Crisis Kits and Preparedness Packs

Preparedness Packs, Chrisis Kits, Survival Bags, a rose…

Basic Crisis Pack

©2009 E. M. Smith

 

Packing it:

• Large hip bag or fanny pack

Directions

• Survival Flash Cards or small booklet (purchased from local bookstore)
• (Tom Brown’s books of Survival are good, though too big for this smallest of the kits.)

Environmental Protection

• Space blanket
• Hand warmer packs

Water

• Stored
  • 1 or 2 Qt. canteen or water bottles. (I like the canteen, since it lets me use the water as needed for non emergencies, and that trains me to keep it in the car.)
  • You can buy retorts of water (like juice boxes) if desired.
• Carried/found – baggies 1Qt. size
• Purified – iodide tablets

Food

• Stored
  • Soup packets or bullion cubes (Herb Ox brand is best!)
  • Coffee packets with sugar packets.
  • A salt and pepper packet is nice too.
• Gathered
  • Folding can opener
  • Small fish kit (Handline, 2 swivels, 2 sinkers, 2 hooks)
  • Snare wire
• Preparing
  • Sierra Club stainless steel cup, fork, spoon

Fire Making

• Bic lighter
• Fresnell lens
• Waterproof matches
• Hexamine tablets and maybe a stove

Light

• AA flashlight w/ spare bulb (maglight) or candle

Health and First Aid

• Minor Kit (purchase) Band-Aids, aspirin, smelling salts
• Bug repellent
• Lip balm – find some that doesn’t melt
• Sunscreen

Signaling

• Mirror
• Whistle
• (see also: Fire making and Light)

Navigation

• Compass – small keyring type
• Local map

Social Survival

• Coins and Bills ($1 coins, quarters / $20 bills)
• Pen and paper, waterproof
• Swiss Army Knife { for scissors and corkscrew}

Cleaning Up and Sanitation

• Toothbrush
• Small hotel type soap
• Personal Care Items

Entertainment

• Miniature Bible or cards

General Tools

• Swiss army knife (Captains)
• Cordage
  • Dental floss
  • String – Use fish line
  • Cord – 20 ft. 1/8″ nylon
  • Wire – small spool
  • Sewing kit – hotel type
• Screwdriver disk type
• Aluminum foil 1ft/sq
• Hacksaw blade – short
• Bobby Pins
• Safety pins
• Fingernail clippers
• Red hanky
• Rubber bands
• Nails
• Cup hooks
• Small file
• Super glue +/or epoxy, small
• Tape

Carry Also

• Clothes, lots of them
• Money
• Water
• Food
• Cell phone, CB radio and/or Emergency Locator Transmitter (ELT)
• Duct tape
• Flares and/or strobe
• Larger flashlight
• Any personal medications & glasses

Auxillary Crisis Pack

© 2009 E. M. Smith

Packing it:

• Daypack or small duffel with small stuff bags inside.

Directions

• Air Force Survival Manual or Outdoor Survival Skills by Larry Dean Olsen

Water

• Stored
  • 1 or 2 quart jug or canteen
• Purified
  • Filter straw or small camp filter / pump
  • Coffee filters
  • Iodine tablets
  • Baggies

Food

• Stored
  • 4 MRE’s, 4 LRP’s – or camping freeze dried meals
  • Soup & Cocoa Packets, Quaker Oats oatmeal packets
  • Coffee Packets
  • Food bars / snack bars
  • Vitamin pills
  • Salt & pepper
• Gathered
  • Medium fish kit
  • Snare/trap wire and twine
• Preparing
  • Sierra cup
  • Tea ball
  • Small camp stove, Pot lifter

Environmental Protection

• Space blanket type survival suit or space blanket bag or second space blanket.
• Poncho
• Medium and large garbage bags
• Hammock – small portable net
• Tube tent or lean-to tarp

Signaling

• Orange cloth (or tube tent)
• Smoke bombs
• Flares – highway and signal

Navigation

• A real good compass
• GPS or Altimeter
• Star chart and contour map

Fire Making

• Fire sticks (Swedish match)
• Bic lighter
• Sterno stove
• Metal match (magnesium)
• Hexamine tablets
• Magnifying glass – min. 3 in.

Light

• Spare flashlight batteries
• Second flashlight
• Candle lamp and/or candles
• Calume stick

Health and First Aid

• Sport Kit (purchase)
• Triangle bandage
• Snake bite kit (purchase)
• Jungle juice
• Allerest, Bufferin, Senocot, Dramamine, Kaopectate, personal meds

General Tools

• Hunting knife / Camp hand axe
• Sharpening stone
• String – 100′ 150lb break twine or kevlar fish line
• Cord – 100′ 1/8″ parachute cord.
• Wire
• Fish netting
• Mosquito netting
• small pulleys
• Screwdriver, multi bit
• Aluminum foil 10 ft/sq
• Combo saw – wood, metal
• Nails
• Crow bar
• File +/or rasp
• Leather work gloves
• Super glue, epoxy, silicone, +/or wood glue
• Duct tape
• Windshield ice scraper
• Adjustable or “Cresent” wrenchs
• Watch
• Thermometer
• Monocular
• Vice grip pliers
• Vaseline
• Wire ties
• Clothes pins

Social Survival

• Folding scissors
• Cork screw
• Soap
• Shampoo
• Disposable razor
• Door lock
• Sunglasses

Entertainment

• AM/FM radio
• Playing cards

Carry Also / Extra

• Clothes, lots of them
• Money
• Water
• Food
• CB radio +/or ELT
• Flares +/or strobe
• Tent
• Sleeping bag and pad
• Vehicle tool kit
• Small firearm and ammunition or Bear Spray (optional)

Once you have all the above items, packed and at the ready, consider adding some or all of the added / optional items below:

Advanced Crisis Pack

© 2009 E. M. Smith

Packing it

• Standard backpack

Directions

• Tom Brown Guide to Urban and Wilderness Survival

Water

• Stored – Gallon jug
• Carried/found – Canteen
• Purified – Pump filter.  Good bigger one with silver purification ceramic
• Solar Still

Food

• Stored
  • Soup Packets
  • Coffee Packets
  • Food bars
  • Vitamin pills
  • Salt & pepper
  • Freeze dried meals & oatmeal packets
  • Cans of Ravioli, chili, soup, stew, or other ‘meals’
• Gathered
  • Small firearm and ammunition
  • Large fish kit and gill net
• Preparation
  • Serving spoon and fork
  • Small frying pan, Teflon coated
  • Mess kit
  • Nut cracker
  • Steamer basket
  • Thermos cup
  • Wire rack grill

Environmental Protection

• Poncho
• Tent – family sized
• Sleeping bag for each person
• Ground cloths
• Heavy duty space blankets
• Towel
• Boot grease

Signaling

• CB, aviation radio, or ELT
• Signal strobe
• Flare gun and extra flares
• (see also fire making and light, below)

Navigation

• Sextant ( I lived on a boat, you may want a GPS…)
• Star chart

Fire Making

• Camp stove w/ fuel bottle and fuel
• Spark lighter

Light

• Large flashlight w/ spare bulb preferably LED light
• Spare flashlight batteries
• Solar battery charger and nicads
• Gas light

Health and First Aid

• Major kit
• Triangle bandage
• Splint kit
• Toilet paper and paper towels
• Personal medical supplies
• Personal hygiene items: birth control, etc.

General Tools

• Machete
• Camp shovel and ax
• Rock hammer
• Sharpening stone
• Rope
• Medium pulleys
• Carabiners
• bucket
• Sven saw
• Vehicle tool kit
• Aluminum foil roll
• Tire patch kit
• Rubber/nylon/canvass patch kit
• Water proofing spray and grease
• Binoculars
• 2-4 ft. of ‘coat hanger’
• 2 yds sq. cheese cloth
• strapping tape, duct tape
• Calculator

Social Survival

• Money ($500), 12 oz. silver, 1 oz gold, credit card

Entertainment

• Chess or backgammon game
• AM/FM/SW radio with antenna

Carry Also

• Clothes, lots of them
• Water
• Food
• Major Vehicle tool kit
• Second Firearm and ammunition
• Propane torch kit

Some Closing Notes

This is a ‘thumbnail sketch” of 40 years worth of pondering and trying things. The general motives and insights behind the selected list of “stuff” in the kits above. I made some choices of what to put in a kit based on my selecting which things to emphasize, if you know what I was pondering, you might make a different choice.

First off, you need to breath more than anything else. I have a gas mask and 2 canisters. Useful in fires as well, since smoke kills most folks long before anything else. It is on an easy to reach shelf in the closet right next to a heavy coat and hat. Most folks can go weeks without food, days without water, hours without warmth, but only minutes without air. There are small portable versions that look like a giant baggy with an activated carbon patch in them that you can fold up and take on an airplane with you (looks like a folded up disposable raincoat or space blanket). You might get questions about why you want a gas mask on a plane – point out fire and smoke kill more people than anything else in a plane crash.

I can find my gas mask in the dark by braille. But on my hip lives a Maglight 2 x AAA cell flashlight in a holster at all times. In each room is a larger flashlight (Maglight is best and I’ve started converting them to LED bulbs, one a year…). I have a family, so this may be overkill for you. As long as you know where a larger light is, your OK. But during the Loma Prieta quake we had a data center in pitch black (no windows) and ended up using laptop screens for flashlights!

So now I have a light in each room. Between quakes, storms, and stupid California power policies, these get used about a half dozen times a year… If you can’t see, it’s hard to do much else at 2 am with the neighborhood in a panic. A 2 or 4 D cell Maglight with LED bulb will last for days to months depending on how much you use it. In casual uses (i.e. not a disaster) you will replace the batteries from age before they are used up. I have cruddier flashlights in places like the garage, kitchen, etc. where I just want a panicky kid able to find the good one in the living room (or get outside NOW.) With the advent of LED bulbs, I’ve started moving to the “C” cell flashlights as a smaller lighter alternative that still lasts darned near forever. Why Maglight? They are darned near indestructible. Waterproof. Fume proof (i.e. they will not spark an explosion in a gasoline vapor atmosphere). And can double as a club, being solidly built of metal. They carry a spare bulb in the tail cap (not so important with LEDs that don’t burn out, but still a valuable feature in an Aw Shit time…)

The mask, coat, hat, and flashlight takes care of air and simple cold, wet, dark, and embers dropping on you (at least for a while) even in the dark.

I have a plastic garbage can with lid that holds an inflatable sleeping mat (fancy air matress with foam core) and a nice sleeping bag in it’s non-compressed state (keeps it working well, compressed bags lose “loft” and don’t keep you as warm), a 2 person tent in carry bag, and a small pillow. All bought at Costco for about $40. This takes care of longer term cold if the Quake puts me out of the house in December… It also goes into my car trunk on long visits elsewhere or when camping. (With the sleeping bag stuck into it’s stuff sack and minus the can..). This “can” sometimes sits outside for a year at a time and sometimes is just inside the garage near the rollup door in the corner where things don’t get squashed in an earthquake. I also have a can like this for each other family member, but minus the tent. There is a family sized tent stored in a plastic tub on the patio along with family sized camp cooking gear, chemical fold up toilet with ‘baggies’, and a family sized water filter. There is a shovel on the patio as well.

That ought to take care of breathing, warmth, sleeping, shelter, potty, and light.

Next is water. I have an “kitchen bag” that travels with me (I was an “on the road” consultant for a decade or so and needed something if the car broke down in GodOnlyKnows or if the cafeteria was closed at 2am and I didn’t have the problem fixed yet so was pulling an all nighter). In my kitchen bag is a camping quality plastic water filter ($20? at REI Coop) – the family has a deluxe ceramic element treated with silver nearly industrial quality one in the family patio box…) I keep a 1/2 gallon canteen in the car and have between 70 and 140 gallons of water in plastic drums in the back yard. At times I’ve used a wading pool for extra (during droughts). In a condo/ townhome you would use the pool water filtered properly to remove chlorine (neutralize it with bicarbonate of soda – baking soda – to turn the chlorine into salt. That is, add baking soda until a pH strip shows a neutral to light alkaline state about pH 7-7.5 then run it through your filter). In a short crisis, you can get a few gallons out of your toilet tank (that is clean until flushed into the bowl…) or from your hot water drain faucet at the bottom of your water heater.

Last on the list is cooking gear. Most folks have lots already and in an emergency you can make a fire pretty quick, but I’ll get to it anyway. But food is not useless without electricity and gas to cook with, it only slightly changes what you do with it…

If you have an all electric kitchen, then you need an alternative way to cook the food, or you store foods that don’t need cooking. I like ravioli straight from the can. Same thing with canned green beans, peas, and chili. The only one I’d avoid is corn. Corn is peculiar in that it grows botulism really well and it’s hard to detect (due to the low pH of corn and the ideal chemical / food environment…) So you can do a decent job of ‘survival’ with cans of cold ravioli, chili, SPAM, peas, beans, carrots, peaches, pears, etc. And even corn if you really know how to spot a defective can.

(Lack of vacuum when opened, end of can not “sucked in” from the vacuum, any odd smell, any gassing / bubbling, etc. but even then, the early stages of Botulinum growing don’t give much indications: The only approved way to be sure is to boil the food for about 15 to 20 minutes. No fuel, no stove, you can’t do that… But if a can has sat for a few months after purchase and still has a “sucked down end” it is highly unlikely than any botulinum spores are waiting THAT long to start growing. You can tap the end, and if it has a low pitched “thunk” it has low vacuum; but if the pitch is higher, and a tinnier “tink” it has a good vacuum and no gas forming bacteria growing. Tap a can of somthing, then use your can opener to just put a tiny hole in the edge an let the vacuum fail. Tap it again (minus the opener) and you will immediately see what I’m talking about.)

But it’s easier if you can cook the food. So what to do for a stove?

I’ve bought just about every kind there is. In my Armageddon Kit is a nifty job that runs on everything from gasoline to jet fuel to diesel oil. It’s not for everyone (heck, I don’t even use if I have a choice – it’s smelly and noisy and hard to configure). So what IS for everyone?

First off, while a little hard to find, I love the Sterno fold up stoves. Sometimes they have them at sporting goods stores or in camping stores or departments. I’ve found them at WalMart. They cost about $5 and take a can of Sterno. Pop the top on the Sterno, touch a match to it (I store matches in a jar, but also have a couple of butane bbq lighters that work really well at a small distance ;-) and set it in the stove. Cook. Yeah, that simple. Done cooking? Slide the lid on the can to snuff it, when cool, seat the lid all the way down (seal the can). The stove is about 6 inches on a side and a little confusing to re-fold, so look carefully at it when it’s in the 6x6x 1/2 inch folded state and see what goes where… One of these lives in my travel bag.

Why? It is not pressurized and the jellied fuel tends not to dribble out (though it can slowly evaporate over time if the lid is loose.) It is dirt cheap. If, for some reason, some petty bureaucrat insists that I can’t take it (wherever – planes, trains, misc. “facilities”) I’m not out much if it disappears from wherever I stash it (or it even can just be tossed in a “contraband” bin with little stress – not so my $100 burns anything stove…). The fuel is readily available at grocery stores all over the place. And finally, there is often an obscure rule in the facilities guidelines for various places that allows “sterno powered chaffing dishes” while banning all other open flame stoves. Even if such a rule is not on the books, the “guard” is often conditioned to the idea that sterno heated food pots are “OK” from all the meetings that have used them. Basically, it keeps guard hassles to a minimum. In a real disaster, you can put bits of paper, cardboard, twigs, whatever in the empty fuel cup and use it as a primitive tiny camp fire. Was soaked cardboard works rather well, if a bit sooty.

Right behind this is the propane camp stove. There are many variations. I like the Primus ones (that I think I got at Target for $15?) but there is also a slightly larger (Great Outdoors? Century? brand) stove that holds larger pans better for about the same price. These can be set up on top of you dead electric stove and be very safe (double check that the electric stove is turned off – just in case the power returns). Coleman is good too, but pricier and I don’t see why. I’ve used them on a kitchen table too. Add a half dozen propane bottles (16 oz?) at about $3 each and you are set for weeks. Maybe months. The things seem to last forever.

If you are really into it, you can get a matching propane lantern at the same time. Why propane? Clean. Stores safely nearly forever. My family can run it without me (i.e. low tech users). No smell to speak of. Available everywhere. I also have a coleman gasoline stove (2 burner) in the family kit and can run on stored gas for about a year if needed… (draining it from the car gas tank) but that would be overkill for most folks.

If you don’t have any pots or pans, you would want a camping set. If you do have pots and pans, just get the propane stove with the larger burner (so large pans are stable on it…) and forget the fancy dinky camping stuff!

Most of the time you can do fine cooking in a single modest sized pot. Everything from ramen packages, to ravioli, to oatmeal to packaged scalloped potatoes with SPAM bits in them. I spent many nights working late eating split pea soup, crackers and ramen from my travel bag (that looks like a large briefcase so folks never questioned my taking it into computer center back rooms ;-) though the pot had to be dinky to fit… I also have a “hot shot hot pot” in it that heats about 2 cups electrically and can make coffee… Love that gadget. Used it if I had electricity, used the Sterno stove if not. Security weenies are used to the idea of sterno under chaffing dishes so they don’t get excited, even when they would have complained about a camping stove as an ‘open fire’. Go figure… In a home setting you might want to just get a Sterno powered chaffing dish and look high class about it.

That’s really all you need especially in a home setting.

Defense!

I’ve had some questions about this from time to time. I want to emphasize that this is last on the list of concerns. Only after everything above is done should you spend much time on the topic of “defense”. In all my experience, it has been substantially to completely not needed. But I live in one of the wealthiest and best educated most low crime areas of the country, so your situation may be different. With that preamble, here is my take on things defensive.

Per firearms: I have them (always have, grew up with them). They live in a locked safe. For most folks they are probably not the best idea. You really must put a lot of time and effort into it to get good with them. Far better is just keep a low profile and learn to hide in plain sight.

My experience in natural disasters is that folks generally pull together and you don’t really need any defensive armament. It might be different where you live, but my intent is not to use guns to defend my “stuff”, rather to open “Smith’s Kitchen” and invite my neighbors to bring their (slowly defrosting) freezer contents to the pot luck. You are more likely to be faced with a block party than with Mad Max.

OK, if you don’t believe me on that, or don’t want to take the chance, or just want to be prepared “in case”:

I won’t say much about firearms, since it really is a complicated topic and you are very unlikely to need one, but if you do, you need to spend a lot of time learning about them, getting good at using them, and not just read a paragraph and go buy something.

There is a trade off between weight and effectiveness. There are islands of exceptional performance within that trend. The military optimizes for “good enough in massed fire” while the police optimize for “really going to work for one guy on his own”. You want to think like (and work with!) the police. What do they carry on them? A handgun, typically semiautomatic, with a high performance cartridge. The .40 S&W or the .357 Sig are very good. The 10 mm is used by the FBI. Some police use the 9mm Parabellum so they use what the military has and can interoperate. Rural cops and Fish and Game agents sometimes carry .357 Magnum or .44 Magnum revolvers so they can drop a bear, or a Buick, if attacked. (The .357 Sig duplicates the .357 magnum load in a semi-auto, and you can get a .40 S&W interchangeable barrel too… for a big price.) Also good. Asking the local cop what their department carries while in line at the doughnut shop would let you own something that would work with their supplies (if drafted into the posse ;-) The police also carry a 12 gauge pump shotgun in the car with a supply of “deer slugs”, buckshot, and specialized rounds (like ‘beanbag’ non-lethal rounds).

The major problem with those choices is something called “over pentration”. A 10 mm round will penetrate a hardened car windshield with laminated plastic sheet (close to what is used for bullet proof windows…) at an angle and still take down a bad guy. The “spec” came about after a bunch of FBI agents dumped a bunch of 9 mm at bad guys in an older car with the hard laminated rear windows and most of them bounced off the slanted back window of the car. If you shoot this at someone in your living room and miss, it is likely to exit the wall, enter the next room (your kid’s bedroom?) exit that room, enter your neighbors home (are they in that room?) exit that room, enter the next (their kid’s bedroom? Is your kid visiting?) You see the problem?

And this is where NOT being in the military or police is an advantage.

You can choose to use very frangible or hollow point rounds that will break up rapidly if they hit anything and not over penetrate. The “Glaser Safety Slug” does this. You can put “dove loads” or “target loads” of fine shot in a shotgun. It will put a couple of inch hole in someone but not go through a couple of walls with much energy left. Have a clip of harder stuff handy or have some “deer slugs” in a pocket if desired, but the first panicky shot is not going to kill someone a block away through a wall…

My “go to gun”, to the extent I have one, is a puny little .32 ACP thing. The Walther PPK James Bond carried. Hides easily in a pocket so nobody is scared by my waving something around on my front lawn while looking to see what went bump in the night. And the Winchester Silvertip Hollow Point is a very special round in .32 ACP. (One of those ‘performance islands’) It has the same “one shot stop”, or one shot drops a guy, statistics as the .45 ACP Colt 1911a in “military hard ball” used for 70 years by the U.S. Military. But being a very rapid open hollow point, it does not go through multiple walls so well. If I run into folks in a car, I’m just going to run away. I don’t see any reason to stay, especially when they are stuck in a box.

For “food gathering” the Ruger .22 rifle with a scope will get more “food” via squirrels and pigeons than they guy with a 30-ought-6 trying to get a deer in the city. Matched with a Ruger .22 single action revolver you have a very nice, very light, very ammo efficient package. In a desperation situation, it can also stop people. (The story is that the Israeli secret service uses a silences .22 with multiple shots as their assassination weapon of choice. The “one shot stop” statistic isn’t so good, but the 5 or 10 shot stop statistic is… And a box of 50 rounds is about the size of a match box. A “brick” of 1000 is about the size of 3 lbs of butter and weighs about the same.

If you are in a more stationary location, the shotgun can be used for everything from bear / deer on down to doves. The “pump” shotgun lets you feed in ammo at any time, so you can put a slug in if you want without unloading the whole thing. I like the 20 gauge better than the 12 gauge due to lighter weight of ammo and less kick, but the 12 gauge is the “standard”. Get one with both a “deer slug rifled barrel” and a smooth barrel with changeable chokes for the “ultimate shotgun” kit. Shot, sent down the short rifled barrel will spread out rather rapidly… good for a “blunderbuss” effect. Anything less than a 20 gauge it starts to be hard to hit things with the small shot load. If you think a .410 will do it, go skeet shooting with one… Remington and Winchester are widely available and good. So are many others, but sold in lower volumes.

But, IMHO, there are much better choices for defense than the firearm. Even a bow and arrow. Quiet. Not so attention getting. You can put it in your car and especially if you practice at a nearby range some times have all the “cover” needed to carry it around (unstrung. 20 seconds to restring). The “ammo” is reusable. It is easier to carry in a hallway (being vertical). You can chose the power of the release. There is NO over penetration problem. It and it’s ammo, are relatively cheap. So what else fits this description?

If you do need indoor defense:

All weapons have a range. Rifles are a lousy indoor choice (get a 4 foot long stick and try to navagate a hallway while pointing it forward). You want something short. That is what handguns and the “short sword” are good at.

Throughout history, the short stabbing weapon has been re-created and found to win. Zulu dominated when they took their long hunting spear and shortened it to a stabbing spear. Rome dominated with the Gladius. Japan had the Samuri with the katana long sword and the shorter wakizashi. It is the wakizashi that rests near me.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wakizashi

As an interesting side note, at least in California, the Machete (another sort of “short sword like” object) has been held in case law to be a “lawn or gardening implement”. So you can have one in your car, but a sword will be confiscated. So I have a machete (with lots of green stains on it) with holster that can be tossed in the trunk of the car along with a small shovel should I see the need. (And an explanation about either going to go camping Real Soon Now or preparing for Fire Season depending…)

One final note: Throughout most of the medieval period, the favored weapon was not the long sword. It was the “battle hammer”. A roughly 2 pound hammer of about 2 foot to 2.5 foot long handle. It is far less of an attention getter to have a “tool belt” on with a long handled hammer in it than to be packing a six gun. Especially if there is any broken structure around or you are knocking down a fence for cooking fuel (or rebuilding one from wind damage). And if anyone is a threat in “handgun range” of about 5 feet out to 50 feet, you are better served by just running away. If they get inside 5 feet, well, that’s “battle hammer” range. They were used to open knights armor… think about it…