Those who live in northern climate zones understand the challenges of a power outage when freezing temperatures threaten to turn us into human Popsicles.  The most prudent of us have prepared for the howling winds and winter storms that can take down power lines for days at a time. But what about newbies who’ve never experienced single-digit temperatures, or those who know better, but their “back-up” plan consists of fleeing to a Motel 6 in hopes they planned ahead for an emergency?  It wasn’t until friends recently pulled the plug on city life to relocate north that the subject of winter survival came full circle. It started with a simple question.  "What’s your advice on preparing for winter?" In no time, I’d replied with several pages of advice. Not fair, really. Not when they were knee deep in unpacked boxes with weeks of decisions facing them like where to put Aunt Martha’s painting, and asking, “WHY did we bring that stupid couch…it doesn’t fit in the living room!”  But they had asked for advice on surviving the coming winter and preparedness in an unforgiving climate deserves special attention. (Read more....)

There are few natural disasters that can be as frightening as a hurricane.  After the catastrophic damage that Hurricane Katrina caused, none of us has an excuse for being lazy in our preparations. (Read more....)

What do the Boy Scouts always say?  "Be prepared".   Some people get all excited about "survival" but they never take the time to prepare.  The reality is that the further you get away from civilization the more dangerous it is.  One family from Oklahoma really needed to understand that.  The survivalist dreams of one Oklahoma couple ended in tragedy when one of them froze to death in a remote Montana cabin. The husband, suffering from hypothermia and half starved to death, was discovered propped up against the dead body of his common-law wife. (Read more....)