FIVE COMMON MISTAKES IN PREPARATIONS

[oscar615]

I found this on another site.  Good info so I thought I would move it here.

FIVE COMMON MISTAKES IN PREPARATIONS

By J.C. Cunningham


"Issue one is getting started on your preparation.

Issue two is eliminating common mistakes and oversights."

The most significant mistake is obviously not preparing at all. It doesn't need to be any particular problem that motivates you. Just do it. Your motivation may be concerns over weather-related disasters, Earth Changes or the general instability of the world political scene. Regardless of the issue that moves you off dead centre and gets you into gear, personal family survival preparation is just good common-sense.

Emergency preparation is consistent with the long-held values of independence, self-reliance and personal responsibility. People who are not prepared for self-sufficiency during times of crisis have already placed themselves in the dependent category. They are dormant-dependants, waiting for the disaster or emergency that activates and reveals their dependent state.

It is a sad commentary on contemporary culture that we are expected to be individually unprepared and dependent upon government aid or volunteer agencies. Perhaps they count on that dependence, foster it and protect it.

Self-reliance and individual preparation gives birth to independence and true freedom. You don't need to take away people's guns in order to control or subdue them. Control their food supply and you have won the battle. A poorly prepared public is vulnerable to increased governmental control of their lives in exchange for food basics and other forms of assistance. In fact, there are many who believe any disruptions will be a plausible excuse to eliminate certain rights that make governments uncomfortable. Be prepared, stay free.

MISTAKE ONE: NO DEFINED EXPECTATIONS

You can't be a marksman if you don't aim at a target. The target defines your skill level and focuses your aim.. "How much food should I store" is a common question. If I recommend 6 weeks and you eventually need 8 weeks, my answer has not served you well. Conversely, if I suggest 4 months of stored foods and you eventually required 8 weeks, then my answer once again did not serve you well.

Define your expectations and prepare against those expectations. Use your expectations as a measuring stick to gage your progress. I tell people to write down three scenarios; a good-case scenario, a medium-case scenario and a bad-case (but not worst-case) scenario. Spend some time listing and itemising various aspects of each scenario, including the time periods involved.

I then recommend the person discard their best-case scenario and begin preparing for the medium-case scenario immediately. After completing preparation that meets or exceeds the medium-case, move on to the worst-case preparation.

If you are wrong, you will have no one to blame but yourself but neither will you be dependent upon the expectations and recommendations of others. More importantly you will have a target that focuses your preparation along the way.

MISTAKE TWO: NO REDUNDANCY

It is not sufficient for preparation to develop a primary emergency plan for food, water, heat, cooking, etc., without planning for the loss or failure of the primary plans.

Each aspect of your plan must incorporate redundancy. The only thing certain is the uncertainty of what lies ahead. A failure to incorporate redundancy in the "survival essentials" is a failure to plan effectively.

For example, if your cooking alternative is a portable butane stove, what will you do if an extended disruption consumes all your stored butane? What is your back-up plan for cooking? "We'll figure something out" is a weak answer and those dependent upon your preparation deserve a better answer.

What about food?

What will you do if you are separated from your stored food pantry against your will? This is well within the realm of possibility since you may be required to feed others who did not prepare, have your food stolen or may need to evacuate your current location on a moment's notice. A common approach to food redundancy is to split your food stores into thirds, placing each third in a different location accessible and known only to yourself.

Take a sheet of paper and make three columns down the page. In the first column, list essential areas of preparations like food, water, heat, cooking, self-protection and first aid. Beside each one write down in the second column your primary plan or preparation. Then in the third column, write down your back-up plan for each of the primary plans. If you are not "redundant", then you are not prepared.

You level of redundancy in these essential areas defines your flexibility during any potential problems and determines your ability to adapt to rapidly changing circumstances.

MISTAKE THREE: INTRA-DEPENDENCE SHORTFALLS

Contemporary society is characterised by hyper-interdependence. This attribute of our society is a multiplying factor of the problem itself. For example, if telephone service is disrupted it will take down the power grid. Conversely, if the power grid goes down, so will the telephones. If the power goes down, so will municipal water supplies in many areas, if the municipal water supply goes down, so will the power. This interdependent relationship is pervasive in our technology-based culture.

Yet many people preparing have incorporated the same essential problem into their survival preparation. Rather than "inter" dependence they miscalculate an "intra" dependence on various, pivotal components of their preparation.

For example, one person invests a significant sum of money in a gasoline-powered generator. The generator becomes the centre or hub of their preparation planning. The generator will provide light at night, electricity for the furnace (heating oil, natural gas or LPG), and power for a carefully selected list of 240 volt appliances. This plan is flawed in its "intra-dependence" on the generator. Remove the generator by theft, confiscation, mechanical failure or lack of fuel and now there is no light, heat or appliances.

Once again, the need for redundancy is evident. I have nothing against generators, although the mental image of one home in a neighbourhood having lights at night while the quiet hum of a gasoline generator rumbles through the air is little different than a flashing neon sign that reads, "Free Aid and Food Here".

We also run the risk of not developing adequate contingency plans and coming dangerously "intra-dependent" upon this facility.

Evaluate your plans for multiple areas that depend upon a common thread or item. If you suffer the loss of this critical component, is your overall survival plan seriously compromised?

People can become the "intra-dependent" hub of a survival plan also. It is easy to allow one of the adults, mother or father, to assume a disproportionate share of the planning, work and training. The loss of this vital person would cripple the family unit's survival odds. Be sure to spread the work, planning and knowledge throughout the family unit. Knowledge and skills should be redundant just like food, water and shelter plans.

MISTAKE FOUR: NO EVACUATION PLANS

It is not inconceivable that urban and suburban dwellers may be forced to relocate during emergencies that extend longer than expected. A self-ordered evacuation will most probably be enacted for personal safety reasons and be executed in haste.

Have you incorporated into your plans the need to evacuate, should your present location become untenable?

A good evacuation plan incorporates not only a specific location where you will go but also the means to get there. Do you have sufficient stored fuel for the tip? Have you mapped out alternative routes that do not include the highway system? Does your primary vehicle have two spare tires?

Once deciding on a secondary location that is practical and reachable, plan on storing some of your supplies at that location. It is not practical to assume that you will be able to transport your stored items. A trailer loaded down makes a tempting target. Should you ever need to leave your primary location at least you will have peace of mind knowing that you are moving toward a safer location that is already stocked with survival essentials.

MISTAKE FIVE: CARELESS DISCLOSURE

Your primary weapon for self-protection is secrecy. Begin using it today. Every person whom you tell you are storing food, water and items for possible disruptions becomes a potential "security threat", should those disruptions affect your community.

So you casually mentioned to "Bob" on the bowling team that you are "putting back some supplies". No harm done, right? Don't be surprised when old Bob shows up at your door two weeks into infrastructure disruptions requesting you share your food with his hungry children.

Desperate circumstances make good people desperate. Desperate people do desperate things.

Be especially careful in disclosing your emergency preparations to anyone. Assume that anyone you inform will either have to be fed or fought at some future time. This realisation will prompt you to evaluate telling anyone about your efforts, lest you have to feed or fight them later.

If disruptions do affect your community, be careful not to appear any better off than the rest of your neighbours. Clothe yourself in "living camouflage" and blend into the community situation. No one need know that while others are eating their houseplants and house pets, you are warm, well fed, informed with news and information, and well protected.

CONCLUSION

The bottom-line here is personal responsibility and self-reliance. We need not sacrifice our well being and that of our families on an altar of procrastination. The time to get ready is now, not next week. Can you afford not to prepare? It is within the financial means of everyone to begin incremental preparations today. Start with a blank sheet of paper and begin working on a plan, but avoid these 5 common mistakes.

http://www.survivalistboards.com/showthread.php?t=41474

[Rusty Shackelford]

That has some ideas, but I think it overlooks some basics - no man is an island.

You have to talk to people at some point about your plans - some of those people may not be receptive to what you are doing, but you can rest assured when the SHTF, they'll show up at your door (remember the old Twilight Zone episode). 

You can never know what the threat will be, or where it will come from and a single family unit in all likelyhood will not be able to deal with every contingency.

[oscar615]

I agree with you totally.  In fact the friends That I forwarded it to I said basically the same thing.  It will be easier to have others along side you.

[Average Joe]

Very good post.  I think I'll print it off and give it some serious thought.  I especially need to have more redundency in my plan. Redundency costs a lot of money, but it is our survival we are talking about.  I have been trying to eliminate the interdependence.  I have about 5 ways to cook my rice and I'm looking for #6.  You have to tell people close to you that you are preparing and that they should also.  I especially want by brother-in-law to share my place and food - he's an ex-marine and taught marksmanship while in the corps.  I will sleep easier knowing he's got the AR15 and a few thousand rounds at his disposal.   

[Atash Hagmahani]

This touches on some of my hot-button issues:

MISTAKE THREE: INTRA-DEPENDENCE SHORTFALLS

I keep hearing plans that make use of items that will be among the first things to go!!

And yes, any plans that do not take other people into consideration--both helpers and hindrances--are missing something important.

[opsec]

I keep hearing plans that make use of items that will be among the first things to go!!

Atash,
     How about giving us a list of such items?

[offdalip]

alot of plans I seem to hear for living off grid seem to center on a generator fueled by gasoline, diesel or propane.

alot of plans I seem to hear for heating the living space seem to call for fuel oil or propane.

alot of plans I seem to hear for food seem to call for MRI's or other long term canned food not grown/ raised by yourself.

Alot of these things have in common that they will all eventually run out , sooner prolly rather than later, and after that....what is your plan?

[MountainMeg]

Couldn't agree more.  I'm talking (a lot) to hubby about a secondary heat source since we're all electric here.  He keeps going propane, I keep telling him wood stove.  Lots of empty lots near us full of trees.

[oscar615]

Go with the wood stove.  Or maybe wind and solar powered electric.  You won't be able to get propane.

[Atash Hagmahani]

Opsec, a list is beyond my bandwidth at the moment, but in general:

anything that assumes the level of mobility that people have gotten used to (cars and gasoline)
anything imported from far away
anything that is "cutting edge technology", especially that requires a lot of sophisticated, delicate, high-maintenance infrastructure to supply. In particular, telecommunications and 24/7 power grid (I think power grid will stay up, just not 24/7/365)

Yeah, Offdalip, I hear the same kinds of misguided plans, and shake my head.

It's OK to assume bought supplies. It's not OK to assume that they are available all the time, at an affordable price. The transportation and communication networks will break down. Look at what happened to southern Louisiana and Alabama--not just New Orleans (which is the only part anybody seems to care about), but the whole area. Infrastructure in that part of the world never fully repaired--and perhaps never will be for at least the indefinite future.

Oh, something else I worry about: replacement parts for equipment!! Most of it is imported!! Not to mention that it's getting ever harder to find parts anyway, as globalized merchants keep switching suppliers!

[MountainMeg]

replacement parts for equipment

On my "Stock Up Plan" I listed several common car parts for our Toyotas that I think we should have on a shelf like brake pads, air filters, fuel filters.  Need to keep at least one running.  I also have 2 adult bicycles on my list.

You won't be able to get propane

That's what I tell him, but it's hard getting it through his engineering skull.   I would love it if he put that engineering to work putting a solar panel on my well pump...

[Average Joe]

I certainly sympathize with Mountain Meg. My wife thinks we will have natural gas to heat with, or maybe electricity.  That will be great if we have one or the other or both, but planning has to be for worst case scenarios.  That means no grid, no propane, no gasoline, nothing but wood, blankets and warm clothes.  So, I bought an old wood cookstove as an "antique" to renovate and maybe use to heat my shop.  When it hits the fan and my wife is freezing her toes off, I bet she will ask me to set it up in the house.  At that time I will oblige her and say I should have thought of that.

[Dame]

Pretty much what my husband did to me one winter when the place was cold.  Oh! He also committed to emptying the ash box and cleaning the pipes and chimney, and splitting the wood and bringing it into the house.  Before we quit using the thing regularly he also volunteered to wash the cielings.  He didn't like all the 'here, this-will-do meals' he got when I was doing them.

[MountainMeg]

At that time I will oblige her and say I should have thought of that.

Now that there is the sign of a smart husband!   

[hancocs]

Bikes are on my list to and can be found cheap on Craigs list. If I had property I would also consider horses. I think the Amish have it made. If we collapse they will be alright. We can take a lesson or two from them. Wish I could join up.