can be an important life-saving purpose. And for protection, if you’ve caught an unwanted individual hanging around your property, cordage can be used to subdue them until authorities can arrive.

One important knowledge base item that should be considered along with cordage is the skill of knot-tying. Here’s a really neat site that can help with training. It’s got great little animated images for many different types of knots:

Home

And in case you don’t have an opportunity to study on a regular basis it might also be helpful to to throw a little waterproof, knot-tying guide or cards into your bag (something like the Pro-Knot Outdoor Knots Book Ring would really be a good addition).

To wrap up to discussion, I hope this review of the “Five Cs” of Survivability will help our audience to become more familiar with and simplify the concepts around survivability. If you have any further comments, please leave a message in the comments section below.

And always remember to be learning better ways to respond well and recover faster.

@genxtalkin

September 10, 2021

Making A Plan – National Preparedness Month

Hey there all you GenXers. In honor of National Preparedness Month, I wanted to share with you some thoughts on one of the biggest parts of being prepared – Making A Plan…

But first, before I really launch into it, I wanted to start with a special thanks to our listeners and viewers. We’ve hit more than 500 downloads of our podcast in about one month! That’s a pretty incredible feat! And we wouldn’t be here without you, our loyal audience. Thank you and thank you!

For those who haven’t already done so, consider subscribing at:

podcast.genxtalkin.com

With all that said, onto the blog of the day… It is National Preparedness Month, and that mainly means we focus on two things, making a plan and creating a go bag. We’ve spent some time in a couple of past episodes talking about the different types of bags; edc, go-bag and bug out bags, and the get home safe bag. And for sure we’ll dig deeper into these in future episodes.

For today we’re focusing on the first half, making a plan.

I think one of the important concepts around making a plan is first to realize it’s never just one plan at all! There can be…

Fire escape plan – the most popular preparedness-related search on Google
Shelter In place plan – Wanna keep it all in the homestead
Evacuation route planning – don’t forget the backup routes
Water collection plan – Most important survival topic aside from the air we breath
Communications plan – How can we talk to each other, and where can we meet
Financial plan – got your budget planned out

This I’m sure is one of the reasons it can take a while to make a plan – when you consider… all the plans.

Before I go into my thoughts on these different plans, I also wanted to share some simple resources for those starting out brand new…

Ready.gov – the base link that provides a simplistic, and yet well organized means to start getting organized in preparedness
Communications plan – a very detailed plan on how a family can start getting all the communications together (collecting Information, ensure everyone has a copy, and talk about it on regular basis)
Family emergency plan – this is part of the Read.gov site, but delves more deeply into preparing for families with kids (younger, as well as older teens).

There are a plethora of sites and videos and podcasts we can all use when making our plan. Many of these sites are so much more informative than these I’ve listed. However, for those first starting out, I recommend this group of sites because it drastically simplifies the process of making a plan and starting out on your preparedness journey. They tend to lean heavily on the government providing solutions to our preparedness problems, but I think that’s because these days, so many people already rely on the government.

Over time, individuals and communities can and should become more self reliant, so they don’t have to rely on the government. That’s part of the reason Ed and I started the podcast, to start building community (virtually), to inform and educate, and even to learn more for ourselves from what others are doing.

Let’s take a look at some of the most basic plans we can make.

Planning to Shelter In Place

For Shelter in place I personally think, and I believe most preparedness-minded people walk this same path, that it’s important to first define what are your greatest threats. If you know what you and your community are most at risk of encountering, then you can more easily prepare to combat them.

In some of our episodes of GenXTalkin – On Being Prepared, we’ve touched briefly on the different types of threat events, but I’d like to clarify these very quickly…

High Impact, High Frequency – traffic jams, reside in or travel through a dangerous area, fires in certain areas, epidemics and disease breakouts, house fires

High Impact, Low Frequency – large weather events, emp, hacking/cyber attack on fuel pipelines, regional attacks, regional wildfires, loss of source of income

Low Impact, High Frequency – traffic jams, vehicle out of gas, pick pockets or mugging (could be higher impact), ran out of food at home

Low Impact, Low Frequency – heat waves, gas prices risen, minimal storm surge

One helpful way to understand realistic threat events in your area is to use the National Risk Index.

This is primarily for natural hazards, but has some additional factors as well. Click on the link and look for the “Explore the Map” option. This will open an interactive map of the US, allowing users to zoom into their respective county. Select a county of interest, and in a side panel, the following options are available:

Risk Index – risk levels relative to the natural hazard threat (hurricane, tornado, volcano…), and compared to other areas of the state and nation.
Expected Annual Loss – based upon property values and potential for risk
Social Vulnerability – how susceptible is the community to the adverse impacts of natural hazards.
Community Resilience – ability for a community to prepare for anticipated natural hazards, adapt to changing conditions, and withstand and recover rapidly from disruptions.

One more important aspect of this Index is one can quickly create a report, similar to this one for Cook Country (Chicago area), which shows these results for your selected county (CAUTION: it may take a while to load in the next tab). This can be a great tool for getting to the main root of what problems may occur for your community. Armed with this information we can get an idea of what itmes we may need to purchase or organize in case the threat event occurs.

Planning to Evacuate or Get Out Quick

The government recommends having a Bugout, or Go Bag in the event you have to get away from home quickly. And most preparedness minded organizations add onto this in saying, within 15 minutes, you should be ready to go with all you need for at least 72 hours, but supplies for one week is even better. Preparing to evacuate can be a scary, and daunting task, and it can take on many forms.

The most popular search on Google, if you look up the keyword preparedness, is related to Fire Safety. So you really should start here. How to prepare self and family in case of fire is very prevalent in the minds of folks in the US. For an individual, it really can be as simple as becoming familiar with escape routes from each room. If you’re at work or school, take a look at the fire escape plan. Just about every building will have one posted in a very public place, because OSHA Standards basically require it for businesses. Know which way you would go if there were a fire alarm, and regularly do a quick review of that path, so you can recognize it, even when you can’t see (due to smoke).

As well, if you travel for work, get in the habit of doing this in hotels, airports and your temporary place of work. Good to at least get a basic idea of layouts.

You will also come to realize that many organizations themselves identify a “Floor Safety Manager”, who is someone very familiar with how to respond in emergencies, and is tasked with regular drills and directing people where to go during those emergencies.

Interesting fact from the September 11, 2001 WTC Attacks. Many lives were saved because a couple of very dedicated safety managers drilled the escape plan so many times over the years. Those safety managers were in the WTC building when the original attack occured in 1993.
– 9/11 – One Day in America

Next, create a fire escape plan at home. This should be two fold. First, ensure everyone knows how to get out of the house very quickly and by multiple pathways. This way if one direction is blocked, they can get out another way without hesitation. It also might be fun one of these days to wake the family up in the middle of the night with very loud music and banging while you’re waving a flashlight around yelling “FIRE! FIRE!, EVERYONE OUT! HURRY!!” ; )

Also consider where your gathering points might be staged. There should be two, one right outside the house (near a tree) and one should be slightly further away, like a neighbor’s front porch. These locations should be clear to anyone visiting as well. Saying something like “gather where the old tire swing used to hang” won’t help visitors understand, whereas “Go to the big tree in the front yard” would work great!

Planning Your Communications

Most important here is understanding how important it is to have proper communications. Without communications, how will we know:

where to meet up
when to meet up
what do we do when the first meet up location fails
What are our next steps
what direction I’m headed
or simply… is my family OK?

Start with the basics for the Communications Plan. First, collect important information such as phone numbers; for each other, for friends and family, for doctors, hospitals, dentists, ob-gyn, etc. Collect information around children’s school (including college), and adult workplace emergency plans. Where will the kids be taken (and how, by bus?) in a time of emergency? Always include out of town contacts to use as go-between during large events, and establish a time to check in at regular intervals.

Adding onto the fire escape plan above, establish meeting places ahead of time for additional purposes.

Indoor – in case of extreme weather, such as tornadoes
In your neighborhood – like the neighbor’s front porch in case you can’t get into your home
Outside your neighborhood – to meet up if you’re not at home during emergencies and cannot cannot get there
Outside your own town or city, or even state or region – for cases in which you cannot get home and you’ve been instructed to evacuate the area

Next up is to share the information with the family. This is super important. Make small laminated sheets for each to hold in a wallet, purse or backpack. Having this information handy will allow each family member to respond well and recover faster.

Consider adding a couple of apps to your smartphone. My wife and I belong to a volunteer organization called CERT (Community Emergency Response Team). These are present in most urban and suburban areas in the US. Many of these groups create their own smartphone apps, but they also have directed us to the following:

AED – which gives a dynamic map for locations of AED (Automated external defibrillators) units – for helping those suffering from heart attack.
PulsePoint – emergency organizations around the country submit their events to this app, providing a service like the old scanners, so you can receive alerts on your phone when different emergencies (utilities, natural disasters, flooding, traffic, etc.) occur in your area.
USNG – a way to locate yourself during emergencies. This can be key for emergency services trying to locate you during a disaster,
CodeRed – Mobile alert service similar to the PulsePoint service above.
311 – Often local counties will have their own version of an app for reporting issues in your area. This is more for community awareness, not necessarily emergencies
ERG2020 – Ever wonder what those different colored diamonds on the back of trucks and shipping containers mean? This is the app to answer those questions. Enter the number on teh diamond, or just browse, and you can see the meaning, potential hazard, what the public should do, and how emergency services should respond if there is an issue with the vehicle.
Compass – Oh yeah! although if you’re properly prepared, you probably already have an analog compass in your Emergency Kit… Why not have the Compass app as well on your phone?

II’ll finish up the communications plan section with two points. One of the problems that often occurs during natural disasters is that cell phone services get “clogged”. Basically your phone calls just can’t get through, because the network is overloaded with people just trying to reach their loved ones. So, start with just texting instead. Texts are much smaller packets, and a couple of quick lines of text can deliver the message and free up the network for more emergency-type uses.

Second, while you have the chance, take a look around your area with your smartphone. Try to find additional locations at which you can connect to the internet via WIFI. I’m talking about those free locations, like hotels and coffee shops that offer them up for their customers. If you’re stuck in the city, and you can move about on foot, get to a location that still has WIFI up and running and you can be better informed during the emergency. Of course, you want to make sure this is actually a free service. Very frustrating when you’re in the midst of an emergency, and you have to enter a credit card, or email information to gain access. Also, a good reason to plan this ahead is you also want the ability to recognize the WIFI network you’re using. This would be a prime situation for hackers to try to capture unwitting users’ private information by “sniffing” or monitoring that WIFI network. Whether emergency or not, you never want to transmit your personal data, unprotected by VPN, across an unknown WIFI network!

Lastly, you should come to realize that preparedness does not stop at the end of National Preparedness Month… Keep going, and remember that “practice makes PROGRESS!”

@genxtalkin

August 20, 2021August 22, 2021

GXT Unboxed Prepping – Head For Survival Bandana – GenXTalkin

Hello again and welcome back to Unboxed Prepping brought to you by GenXTalkin – on being prepared.

Today we’re talking about the Head for Survival Triangular Bandana or Cravat.

Gun shows are a bit more difficult to come by here in my slice of the eastern seaboard, so I often find myself traveling to PA or VA to get in my fix.

I was at the Nations Gun Show in Dulles a couple of months back and I found a pretty cool little item I thought would really augment my bug out bag or even one of my grown up kids bags.

It’s the Head for Survival Triangular Bandana and along with it comes a couple of really nice, larger safety pins. All of it folded up nicely in a little zip locked packet. It set me back about 12 bucks but I think it’s really worth the cost for what you get.

For those of us with any sort of medical, or even just your simple first aid training, if you think triangle bandage you already get a sense of what this looks like. It’s an Isosceles shaped triangle with the long side being about 52 inches and the short, equal sides being 39 inches. Of course it works perfectly for its more common first aid purposes. Namely:

Sling to stabilize an arm or support a shoulder injury
Head cover for injury or keeping the head out of the elements
Stabilizing sprained ankle
Using in conjunction with harder item to splint leg or arm breaks
Possible tourniquet or means to slow bleeding down
Covering an injured eye
Or holding a broken jaw in place
Of course, there could be countless others…

As well this cool little piece of (not) technology can be used for other non-medical purposes, such as:

Pre-filtering water
A Simple face mask
And, if cut into strips, it can be used as cordage or even possibly tinder for fire starting

Now for the cool part. And I’m sure some of you may have seen these before… but printed on these little beauties is a whole host of survival concepts. It’s broken down into sections for:

Navigation
Knots
Signaling
Fire starting
Water collection and purification
And shelter

Each section contains very clear instructions on how to perform steps to success in these areas. For instance, within the Signaling section, it breaks down ideas on how to best use a cell phone in urgent situations. It also explains how many signal fires (three) you should build and in what shape… a triangle of course.

There’s a section on ground signaling, offering recommendations on how big to make an SOS sign on the ground – think about 18 foot tall letters!!! And when trying to hail a searching aircraft, make sure you wave frantically, not friendly. If you can, wave with a bright colored cloth… did I mention this triangle bandage is bright orange!!

Also within signaling, it breaks down ideas for SIGHT signals (SOS in Morse code) versus SOUND signals – think whistling or banging metal objects together. These sounds travel farther or course. And this is just the section for signaling.

Each section goes into quite some detail on its own topic. Very clear and concise. Not to mention helpful.

let’s answer the question – Add it or chuck it?

Personally I love this item and will probably look for more to add into each pack I have; edc, bug out, get home pack. Doesn’t matter I can always use one of these, or two.

So yep definitely give it a thumbs up and recommend it for anyone.

Thanks for joining us for this installment of unboxed prepping from GenXTalkin. I’m Matt Marshall. So long and thanks for all the … FISH!

July 1, 2021August 22, 2021

Why GenX Talkin – On Being Prepared?

Hey there and welcome!

Today we’re talkin about the question, Why would you start a show of GenXers Talkin – on being prepared?

I’m Matt Marshall, overall preparedness enthusiast. And I’m here to remind us all with preparedness comes comfort and peace. Something we can all use a bit more of.

why would we create a whole podcast on being prepared? I would break it down into a couple of reasons, among others…

First, imagine any worst case scenario. Like, maybe you’ve put in a long week at work and heading home, looking forward to a weekend relaxing. and you hear a news broadcast or see a post on social media.

… Hurricane Fred reaches the coast this weekend!! …

Ugh! And you find yourself having to stop at the grocery store to buy those last minute items before the storm. Only, at the store you see the long lines, you realize, there’s no more milk, no pasta, no meat…. Or heaven forbid… no toilet paper!!

<<Thanks COVID!!>>

Little bit of stress? Maybe, but not if you’re already prepared.

Weather of course is a big part of this type of event. So preparing the home in those fairly common instances of difficult weather is very important. Having items on hand at home already relieves pressures that might come up unexpectedly.

But we’ll also review those less common times, what are referred to as High Impact , Low Frequency events.

EMP, Electro Magnetic Pulse is an example of this. Preparing individuals and communities for these types of events are completely different. And only certain people can really grasp the concepts of what this means. We’re here to help people understand what can be effected and how we as everyday people can respond.

With each episode We hope to encourage people and familiarize them with the many different aspects of preparedness and perhaps hone in on just one or two at a time. Maybe by doing this everyone improves their overall preparedness.

An exercise for you, consider some of the many different aspects of preparing for times of difficulty. Should be easy right, if you think about it from the perspective of say… the survival rule or threes:

A person can only last about three minutes without air
Three hours in a harsh environment, hot or cold
three days without water
Three weeks without food

Well our initial response to being prepared seems simple then, right? Start with getting a gas mask to protect you if air is bad, then pile up a mass of water. Build a shelter, add some food and your all set!

Maybe not so much.

Because you immediately start delving into the slightly more obscure components of water shelter and food.

Thoughts like:
- how much food and water?
- How and Where should I store it?
- How soon will it go bad?
- Or… gas mask? What? Why?

There’s so many interesting things to work though related to just these 3-4 items.

But What about some of the other much less talked about areas of threat?

Consider a Three second psychological reaction time to make a decision in emergencies – think security and healthcare.
Three months without interaction with other people before a person begins to feel effects of loneliness or loss. And here we begin to get really deep into a rare topic – psychological preparedness. This isn’t something that you can pay a bit of cash and start inventorying. Right? This can sometimes take a lifetime to build the skills. And for some people, only In those times of upmost stress, do they realize they were not prepared at all!

When I was growing my dad always suggested to us that the human is composed of three areas; body mind and spirit. And we should strive to improve all three as equally as possible.

To improve the body we could submit to the many diet and exercise programs to stay fit. But really we can just keep in mind it’s a fairly logical process. The inputs (the foods and amounts we eat) and the outputs (activity and exercise) should be as close as possible. Of course there’s a lot more to unpack here.

For the mind, we should always be learning. One of the greatest results of the tech boom is education, online and free education. We could be learning artificial intelligence one week and breaking down the Extar EP9 the next. It really doesn’t matter what we’re learning. The point is … to be learning!

Finally, the spirit. And this becomes important in so many parts of our lives. Find something that feeds your soul. Christian, Muslim, Jew, Buddha… it doesn’t matter for the purpose of preparedness. If we can each recognize that there is something larger than ourselves, then we can find ways to strengthen our own spirit. Even if a person doesn’t practice any organized religion at all, its still possible to build ones spirit. Many find it in nature hiking, biking, kayaking, or just sitting and breathing the fresh air. Build your spirit as much as you can.

Putting the three together can lead to such a powerful life experience. And as those difficult times hit us, if properly prepared, we can respond well and recover faster.

It is my hope, and will be my joy, to share with you our thoughts, our goals and maybe even our dreams.

Thanks for your time. Enjoy the ride!!