11:06 – We made a trip down to Winston yesterday, where we met Frances and Al. Between the Trooper and Al’s F-150, we hauled quite a bit back up. Frances and Al couldn’t stay overnight last night, because he had to meet with one of his home health care clients this morning. I was looking forward to them spending the night here, but the important thing is that they know how to get here and that they’re welcome to stay with us indefinitely if things ever get really bad in Winston. Not that I’m really expecting things to get that bad anytime soon, but one never knows. I’m old enough to remember the rioting and cities burning in the 60’s, and the threat of violent civil unrest is much greater now than it was then. Also, in the 60’s a major long-term power grid down situation wasn’t really of much concern, while nowadays it’s a very real and potentially catastrophic possibility.
Long email from Jen about the results of their trial run over the long New Years weekend. She could probably have summed up what they learn with a short phrase: “Try it before you depend on it.” For example, although they have lots of stored propane and multiple propane Coleman stoves, they wanted to simulate running out of propane during a long emergency, so they did all of their cooking on the woodstove. Not, as it turns out, as easy as everyone thought it would be. Similarly, their electric power was down, so the well pump was non-functional. They ended up hauling water from the pond in 5-gallon buckets, and purifying the water they were using for drinking and cooking. But, as Jen said, flushing toilets takes a LOT of water, and water isn’t light. And, although Jen has toilets in her home that use 1.6 gallons per flush, the friends to whose home they’d “bugged out” have older, standard toilets that use 3.5 gallons per flush. Or, as Jen put it, about 29 pounds per flush. They quickly began enforcing the no-flush-for-just-urine rule, which Jen said was pretty hard for some of them to get used to, particularly the women.
Jen said her main takeaway from this trial run was to test EVERYTHING before it mattered. She even found herself eying their Sawyer SP191 PointZeroTwo absolute water filter and thinking about unpacking it and trying it. I’d advised her to keep it unopened on the shelf if there was even a chance that it’d ever freeze because freezing destroys the filter if it’s ever had water in it. She said she’d eventually decided not to use the SP191, but she did order a second one from Amazon to serve as a spare. At about $125, it’s cheap insurance. That one will stay on the shelf. She’s going to pull out some 5-gallon pails and assemble the first one, but not run any water through it.
Got buckets? Many buckets? Color coded for “raw” water, clean/filtered water, gray water, dirty/contaminated/shit water.
I recall now my Boy Scout Survival Training. We did it at several levels, from the bare minimum (knife, fishing line, hooks, flint, and no food) to a well prepared situation that today we call a bug-out. The many bucket color coded system made life in the base camp much easier.
IMHO, using the toilet in an evacuation situation is absolute waste. You dig a slit trench if you want luxury for #2 and use a tree for #1, unless there is snow then you practice your skills š
Y’all dig some Motown?
https://westernrifleshooters.wordpress.com/2016/01/10/sunday-morning-classic/#comments
Crank it up.
Yo, keep your eyes and ears open for any “resettlement” capers here in CONUS…
https://westernrifleshooters.wordpress.com/2016/01/10/rapefugee-recap/#comments
“They quickly began enforcing the no-flush-for-just-urine rule, which Jen said was pretty hard for some of them to get used to, particularly the women.”
They coud just go behind a tree. š
“Yo, keep your eyes and ears open for any āresettlementā capers here in CONUSā¦”
https://westernrifleshooters.wordpress.com/2016/01/10/rapefugee-recap/#comments
What gun will you buy today?
+1000
Ugg, hygiene is critical in a disaster or grid down situation.
Urinating in one spot will quickly lead to strong offensive odor and potential health issues. (and post collapse, it’s probably better to save urine and use it. It’s a valuable resource if you collapse farther back.)
Better to deal with it as you would in the scenario. If sewers are working, using the toilet has many advantages, which is why all homes have them. Water needed for flushing is a negative, but that’s what the tub is for. Fill the tub so it’s handy.
If sewers aren’t working, you need to get your alternative in place quickly, be that an outhouse, slit trench, camp potty or whatever. Keeping your person and environment clean and sanitary is critical. Diseases from improper handling of waste are rampant in the third world, and will make a big comeback in a disaster.
In Jen’s case, upgrading to one low flow toilet might be feasible. The cheap ones don’t work well, so read the reviews and spend the money. Even the good ones may not work well when used with simple gravity and filling the bowl. Should probably avoid any that use a “pressure assist”. FWIW, my Kohler, tall, elongated bowl, works well with a bucket dumped in.
WRT moving the water, I have a small submersible pump that runs on D cells. It’s for bailing in a boat, so not long term use, or heavy duty. It’s adequate for moving water from bucket to bucket or from a barrel, etc. A simple hose and siphon can work really well if the water storage is set up higher than the outlet of the hose (the top of a 55 gal drum is higher than a 5 gal bucket). Don’t carry or lift if you can help it! She might find a hand crank transfer pump or one driven by a cordless drill and some hoses would solve most of the problem. The cordless drill batteries can be charged in a variety of ways. A small submersible ‘fountain’ pump can move a surprising amount of water, and they are made to run continuously. Driven from a battery or battery/inverter combo, that would work to move the water from place to place. I used a tiny one, smaller than my fist, to empty some half barrels quickly.
One other thought, when moving water in 5 gal buckets, use a lid. Gamma lids are easy open. The lid will keep more of that hard earned water in the bucket, especially if moving in a vehicle (see my story about bringing water home in buckets during Ike) or using a wagon or dolly. A hand truck with big inflated wheels is amazingly useful for moving stuff, be it filled buckets, ammo cans, potted plants, bags of dirt, or as a lever to pry and lift large items. I use my handtruck all the time. The big tires work on fairly rough surfaces, and pulling rather than pushing works well on uneven ground. A bungie cord, webbing strap, or ratchet strap will keep your bucket on the handtruck while moving over uneven ground.
A pole or 2×4 and some rope tied in a sling will let 2 weaker people carry heavy loads between them. And a milk maid type yoke made from a pole or board and some smaller buckets would work too….
It’s awesome that they are actually trying the things out and discovering all the hidden gotchas. Next step is to correct and compensate for those things.
Way to go Jen and Co.!
nick
“What gun will you buy today?”
A good question. But the time comes, as it should, when one ought to get trained up real good on whichever gun/s one bought and develop the mindset that it’s not only OK to defend yourself, it’s your obligation, extended, of course, to your family and property.
Be able to disassemble it, clean it, fix it, and fire it accurately and quickly under varying conditions of light and weather against moving hostile targets. Most of the relevant and decent training I’ve seen around the country runs several hundred bucks a pop, for several days of really excellent class work on the ground. Of course you’d have to travel to their sites and pay for that and your accommodations nearby, plus the ammo you bring with you and some other logistical considerations, but security is at least as important as your stockpile of goodies.
Short of SUT training, at least get some that moves a bit beyond the standard stationary silhouette targets in broad daylight or a lit indoor range, and at the very least, take a look at the countless decent practice and drill vids on the net and do it at home. I’d say, in terms of the rifles, get very used to the prone position, for starters. And conditions of darkness and stress; you can time these drills.
The goblins crashing through your front and back doors at 03:00 are gonna get to you and yours in about twenty seconds.
One think Jen has mentioned is that they treat these events much like a Murder Mystery Weekend, but with a deadly serious underlying purpose. They all like each other so a trial run gives them lots of time to work and play and converse together.
If the SEDHTF, I would expect that they would have few conflicts in their group. They all know each other too well, and practicing under stress lets them work out issues ahead of time.
“The goblins crashing through your front and back doors at 03:00 are gonna get to you and yours in about twenty seconds.”
This ^
You need time to react. Motion sensors, video analytics, perimeter alarms, something to give you a heads up BEFORE they breach your door. Then the door should slow them down. Antibreakage film or hurricane windows, bars on window and door, reinforced door jambs, solid or steel doors, good strong locksets, all will slow them down. Even better is a security door that encloses a porch area, make them get thru that before they can attack your door. Once inside, slow them down some more. Solid core interior doors, even use an exterior door for your bedroom and a lock. It depends on the threat how far you’ll go, but simple things are worth doing.
Clear bushes and hiding places from around your home. Reinforce the door jamb. Get a good lockset. Reinforce hinges with long screws. Install anti door kick devices. Install a security door. There are some that look like simple storm doors of glass but are guaranteed against glass breakage, and have multipoint locking mechanisms. Position heavy planters or benches to limit how many can access the door at once. A motion sensor with a chime that is only on after dark, covering the porch, gives a heads up even in normal times… Motion sensor lights- if you hear the ‘bump in the night’ and you look and the light is on, you can be more certain that SOMETHING really is there. (Although they don’t help much against thieves.)
Lots of simple inexpensive things you can do to improve your home’s security. Your local PD or insurance company may even have a free inspection with suggestions for improvement, and you may get a discount on your homeowners insurance afterwards.
nick
All great tips, Mr. nick, and I can probably get away with implementing SOME of them, but the spouse here is majorly concerned with any impact on the looks and aesthetics, prioritized currently over security and even weather/climate stuff. We’ll see if she breaks down a bit more as things get sportier in our AO.
Slow and steady wins the race.
We hope.
Here’s a tip, shared by a loss prevention specialist, from the class I took.
If you have a pickup truck, particularly one with a backup camera on the tailgate, you can add a cheap simple thing to prevent tailgate theft.
Just add a hose clamp around the circular pivot hinge that the tailgate engages. When the goblin rotates your tailgate and tries to lift it off, the hoseclamp prevents it. They are stymied and leave. If you need to remove the tailgate, the hoseclamp is easy to remove.
nick
(apparently tailgates are a high theft item, particularly those with cameras)
A dog or dogs is the best security upgrade anyone can make.
@ OFD,
I know it’s been a topic of discussion before. The security door I put on my rent house added to the looks. So did the steel entry door, as it had a really nice glass insert.
The door jamb reinforcement is invisible unless you look for it, and the long screws on the hinge side are too.
Strong locksets look the same as the cheap flimsy ones. Not talking about better cylinders, since a bump key will bypass all but the most expensive, but the deadbolt and lock itself will pull apart in a kick in robbery. Stronger is better.
You have some extra difficulty since I’m sure your door is very decorative, and probably an odd size as well as not square. And you are so close to the road that you can’t get a buffer zone. Could you eventually add a small roof and porch? Even just a covered landing? A couple of big concrete flower pots in front of the step will funnel them, and limit the number of people who can get to the door at once and act as bollards against a vehicle attack. Any sort of picket fence and gate to enclose the yard?
anything helps.
nick
There are brass and stainless metal sleeves for the door that reinforce the door around the lockset too.
nick
Yeah, it’s an 1830 house with the expected external infrastructure and while wife is OK with futzing the back of the place, like the porch door and rear entry door, she’s been a stickler on the front door, which, by the way, lets air blow through it. But this is a house where in zero weather the fems will stand on the back porch goofing around with the door wide open for minutes at a time and act annoyed when I yell at them to close it. So paying for heat evidently not a priority, either. (in the past, they’ve been in Kalifornia, Italy, Floriduh, etc., when I can see my breath in the air INDOORS up here, thanks to failing burner, running out of oil, old decrepit windows and frames and doors, etc.). Funny how that works out.
But I will be incorporating as many of your tips and suggestions as I can, as the front of the house is a major security concern for me, just not so with anyone else here. This is likely to change somewhat if and as things get sportier, of course. I make sure she hears about all the criminal scum goings-on that could affect us. Gonna leave the scanners on more often, too.
I’ll be improvising quite a bit, looks like; the heavy-ass planters funneling goblins is a good idea, as is the film on the windows, and the much better locks and strike plates we could have on the front door.
And yes, we have a dog, who does, to give credit where it’s due, bark loudly if someone is nearby that he doesn’t know. Once they broke in, however, he’d be a cupcake for them. And any other breeds I’d actually be interested in are of course verboten with the missus.
Wind has picked up considerably here; heavy sideways rain earlier, temps in the low fotties, ditto tomorrow and turning down into the usual twenties, but, come to think of it, even that is unseasonably warm for this area this time of year.
“THE WRATH OF THE AWAKENED SAXON
An NBC News/Survey Monkey/Esquire pollāreally, guys, thatās a bit complicated, please pick one name and stick with itāreveals that nearly three of every four white Americans gets angry at least once daily. White Americans self-report as far more angry than Latinos, who find themselves statistically more vexed than the blacks. Why white Americans may be so angry is anyoneās guess.”
http://takimag.com/article/the_week_that_perished_takimag_january_10_2016/print#axzz3wsZn3SWJ
Indeed. One imagines that German citizen-subjects also grow increasingly vexed, but over there they get arrested for it if they speak up. Let’s see how that works here.
you can add a cheap simple thing to prevent tailgate theft
Or just lock the tailgate.
Or have a snarling rottweiler/pit-bull cross sitting there. While the tailgate is booby-trapped with one of them fun toyz that sez “THIS SIDE TOWARD ENEMY.”
Interesting nooz from Idaho, no matter how you look at it…
http://freedomoutpost.com/2016/01/breaking-history-made-idaho-3-rolls-up-on-fbi-compound/
Amazing no one got shot out of hand instantly.
“Migrant Invasion Will Reach OVER 10 MILLION Warns German Minister”
http://www.breitbart.com/london/2016/01/10/only-ten-percent-of-migrant-influx-has-reached-us-so-far-says-german-minister/
One wonders if there will always a Germany? And, the Goths do not put up with very much nonsense.
He also called for a 10 billion euro āMarshall Planā, with European states paying to rebuild war torn countries such as Iraq, Syria and Libya. āAll states must pay, especially those that receive no refugees,ā he warned.
Ah, reparations! Is he pointing at Australia?
“The new way police are surveilling you: Calculating your threat āscoreā”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/public-safety/the-new-way-police-are-surveilling-you-calculating-your-threat-score/2016/01/10/e42bccac-8e15-11e5-baf4-bdf37355da0c_story.html
I wonder if your threat score is 1200 – FICO ? So, my threat score would be 398. Plus 300 for my CHL makes 698 and a major threat.
They can take their bogus threat scores and cram them sideways up where the sun don’t shine. I’m sure the old Geheimstatzpolizei, NKVD and KGB had their own threat score calculations, too.
Most peeps on this board are likely to have high bogus scores. Esp. those guys out in Lost Wages and down in the Capital District.
Not me, though.
“Ah, reparations! Is he pointing at Australia?”
No.. No.. No.. It’s the guys behind us, New Zealand!
Screw Europe.. And the middle east.. We’ve got enough problems of our own.
I think we’re signed up for 50k hadjiis. FFS.
My sentiments exactly…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1LCsiJVgOBY
I wonder if your threat score is 1200 ā FICO ? So, my threat score would be 398. Plus 300 for my CHL makes 698 and a major threat.
I wonder if your threat score is 1200 ā FICO ? So, my threat score would be 398. Plus 300 for my CHL – 600 for being on this board makes 98 and an imminent threat.
Fixed it for you. Better throw all your guns in the river. Oh, wait you already did that. You can can 3 points back to your score thus giving you a score of 102.
Math is not your strong suit, is it?
@OFD: Replacing a decorative front door is surprisingly expensive. We have one on our (1930’s) house as well, and offers for modern replacements are $4000 and up. Crazy, but there you are. The wind blows around the edges of our door as well, despite my best efforts at weatherstripping, because the damned thing is warped.
For the moment, we’ve just gone with reinforcing the lock plate, so that the door can’t just be kicked open. Also, have a look at how the hinges are attached – ours are pretty massive, but that’s not always the case.
An alternative: One carpenter offered to retrofit our door with a three-point locking system – this would just involve routing a groove along the edge – completely invisible when the door is closed. When you turn the lock, bolts go out the side (as usual) and also the top and bottom. Expensive, but still less than replacing the entire door.
The other weak points are the windows. I don’t remember where you are on window replacement, but if you are going to replace the ground floor windows anyway, be sure to order security glass. This is a very small additional charge, and completely invisible. We actually got rid of the (rusty, ugly) iron bars on our back windows, after we got the security glass.
398 + 300 – 600 + 3 = 101.
Math is not your strong suit, is it?
Not at 07:50 when my office is at a toasty 55f degrees. Fingers don’t work well.
I took a shortcut. Noted “98” and added “3”.
I’ve been up since 3 and have had my govt. approved 3 pots of coffee already. And my Smart-alec knob is fully twisted due to my MIL visiting.
“The wind blows around the edges of our door as well, despite my best efforts at weatherstripping, because the damned thing is warped.”
Ditto, because the house is nearly 200 years old and it has “settled;” you can roll a ball from one end of the kitchen or the laundry area upstairs down toward the other end of the house. Half the windows were replaced last year, each one pretty much a custom fit due to this issue. We’re doing the other half this year.
“…weāve just gone with reinforcing the lock plate, so that the door canāt just be kicked open. Also, have a look at how the hinges are attached…”
That’s probably the route we’ll take here, for the time being. I’m also looking into some kind of security/ballistic film for all the window glass. And that’s the kind of enhancement that is gonna be tough to slide by the spouse, of course.
Love my morning office: Wife and Kids off to work, dishes done, sitting in my comfortable dining room chair, a nice 70Ā° (outside 22.6Ā°), a pot of great coffee, just finished a nice gigundo Costco cheese danish, Fox News in one ear and Glenn Beck (*Michael Savage will be on in hour*) in the other, my big ginger and white Maine Coon cross sleeping at the other end of the table, my big black Main Coon cross sitting on the extra wide window ledge and chittering (you have to have a cat to understand) as he watches the Black Capped Juncos at the bird feeders, reading what my RSS Feed has gathered overnight.
Life is good, sometimes š
Have a good day fans of RBT’s Daynotes Journal.
*Edit: Oops I meant to say Rush Limbaugh, Savage isn’t on till noon.
Smart-alec knob is fully twisted due to my MIL visiting
Understood and agreed.
OFD’s AM office: Wife in Tarzana, Kalifornia this week; Princess back in Moh-ree-ahl to continue her six-year college BA plan with summers touring Europe at our and her grandma’s expense, who, by the way, think this is fine and prioritize it over paying utility bills, mortgage and taxes here, but don’t get me started. Son and DIL and grandkids out in Brentwood, Kalifornia, where he pulls down nearly a quarter-mil from his “senior manager” gig at Salesforce.com but it barely covers their expenses, evidently, as Great-Grandma and wife buy their groceries and hand them money when they’re out there, but don’t get me started. Three mongrel cats hanging around and spying on me. Regular size Gatorade. Either a bowl of hot cereal/oatmeal or hash-and-eggs, sometimes both. Usually listening to either a Baroque CD or the classical FM station outta Moh-ree-ahl, which comes in better than most local Murkan stations. Current reading: the extensive footnotes and endnotes in David Hackett Fischer’s “Washington’s Crossing.”
Wind gusts howling outside, temp in low fotties again, and pahtly sunny. Off to dump run shortly, retrieving mutt from Grandma, cleaning out car and washing it, and I might attempt the install of the SiriusXM stuff and seat covers. Also doing a bit of mod stuff on firearms. And researching front-of-the-house and front-door security possibilities.
“…my big black Main Coon cross sitting on the extra wide window ledge and chittering (you have to have a cat to understand) as he watches the Black Capped Juncos at the bird feeders…”
Our cats just stare malevolently at the birds and squirrels and plan their destruction forthwith, no chittering. But I know what ya mean.
There is a Maine Coon living cattycorner to us. He is smaller then normal, possibly only 25 lbs. He and our 14 lb Siamese male sit on the back pool decking and scream at each occasionally. I suspect that their heart is not really in it since they both have been fixed. I have watched the Maine Coon walk up our six foot brick fence using those seven toes. He may not be able to jump but he sure can dig those claws in bricks.
“Usually listening to either a Baroque CD or the classical FM station outta Moh-ree-ah…”
Not David Bowie (RIP) today?
Our local old rocker radio station, 107.5 here in Houston, played ten hits of Bowie’s this morning at ten. My daughter and I regard his movie “Labyrinth” as definitely in our top 50 movies of all time. Definitely a creative guy.
http://www.amazon.com/Labyrinth-David-Bowie/dp/B00000K3D4/
My am today:
Sit down to hurried breakfast with kids and wife. Kisses all around then females all leave. Take my custom blended super dark and strong coffee to office.
Waste time on the internet with my friends.
– check here for updates
-scan of headlines at Gateway Pundit, Daily Mail, and zerohedge, then Bloomberg
-quick read of overnight posts by selected bloggers
-ebay emails, and shipping labels
Preliminary design work and start lining up sub contractors for project (real work.)
Take dog to vet for stitches removal.
come home and eat lunch.
Thus endith the morning….
WRT David Bowie,
XM is doing tributes and playing lots of Bowie on some channels.
On 33, they played a horrible version of China Girl by Iggy Pop. I was actually fuming.
I’m surprisingly moved by Bowie’s death considering I only know the man thru his music. Feeling all sorts of things. He was always one of my favorites. Although some incarnations more than others. Feels very weird to have a rockstar of my youth die from sickness and old age.
nick
“Not David Bowie (RIP) today?”
I only just found out by hearing the nooz on the 70s-80s oldies station on my dump run; they played a Bowie song about every three or four songs. He apparently checked out after a long battle with the nasty Big C; the first or second rockstar billionaire, IIRC, along with Sir Paul. He was on the FM stations a lot when I got back from Uncle’s capers in the late 70s, and my buddies at home then used to sing along. One of them has since died of heart trouble; another was briefly kidnapped by a biker gang and beaten almost to death in a case of mistaken ID (he later saw them get 10-15 years in the court trial and smiled at them as they were led out; later become a test driver for the Ducati motorcycle firm in CT); and a third long since moved to Orlando, FL; I last saw him down there in ’82. No contact with anybody since; I’d gone into the cop jobs by then. We used to have good times watching the Celtics of the Larry Bird era play during the season, also the “fuckin’ Broonz”, while smoking doobies and drinking large amounts of beer. And listening to Bowie, Earth-Wind-Fire and ELO. I was also into the funk stuff by the Parliaments and Funkadelic.
Taki thinks the Donald could be Chancellor of Germany; it will be interesting to see if we bend over for the kind of stuff that the fugly commie bitch Merkel has done over there:
http://takimag.com/article/who_scares_america_more_taki/print#axzz3wsZn3SWJ
I can’t seem to care one way or the other about Bowie. Never a fan.
Germaine to this chit discussion (field hygiene),
http://olive-drab.com/archive/fm21-10.pdf
.mg
Thanks, Mr. Mike G.; saved to my Carbide USB stick w/Portable Apps and encryption. Along with other germane files. And apps. Like, for example, Portable Virtual Box which runs the Whonix Gateway and Workstation plus Tor, out to encrypted email on an encrypted email server offshore. Not that I have any top-secret or important stuff on there, just to see how it works and if I could do it. All our other junk is all over this Windoze machine behind a VPN and firewall. BFD.