SCP Survival

Best Survival Gear and Supplies

A Prepper’s Guide to Storage Units

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Prepping can quickly and easily become a way of life, but it requires a lot of thought and a lot of space. It can also be expensive. If you rent self storage you can add space and save money while creating a secure avenue for supplies in the event of an emergency whether you are in Denver, Colorado, Cincinnati, Ohio, or anywhere else.

In this economy many people are lacking two things that would allow them to better prep; money and space. From the probability of solar flares to the questions of coming economic collapse and chaos, being prepared is the only way to be.

Secure & Accessible

Preppers understand the importance of putting together a good plan and every good plan includes a bug-out scenario. Unfortunately not every prepper has a specific location outside of their home for stockpiling in order to diversify their bug-out options. For those who keep everything at home, if you have no way to get your preps to another location much of your prepping may be for naught if or when you need to boogie out of Dodge.

So what can we do to gain needed square footage without having to move to a bigger place? Get a storage unit!

They’re Everywhere

Storage units can be found in nearly every city or town across the country, even most small towns have them. When planning your bug-out decide where would be the best place to secure yourself (and your family) when things go south. Be sure it’s somewhere you will be able to get to, there are no telling what obstacles will be in your way.

Renting a storage facility in a town near your bug-out location allows for a few things. You get to learn the lay of the land you will have to travel; you will also have a place for all of your supplies that’s secure (keeping your preps safe is important).

You Can Afford It

It doesn’t cost much to rent storage units. Equally important, you can get them in many sizes and in multiples if needed. You can often find coupons on-line or in your local papers that make great first time customer deals.

Depending on the deal and availability, you may want to get two that are back to back with an adjoining door between them. This is great for a couple of reasons; you can open both ends and allow for airflow when loading and unloading or taking inventory and you can have enough room to be organized so that when a situation arises you can easily get in to find what you need.

On Being Stealth

In general it makes sense to help educate other people by showing them what you’re doing, but there could be danger in that. People will come unglued in a short matter of time after a life changing catastrophe, especially once desperation brought on by hunger and thirst comes in. You do not want to be your “good” neighbor’s target.

It’s best to keep your activities to yourself and closest family. You can cherry pick who else should be in the know. Having a strong network of trustworthy fellow preppers is not a bad thing, you just need to choose wisely.

Check Out These Holiday Survival Gift Ideas

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Holiday Survival Gifts for Preppers

The Holiday Season is Officially Here!

Are you shopping for any preppers this season? (or looking for yourself ;-)

If so, then check out this incredible gift guide for preppers.

In it, you’ll find 160+ gift suggestions for preparedness-minded people. Some of the best tools, supplies, courses, books, gags, and more.

Best of all, they start at $20, so they won’t break the bank!

Although there are a lot of blogs and websites that put out similar guides, one of the coolest things about this one is that it has gift recommendations from 7 different “subsets” of the prepper space, either with their own visuals and curated recommendations, so you can see curated gifts, especially selected for:

Here’s an example:

survival gifts

Here’s another one of the visuals from the section on EDC gifts:

EDC Survival Gifts

Anyway, I hope you guys enjoy the gift guide, and have a terrific Holiday season.

-Dan

Browse all 160+ prepper gifts here.

p.s. Not sure what to buy for a fellow prepper who is limited on space or too far to ship something to? Check out this digital library of survival PDFs. It includes 667 survival guides, manuals, and downloadable PDFs, and costs just $18. Not too shabby!

How To Prepare Your Business for a Hurricane

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How To Prepare Your Business For a Hurricane

We like to pretend we are masters of our environment, but the simple truth is, even in this day of mechanical marvels and technological wonders, we are still at the whim of Mother Nature. Natural disasters of varying degrees can happen anywhere on the planet, but if you happen to live and work on the coast, hurricanes are most likely your biggest concern. Just like you have a plan for your home, business owners should devise a plan that potentially can save you countless hours and dollars should a hurricane hit.

Forewarned Is Forearmed

The Boy Scouts got it right when they coined the motto “Be Prepared.” Knowledge and preparation ahead of time can make the difference between a difficult situation and a total loss.

First and foremost, know when the hurricane season starts and stops where you are. The National Hurricane Center states that hurricane season in the Atlantic is approximately June 1st through November 30th, and is approximately May 15th through November 30th in the Pacific. Check the news and weather updates frequently during this season to keep yourself from getting caught off guard.

Devise a Plan

Make sure you have contingency plans in place for your business. If you are making use of local providers or distributors, their business and transportation capabilities will most likely be affected as well, so have backup resources available to keep your business running. It may cost a little more, but the long term payoffs of keeping your customers happy will win out in the end.

Don’t skimp on the equipment and security you need. Things like hurricane insurance or flood coverage can help you save your business if there is damage. Off-site data management and cloud storage also can be invaluable. There are a lot of options available depending on your size and data needs that provide data backup, recovery and security, which is especially important if you equipment is damaged.

Do your best to prepare. Invest in quality storm shutters to protect your building from damage like flying debris. Secure products and equipment in bags or off the floor to prevent water damage if there is flooding. Unfortunately, some people might take advantage of the confusion to commit crimes, so make sure you have a complete inventory of your assets and products including pictures.

This also is a good tactic for insurance claims.

Should I Stay or Should I Go?

The decision on whether or not to evacuate can be tough. Many people think that staying will be easier and that they can weather the storm. However, most professionals will recommend leaving if you have the ability. Not only is it safer during the actual storm, but often times the aftermath can leave you without common services like electricity or water for extended periods.

Know your area’s evacuation plan. If you live in a high frequency area, odds are the local government has a system in place. If not, the national government has developed guidelines that will help you should the need arise.

If you go, go early. Waiting until the last minute can be disastrous and could leave you stranded, says Ready.gov. Should you choose to stay, make sure you have plenty of provisions. Again, don’t wait until the last minute to buy these. First aid, food and water will be the first things to go when word of an impending storm hits.

Hurricanes are easily one of Mother Nature’s most destructive forces, but with a little planning and preparation, they don’t have to destroy your life or your business.

How To Start Preparing for Emergencies

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This is some advice to provide a little guidance on getting into preparedness. Whether you are a “seasoned citizen” or a 18 year old  – getting started in prepping is pretty much the same.

Depending on finances and how quickly you want to “get ready” – many preppers stock up on supplies in baby steps. It is surprising how quickly a survival stockpile can grow by just picking up a few items each week. Within a few months a good safety stock of supplies can be accumulated.

Before going out and starting to purchase and acquire supplies you need to determine what your immediate short term goal is. Do you want supplies for a few days? A few weeks? Months? Get out a pen and a notebook and start brainstorming as to what you are preparing for and what you think you will need. Make note of what you already have around the house.

If you are just starting out you may think of different scenarios that could occur such as a power outage or ice storm. Lets look at a few basics:

Food

How may days worth of food is in your pantry right now? Set a short term goal to double it. Adding non-perishable food a little at a time can add up quickly and provide security. Easy to prepare foods such as soups, stews and pasta are good candidates to store in case of an emergency.

Consider how food will be prepared should there be no electricity and no refrigeration. Many homes in the United States have gas or charcoal grills. These would suffice as long as sufficient fuel is stored. An open fire pit can be used as well.

Camping stoves are wonderful methods of cooking. The camp stoves are small and compact for easy storage and run on small propane canisters. These fuel canisters can be purchased locally and stocked up on “just in case”. There are also camp stoves that run on other readily available fuel as well.

Some examples of common foods for increasing your food storage:

The theory behind the typical food storage program is to “store what you eat and eat what you store”.

Water

Depending upon your overall health you can live 2 – 3 weeks without food but only 3 days without water. Water is incredibly essential for the human body to function as it is supposed to.

It is commonly recommended to store 1 gallon or water per person per day. This is an absolute minimum. Consider that the one gallon of water will not only be be used for drinking, but also for washing one self as well as cleaning dishes. On gallon is not a lot.

So – water is necessary and must be stored. One of the least expensive methods is to refill empty 2-liter soft drink containers with water. These should be washed thoroughly of course.

Another inexpensive method is to buy 1 gallon bottles of Spring Water. Many preppers also buy cases of 16 oz bottles of Spring Water. These cases usually contain 24 bottles and are easily stacked.

Decide your method or use all. Just get it done.

Light

Flashlights and lanterns. Make sure you have a few good flashlights and plenty of extra batteries. Always use alkaline batteries rather than normal heavy duty. LED flashlights have advantages over old school flashlights as they are extremely bright and batteries last much longer.

Candles are useful as well to provide a soft low-level light. Remember that candles mean flame and precautions must be taken to ensure that in the middle of a disaster another one is not created when your home burns down.

Summary

Stocking up on food, water, and methods for lighting are good steps to getting ready “just in case”. Throw in a battery operated radio for good measure. For more information, check out these online resources:

The Best Flashlights For Preppers

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flashlight, preparedness, power outage, blackout,

You cannot get much more basic when it comes to preparedness supplies than the flashlight.

Flashlights have come a long way over the past few decades. I can remember as a child my dad having a silver flashlight that ran on 2 D-cell batteries. This silver flashlight had an external slide switch to turn on and off with a button on top of it to turn it on momentarily.

Not particularly bright by today’s standards but lit up the dark whenever the power went out.

A decade or so ago the legendary Maglite was the flashlight to have. Large, bright, machined aluminum – a beautiful creation. I had several as well as the AA smaller version. These worked good and were standard issue at my job. Only problem was I went through bulbs like a mouse goes through a hunk of cheese.

Over the past 5 years or so flashlights have gotten brighter and lighter. Some might say more expensive and in many cases that would be correct. I now own LED flashlights almost exclusively. Conventional bulbs work just fine but have a much shorter lifespan and consume much more energy, thus I prefer LED flashlights.

If you go to any Wal-Mart or Target you can find quite a few LED flashlights to choose from. Prices vary greatly from under $10.00 to over $30.00.

A couple things to consider if considering picking up a new light:

  • Lumens – the measure of how bright the flashlight is. The higher the lumens the brighter the flashlight.
  • Battery Type – AA and AAA batteries cost the least and are easy to store.
  • LED – again, make sure he flashlight states it is LED. I also prefer one which has a single LED lamp rather than a collection of LED lamps. Both will work fine but the latest technology uses the single lamp.
  • Run Time – some packaging will state how long the batteries will last. I do not concern myself much with this as all LED flashlights have an excellent battery life.
If you like Amazon.com (which I love) here are some great flashlights that are also excellent values:
survival, flashlight, preparedness, power outage
Nebo Flashlight – 220 lumens – approx $28.00
TerraLUX Flashlight – 220 lumens – approx $25.00

 

Streamlight Stylus Pro LED Flashlight and Holster – under $20.00

Streamlight PolyTac LED Flashlight – 130 lumens – approx $35.00

 

So – get yourself a few flashlights along with a bunch of extra batteries. You will be much better off than most to handle a power outage.

What Is My Favorite Tool or Preparedness Item?

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I have a lot of preparedness stuff – some inexpensive and some absolutely not. Some of my stuff includes what might be considered a gadget, some are tools, some are essentials.

If I had to pick a favorite prepper item – it would be the Gerber Suspension multi-tool.

I have had and used many Gerber multi-pliers and the Suspension is by far my favorite. Why? It is very versatile. It is extremely useful and rugged.

I also have some other favorites including a Ka-Bar knife, my Stag M4, and a couple of Streamlight Stylus Pro flashlights.