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Emergency Preparedness On A Budget

Hey all, just a reminder that even though many of us are looking at a warmer-than-average winter this year, warm on average does not mean we won't see winter storms! In fact, warm winters can produce some really unusual weather patterns that are even more likely to produce severe storms. The best time to prepare for a winter storm, or any other natural disaster, is well before it happens, ie, right now.

"But wait," you might say, "the economy is stupid and everything is expensive! I'm afraid my survival bunker is just going to have to wait until my lottery numbers come up, which will take awhile because I also can't afford to play the lottery." First off, good job not playing the lottery, and second, preparing for a disaster does not have to be expensive. In fact, if you start early enough, disaster preparedness can be done a few dollars at a time without much of anything in the way of special supplies.

In order to not make a single post that is a billion lines long, I am dividing my advice into a few different posts and will link them together when I am done. The links will be right here: Part 2: Medicine and Power

Food and Water Preparedness

FIrst and most important: food and water. The motto of disaster preparedness is "The first 72 is on you." In a major disaster situation, if the situation has not resolved itself within three days, that's about the amount of time it takes for outside help to get itself organized and start arriving in a meaningful way to a disaster area. Objectively three days is a pretty short period of time, subjectively it is a small eternity if you are not prepared.

Preppers (people who do disaster preparedness as a hobby, to greater and lesser levels of unhingedness) spend a lot of time discussing the best types of food and water prep for long-term storage and/or end of the world scenarios. We are not going to do that. We want cheap, easy, effective preparations that we can ideally do while grocery shopping in a Walmart. The easiest, simplest and cheapest way to do your food prep is this: Buy one or two canned, jarred or tetrapacked (that waxed cardboard box pack) meal items every time you can afford it, then set them aside. Find a little space in a closet, a cupboard, a shelf, whatever, and just keep those foods there until you have three days worth for everyone in your household, including the pets.

"Fine," you might say as you look skeptically at the back of your cupboards, "but that doesn't seem very specific. There are a lot of canned goods out there!" And that is fair! The basic rule of thumb is "Buy something you will eat, ideally without heating it up if necessary, that doesn't require much prep or cleaning." For example, my family is two adults and one adolescent, none of us with major food allergens or aversions. If I were trying for a 72-hour food prep for us on the cheap with no cooking available I'd probably go with six cans of chunky soup, which I get for a dollar each on sale, three small jars of applesauce (smaller jars are better if you have no way to cool food), a box of saltine crackers, three cans of tuna, and a big box of granola bars if I could keep them out of reach of the kiddo long enough.

It's not fancy and it may not provide great long-term nutrition, but it's enough food to keep us alive for three days in a form that will hold in storage for 1-2 years without needing to rotate. Even on a very tight budget you can probably accumulate this much food in a pretty reasonable amount of time (and a lot of it is the sort of thing you might get from a food bank anyway!) For pet food, pack up three days worth of your pet's food, ideally in a glass jar but any sealed container will do, and add any cans of wet food they'd get as well.

Water is another big prepping topic that we're going to go easy-peasy on. You need, at minimum, a gallon of clean water per person per day, plus extra for cleaning and washing. Water is annoying to store and takes a lot of room, so for a quickie 3-day prep, minimizing water use is ideal. If you can scare up enough paper plates, cups and utensils to last you three days, you save ever having to wash dishes. If you can get hold of a pack of wet wipes, you reduce the amount of water for washing your body. If you can bring yourself to pee in the woods or at the very least let urine sit in the toilet unflushed, you save a HUGE amount of water on flushing.

For your water prep, you can use the bit-at-a-time strategy again. Every time you get groceries, try to bring home a gallon or two of purified drinking water. They should be very cheap, usually around 1.25 in my neck of the woods, and they last for awhile. If you have a few extra dollars, buy a flat of bottled water until you have at least three gallon containers and one 12-pack for each human member of your household Tuck them away somewhere out of direct sunlight, and rotate them regularly, taking out an old gallon and flat and replacing them with new every couple of months.

Once you have your basic setup, you can start thinking about getting fancier. There are ways to find things like camp stoves and water filters fairly cheaply, usually by hitting up garage sales or looking in the clearance sporting goods section when camping season is over, but that's basically gravy when compared to just having something to eat.

Next Time: Medicine and Power

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I need to take a minute and shill canned stuffed grape leaves. They are pretty cheap, obviously shelf stable, and most importantly, they don’t have the “ate something cold from a can” debuff that almost all canned foods have if you eat them cold directly from the can.

Somehow, it feels perfectly normal, a little classy even to eat stuffed grape leaves directly from the can, and put them in a nice serving dish and put it out in front of surprise guests and you look like a regular Suzy Homemaker for whipping up such a nice snack on zero notice.

Seriously, canned stuffed grape leaves belong in your “open in case of emergency” pantry shelves.

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When cell phones and internet go down...

If you're in one of a myriad of marginalized groups who know they can't count on the government to help them, then this post is for you.

I feel like I'm cramming messages into bottles from my fairly niche interest (radio, emergency comms) and chucking them into the sea of Tumble in the hopes it reaches people it can help. What happened in Spain and Portugal recently and some of the cell outages we've seen in recent years - they're is a great example of why back up communication methods aren't just for doomsday preppers.

If cell phones and internet (and possibly power) went out, how would you communicate in an emergency?

Note: this is geared toward the US. It's where I am and it's all I know.

If I only had ~$25

I'd grab a Beofeng UV-5R ($18-$25) if I thought I might study to get my ham license eventually ($15-$25 test fee + $35 FCC fee),

OR

If I knew I didn't want to test for a ham license and thought I might pay $35 for a GMRS license eventually, I'd pay a little extra up front and get a Beofeng UV-5G plus GMRS radio (~$35)

While this would not allow me to transmit usually, this would allow me to:

call for help in an emergency - the license requirement for transmission is lifted in the event of a genuine emergency

listen to weather frequencies - it will not turn on and give you the alert but if you know bad weather is coming, you can turn it on and listen for alerts as they come in. Weather stations give alerts for a fairly broad area so you'll be able to hear about any significant storms as the move into and through your area.

listen to local repeaters - repeaters, in my experience, are kind of a combination of a megaphone and an internet chat room. You set the frequency and the PL tones (password sounds your radio sends) for the repeater and then you can hear people from much further away. This is one, just fun to listen to on a given day but two, a great way to find out information if your area is experiencing an event but you don't require help. Some even have EAS weather alerts (thought this still won't turn your radio on if it's off in an emergency). Use repeaterbook to look for repeaters in your area and use CHIRP to program them into your radio - tutorials abound.

For ~$15 more you can upgrade the UV-5R to a bigger battery and USB-C charging (UV-5G comes with USB-C charging).

This can be thrown in a go bag if you need to evacuate or your housing is unstable. You can have your handheld radio monitoring a local repeater while you have a car or portable radio listening to commercial or public stations for updates.

If I only had ~$100

I would get a GMRS license ($35) and a Beofeng UV-5G plus (~$35) and a single Meshtastic node (~$25).

If I had a little extra, I'd grab a second Meshtastic node for a roommate, partner, family member or nearby friend.

This would get me the ability to not only monitor frequencies but the ability to talk on them in non-emergency times which would be helpful practice. Some GMRS repeaters have regular "nets" - it's basically a meeting on air where someone invited folks to tell them/radio in their call sign (radio license ID basically) and then they confirm they heard you. This gives you a chance to test your equipment.

The GMRS license covers your family so they can pick up a radio as well and then you'd be able to communicate with them as well (as long as they're close enough; 1-5 miles but varies by terrain, more range if using a repeater). It's not a phone so the conversation would be heard by other people but this is great for wellness checks or a quick check up.

Meshtastics add the ability to text people and share GPS coordinates with people near by - encrypted if you so desire. The range is much less (I've only tested it to about a mile currently though with tweaking more is possible). This adds an important link in your communication plan - asynchronous communication. As long as the device is on and paired and in range, you'll most likely receive a message. It does drop occasionally but that's pretty rare. My nesting partner and I often have to rely on them because the internet and cell signal is so poor up here but they serve us incredibly well for that. Beyond the Emergency Comms use, it's just nice for morale to be able to text during an event. Best part is, if you're in an area were other people have them too, you can bounce your signal further for no additional power.

Past this amount of money, I'd still get my GMRS license and encourage my friends and neighbors who didn't want to study for the ham license to get theirs. Then I'd get my ham license and buy the best handheld I could afford - probably one of the value Yaesu models - so I have several ways to both coordinate among my loved ones and get any needs to a net in the area during a disaster.I'd get and pass out several meshtastic devices to people who were within range that I might want to commincate with. I'd look into back up power for recharging (I like my Jackerys).

Amateur radio is a deep well and this barely touches on it of it. Don't let how vast it is keep you thinking it's too complicated for you. I promise it's not. I'm very much a noob myself but I'm happy answer any questions that I can.

This is part of self care - ensuring you can care for yourself during chaotic events and emergencies to the best of your ability. Even a little bit of preparation can keep something like storm outbreak or power outage from turning harmful or even deadly. Learn what you can. You've got this!

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I'm a Product Developer, and I’ve Built a Customized Preparedness Guide for My Family

Hey everyone,

I’m a product developer with a bit of a survival prepper streak. Lately, with everything going on in the world, I’ve been thinking more about how to make sure my family is prepared for any kind of disaster.

After diving into tons of disaster preparedness checklists, I noticed something: most of them aren’t exactly tailored to my specific situation. A lot of the items listed don’t really make sense for where I live, the climate here, or the resources I have access to. So, I started tweaking these lists myself, adjusting them to better fit our needs.

That’s when I had an idea—what if there was a tool that could do this for you? So, I created a website that generates personalized disaster preparedness guides based on your location, how many people are in your household, and the type of home you live in. The tool gives you custom supply lists, knowledge cards, and even emergency contacts that make sense for your situation.

Here’s a sneak peek at the guide I made for my own family:

Location: Los Angeles

Household: 2 adults, 1 elder

Home Type: Apartment

The full report is about 10 pages long, but I’ve pulled a short excerpt so you can get a feel for it.

The cool part? You can tweak the supply list and quantities to suit your own needs.

The tool is pretty much free, and now I’m looking for some feedback. I’d love to hear what you think—whether it’s about the content, how the report is worded, or any other suggestions you might have.

As a thank-you, I’m going to have a special section on the website’s homepage where I’ll shout out everyone who gives valuable feedback. Your name will be featured as a key contributor to making this tool even better. Thanks a ton for your help!

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The Squabble

Two little dragons vie for a place to perch. Nothing else to see here.

I love how this piece turned out!

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If nobody ever explained this to you, if someone you see a lot does something you like and you never ever tell them that, they might think you don’t like them or don’t like the things they do for you.

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“If I had time travel I’d kill Hitler” “If I had time travel I’d stop my favourite politician getting assassinated” you’re all thinking way too small. If I had time travel I’d stop Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin from dying on the moon due to Soviet sabotage, kicking off the Great Nuclear War and devastating half of the planet.

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* (Oh, these parentheses I keep opening?

* (I'm collecting them.

* (Right now, I'm 1,762 parentheses deep.

* (Oh, my precious parentheses... (I don't ever want to close them!

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some highlights from my students’ romeo and juliet modern interpretation projects:

- someone made a username for friar laurence with 420 at the end - the same kid who put 69 in romeo’s username like i wouldn’t know what either of those things mean - the girl who added ‘clean’ at the end of all the songs on her juliet playlist like lmao girl i know spotify doesn’t have the clean version - the kid who said romeo and juliet killed each other - the weird dichotomy of kids who put love story on their playlist vs the kids who choose bad blood - the kid who wrote ‘get a room’ as tybalt’s comment on romeo’s couple pic - the kid who said ‘romeo is probably one of those douches who follows a ton of people so they follow him back and then he unfollows all of them’ - the one who legitimately used the word ‘alrighty’ do kids say this in their text messages???? i thought i was the one talking like an elderly person but okay - the one who made romeo’s username ‘montagoose’ - the only kid who acknowledged that posting about your secret relationship on instagram was a bad idea - the girl who wrote that romeo would unironically say ‘#blessed’. she’s right. - the one single solitary girl who wrote mercutio as gay as shakespeare did (she’s also the only one who used mercutio at all which is a tragedy but whatever) - the one who wrote romeo’s insta bio as ‘thus with a kiss i die… LOL RIP ME 😂💀’ - the one who made benvolio’s username benvoliYO

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Honestly really embarrassing for you guys. You need to sort this stuff out with each other

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stoned and autistic at a party trying to make conversation: I find the comparative lifespan of organisms so interesting. Spiders are comparatively long lived animals. Female black widows can live up to 3 years but their male counterparts rarely live four months. Some tarantulas live upwards of 20 years. The longest lived spider was around 43 years old when she was cruelly assassinated by a parasitic wasp. Domestic rats have a lifespan comparable to female black widows. To put things into perspective, there are spiders that remember a pre-pandemic world but it is likely every rat on earth was born post-COVID. There could be a spider out there born when Reagan was in office.

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it must feel good as hell when you’re a horse and you take a big bite out of an apple like ttshoke

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MOST BASS ARE JUST FISH BUT LEROY BROWN WAS SOMETHING SPECIAL

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"READ MY DNI" no. use your block button like an adult. i'm not scrolling through the many-paragraphs-long pinned posts of every blog i reblog something from. if you insist certain types of people aren't welcome in the notes of your posts then it's your responsibility to curate that. or choose a closed social media platform like facebook or instagram. or go and live in a barn away from humanity if you really don't like sharing the world with people who are different from you