DIY Emergency Kits 101

The Blizzard of 78Guest Post – Danielle M.

Flooding, hurricanes, tornadoes, wildfires and earthquakes can strike at any time and often with little warning. In 2012, nearly 125 million people worldwide were victims of natural disasters, and in the United States, weather-related disasters caused about $157 million in damages.

The time to prepare for a disaster is not before or just after it hits – the best time to prepare is now. Making your own emergency survival kit and having a plan in place could save your life when disaster strikes. Take a look at these tips for how to make your own DIY emergency kit:

Food: For an emergency survival kit, you should have at least a three-day supply of non-perishable food items for each member of your household, including pets. Canned foods, pre-packaged and dry foods like rice and beans are the easiest to store and pack. You can easily store dry rice and beans in mason jars, empty milk jugs and empty 2-liter soda bottles. Choose foods that are high in calories and nutrition. Peanut butter, nuts, tuna, soup, crackers, protein bars and trail mix are easy to pack and offer important nutrients.

Water: For survival situations, (Read more....)

[…]

Survival 101 – Places I’d Scavenge for Radio and Communications Materials

When I say “apocalypse”, please don’t misunderstand. I actually meant any kind of destructive force,whether it’s man-made or made by the wrath of Mother Nature. If one day, a nuclear holocaust or a super typhoon almost successfully destroy your home town or city, then you will need to do everything you can to survive. If you happen to live near an area where buildings and establishments are dependent on computers and all sorts of high-tech communications equipment, then consider yourself lucky. If you and your group are low on food and water, building your own communications center is a must. You can gather parts and put them together until you’ve successfully built a radio control device and you can call for help. However, what about those who live in the rural areas? Where exactly do you find such parts?

Actually, this isn’t much of an issue anymore. Most data centers and communication centers nowadays

prefer to build their presence in the rural areas. They know for a fact that competition is strong enough in the urban scene, so they usually build and (Read more....)

[…]

How Much Damage Did Hurricane Katrina Cause?

Weather experts had predicted for decades that New Orleans, Louisiana, was in danger of catastrophic damage and devastation if the city received a direct hit by a large hurricane. Unfortunately, on August 29, 2005, the worst-case scenario that experts had foretold unfolded when Hurricane Katrina made landfall as a strong Category 3 storm and passed just east of the city of New Orleans. The storm left a trail of destruction that is unrivaled in modern times. The damage caused by Katrina can be broken down into several categories.

Lost Work and Productivity

Lost work and productivity are some of the hardest aspects of storm damage to accurately quantify. The fact that many jobs are provided by small businesses and self-employment makes collecting a complete data set difficult. However, the Department of Labor estimates that 230,000 jobs were permanently lost due to Hurricane Katrina.

Lives Lost

Hurricane Katrina’s most tragic statistic is the final total of 1,836 lives lost during and immediately after the storm.  Nearly 1,600 were (Read more....)

[…]

The Perfect Antenna For The Survivalist

Thanks to The Genius of Nicola Tesla –A Perfect Antenna for the Survivalist -by SurvivingSurvivalism.com

I’m sure if you are familiar with the name Nicola Tesla you have read enough articles extolling the genius that he was.  He was the inventor of Alternating Current (AC), the radio (Marconi used Tesla’s plans and experiment notes), florescent lighting, radar, radio controlled boats to name a few of the inventions of this man’s genius. What we are going to talk about today is one of the master’s little noticed inventions, “The Tesla Ground Wave Antenna”, the perfect antenna for the survivalist on a tight budget (and who isn’t!?!?!).

The Tesla Ground Wave Antenna breaks nearly all the rules of antenna theory.  This antenna is very very simple using only a couple of parts, and is extraordinary as a receiving antenna.  Some have also used this as a transmitting antenna, with an antenna tuner for HAM and freebanding.

Using a 4 ft (Read more....)

[…]