Survive In Place Sample Lesson
The Ultimate Step-By-Step guide to creating your Urban Survival Plan
Top 10 Mistakes
Found in Most 72-Hour Kits
I’ve tested and reviewed dozens of 72 hour kits and go bags for myself, friends, families, and clients and it amazes me how most of them have the same basic problems.
Fortunately, most of them are easy and inexpensive to fix and I’m going to tell you how you can identify and fix 10 of them. Here are the first 5…
1. Medications. If you have medications that you have to take on a regular basis, you need to keep at least 3 days worth in your 72 hour kit. Many drugs break down in the extreme heat of a car, so ask your pharmacist how long they’ll stay safe in your car and how long they’ll stay effective.
As an example, if your pharmacist tells you that a certain drug will last for 3 years at room temperature, but only 2 months if you keep it in your car, then you should use the drugs that are in your car every month or two and replace them with fresh drugs.
The life expectancy of your drugs will, of course, be different depending on where you live and the season of the year.
2. Footwear/clothes. If you ever wear flip flops, heels, or dress shoes, then consider carrying a pair of quality shoes/boots in your car.
Stick in at least one pair of quality socks and underwear as well.
Remember the pictures and videos after 9/11 of people running barefoot, holding their $500 shoes? Imagine how your body would feel after doing that for a few miles.
3. Clothes for the wrong season. You should either carry clothes for both summer and winter, carry convertable clothes, or change the clothing contents of your kit every spring/fall. Shorts won’t help much in the winter and insulated cover-alls won’t help much in the summer.
4. Young children. If you have young children, they add a HUGE level of complexity to any survival situation. Can/will they eat your survival food? Do you have spare clothes/diapers/wipes for them? Do you have a way to manage their pain from teething/injuries?
Do you have a way to transport them? It might be worth learning how to use a regular bedsheet to create a wearable baby sling. If you have a stroller with inflatable tires, do you carry spare tires and/or a tire repair kit?
5. Pain. If you aren’t good at handling pain, learn proven techniques from someone you know who has done natural child-birthing, a midwife, birthing coach, or doula.
In addition, consider carrying ibuprofen, anbesol, or even prescription pain medications. If you are concerned about a hurt pet, consider getting livestock lidocaine. (It requires a vetrenarian’s prescription, but costs a fraction of human lidocaine.)
I’ll be back with the next 5 items tomorrow, along with a simple trick for fixing all of these items quickly and easily.
Until tomorrow,
David Morris
SurviveInPlace.com
UrbanSurvivalPlan.com
(Twitter.com/SurvivalDave)
P.S. If you haven’t signed up for the Survive In Place 12 week online Urban Survival course, now is a great time. Learn more by going to www.SurviveInPlace.com In addition to a full lesson on 72 hour kits, we cover how to fortify your house, build up supplies without your neighbors knowing, training your mind for survival, and forming a team of like-minded people without giving up operational security. Click on the link above to learn more.
Excellent advice Dave. Even in the fire department we occasionally found medical and rescue kits that were missing important items. Not something you want to discover in an emergency. I’m looking forward to the next five.
Larry
Just what all goes into a 72 hour kit? I’ve been meaning to put one together but I don’t know what all goes into them please help me out many thanks. Rex
[Dave's note: That's a HUGE question
I devote an entire lesson to it in the course. In short, you want to have shelter, fire, water, food, medical, and security supplies to last you 72 hours until you can get home, to your retreat, to a cache, or some other location with a higher level of survival provisions.]
Great tips. Best way to test the kits is just use it-
Here is a drill you can do, just coming home from work one friday:
Go “Snap-camping” – Snap your fingers, tell everyone they have five minutes to grab what they need, then take the kids and wife to a hotel near a state park or rec area with only whats in the kits, and in their hands.
Go for a long hike, eat, drink, come back after dark, and pull the mattresses onto the floor and sleep,
ALL using only whats in the kit. The kids will think its a great adventure, and you will know a lot more about what works and what doesnt.
[Dave's comment: That's great advice, Skeej. It's something that I have people do in the course and it's a VERY valuable exercise.]
I’m not a member yet, but right after this “reply” I’m going to join. We live right in the middle of Dallas/Ft Worth and our survival retreat is 100 miles east. It’s pretty secluded, food and seeds to last 6 people almost 2 years. A few neighbors that are tame, that I know and plan to feed. I also put in a 70′ hand pump water well using a “Hydro-drill” that I bought. So it’s not registered with the county. What I’m focused on now, it getting through DFW traffic in case of an emergency. Hopefully we can head east while others are fighting over food at the grocery stores. We have 3 backpacks with food, water, and a tent to take with us in case we can’t get through or are roadblocked. Important to have a list of last minute things to throw in the car….and what to “shut-off” at the house. You may not be coming back.
I live in DFW also, and have been concerned for a while about how to get home from Dallas when “it” (whatever it turns out to be) happens. I wish that we had a good bug out location to go to, but we’ll probably be stuck at home, so we’re planning accordingly for that as a first option. We’re about to purchase a new vehicle, and are looking to select the best option for us as a BOV also. Thanks for the good info, we always need to stay on top of things and not get complacent!
Good pointers.
Don’t forget meds for diarrhea / vomiting – without it, people can easily get dehydrated and ultimatley be a fatal condition.
Skeej’s post about snap camping is how we train both our cadet and adult staff. We usually conduct one FTX every other month and a CRT during the months in between. This really paid off when we deployed for Ike.
good information, didn’t get site at first but you fixed it pretty quick thankyou.
There must be something in the water here in the DFW area. Did you see the out of control crowd at the government giveaway in Detroit. I think (my opinion of course), that that is the kind of thing that we may have to deal with. I hope it doesn’t happen, but it sort of just did in Detroit. Can you imagine that on a bigger country-wide scale. Those who have not prepared will be looking to those who have. And they probably will not be asking politely for you to share.
I’VE BEEN TRYING OUT DIFFERENT COMBINATIONS OF GEARS, MAINLY FIRST AID AND MANUAL SEARCH AND RESCUE TYPE OF EQUIPMENT (NONE THAT REQUIRES AIR OR HYDRALIC PRESSURE). iT REALLY IS MAKE YOUR OWN,,THOSE THAT SELL ALREADY MADE HAVE NOT ENOUGHT OR IS NOT ADEQUATE FOR THE OCCASION AT HAND. KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK,VERY HELPFUL INFO
Great advice and the comments also have good ideas. Thanks and keep them coming.
DAVID,
I’M A ARMY COMBAT VET & RETIRED LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICER. I’M GLAD I’M NOT THE ONLY ONE THAT CAN SEE WHAT IS GOING ON. I’M ALSO A CERTIFIED HOMELAND SECURITY AND COUNTER TERRORISM INSTRUCTOR. I’M STOCKING UP ON SURVIVAL SUPPLIES. I ALSO TEACH INTELLIGENCE COURSES. IF I CAN HELP IN ANY WAY PLEASE CONTACT ME.
besides what is recommended, you should always have on you a small Am/Fm
transister radio for updated weather report, traffic report, and general news along with extra batteries.
this is a great site
Ed
Your mini lessons are great and I plan to share them with friends, BUT the comments, for the most part, do not give much additional survival information. I print up handouts to share with interested people at work, church, etc. The comments should be separated from the one or two page mini-letter, as they use up lots extra ink and paper on a letter whose content and website address is sufficent to peak any serious persons interest for investigation into taking classes.
WOW, fantastic advise and insight as usual. thanks for the tip on the dehydration prevention, would have missed that one.
i would like to add some advice as well. a really good emergency fire starter for me is a welders sparker, the one you squeeze and the flint spits out a shower of sparks, i taped 6 new flints to the ‘fixed handle’ with a fold of clear packing tape, so it will always be there! hope this helps and lets keep adding tips for the aware people here.
“REMEMBER, PEOLPLE WILL BECOME YOUR ENEMY, YOU WILL HAVE WHAT THEY NEED!
This is invaluable information. Living in Canada we have to deal with cold weather and short growing season, so all of your comments are welcome. Will be joining shortly. Keep up the good work David.
to Kent Slick; I am curious how you drilled for water on your property with the city not finding out. I think one of my neighbors would report me!
I have been more concerned about being without water, than food, in case of ?????? As long as I have enough time for one more year with a garden.
I guess….was it in the city? I am in the city limits and I am sure this place was on a well before; it was build in 1955. Any words of advice?
Love this site!!
Linda
I have been a PA-C for 20 years and an Army medic prior to that. I work EDs and clinics and the amount of left over medicine and devices at the end of a shift is staggering.
A case in point, a suture kit has guaze, syringes, needles, and towels to establish a sterile field. A MD might only use some of the items and leave the sterile needles, syringes and betadine to be tossed out.
I try to leave each shift with any thing that would discarded and is still untouched. I have the equipment, but I am all alone. Nobody can survive alone. Where do you find like minded individuals?
A medic with supplies is only one link in the chain.
Great information, one question. How do you get fuel (gas diesel) if stations have no power ?
David,
Decisions After A Disaster
Great web site and such crucial information to survival in event of the unthinkable. The unthinkables are becoming even more probable as we enter a more dangerous and vulnerable period in our US history. Thinking about what you must do in a catastrophic disaster is life critical before it happens. Mother nature, corrupt governments, pandemics, terror plots and a unstablized economy have all become national security threats.
The Hatiti and Katrina disaster events are prime case examples of how disasters impact the social community and human civility. As a military liasion and responder during Katrina and Rita, I saw the differences in two social communities Waveland MS and New Orleans LA.
In New Orleans we saw many of the local citizens, gangs, government officals, police and fire agencies participated in looting and abandonment of those less fortunate citizens. With that being said, there were however many heros in both communities. I witnessed vast differences in community civil order and chaos. The ability to provide relief is seriously impacted by civil unrest and chaos as seen in New Orleans.
My observations of Waveland was it was more tightly social engaged within its community. The Waveland neighbors knew each other and seem to be more concerned for their neighbors. New Orleans appeared to be a more dysfunctional community and government where chaos developed quickly. Both had poor communities, but Waveland appeared to be more self-resilent and civil in nature.
Chaotic social communities will quickly exhaust their resources. They will migrate to those organized and civil communities to take from them to survive at any cost. The question for you is to shelter in place or evacuate. All disaster situations are different and must be quickly anlayzed to make good rational decisions. As a chaotic community gets more dangerous, the risk to evacuate becomes even more dangerous.
Something commmon in both tragic events is the poorest are the most vulnerable and abused. My other post disaster observation is that chaos ensues quickly when people get hungry, thirsty and terrified. They become abnormally violent and uncivil to others. Emergency agencies and first responders cannot respond until the impact area is secured and chaos stablized as we saw in New Orleans.
Point made is a government controlled community in a urban metro city is more vulnerable and higher risk than self supportive, civil smaller community. Past disaster events show government controlled communities are vulnerable and proned to looting, crime/violence and chaos shortly after a major disaster.
My advice is have both a shelter-in-place, communication and evacuation plan for you and your family. Being prepared, knowing your neighbors and being enaged in your social community pays dividends in a major disaster. It is proven there is strength in numbers and having organized secured communities prior to a disaster. These disaster precautions increases your survival and makes you a harder target for gangs and thugs. You must rely on yourself and your neighbors, you might not see the government response for at least two or more weeks.
“Failing to prepare, is preparing to fail”
Unknown Author
Please continue to pray and contribute to the Hatians and those Americans that have died and are trapped down there.
(Ret USAF Major) R. Ray Goff Jr.
Risk & Business Continuity Specialist
IntegrityManagementResources.com
As stated previously, as we speak Haiti’s gangs, prisoners, and other thugs are on the loose. These thugs and gangs are looting and most likely killing anyone in their way. The Haiti government was weak and corrupt before the earthquake occured. They are totally ineffective now. There is very little civil order at many locations and supplies are being taken by force by the bad guys. Most roads or goat paths are impassable and probaly cannot handle the heavy equipment needed in the urban areas.
The US government and the UN must tread lightly when confronting local citizens even if they are committing henious crimes. Jurisdiction and rules of engagement must be established before that area can be secured for relief agencies to get to work. International politics and bureaucrats will be a stumbling block to save many of these people. Unfortunately thousands will die because of lack of security for that disaster area.
The lack of a stable Haiti government makes relief efforts more complicated. Frustration of seeing ground level suffering by the liberal news media turns into blame game. The media will look for someone to blame for the lack of response as we saw in Katrina. They fail to factor that all areas are not secure and ROE’s with the local government are in the works.
Relief agencies cannnot operate in a area where bad people are shooting at them as we saw in Katrina. Unfortuately for this disaster area the massive dead bodies emtombed will cause another disaster called pandemic diseases. The rotting of flesh and the smell of dead bodies will carry even more diseases by rats, flies, dogs, cats and fleas.
Some ill prepared or unhealthy relief workers will suffer disease as they mix in with local population if not immunized and properly. Even then immunization does not guarantee you will be free from getting seriously sick. Our bodies are not acclimated to the parasites and diseases of that tropical area.
Think twice before volunteering to a disaster area. Very few relief agencies are trained or capable of operating in those austere environments except for the US military, search & rescue, and law enforcement agencies. You need to be strong and healthy, able to stand humid heat, defend yourself, and have all the proper immunizations. If you are overweight, weak stomach, lack survival skills, and out of shape, just stay home and raise donations or funds. Otherwise you will be in the way and become a liability in the disaster area.
(Ret USAF Major) R. Ray Goff Jr.
Risk & Business Continuity Specialist
IntegrityManagementResources.com
With regards to medications.. you have several consideration beyond just having them on hand.
Temperature which you discussed.
But every bit as important..
Packaging.. Not only can pills and such be damaged by the sun, heat, mosture and bouncing around in a vehicle.. (resulting in power not pills)
There is also a legal aspect.. Unfortunately we do not have adults running the US today (One reason for preparing for disasters). If the Police for some reason in your day to day movement find a bottle of pills you have labeled.. with a magic marker.. You could wind up being arrested.
There are few if any exceptions to the rewquirement that all medicines be transported/possed in their original bottles. While there is likely less of a problem if the correct pills are in the correct bottle but are expired.. don’t count on that even.. Go to your physician and get current prescriptions in small quantities for your vehicles. No doubt this will be a pain in the neck but less of one than sitting in jail for having a few worn Ibuprofin pills in a baggie and some idiot “Just enforcing the law”.
V
Again Dave, very important information to have before everything brakes!
This is for Kent Slick,
Please send info on the Hydro -Drill . This is most important having drinking water and being able to drill a well for ourselves.
Thank you
k
you can do this only in an extreme emergency! go to the auto parts store and buy a electric fuel pump and approx 50 feet of rubber fuel line and automotive electrical wire, a pair of large alligator clips. most fuel stations have approx 4 inches of fuel still in there tank after they claim to run out of gas.make sure you have enough fuel line to reach the bottom of the tank and to your vehicle tank .you will also need a pair of bolt cutters to have access to the underground tank . an inline filter is also a good idea to keep the sediment out of your fuel tank. the process will take aprox 15 min to fill your tank. you must use extreme caution as not to let othier undisireables see you doing this. the kit will fit in a small bag. I hope this helps you out guys.
Excellent points! Some things that some of us forget and don’t think about! Thanks!
Nice post. I like your blog.
@ Medic Mike
Me too… I haven’t stocked much, but as a combat veteran & Nurse I do have skills. travel light, low maintenance, bla bla bla…
Did I not hear something about meeting like minded people? I love my freinds but they’re all girly.
@ Kent Slick, I am looking to put a hand pump well in my back yard, and would LOVE IT if I could get some information about drilling one, preferably without alerting HOA, if you know what I mean. I just want to get a water source for our shelter in place, and in the event I have to seriously ramp up fruit/nut tree and garden production. Thanks so much!
If you google hydro-drill, you’ll find a number of alternatives.
I believe the greatest threat to the U.S. is from a HEMP device or natural occurance; it is a question as to which will probably occur first. To survive that long-term, for it would probably mean electrical outages for months if not for years, throwing us back to a technological era before the invention of the steam engine, each of us would have to have a private electrical generating system for basic lighting, refrigeration, etc. The only power source that would consistently operate throughout most of the nation (the cloudy Pacific Northwest would be very problematical except in the summer) would be a solar panel generating system with a storage battery(ies) and an invertor to convert DC to AC.
However, it would require a Faraday cage to shield both the solar panel(s) and the rest of the equipment. From the reading I’ve done, it would seem that a metallized mylar, grounded cover would provide that. My best efforts have not been able to find either a manufacturer (in this country) or a set of plans–this should be fairly simple to design and construct–rather like a motorcycle cover against the weather–and I wondered if you had considered this or know of a source for a DIY design and fabrication, or better yet, a manufacturer.
None of the manufacturers of solar generators are even familiar (six months ago at least) with the dangers of EMP and had shown no interest in making such a shield.
Dave, thanks for more great info. My husband and I already live out in the country. We are about 40 miles from a major city. We don’t think there would be any other place to go. We have a few acres of wooded property so unless there is a FORCED evacuation, we will stay put. We are both worried though that the people in the city will come out this way. How can you possibly stop all those people from moving into a rural area and us feel secure? We appreciate all input in regards to what everybody else thinks. We did just purchase a few firearms but it seems so overwhelming.
Dave, this is great advice and the comments of some of the readers is much appreciated. I would like to recommend a book, PATRIOTS by James Wesley, Rawles. It’s a novel about the worst case scenario coming true and how a group of well prepaired friend coped and mostly survived. Much like the Overton Window we hope it never happens but the lessons learned in Patriots are invaluable and led me to seek out websites like yours.
gotta put in my two cents, don’t anyone take me wrong, am not trying to slight anyone. I’m an Army career retired vet, ex 82d, ex SF, ex leo; had artic survival, jungle survival, etc. One thing I have learned without a doubt is you cannot live without water. Try going 24 hours on one quart of water with no other intake, you will see what I mean. I had to do it while physically active in a temperate climate, it sucks! Also, water weighs 8.2 lbs per gallon as I recall, so plan on several cache’s in case any are discovered. Plan on some workable plan to replenish the supply & to purify it. In SF, way back when, everyone I knew had a “skate bag”, even in garrison. Freeze dried food is the next thing I would recommend. It is very lightweight, doesn’t make noise, and doesn’t necessarily have to be heated up & rice & beans.
As for a transister radio, it may prove useless if it is anything that produces an electromagnetic pulse is the reason for your plan, am/fm is not enough, it also needs shortwave. That goes for automobiles, tv’s, even lawn mowers. Anything with transisters will be fried.
Also, along those lines, I suggest survival manuals from the US Army, Boy/Cub/Explorer Scouts, and there is a pretty in depth one I saw at Sam’s that compiles all of the above. Good hunting & folding knives, a good hand axe & rope parachute cord will all come in handy. Medical supplies are an absolute must. Think of the old frontiersmen, if they got sick, or injured, it was a good bet they were going to die. Plan for all contingencies in that area from breaks to sprains, cuts & bruises, to the common cold.
Last, personal defense & hunting. Unless you plan to fight rather than flight, all you would need is an AR7 survival rifle & a good pistol, both .22 cal. Both are relatively cheap & easy to pack, same as the ammo for them. Personally, I’m planning for a fight, and I won’t go there….
Peace, Love, remember GOD has blessed us all through the gift of our LORD & Savior, Jesus Christ. Take your bible, read it & keep it dry!
Thank you for the great information. Most is common sense type information, but something you might not be able to think of in a crisis type situation. So, planning ahead negates that possibility by having all your temporary needs met in one location.