Disaster Preparation and Survival
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger
Editor of NaturalNews.com
(NaturalNews) In the wake of superstorm Sandy, preppers are the new prophets. Those who failed to prepare are the new homeless.
For as long as we can all remember, preppers and survivalists have been derided by the mainstream media, labeled “kooks” and “wing nuts” for stockpiling food, water, ammunition, medical supplies and emergency gear. Only paranoid conspiracy theorists engage in evil preparedness activities, we were told by the sellout mainstream media, and they’ve convinced many that preppers may even be terrorists.
The very word “stockpiling” has been used in a derogatory manner, as if it’s somehow bad for private citizens to stockpile food, medicine and emergency supplies that might save lives in a crisis. Never mind that the government stockpiles all these things for its own survival; citizens are routinely taught that stockpiling is bad!
Suddenly all that has changed. In the aftermath of superstorm Sandy, preppers are the ones who aren’t starving, freezing or begging the government to come save them with emergency supplies. Those who failed to prepare are now subjected to the chaotic, incompetent actions of the federal government which is, predictably, operating in a never-ending state of logistical failure.
An one example, in response to the ongoing scarcity of gasoline, New York announced that the Defense Department would be opening up free gas stations near areas hardest-hit, but that residents should stay away and let first responders fuel up ahead of them.
This, of course, set off a wave of confusion. It was then announced that those “civilians” (a derogatory term against citizens, used only in a police state) who were already in line could stay in line, but no “civilians” could join the line. Many people waited up to six hours for gasoline. Tempers flared, fist fights were commonplace, and state troopers had to be sent to gas stations to keep the peace.
Preppers, of course, already stored away spare fuel at home and therefore didn’t need to wait in line and subject themselves to the chaos and desperation.
FEMA runs out of water
This one was easy to see coming: FEMA has run out of water to distribute to Sandy victims and is now desperately trying to find a private contractor that will deliver millions of bottles of water to the region.
That this could happen in the aftermath of a storm that everybody saw coming at least a week ahead of time is nothing short of bewildering. How could FEMA, whose only job is to plan for crisis, not have stockpiled some supplies in advance of the storm?
The answer is that FEMA is just flat-out incompetent. As described in an article by Michael Patrick Leahy:
…the agency appears to have been completely unprepared to distribute bottled water to Hurricane Sandy victims when the storm hit this Monday. In contrast to its stated policy, FEMA failed to have any meaningful supplies of bottled water — or any other supplies, for that matter — stored in nearby facilities as it had proclaimed it would on its website. This was the case despite several days advance warning of the impending storm.
Once again, preppers who had stockpiled water in advance of all this were sitting pretty, living on stored water supplies. Those who invested in water filters were even able to use water that would not have been drinkable otherwise.
No electricity = no heat for cooking
Even today, the power grid is down in many areas, and for all those residents using electric stoves and toasters, that means no ability cook anything… not even to boil water!
Most people simply have no backup plan for when the power grid goes down. So they become yet another victim who needs to be rescued by a government that has a terrible track record on rescues.
Preppers, on the other hand, own non-electric cookstoves such as this Zoom Dura cookstove which can burn paper, wood, small branches and almost anything flammable. It boils water, cooks meals, and kills bacteria. No batteries required.
In the aftermath of superstorm Sandy, people who own emergency campstoves or cookstoves have been able to cook meals if they also stored some food. Something as simple as a few cans of chili can be priceless in the middle of a grid down scenario. Or some quinoa, oatmeal, rice or whatever.
I know for a fact that we shipped a large number of 40-day organic survival food pails to the Northeast in the days before the storm hit. Those people have no doubt been sitting pretty with plenty of food to eat, compared to their neighbors who didn’t prepare and are therefore starving or dumpster diving for food scraps.
Arming up with bows, machetes, firearms and baseball bats
Looting has been widespread in some areas, thanks mostly to the fact that police are spread too thin and can’t cover all the territory. At first, the looting targeted commercial buildings, where looters made off with TV projectors, flat panel displays and valuable electronics, but it soon shifted to the looting of private homes by criminals dressed as Con Edison workers.
Citizens quickly realized they would need to fend for themselves. As the NY Daily News reports:
Ever since Sandy strafed the Queens peninsula and tore up the boardwalk, it’s become an often lawless place where cops are even scarcer than electrical power and food. Locals say they are arming themselves with guns, baseball bats, booby traps — even a bow and arrow — to defend against looters.
“We booby-trapped our door and keep a baseball bat beside our bed,” said Danielle Harris, 34, rummaging through donated supplies as children rode scooters along half-block chunk of the boardwalk that had marooned into the middle of Beach 91st St.
“We heard gunshots for three nights in a row,” said Harris, who believed they came from the nearby housing projects.
Preppers, of course, already have firearms and ammo. In fact, many preppers today are investing in firearms proficiency training in order to gain combat skills. I know several firearms instructors, and they tell me their classes are jam packed, with waiting lists increasingly common.
A typical prepper owns not only a handgun, but also a combat rifle (typically an AR or AK) and a shotgun for close quarters defense. In addition, preppers stockpile at least 1,000 rounds of ammo for each. It’s not uncommon to talk to preppers who have stored 10,000 rounds of ammo for each firearm they own.
These firearms, far from causing violence, are used in the defense of life and property in communities struck by disaster. People who legally own firearms are law-abiding citizens who typically work with local law enforcement to restore peace and security to local communities and help stop criminals and looters.
That states like New York restrict private citizens from owning firearms is, in a very real sense, denying them the ability to protect themselves during a crisis when the police can’t protect them, either. Using machetes and bows is no match for a Glock 17 or an AR-15. While anti-gun people like Bloomberg or Obama like to say that guns “have no place on the streets of America,” they are wrong. Firearms in the hands of law-abiding citizens are an essential part of restoring peace and order following any crisis. In a disaster scenario, more guns in the hands of responsible citizens really does equal less crime.
It’s just common sense: When the cops are nowhere to be found, and the National Guard isn’t helping out, and FEMA’s lack of preparedness has made the local population desperate for supplies, a privately-owned firearm is the only remaining defense against criminal-minded looters and violent opportunities who try to prey on the weak. That’s why I even published a tactical home defense guide designed to stop looters and criminals from targeting innocent victims of superstorm Sandy.
The media owes preppers a massive apology
One of the realizations emerging from all this is that the media’s portrayal of preppers has been not just malicious and highly inaccurate. Preppers are not the “kooks” you see on TV shows (which the media admits are laced with pay-for-placement messages provided by the White House); they are intelligent, forward-thinking members of society who are truly a national treasure capable of saving lives in any disaster.
Preppers pick up where the police and the government drop the ball. Preppers provide food, water, emergency medicine and even local neighborhood security. They do it without being paid and without even being thanked for their contributions to society.
In the wake of superstorm Sandy, the national media — and especially the liberal media which expresses intense hatred for preppers — owes preppers a massive apology. Preppers create stability, safety and security in any crisis, and they deserve to be portrayed as the upstanding members of society they truly are.
The White House owes preppers a huge apology as well. Preppers and survivalists have, in the last few years, been characterized as “terrorists” by the Obama administration. The message is that anyone with a gun, some ammo and a stockpile of food is somehow “dangerous” or a threat to society. In reality, that person is the guy sharing food with neighbors and helping protect the neighborhood from violent criminal looters.
Famously, a prepper was recently put on a “no-fly list” and stranded in Hawaii because he was classified by the government as a “prepper.” So hold on: Stockpiling emergency supplies makes you synonymous with a terrorist now?
Preppers are actually on the target list of the U.S. government. As an active duty National Guard member named “Soldier X” has recently revealed, the Guard is being trained to “treat preppers as terrorists.”
According to Soldier X, the government is compiling lists of preppers and intends to confiscate their guns and treat them as enemy combatants in any crisis situation. So the very group the government should be thanking for providing local community stability and order is the group being targeted for arrest, detainment and possibly being sent to Obama’s secret military prisons under the provisions of the NDAA.
The federal government WANTS chaos and panic, get it?
The reality of all this is that the federal government is trying to eliminate preppers and survivalists precisely as a way to create more panic, fear and chaos. Why? Because it is from that scenario that the government can justify yet more funding for itself, more police state crackdowns and more dependency among the citizen slaves.
Remember: Every government wants to become like North Korea, where it dominates everything in society, controls all the resources and commands citizens as if they were slaves. The U.S. government is no different: Like every government, it thirsts for unlimited power.
Preppers and survivalists interfere with the growth of government power because they demonstrate the far greater power of individual preparedness. When preppers take care of themselves and don’t need to be rescued by the government, they send a “dangerous” message to the rest of society: Emergency preparedness is YOUR responsibility, not the government’s.
The White House doesn’t like people sending that message. Neither does the liberal media which persistently pushes citizen victimization and government dependence. The very idea of thinking for yourself, taking care of yourself and being self-reliant is alien to the liberal media. And that’s one reason why the liberal media is ultimately so dangerous: Many people who followed the advice of, say, the New York Times, are now DEAD in Jersey.
The bottom line: Preppers are the future of human civilization; deniers are dead
Hurricane Sandy was a walk in the park compared to what we’ll see in a national grid-down scenario. As I’ve explained many times here on Natural News, a single solar flare (or a high-altitude EMP burst weapon) could knock out most of the national power grid.
That would thrust virtually the entire nation into the scenario we’ve recently watched unfold on Staten Island and certain parts of NY. Imagine fuel scarcity, starvation, water scarcity and looting unleashed on a national scale. That’s what we will sooner or later face in America (and everywhere else, too).
When that scenario unfolds, it’s a simple matter of fact that we’re going to see the mass death of liberal media worshippers and Big Government worshippers who refused to prepare. The survivors will, by and large, be the preppers who planned ahead.
It’s Darwinism at work, backfiring on people who call themselves “Darwinists” (who almost universally do not believe in preparedness). It’s natural selection doing its thing. People who cannot adapt to survive do not tend to reproduce, while those who can adapt and survive are the ones left remaining to repopulate the planet.
In fact, the domination of the planet by the “prepping gene” is one of the most scientific ideas of our time. That’s because crisis strikes our planet on a regular basis: Solar flares, asteroids, the spread of infectious disease and even the threat of widespread nuclear war or nuclear facility failures.
Each “wave” of crisis weeds out the ignorant unprepared masses through mass death. While those people may be in a majority right now, they and their lineage have no real future.
Interestingly, modern humanity hasn’t faced a real crisis yet. By “modern,” I mean the version of civilization that has bet everything on complex electronics, food supply logistics and the continued restocking of the artificial living zones known as “cities.” This modern civilization has only existed for about seventy-five years — a blink of an eye in terms of the big picture. So it hasn’t been tested yet with a true global survival scenario. We are one solar flare away from being thrust back to the early 1900′s.
Another mass extinction event is inevitable
Sixty-five million years ago, a single rock from space wiped out the dinosaurs. It was the most violent mass-extinction event planet Earth had ever experienced. So far, there have been five mass extinction events in the known history of our planet.
Human beings are likely going to be the sixth, through the careless proliferation of nuclear power plants, the toying with GMOs and the genetic pollution of the planet, or even through the accidental release of a military bioweapon with a 98% fatality rate.
The next mass extinction event will quickly eliminate from the planet all organisms poorly adapted to survive, which includes most New York Times subscribers. It will leave behind only those humans, plants and animals with remarkable survival adaptation skills.
The most likely survivors, it turns out, are going to be well-stocked preppers who have practiced the skills of self-reliance and sustainable living.
Survival resources
If you’re serious about survival, here are some resources I recommend:
James Wesley Rawles’ Survival Blog:
www.SurvivalBlog.com
I also recommend books by Rawles on Amazon.com.
Joe Nobody:
www.HoldingYourGround.com
Author page on Amazon.com
Lehman’s Non-Electric Store:
www.Lehmans.com
Article: How to “Bug In” for survival.
Health Ranger course on self defense and preparedness.
Flickr: NCDOT Communications
