Archive for the 'Survival' Category

From Michigan:

SILVER CITY — A father and son from Albertville, Minnesota are lucky to be alive after being lost while snowmobiling and surviving 28 hours in near minus 20 degree temperatures.

Benjamin M. Jenny Sr., 40, and Benjamin M. Jenny Jr., 19, are in Aspirus Ontonagon Hospital Monday night in good condition. Both men suffered hypothermia and dehydration symptoms.

Michigan State Police at the Wakefield Post say the two men were snowmobiling in an area near Silver City in Ontonagon County on Sunday. They were last seen leaving a restaurant at 11:30 a.m. Police say the pair was on the trail all day and on a river. While on the river, their snowmobiles began to ice up and stopped. They were stranded in the back country, deep in the woods. It was 5:30, Sunday evening.

Authorities say at that point they tried to walk out. The snow at times was four to five feet deep. They had no survival gear with them.

The father and son did have a cell phone, but they could not get service. They instead sent a text message about their situation. After that, the cell phone went dead and the weather turned worse. A blizzard was taking hold.

The Michigan State Police were called in Sunday night about 8:30. Those with the Michigan DNR, the Ontonagon County Sheriff’s Department and County Emergency Coordinator and the U.S. Forest Service were all part of the search and rescue party.

Several search and rescue snowmobilers started down the trail Sunday night. Around one Monday morning, weather conditions turned them back. The blizzard was too much for the rescue crews. There was an eighth of a mile visibility, winds clocked at 20 to 30 miles an hour and gusting to 40 miles an hour. The search would have to wait until later.

A State Police official says search and rescue crews wanted to know the last known location for the two men. That’s when the United States Air Force entered the picture. The Air Force was able to use that last text message ping from the men, to narrow their location to within four square miles where they were last. That’s where the search and rescue crews headed Monday morning.

Thirteen people from local, state and federal agencies were involved in the search. They were on snowmobiles and snowshoes. The U.S. Coast Guard helicopter was called in to assist. However, weather socked them in, at their base in Traverse City. The Michigan Civil Air Patrol Group 700 also tried to get their fixed winged aircraft up, but weather made that impossible.

After a long night in the woods of Ontonagon County, with temperatures of minus 20 and a windchills even worse, no way for the men to start a fire, police say they knew they had to keep moving to survive.

Finally, at 2:11 Monday afternoon, 28 hours after being in the woods, Bill Doan, a supervisor at the Porcupine Mountains Wilderness State Park, found both men. Doan was on snowshoes.

Good grief.  We’ve covered this in detail folks.  I don’t even go on a long drive, much less out into the wilderness on camping, hiking, or other trips, without at least: A gun (or guns) and extra ammunition, a knife, 550 cordage, a rubberized poncho, a tactical light with extra 123 batteries, and multiple means of starting a fire.

This list is a bare minimum, and I might carry much more.  But with the items on this list you can keep warm, give yourself shelter (with the poncho and 550 cord), see at night, and protect yourself.  For a trip into the snowy wilderness, this list would be significantly expanded to include a tarp, fleece, heavy gloves, parka, head and face protection, and maybe a sub-zero sleeping bag.

Dear readers – don’t even be caught in a situation in which you weren’t prepared because you had quite literally nothing when you went out into the wilderness.  You know better than that.

Prior:

Survival In The Canadian Wilderness

Nineteen Snowy Days Of Survival

Preppers have been in the news lately.  Since there is increasing interest in this topic, CNN recently had a fairly extensive article on the “doomsday prepper convention.”

More and more Americans are spending money to get ready for an uncertain future — gathering food, water, tools, and skills to help them weather anything from a hurricane to a pandemic. Contrary to images of deluded or gun-obsessed “lone wolves,” many preppers are average consumers reacting to concrete worries, and their way of thinking is spreading, fueling an emerging lifestyle trend. That lifestyle is generating demand for a broad spectrum of products offering survival — or even comfort — when large-scale systems go down.

An array of preparedness expos and conferences have cropped up around the country to serve this emerging and fast-changing market. To get a closer look, I visited Life Changes, Be Ready!, or LCBR, a new expo that held its second event on the weekend of November 2^nd and 3^rd, in Lakeland, Fla. LCBR gave an immediate sense of one big way that the preparedness crowd isn’t marginal at all — economically. The show floor was packed with a dizzying array of small businesses and products that defied stereotypical “prepper” classification — not just ammunition and crossbows and camping gear, but also seed banks, beehives, financial planning, and acupressure.

According to many of the entrepreneurs on the floor, business is trending upwards. John Egger of Self Reliance Strategies has been producing and selling prepackaged seed banks for nearly four years and sees his market expanding. “It’s definitely picking up. It’s not just country people anymore. We really cater to a suburban market … We call it suburban homesteading.” You can see this broadening of the market in the range of price points, from the $5,600 portable solar charging stations flogged by Alternative Energy, Inc., to the $649 “Stomp Supreme” field medic kit offered by Doom and Bloom, LLC. (“This is the one recommended for people expecting civil unrest.”) Clearly, LCBR’s vendors saw a crowd ready to drop major cash today to assuage their worries about tomorrow.

There are still uncertainties in the preparedness market, some driven by ideology, according to Charley Hogwood of Personal Readiness Education Programs. “All last year it was up and up and up. But after the [presidential] election, it flattened out.” Hogwood thinks that some in the market were overwrought over doomsday scenarios surrounding the reelection of Barack Obama. “Last year, I heard 100 different conspiracy theories” about what a second Obama presidency might mean. But when the election wasn’t followed by martial law and FEMA camps, both the rhetoric and the market cooled off a bit. “I rarely hear the crazy theories now. Now everyone’s worried mainly about the collapse of the dollar,” says Hogwood, referring to widespread prepper fears of hyperinflation triggered by the Federal Reserve’s quantitative easing.

Hogwood, friendly and round-faced, reflected the resolute averageness that permeated the show. He snorted derisively at conspiracy theorists, and also acknowledged some of the ironies of a preparedness trade show. “Sometimes it’s like a toy store, and people buy stuff because they like it.” But in a real survival situation, “the more you know, the less you have to carry. A lot of people don’t know much and think they can buy their way out of it.” He sees some of the extremism surrounding the prepping industry as hype, maybe even fearmongering. “It’s so much more fun to worry about martial law than a hurricane. People like zombies as a marketing tool.”

But there are horrible reports that show the bottom feeders of society.

Nuclear war. Volcanic eruption. Terrorist attack.

Though the scenarios of how an apocalyptic event would paralyze or destroy society varies, a group of like-minded individuals in East Pierce County believes a good defense is the best way to prepare for doomsday.

And some believe a good offense is even better.

“We’re not in it to stockpile. We’re in it to take what you have and there’s nothing you can do to stop us,” Tyler Smith says. “We are your worst nightmare, and we are coming.”

Smith, 29, is the leader of Spartan Survival. The group has more than 80 dues-paying members. Smith founded the organization in 2005 to train and prepare others on survivalism.

Analysis & Commentary

There is another report of a family that, readying for nuclear war, builds underground tunnels from 18 recycled school buses — with enough supplies for 500 people — and buries them under a foot and a half of concrete.  Some of the terrifying scenarios for preppers include dirty bombs and a rising sea from global warming.

I am not a prepper by practice, although I tinker a bit in weapons, ammunition and wilderness survival.  But I do have a number of suggestions for preppers to assist them in spending their money efficiently and avoiding the more dangerous situations they seem to choose for themselves and their families.

My reaction to this round of doomsday preppers is about the same as last time.  NatGeo seems to find some of the weirdest folks to do this special, making preppers appear to be crackpots and neglecting to cover some of the more normal people involved in this loosely connected and loosely coupled group.

On the other hand, there are some seriously confused people involved in the movement, and there are a number of misconceptions that need to be set right.  On one episode a year or more ago, some poor lady (a former LEO) who lived near a commercial nuclear reactor wanted to be prepared in the event of an explosion and nuclear fallout from this reactor.  In the same vein, many prepper web sites feature so-called “anti-radiation pills” for protection from, I suppose, nuclear war, “fallout” from nuclear accidents and according to one report, dirty bombs.

So that preppers can stop worrying over at least one subset of concerns, let me state unequivocally and without reservation that commercial nuclear reactors don’t explode like nuclear bombs.  Folks, if I may lapse into pointy-head mode for a moment, by requirement of the code of federal regulations, American commercial nuclear reactors must be designed with an overall negative power coefficient.  This means that the combination of void, Doppler and moderator feedback must shut down the reactor in situations of unintended power increase.  It’s more complicated than that, but that’s the simplest way I know to explain it for those of you not involved in the field of nuclear engineering.

The Russian RBMK reactor (e.g., Chernobyl) was designed as a loosely coupled graphite moderated reactor where the coolant was a neutron poison, not the moderator.  Thus it has a positive void coefficient and overall positive power coefficient.  Even so, the accident at Chernobyl was still a rapid power excursion leading to a steam explosion that destroyed the reactor systems and containment.  So it wasn’t a nuclear explosion, but it was a catastrophe.  Russian reactors, however, are under no such design requirement as U.S. nuclear reactors.  Furthermore, the there was no hard containment design for Chernobyl.

The U.S. had a Chernobyl, i.e., Three Mile Island.  There was essentially no dose to the public because of the slow progression of the accident and the hard containment design.  The most hazard to which you can expose your family in a commercial nuclear reactor accident is to put yourself on the road trying to escape it along with all of the other fear mongers who believe that a nuclear reactor can explode.  Stay home.

Next, and listen to me very closely on this one, there is no such thing as an anti-radiation pill.  These web sites are selling Potassium Iodide tablets.  Their design is to saturate the thyroid gland with stable iodine, thus preventing radioactive iodine from seeking this organ if it has been released and is available for intake or uptake.  But the thyroid isn’t the only target organ for radioactive fission products, and iodine isn’t the only fission product.  Cesium, strontium and the actinides are bone seekers, and in fact a perusal of Federal Guidance Report No. 11 will show that there are a whole host of potential pathways of exposure to radioactive effluents.

Furthermore, Potassium Iodide has potential side effects, and before you saturate your thyroid gland because you are afraid of nuclear power or some other nuclear event, take note that you’ve been warned.  Finally, the concept of dirty bombs is unfortunate because it appeals to the fear of the unseen and misunderstood.  It isn’t possible to disperse nuclear contaminants far enough to be more effective than conventional explosives unless the device deploys inside a confined space with forced ventilation.

Furthermore, if there is a general lack of technical understanding in prepper designs for amelioration of nuclear events, I’m equally concerned about the structures and domiciles that are being built.  Folks, most of you are not registered professional engineers, and you aren’t having registered PEs do the designs of these buildings and tunnels and other things.  For a primer on exactly what happens when an engineer designs something and a contractor does it his own way instead of following the plans, see the Hyatt Regency walkway collapse.  An awful lot of money is being spent on plans that may or may not be safe, effective or necessary.

But of course, that’s exactly what the con artists and shysters want.  They want to take your money.  But it’s your job to keep your money, or at least, not give it away to unscrupulous people who don’t care about you.  So what do you really need?  Do you need a home in the forest or desert or somewhere else in the American redoubt?  Do you need tactical training?  Do you need more money, or gold and silver?

I don’t have an answer, but I do.  I wouldn’t presume to tell anyone what they should or shouldn’t do in any specific situation, but I think that the answer to the questions above is to take tomorrow on as an opportunity to be more prepared than you were today, in whatever endeavor you work and live, whatever your station in life.  And I think it’s wrong for anyone to tell you what you should believe that you need, except to have means of self defense and defense of your family.

Like many of my readers, I couldn’t conjure up faith in the soon-to-collapse Keynesian, dept-based economic system if my life depended on it.

But concerning Mr. Tyler Smith, preppers shouldn’t ever be associated with people like that.  First of all, he is a liar.  He cannot possibly deliver on his promises of taking things from other people.  Second, it shows a dark underbelly, not just of preppers, but of mankind in general.

I recall having a conversation with my son Daniel, my former Marine, some time around his combat tour of Iraq.  The backdrop is that Colonel William Mullen had shown me his pre-deployment PowerPoint presentation to the Battalion, and I took particular notice of the last slide or two.  Essentially, Colonel Mullen had issued die-in-place orders to the Battalion.  The orders were never to surrender to the enemy.  It would only hamper the efforts of the Battalion, unnecessarily tie up resources attempting to locate you, and put your family through agony.

There are things worse than death, I recall telling Daniel.  For instance, dying without honor or for me, having denied my Lord.  So if I ever face death for my Christianity, I hope to recite the Apostle’s Creed as loudly as I can until a 7.62X39 rips through my skull.  If that sounds gruesome, I would remind readers that none of us get out of this alive.  We will all perish, and the only question is how.  Rather than planning to steal from others in an apocalypse or other disaster, the goal of all of us should be to work in order to have something for those in need (Ephesians 4:28).

If you want to live a more sustainable life style, there are guideposts and examples to follow, but it’s hard and serious labor, and there is no room for gimmicks or con artists.  And there is certainly no room for thieves, ne’er-do-wells or thugs who threaten to take the means to protect or feed your family.  Preppers should continue to prepare, as should everyone.  But preppers need to beware of shysters, wicked men who bring threats, and doing things that actually end up making their family less safe than if they hadn’t prepared at all.  A man who threatens to take what you have (and wants to teach you to do the same) is no different than the one who will sell you an expensive shelter in the case of an “explosion” from an American commercial nuclear reactor (that will never happen).  They’re both con artists.  Beware of con artists.

In closing:

…We are not given to know all the ripples our words and deeds might produce. In this as in all things, God is good. What man could bear to live with the knowledge that his lightest utterances would disrupt the entire future of Man? It’s for the best that we deem ourselves, and our effects, finite. I wouldn’t want to be able to see too far ahead; it would distract me from what I must do today.

But in reflecting on the above exchange, and the one before it, it occurs to me that the one and only predictable thing in life is its end: we shall all die. At the Particular Judgment, when I must answer to God for my deeds in life, a verdict will be rendered from which there is no appeal. It will be clear to me from the absolute self-knowledge conferred by one’s entrance to eternity that it could be no other way, and all I will be able to say is So it is.

May God bless and keep you all (quote via WRSA).

Gene Penaflor of San Francisco made it 19 days in the Northern California wilderness with no help.

The 72-year-old hunter who was lost for more than two weeks in a California forest survived by eating squirrels and other animals he shot with his rifle, and by making fires and packing leaves and grasses around his body to stay warm, his family said Monday.

Gene Penaflor of San Francisco was found Saturday in Mendocino National Forest by other hunters who carried him to safety in a makeshift stretcher, the Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement.

Penaflor disappeared after heading out with a partner during the first week of deer hunting season in the rugged mountains of Northern California, a trip he takes annually. The forest is about 160 miles north of San Francisco.

“He goes hunting every year, and he comes home every year,” his daughter-in-law Deborah Penaflor said Monday outside Gene Penaflor’s small home in the Bernal Heights neighborhood. “We’d gotten a little complacent that he would always come back.”

Gene Penaflor separated from his hunting partner for a couple of hours as usual to stalk deer. While they were apart, Gene Penaflor fell, hit his head and passed out, Deborah Penaflor said.

He woke up after spending what appeared to be a full day unconscious, with his chin and lip badly gashed. He noticed fog and morning dew and realized he’d been out for a while, Deborah Penaflor said.

Gene Penaflor had a lighter, a knife and water with him when he went hunting. But his daughter-in-law said the knife and water bottle somehow got lost in the fall. She had no further details.

Still, he was able use his rifle to kill squirrels to sustain him while he awaited rescue. He also found water in a nearby drainage.

To stay warm, Gene Penaflor made small fires and packed leaves and grasses around his body. When it rained or snowed, he crawled under a large log and managed to stay dry, authorities said.

“He knew at some point he was going to die, but he figured he’d last as long as he could,” sheriff’s Detective Andrew Porter told the Ukiah Daily Journal (http://bit.ly/1ekjENg ).

[ … ]

“I didn’t panic because panic will kill me right away. I knew that,” Gene Penaflor said to a KTVU-TV reporter upon his arrival home.

Mr. Penaflor was in the very large 53,887-acre Yuki Wilderness area (web site here), and was found 19 days after he went missing by a group of hunters.  He also ate snakes and lizards to stay alive, and attempts to signal helicopters by smoke failed.  Finally, a massive search effort with dogs to find him failed.

He fell in steep, rocky, treacherous terrain.  This underscores the risk of solo backpacking as well as the improbability of lone wolf scenarios.

Unfortunately he lost his container and his cutting tool in the fall.  I would have gone back to find them.  At least he had his rifle with him and that likely saved his life by giving him a source of food.

Whether alone or not, I would have never entered a wilderness this large or terrain this difficult without at least the following in a day pack or one day patrol bag: large tactical or fixed-blade knife, tactical flashlight, 50-100 feet of 550 cord, a heavy gauge rubberized rain poncho, stainless steel container for boiling water, fire stating kit, wind/rain parka, gun (if I wasn’t hunting with a rifle I would be carrying at least a handgun) and extra ammunition.

I have discussed this before but it bears repeating.  My fire starting kit would include a lighter and matches, as many pieces of match-light charcoal as nights I expected to be in the wilderness (one briquette per fire), and several balls of cotton soaked in petroleum jelly for rapid ignition.

Surviving this 19 day journey without fire would have been impossible.  It’s remarkable that he was able to find sufficient shelter from the rain and snow to survive.  With a large Poncho and 550 cord one can always build shelter (at least in wooded areas) within one to two minutes.  Assuming that you are using trekking poles you don’t even have to be in a wooded area.

Even with this kit the total weight of your can ruck can be kept to 15-20 pounds, which is a small price to pay for survival.  Kudos to Mr. Penaflor for his survival, and with every report like this we learn more about what it takes to make it in the wilderness with minimal resources.  Plan, purchase, prepare and practice.

Matt Bracken is said to be a write of dystopian fiction, but more about this in a moment.  Western Rifle Shooter’s Association had a piece up publishing some of Matt’s most recent work, “Alas, Brave New Babylon.”  Matt’s story follows one man’s journey who intends to begin it by hiking part of the Appalachian Trail, but soon finds himself on a far different path than the one he intended.

In time, our friend finds himself gazing into the distance to see what signs of life were there.

The one-time history teacher turns reflective at one point and gives a dispassionate assessment of the causes or genesis of the collapse in which he finds himself.

Soon after the screens went black, the pharmacy-dispensed medications ran out as well, the cold-turkey withdrawal pouring more fuel on our raging social fires. Our Brave New World featured Huxley’s “Christianity without the tears,” until the Soma was gone. A gram is better than a damn, until there are no more grams left but plenty of damnation to go around—and people are damned mad when they’re starving.

If you ask me, looking back, our society went mad long before the Rupture. Who could honestly believe that modern first-world economies could continue to borrow half their annual operating costs from their own future generations, and from foreign banks and foreign governments that were likewise borrowing from their future generations? When in history has that sweetly delusional practice ever lasted more than a few generations before cracking up? Never, that I am aware of.

Frankly, for the rapidly diminishing minority of us left who were neither mathematically nor historically illiterate, the years before the Rupture were like living on the slopes of Vesuvius around AD seventy-something, while sniffing the stink of sulfur on the wind. What’s all that smoking and rumbling? a few of us asked. Smiling mainstream media news anchors answered: We’re not sure, but rest easy. Top government experts are studying it, and they will have a full report ready soon.

In the meantime, pop another Soma and switch back to Celebrity Nation. A gram is better than a damn, so why not make it two? Who needs old-fashioned morality when we have fashioned a brave new reality better suited to our own modern tastes? New and improved, by Ford! Just Google it. Remember Google? Gone with the wind.

I’m just a former world history teacher, but I believe that the edifice of Western Civilization was already rotten and hollowed out long before the final collapse—and it was an inside job by cultural traitors. The final toppling required only a light touch. By the end the Fabians’ disciples in politics and education had rendered Western man impotent, emasculated, ridiculed for his very maleness. Men were unneeded and unwanted by the brave new world’s brave new mommies.

And what of modern woman? Increasing numbers were too busy with their newly unleashed career opportunities and personal ambitions to have children. Or they were simply too busy partying through their fertile years to bother to produce a next generation.

I said that Matt was considered to be a dystopian fiction writer.  This is fiction, true enough, but it isn’t make-believe.  If you think this cannot happen, then you must believe that our unfunded liabilities don’t matter; that we can continue to print money to pay for the usury on our national debt; that we don’t need the gold standard; that half the nation can continue to bilk the other half of its wealth without consequences.

You must believe that those cities going bankrupt are just a fantasy, and surely there won’t be more to come; that Greece was just bad management by the financiers and governors; that regardless of what else happens, there will be an endless supply of electricity, gasoline, food, money, medical care and habitable domiciles.

You must believe that you can be your own God, making laws that comfort you while they dishonor your creator; and that at death your body cools to ambient temperature and you cease to exist.

And if you believe all of those things you are to be pitied.  Matt’s story is interesting, and perhaps in the future Matt will send me a pre-publication copy for review.  His prose is inspiring, fascinating, and completely mesmerizing.  It’s difficult to turn away from it, and that’s the end to which what any good writer aspires.

But belief in the false things that appear to be the cause of the rupture is pitiable not just because those things are wrong.  And wrong, they are.  The house of cards that is our monetary system will not last forever.  Greece will quickly turn into America, except on a much larger scale and longer timetable, when something sets off the disturbance and people figure out that their money isn’t really theirs.  That it isn’t really in the bank, isn’t really in paper form there in a vault on main street, and that the bank cannot hand it to them.

Fractional reserve banking means that in a run on the bank, the bank cannot give them 10 cents on the dollar because their money has been loaned out more ten times over, and the electronic money system contains many more dollars than really exists, or another way of saying it, contains as many dollars as the federal reserve wants it to contain.  But printing more money to fill the needs doesn’t work because that deflates the value of existing dollars and makes money worthless, thereby making the federal reserve worthless.  And thus, the horns of the dilemma are born.

So believe in false gods like Keynesian economics is only part of the sadness.  The worst of it, in my opinion, is that a man dies like he lives.  And die he will.  We won’t all remain vertical in any upcoming catastrophe, and even if we do, we won’t get out of this alive.  We will all die at some point, and it’s how we perish that’s important.  What did we believe, what did we do, how did we live, and how will we meet out maker?

And this makes Matt’s analysis of the genesis of the collapse – through the eyes of his character – even more important than what happens to the character.

In September of 2010, I had some stark remarks about the American electrical grid.  Pay close attention, and learn just how stupid and stolid is your political leadership.

The most vulnerable structure, system or component for large scale coal plants is the main step up transformer – that component that handles electricity at 230 or 500 kV.  They are one of a kind components, and no two are exactly alike.  They are so huge and so heavy that they must be transported to the site via special designed rail cars intended only for them, and only about three of these exist in the U.S.

They are no longer fabricated in the U.S., much the same as other large scale steel fabrication.  It’s manufacture has primarily gone overseas.  These step up transformers must be ordered years in advance of their installation.  Some utilities are part of a consortium to keep one of these transformers available for multiple coal units, hoping that more will not be needed at any one time.  In industrial engineering terms, the warehouse min-max for these components is a fine line.

On any given day with the right timing, several well trained, dedicated, well armed fighters would be able to force their way on to utility property, fire missiles or lay explosives at the transformer, destroy it, and perhaps even go to the next given the security for coal plants.  Next in line along the transmission system are other important transformers, not as important as the main step up transformers, but still important, that would also be vulnerable to attack.  With the transmission system in chaos and completely isolated due to protective relaying, and with the coal units that supply the majority of the electricity to the nation incapable of providing that power for years due to the wait for step up transformers, whole cites, heavy industry, and homes and businesses would be left in the dark for a protracted period of time, all over the nation.

In March of 2013, in Surviving The Apocalypse: Thinking Strategically Rather Than Tactically, I remarked that “The first bloody corpse dragged from a home invasion by government forces hunting for firearms will be the occasion for some deep soul searching by millions of firearms owners across the country,” directly within the context of the electrical grid vulnerabilities.

I also cited Bob Owens’ piece in which he examined the vulnerabilities farther down the grid, and Bob remarked later that:

Some people seem appalled at the fact that the sort of attacks that American forces have used so successfully overseas (Iraq’s electrical grid is still in the process of recovering from two wars) might be used against American cities… and that is the exact point both Smith and I were trying to make. Neither of us are advocates of such attacks, as both of us probably have a better idea than the layman of the effect such attacks would have. I’d likely lose several people I love very much who have medical conditions were such an attack to affect this region. these aren’t things we want. these are things we fear.

Smith and I are pointing out the fact that if states or the federal government is willing to push citizens into a Second Revolutionary War over the natural right to self defense, they will feel the wrath of the right of revolution that is the birthright of ever American.

Well after my 2010 article, The New York Times stated (concerning the vulnerabilities):

By blowing up substations or transmission lines with explosives or by firing projectiles at them from a distance, the report said, terrorists could cause cascading failures and damage parts that would take months to repair or replace. In the meantime, it warned, people could die from the cold or the excessive heat, and the economy could suffer hundreds of billions of dollars in damage.

While the report is the most authoritative yet on the subject, the grid’s vulnerability has long been obvious to independent engineers and to the electric industry itself, which has intermittently tried, in collaboration with the Department of Homeland Security, to rehearse responses.

Of particular concern are giant custom-built transformers that increase the voltage of electricity to levels suited for bulk transmission and then reduce voltage for distribution to customers. Very few of those transformers are manufactured in the United States, and replacing them can take many months.

Do tell.  Some two years after I pointed this out.  Now three years later, the federal government is figuring out that there may be a problem.

Power grid vulnerabilities are finally garnering some attention by government officials.

An electrical grid joint drill simulation is being planned in the United States, Canada and Mexico. Thousands of utility workers, FBI agents, anti-terrorism experts, governmental agencies, and more than 150 private businesses are involved in the November power grid drill.

The downed power grid simulation will reportedly focus on both physical and cyber attacks. The antiquated electrical system in the United States has been one of the most neglected pieces of integral infrastructure.

The EMP Commission, created by Congress, released a report in 2008 calling for increased planning and testing, and a stockpiling of needed repair items.

[ … ]

If the power grid fails, a lack of electricity and food delivery are only the first wave of troubles facing the American people. Police could face major problems with civil unrest. Of course, there also would not be any electric heating or cooling, which easily could lead to many deaths depending on the season.

Listen to me carefully.  A cyber attack or an EMP attack aren’t the real worries, nor is the fact that the systems are “antiquated” (I don’t even know what that means anyway).  If by antiquated they mean that utilities don’t repair transmission lines or replace transformers by clicking on buttons on a computer screen or using an iPhone app, I guess so.

The real vulnerability remains, and the drill simulation isn’t going to do anything about the fact that transformers are ensconced at a location, aren’t numerous, are difficult and time-consuming to transport, and aren’t made in the U.S..  General Patton is reported to have said fixed fortifications are monuments to man’s stupidity.  A power plant is a fixed fortification, except that it isn’t fortified.  Understand?

It could happen by hurricane as with Sandy, where electrical coverage wasn’t complete even three months after the event.  I lived through hurricane Hugo, where we were without power for two weeks (and I studied for my professional engineering examination for two weeks by candle light).

It might take the form of foreign terrorists attacking our electrical grid, or it might take the form of men who, after watching innocent people shot in SWAT raids, their animals slaughtered in front of them, their wealth stolen from them to feed the lazy masses, and their future sold to bread, circuses and illegal immigrants, can take no more.

Whatever the form, the vulnerability remains, and while the Johnny-come-lately federal government finally understands the threat, it can do nothing to ameliorate it.  It can only conduct feel-good simulations to pretend that we’re prepared for the worst.  This drill isn’t testing us for the worst.  We won’t lose any power, we won’t see riots in the streets, people won’t be starving, there won’t be any run on the banks, and the stock market won’t crash.

The only question is this: are you prepared for the worst?  The government is feigning preparations.  Yours needs to be real.

West Virginia:

A patient at Boone Memorial Hospital is living to tell a story even she says she thought she’d never tell.

“At times I thought I was going to die,” Charlene Hankins said.

Hankins had been missing for 12 days when she was discovered Monday.

Hankins said she was driving to her mother’s house in Oceana when her car ran out of gas deep down an isolated road in the Twilight area of Boone County.

She had no food, no water and tried to get help, but instead she got lost.

[ … ]

She said she ran out of gas and spent the first night in her car.

Crews found her car on Sunday. The gas tank was empty and the keys were still inside.

She told crews she tried to walk to find help, but ended up lost in the woods.

Hankins told crews she lived off berries and mushrooms and tore off the sleeves of her shirt to start a fire.

I’m glad that she was found and is recovering.  The berries, mushrooms and shirt sleeves to start a fire were a nice touch (although the caloric value of mushrooms makes them essentially worthless as a survival food).

But take this as yet another object lesson.  First, I don’t walk from room to room of my home without carrying one of my guns with me, much less take long road trips.  She could have faced black bear, snakes and coyote (panther have been sighted as far north as South Carolina).  Feral hogs would have been a good source of food.

Carrying a parka and 550 cord as part of a survival bracelet would have given her instant shelter in the case of rain (from which she could have died due to exposure).  I also don’t go on road trips without carrying a tactical light, which would have given her ability to see her surroundings at night and a stand-off weapon to blind animals of the two- or four-legged kind.

Finally, I don’t go on road trips (and certainly not backpacking or hiking trips) without a good knife, usually a large folder rather than fixed blade knife, and I always have some sort of liquid container with me.  She apparently carried an ignition source for a fire.

A gun, a parka, a knife, 550 cord, a tactical light, a container and a fire ignition source.  A few light, simple tools can go a long way towards ensuring survival in the case of becoming stranded or lost.  Others may not have fared so well.

Survival Blog has a great article up on winter outdoor survival lessons, and I’ll reiterate part of it here while driving you to the Survival Blog for the rest of it.

Darkness was rapidly settling in, I was soaking wet, and the temperature was falling as fast as the snow.  There were still about 8 miles of very rough country between me and my truck and I was flat out smoked from hiking all day in deep snow at high elevation.  I realized I could not hope to navigate by headlamp the many blow down trees and steep canyon walls that separated me from my truck in my current condition.  While I realized the seriousness of my situation, I was not particularly worried and silently thanked the Lord I had practiced the skills essential to surviving in the wild and carried the appropriate gear on my back.  As I quickly went about the tasks required to set up a field expedient bivouac camp, I contemplated the many similar situations I had been through in my life were the main goal and focus was to not die.

Curled up comfortably in my emergency blanket with my face towards my fire and my back to a large log serving as a heat reflector, I realized that without the proper skills and some basic gear the situation good have been deadly.  The sounds of a distant wolf howl in the night reminded me of the thin veneer between polite society and the wild, were man is reduced to the basic necessities of survival; food, fire, and shelter.  In my experience, most people fail to realize how delicate the balance of our society is and how quickly they can be thrust into a situation where the main focus is survival.

Not dying has frequently been a priority of mine while fighting in Iraq as an Infantry team leader and designated long range marksman, followed by a career in law enforcement in western Montana.  My love of hiking, hunting, and camping has resulted in many hours spent in the wilderness of western Montana and northern Idaho.  While enjoying these pursuits, my focus has had to frequently switch from hunting and camping to not dying.  While some of these instances were indeed emergencies caused by bad decisions and a general lack of intelligence, some of them were self induced to practice survival skills in the wild.  After surviving several life threatening situations while hunting and camping with me, many spouses of my friends no longer allow their husbands to go hunting or camping with me.  I have had to resort to marketing my frequent hunting trips as “hands on survival courses” graded on a pass or fail depending on whether they make it back alive or not.

I have an affliction that is probably encouraged from reading way too many books about Mountain Men and Native Americans that causes me to constantly push myself to the limits and test myself by surviving in the wilderness with minimal equipment in varied terrain and all kinds of weather.  Frequent trips into the wilderness to practice survival skills have resulted in a fairly good working knowledge of what actually works when the chips are down versus what just sounds good in a book read by the warmth of a fireplace.  After spending his childhood tramping around the woods with me and camping with minimal equipment, my son decided to join the Marine Corps to relax for a while.  He’s joked that after some of our hunting trips, the Marines should be a walk in the park.

There have been countless books and articles written about what to carry in your survival pack and how to survive if lost in the woods.  I don’t plan on reinventing the wheel and will not bore you with writing a field manual on the many varied tasks and skills required to survive in the wild.  I would like to share a few of the lessons I’ve learned and some of the items I always carry whenever I go into the backcountry along with a few essential skills that I’ve found to be absolutely necessary for survival.

Now that it has grabbed your interest, go read the rest at Survival Blog.  He has some great counsel, and I don’t necessarily disagree with any of it, but would emphasize other things.

I am not a proponent of the lone wolf scenario as you know.  See Tactical Considerations For The Lone Wolf and especially Surviving The Apocalypse: Thinking Strategically Rather Than Tactically.  I won’t rehearse any of that here.

I’m not a proponent of pushing the edge.  If you need to climb, do it with qualified ropes.  For example, rappelling is safe if done correctly.  Don’t see how little you can get away with – carry the right equipment for the job and make it as light as practical.  Cordage is a necessity, and paracord is cheap.  Don’t look for cordage in the wild.  It’s a waste of precious time.  Time is one of your greatest assets.

Don’t start fires with primitive means, even if you know how.  Never walk into the wild – even if for a day trip – without a knife, cordage, a container, cover, and a means of starting a fire.  Carry multiple means of starting a fire, such as a lighter and a ferro rod.  Never plan to be out in the wilderness where you could get lost or stranded for weeks.  Be closer than that to egress.  There are so many things to address and yet the author has done a good job of listing most of the considerations.  But I note that the author didn’t address guns.

Guns may be the most important asset at your disposal, and as one who carries, I certainly wouldn’t be in the wilderness without a firearm, even if only for a day trip.  I would like to address a little about survival guns as an adjunct to Jim’s post at Survival Blog.

A long gun is an unlikely asset on a long hike or overnight trip.  It’s just too heavy and bulky to carry, especially a .308 or 7.62 mm rifle.  Too much weight can be a detriment to your survival.  I am a proponent of the .270 cartridge, but a rifle still suffers from the same fate regardless of caliber.

What is true of the large caliber or bolt action rifles is also true of carbines such as the AR-15, M1 Carbine or pistol caliber carbines.  While it may be nice to have rapid fire capabilities, it’s just not feasible at least some of the time.

Frankly, if you’re going to carry a long gun, a shotgun may be the best choice given the fact that you can hunt fowl (with bird loads) and larger game (with slugs).  But because of weight of the weapon plus ammunition, it still suffers from the same limitations as other long guns.

So if we’ve settled on hand guns, this narrows the field a bit and makes our choice easier.  Here the best counsel I think anyone can give.  Choose reliability above all else, and choose the weapon with which you are practiced and familiar.  There is no comparison to hitting your intended target.

For semi-automatic weapons I like my .45 and .40, Springfield Armory XDm and Smith and Wesson M&P, respectively.  But it might be a different manufacturer for you.  If I carry a revolver I like my Smith and Wesson .357 Magnum.  I would carry any of those weapons into the wilderness, as I consider them large enough calibers to accomplish the intended purpose.  I have hand guns that I consider to be range toys, and I wouldn’t carry those for self defense whether in the wilderness or not.

Remember too that whatever weapon you carry must be accompanied by enough ammunition to make it effective.  Except for the .357 Magnum, none of the rounds I mentioned would likely be enough for game hunting, so the goal of the weapon would be personal defense.  If you intend to carry a weapon with which to hunt, you are planning a different trip than the one Jim and I have described.

Prior: What Happens If Your Bug Out Gun Breaks?