Basics

If you follow most any sport you will hear the coach or players say at some point that they are not playing well and that they need to get back to the basics. Everything that is successful is built on a strong foundation. Building a good preparedness plan needs to be built on the basics too.
What are the basics for survival? Listen to the Rules of Three and you will find that is pretty much the list, in order of what you need to do for preparedness. You can live three seconds without thinking, three minutes without air; you can survive three hours without shelter, three days without water, three weeks without food and three months without hope. There you go, a nice guideline.

Since you are reading this blog and hopefully others it is obvious that you are thinking and working on your survival, so you have that covered. I will also assume that you are not reading this underwater or in a vacuum and you have good air to breath. (If you are reading this on a computer powered by a running generator in an enclosed space refer back to number one.)

Why is shelter listed above food and water? Because the elements can kill you. The news this week has been about a number of folks that have died because of the massive heat wave sweeping the Midwest. We hear the same stories every winter too. Have a safe shelter is the highest priority in places like Michigan were the weather can affect you at both extremes.

Most of us have our home or apartment as our primary shelter. A tent stored away with camping supplies may be your back up for shelter. Whatever your future plans are, shelter in place, bug out, or pray for FEMA, make sure you include in your plan a way to shelter you and your loved ones from cold, wind, rain, and heat.

Water is essential for survival. Keeping hydrated is a key to personnel health and should be strived for. I live in Michigan and the state once bragged that in Michigan you are never more than eight miles from a lake, river, stream, or pond. Your home and bug out kit should have a good water filter so you can walk to one of those sources and drink to your hearts content. Plan ahead in your survival for several ways to filter and purify water.

Whether you have wheat to be ground, MREs, bags of rice, or Raman noodles, food storage is one of the prep items that gets a lot of attention. Over the long haul food will be the “make or break” item for a lot of preppers. If they do not have enough to bridge them until the system recovers or resets then they might become part of the Golden Hoard and be out looking for a meal. I am not sure what is the correct amount but feel that six to twelve months worth of storage can not be too far off.

Those are the basics. Once you start on the list you can fine tune it and add as you need to. Once you have your shelter plans you can add extra ways to heat it, you can plan for a generator or solar power, you can harden it against attack and a lot of other things, but first, you need the basics of a simple shelter. Preparedness has many levels. You can go into great depth or you can keep it simple. Regardless of where you take it, for a good preparedness foundation you need to start with the basics.

Wolverine