A survival cache is a container, often buried, but sometimes just stashed away in a location away from one’s home. Its purpose is simple. It contains necessary items you will need if a disaster or crisis ever places you in a desperate enough situation to have to dig it up. This video will focus on a cache that is accessible to support you if you had to travel to a safer location, such as a bug-out location if you have one, or along a route you may frequent daily, traveling to and from your house, like when going to work. Think of it as a minimal bug-out bag but out there in the wild somewhere and not in your closet. In this video, we will look at the important considerations such as what type of container to use to store your items, where to store them, and what items to add, and what to avoid. So let’s jump in.Survival Cache OptionsIdeally, you will want to ensure that your survival cache only contains enough for just you to carry. The chances are you will merely be picking its contents and moving along to your next location. For this reason, some people bury more than one cache along a route they anticipate they will have to take after a crisis or disaster occurs. In my opinion, the ideal size is about the size of an ammo box, a short length of 8 to 10 inch PVC tube, something like a water brick, or even a 5-gallon bucket. The perfect survival cache is roughly the same size as a loaf of bread or two, but even a well-sealed 5-gallon bucket can be a highly effective container to store your survival items. I’ll use an ammo can in this video which you can pick up at Walmart or on Amazon for roughly $20. This smaller size limits what you can put in there. It is, however, easier to hide, more portable, and more likely to remain concealed. Be sure to use some vaseline to rub the seal on the inside to ensure the seal works well.Hiding Your Survival CacheI’ll do a more in-depth blog shortly about burying your cache, but let’s run over the basics. Assuming you have a small survival cache that you plan on hiding on a property you do not own, understand that you may be breaking laws in doing so. If it is not land you own, it would be ill-advised to store in your cache any firearms or ammo of any kind, but that’s a decision you have to make. Also, I would not store any identification or documentation of any kind. As a general guideline, do not damage property and stay away from restricted areas. A fellow prepper in your Mutual Assistance Group may offer up an area where you can put your survival cache.Your container should be marked as to what it is on the container’s exterior along with the date it was buried. Merely writing or etching on it “Emergency Kit” will prevent someone from thinking it is dangerous if it is discovered. Some may disagree with this, but an unopened container of unknown origin is likely to be treated as a potential ordinance. This can draw multiple law enforcement agencies’ attention and could result in further investigations that may eventually link you back to the cache.Carefully think about where you want to place your survival cache. It should be along an emergency route you think you may have to take one day or one you frequent.When it comes to hiding your survival cache, the most common method is to bury it. If you do this, place an identifiable rock directly over the spot or measure precisely from two different trees or points, so you will know right where it is. Make sure that you will be able to find it again, even if natural disasters have severely altered the landscape. While recording GPS coordinates may be ideal, if you don’t have a GPS device when attempting to recover the cache, you may find it hard to recover. Ensure there is at least a foot of dirt over it to be less susceptible to the elements. You can expect that the ground temperature around your survival cache may fluctuate from cool to freezing. Burying it, however, is just one method. I have known people to weigh it down and submerge it among rocks in creeks. Small survival caches can be affixed to tree limbs in high trees. Some people even put them under sidewalks near their houses. The rebar in the sidewalk thwarts metal detectors, and the sidewalk is not too difficult to lift or dig under. Also, if you’re worried about people using metal detectors, you may consider burying it next to a metal fence post or by adding bolts and nuts above it and bury your cache a foot or so under them. This way, after the person discovers these worthless decoys, they may not be incentivized to dig further.Be creative with where you hide your survival cache, but make sure that your location will not be discovered. And, make sure that you will be able to find it again, even if natural disasters have severely altered the landscape. Finally, make sure your survival cache is both airtight and watertight which we’ll cover momentarily.What to IncludeDifferent survival caches may contain various items and it’s always hard to do these types of videos as everyone has different variables they will face in a potential bug-out scenario. I live in a very moderate climate that doesn’t fluctuate wildly like somewhere that may experience extreme cold or heat, so what I pack into my survival cache will be unique to my situation. Adjust according to your specific needs. Here, I will provide a framework that can guide you instead of a rigid list defining what exactly you should buy. I’ll follow Dave Canterbury’s 10 C’s I recently discussed in a video plus a few other items. I’ll post links in the description and comment section below to the items we cover.
Cover: A tarp or a rain poncho that can double over as a shelter is ideal.
Cutting: a simple, fixed blade knife, such as a Morakniv fixed blade knife will suffice.
Combustion: I’d recommend either matches or Ferro rod. While I typically prefer something like a Bic lighter, I’d prefer an option that won’t potentially leak the fuel out.
Container: I personally prefer stainless steel water bottles that can be heated over an open flame.
Cordage: having the ability to strap or tie items down will be useful.
Cotton bandana: these have many applications such as a covering for your head, making a sling, or for pre-filtering water.
Compass: being able to navigate and having a clear direction, especially if traveling on foot will be so important. In addition, you may want to consider a map of your local area.
Communication: typically I recommend a two-way radio, but I wouldn’t want to store one of these in extreme conditions. Instead, having a signaling mirror could be very useful.
Candle: normally I have a flashlight of some type for this C item, but exposing the batteries to extreme weather conditions could destroy it. Instead, having an actual candle would be beneficial. You could also include glow sticks.
Cargo tape: I recommend Gorilla tape.
Cash: having cold hard cash could be very important as stores may no longer be able to process credit cards if the grid is down.
Chow: I prefer options that are resistant to heat and have a long life span.
Coffee: solid source of energy. Obviously it requires heating up water, so you may consider other alternative for energy such as these zipfizz energy supplements which you can add directly to water.
Medical kit: a basic kit with bandages, gauze, another other miscellaneous items could be extremely beneficial to have.
Emergency blanket: they’re small but could come in handy to allow you to at least survive the elements.
Write in the rain pencil and notepad: useful if you have to leave a note for someone else.
Water filter: Sawyer mini water filter. These are small, compact, and can process quite a lot of water.
Deck of cards: if there’s room in your survival cache, consider placing a deck of cards in there. You may wish for the entertainment.
Water: depending on your location and situation, water may not be readily available. For me, I live in a dry location so having a source of water on standby would be valuable. I would recommend setting up a separate container to store the water in case any of the water leaks.
If you’re concerned about animals smelling the food and digging up the cache, you might consider adding the food into a vacuum sealed bag or mylar bag, vacuuming it out, and then wiping or spraying it with bleach. This will also help to prevent your survival cache from becoming a petri dish for mold if any moisture should get in it. You may want to consider putting the different items that are sensitive to moisture in a vacuum sealed bag and adding a moisture absorbing silica gel pack. You can pick these packs up on Amazon for relatively cheap.D.E.A.T.H.When deciding upon what to put in your survival cache, remember the acronym D.E.A.T.H. If one of your items becomes tainted, it can ruin your entire cache, and you will likely not survive if it was your only chance. DEATH. D for will the item deteriorate over time? E for will the item evaporate or leak moisture of any kind? Even canned goods have a shelf life, and one stored improperly could explode botulism soup all over your other items one day. A for anaerobic, in that, will your item give off-gasses over time? T for toxic. Will your item become toxic over time? Some medicines don’t just become less effective over time. They can become toxic. And H for heat. Will your item be susceptible to temperature extremes over an extended period? DEATH: Deteriorate, Evaporate, Anaerobic, Toxic, Heat. If you remember these things as you place the items into your survival cache, you will be more assured that they will be there, ready for you for many years into the future should you need them.ConclusionSurvival caches come in many sizes and, as you can see, can contain a variety of items. I have given you the basics, the essentials, and items I don’t recommend. Your survival kit may be different, but if you follow the outline we detailed in this video, you can customize and scale up your own kit based on your own needs. In an upcoming video, we’ll go into more of a deep dive discussing where to bury it and how. I’ll have an exciting way for you to participate in that, so you will want to subscribe to this channel to know when that video is released.If you found this video informative and helpful, please click that thumbs-up icon. It’s a little thing, but it helps us build our prepping community. I would love to hear if you have a survival cache out there somewhere and what you have in it. As always, please stay safe out there.Additional notesUse an ammo can
Put vaseline on the inside seals
Wrap in a heavy-duty garbage bag
There are two types of moisture packs. It is actually good to use both.
Moisture absorber
Oxygen absorber
Note on flex seal. Buy it by the case. If you are real concerned about moisture getting in, close it up and seal it with the flex seal. In fact, you can spray an entire ammo can with flex seal. Be sure to clean surfaces well. Acetone works very well. If you use vaseline, even a small residue on your fingers can screw up the bonding. Acetone solves that.Other considerations:
Some containers for changing oil can work. Look for the ones that have the 8″ish hole for the oil to drain into. If its just a pistol, ammo, and some survival stuff its a decent and inexpensive option.
Dog food storage containers, especially those with gamma seals (but don’t trust them. Use that flex seal on the outside and vaseline on the inside).
There are some large food containers for cereal etc. Water tight but not as durable.
For very large stuff look at small fiberglass septic tanks. These have their own set of pros/cons but are an option if you are looking to do something big.
Look around for companies that import drugs. Many drugs are made in Switzerland etc and they are shipped in bulk inside very durable, water tight containers. I’ve seen 15 and 30 gallon containers. They are USP grade and tough as nails.
Get a vacuum sealer. Those rolls of bags can be slipped over an entire rifle. Not only that, if your outer container fails, you have a backup layer inside.
If you are concerned about metal detecting, you can consider burying a bunch of old car parts, nails, tin cans etc. all over the area. Make it really unpleasant to find your stuff. Combine that with the decoy above the cache and you are good to go.
You can accelerate the aging of the metal with acid.
Make sure you can identify your location in the dead of night, rainstorm, under snow, you name it. Pick your spots so you can identify in any condition.
Contents of caches. Think hard about what you will need. Money, ammo, food bars, guns, batteries (package carefully since they can leak), documents, survival blankets, etc. IDs can be a tricky subject. Do you want your cache loaded with the ID of the person who left it? This is a subject you can do an entire video on.
If you check on your cache, do it as a walk by. If you are seen you don’t want to be hanging out in one spot and drawing attention to it. At most, if you are concerned you might be seen, act like you are checking your messages or something but avoid doing anything that may give it away.
Take pictures. Lay out contents on a table, take a picture. When burying the cache, take lots of pictures of the cache location and everything around it. Take a picture of the cache in the hole (be aware for good or bad the gps location of the cache will be embedded in the pic). 1000 words… You can delete pictures if you are concerned but your cache report is just a big a security issue.
Bury deep enough animals are not likely to dig for (primarily if you have food in it).
Pace counts. Specify what your pace distance is and in units people understand, in addition to the count. Make sure those looking for the cache know that you are pacing off one leg or both.
If you bury it in an area you are not from, don’t go looking for it while dressed like a complete outsider. Don’t draw attention to yourself miles before you even get to your cache.
There should be some redundancy. If you have a compromised cache and it contains all of one thing like ammo, you may be screwed.
Remember that when you go to put vaseline on the seals of ammo cans, those seals have two sides.
Sometimes caches can be put in interesting places, each of which will have its own pros/cons and up to you to decide on whether its a good idea. To whit: hollow of a tree, septic tank, beehive,etc.
Get a 100lb propane tank. Empty it, remove valve, fill with water, drain etc. When you drain it, the water can reeeeeeealy stink, so be prepared. Carefully mark a line about 3/4 of the way up from the bottom. Cut the tank into two halves. Braze a fitting that a 1 lb propane container will screw into, into the inside of the tank, over the exit hole. You may need to muck with the valve of the tank for this. On one part of the tank, weld or braze some thin strapping inside the tank to form a lip and something you can use to seal up the tank. Once all done, you can install a bottle of propane on the inside, make sure there are no leaks eh? Place the top onto the filled cache, seal it well with something like flex seal and mount the tank in a logical place that looks like you use it for something. Hold the tank up with a strap that goes around the tank, right where the split is. If someone checks the tank they can open the valve and propane will come out. This one is also nice because it is right under people’s eyes and its right where you can get at it.
* I found this handy chart on STORAGE CONTAINERS, what kinds there are, how to use them, and how much they hold.
* I’m not buying any more seeds this year. But if you’d like to get a head start next year (I planted all my tomatoes in January), check this out: DollarSeed Your One-Stop Seed Shop All the seeds are $1.
* I was watching my gardening lady and she gave 4 methods to treat earwigs (sigh, YES, I’m STILL having problems – mostly with lettuce. As soon as it comes up, something eats the little leaves and leaves on a tiny bare stalk)
Traps (You can google this. I made a bunch and haven’t caught a single one)
Diatomaceous earth. I have some of this, but you have to reapply EVERY time you water, and if you water every day (like I do when it’s 100 degrees) that gets old.
Sluggo Plus – This is what I’m currently using and frankly, it doesn’t seem to be deterring any kind of munching creature.
Garlic Oil Spray: 1 bulb minced garlic, soak in 2 tsp mineral oil for 24 hours. Mix into 2 pit water and add 1 TB liquid detergent. Let steep for a few hours (overnight) and strain out the garlic. To use, add 1-2 TB of the garlic mix and 2 c. water. Spray on plants and dirt. This spray also works for aphids, cabbage loopers, June bugs, leafhoppers, squash bugs, whiteflies.
LONG TERM FOCUS: Milk Powdered milk today is SOOO much better than it was 30 years ago. If you bought milk 20 years ago, you should probably get more. By using powdered milk, you can then make yogurt, sour cream, cream cheese, sweetened condensed milk, whipped topping, buttermilk, day cheese, cottage cheese, bakers’ cheese, white sauce, pudding, etc.
A good estimate is 4 pounds per person per month.
SHORT-TERM FOCUS: Juice Each time you shop this month, as you pass the “kool-aid” racks, check the price for the large containers of drink mix. Maybe pick up a lemonade, some Tang, and some red punch. Your taste buds will thank you.
72-HOUR KIT FOCUS: Emergency Blanket
These fold up so small and easily fit in your pack. I think you can get them for about $1. Check the Dollar Store or Walmart.
MISC. FOCUS: Vitamins
I watched a doctor testify before a State Senate Hearing. His complaint was that the medical community is giving patients positive COVID diagnoses and then sending them home to take Tylenol and either get better or get worse. He proposed that teams of doctors get together to study what, if any, medications might be given to patients to help them fight COVID so they would NOT have to go to the hospital.
Without getting into the middle of a debate on health options, it would help us all to strengthen our immune systems.
Some recommendations include:
Vitamin C Vitamin D Zinc
Add to these whatever other vitamins you might need. I know that I take calcium and iron in addition to a multivitamin. Especially as we go into fall and winter, we should make sure we are getting at least 4,000 IU of Vitamin D.
2 beaten eggs 2 c. buttermilk 1/4 c. vegetable oil 1 1/3 c. white flour 2/3 c. whole wheat flour 2 TB sugar 2 tsp baking powder 1 tsp salt 1 tsp baking soda
Stir together until moistened.
Buttermilk Biscuits
2 c. flour (can use part whole wheat) 2 tsp baking powder 1/2 tsp baking soda 1 tsp salt Mix dry ingredients. 1/4 c. shortening – Cut in with a fork or pastry blender. 3/4 c. buttermilk – Add a little at a time.
Knead lightly on a floured board. Roll 1/2 in thick and cut with a floured biscuit cutter (or the end of a glass or jar). Bake on an ungreased baking sheet at 450˚ for 10-12 minutes.
Buttermilk
1 c. non-instant dry powdered milk (or 1 3/4 c. instant) 3 c. slightly warm water 1/2 c. commercially cultured or previously made buttermilk
Combine ingredients. Shake or beat until blended. Cover and allow to stand in a warm spot until clabbered (6-12 hours). When clabbered, the milk will be thick and smooth. Refrigerate after the milk is clabbered. It will be necessary to use a fresh start of commercial buttermilk occasionally, especially as your start gets rather old. If you get a batch that won’t clabber, mix in 1/2 c. of fresh commercial buttermilk, and allow to clabber.
“If you don’t care for buttermilk as a drink, you may wonder how you can keep a start of buttermilk on hand without it going bad. Buttermilk has a relatively long shelf life (2-3 weeks) because it is already soured. With a little planning, you will find plenty of things to use it in. The most common are chocolate cake, buttermilk waffles, pancakes, muffins, etc. Buttermilk is also used in making cottage cheese and baker’s cheese.”
Please, please be vigilant in preparing. We KNOW that natural disasters are going to increase in frequency and severity. And whether the pandemic is contrived or real (I don’t want to get into that argument), it probably won’t be the last. The scriptures talk about the plagues of the last days. In my own mind, I can name a few health issues I would consider plagues, but it could be we have only begun to see what could happen. We HAVE to be responsible to protect our families. Food, medicine, shelter, water. As we so vividly saw, we cannot rely on church or state when things shut down. In the Old Testament, there is a story of Joseph who was sold into Egypt. The Pharaoh was given a dream about 7 fat cows followed by 7 lean cows. Joseph interpreted the dream to mean 7 years of plenty followed by 7 years of famine. He told the king that Egypt should store food for 7 years to prepare for the lean years. I feel like, after 2020, we have been given a reprieve and are experiencing some “fat” years again. But I feel like lean years are ahead. Take advantage of the “plenty” now, before it’s too late.
NOTES:
* Garden news this week. I still have the shade cloths over the garden. I’ve been replanting all the lettuce, but the cat keeps walking through the tubs. So now, I’ve got metal grids over the tubs, and shade cloth over that. The indeterminate tomatoes are so tall, I’m going to cut the tips off and let some of the suckers grow lower on the stems. I finally have some yellow squash again, but the zucchini is not having any of this heat. Every day, I go out to the garden with scissors and spray. I feel like I’m going into battle. LOL
* This came up on my Facebook feed this week. Maybe someone is looking for some way they can serve. Volunteer — Miry’s List.
* If anyone is interested, there will be a “Be Ready Utah” webinar on Thursday, September 16 from 6-9 Mountain time. Topics include Family Disaster Plans, Water Storage and Filtration, and What Families are doing to Prepare.
LONG TERM FOCUS: Potatoes
This month’s focus has been potatoes: dehydrated hash browns, dehydrated potato slices, and potato flakes. Whether you purchase them in bulk and repackage in mylar bags, or buy them in #10 cans, potatoes are a filling comfort food. Along with rice, they are gluten-free and can take the place of pasta in many dishes. The recommended amount is 1 #10 can per person per month. I can’t imagine that any of you have never used potato flakes. Just in case there is a “I-always-use-real-potatoes” reader out there, making potato flakes taste good requires water, milk, butter, and salt. You might want to store some butter Augason Farms Butter Powder 2 lbs $38.99.
Can you store potato pearls? Yes, of course. But potato pearls (just add water) have oils and will go rancid. Shelf life is 12-18 months, and longer if kept cool and dark. But they WILL spoil. So, rotate, rotate, rotate!!!
SHORT-TERM FOCUS: Dehydrated Onions & Garlic So, I found large containers of minced onion and minced garlic in the spice section at Winco. They were about $5 each? I pretty much use the dehydrated onions exclusively now, and I wanted to see how the garlic works as well. I use the jars of minced garlic now but wanted to see how the dehydrated will work for long-term storage.
72-HOUR KIT FOCUS: Knife Sharpening Stones
We’ve been putting together a “camping” box and then adding to it another box that would be an “evacuation” box. We gathered up maybe 4-5 small hatchets. NONE of them are sharp. So, I bought this: Knife Sharpening Stone Set
We lived in Indiana for two years. While there, we had spray cans of Off in the car, and next to the front door. We never left the house without spraying ourselves. And if we forgot, we had some in the car. I think some movie I watched once had a line that said, “Just assume everything out there wants to eat you.” Pretty much. Typically, I seldom use it. But when we go camping, I bring it along.
Cheesy Potato Casserole (all these ingredients can be found at Winco in the bulk section)
2 c. dried potatoes – Cook in 6 c. boiling water and 1 tsp salt until tender. Drain 2 TB powdered butter 4 TB milk powder 1 c. water 1 TB powdered cheese
Add, blend well, and place in a greased 9 X 13 baking dish. Top with buttered bread crumbs and bake at 350˚ for about 20 minutes or until heated through.
Variation: Try adding canned tuna, salmon, clams, or Spam
Hamburger Pie
(As a child, my mom called this “Shepherd’s Pie) It’s basically a layer of meat, a layer of green beans, a layer of potatoes, and cheese on top.
Season the meat the way you like it. For me, that’s adding a little rehydrated onion, maybe a little garlic, and a can of tomato sauce.
The recipe calls for: a layer of meat 1/2 chopped onion (cook with the meat until tender) 1 can tomato soup pinch of thyme pinch of marjoram dash of chili powder salt and pepper Layer of green beans (just use canned beans). You can mix the beans with the meat, or just layer on top. A layer of potatoes – use potato flakes and follow directions to make 2-3 servings OR use dehydrated potatoes that have been cooked to tender.
Stir 1 egg into the potatoes and season with salt and pepper. Drop-in mounds on top of the meat mixture. (I like to spread my potatoes over the meat).
Sprinkle with cheese. Bake 350˚ for 30 minutes or until heated through.
Potato Soup (using potato pearls)
2 c. very hot water 1 c. potato pearls
Combine and let potatoes puff up. Add: 2 c. milk or half and half 1/2 c. chicken broth 1/2 c. finely chopped celery 1/2 tsp onion salt dash of garlic salt chopped onion (fresh or dehydrated) to taste
Other options:
frozen or freeze-dried vegetables cheese potato cubes or hash browns chopped ham clams Spam
Heat and serve
Carry on, everyone. World events continue to remind us that we need to get ready. Be consistent. Be committed. Be prepared.
After a major disaster impacts an area, one of the most common dilemmas is a lack of clean drinking water. The unprepared will likely depend on untreated water contaminated with bacteria, parasites, and viruses. As a result, many will experience stomach cramps, abdominal pain, and dehydration which can result in death.This blog will focus on the practical steps you can take now to ensure you can safely treat water. There are some approaches we will not cover that are a bit more complex such as building a solar still or a natural filter or even pasteurizing water, items we’ll cover in the future. Instead, we’ll focus on very simple, practical approaches that anyone, even on a limited budget, can safely implement that require little to no knowledge. I recently did a poll on my channel asking how prepared my community is regarding water for emergencies and 40% responded that they are not ready, so we’ll keep this video to the basics that anyone can apply today, right now. If you haven’t already begun to build a supply of water, I encourage you to check out some of the other videos I’ll post in the cards above and in the description section below. This video will not cover water storage, but rather how to make water safe to drink.
A Note About Water
This blog will cover processing water whether you’re bugging out and on the move or at home. When collecting water to drink for purification or filtration (2 distinct things we’ll cover momentarily), always collect the clearest water you can from moving sources. This will significantly reduce the bacterial, virus, and protozoa load in the water. Even flowing water will not be free of foreign, harmful elements or pollution. Whatever water treatment and filtration method you choose, it is always more effective to combine a filtration and treatment method and to wait the full amount of time required to allow the treatment to reach its full effect. Each of these points we cover in this video is easy to follow, relatively inexpensive and should be a part of your preps and knowledge you acquire. I’ll also put links in the description and comment section below if you want to check out anything we cover along with a link to the notes from this video.Before we jump into these methods, there are 2 primary ways to make water safe to drink: filtration and purification. Filtration is the process of cleaning water of impurities removing sediment and most (but not all) microorganisms. Purification on the other hand focuses more on removing impurities from water such as viruses, chemicals, and other smaller contaminants that filtration can not achieve. Ideally, when approaching water, we want to use a combination of filtration and purification. Let’s explore this more in the first point.
1-Commercial Filtration
What I call commercial filtration includes all types of individual water filters you can purchase. These can range in price, method, and micron filtration level. Before we cover the various options, let’s quickly cover a few important points to ensure you understand your options. Let’s start with first discuss a micron. A micron is a unit of length equal to one millionth of a meter or .0000393 inches which as you guessed, is incredibly small. Some of these parasites that can kill you may be as big as 50 microns down to 0.06 microns. To give you context, human hair is about 70 microns in width.Okay, so now that we’ve covered microns, let’s utilize that information when discussing water filters. When looking at water filters, you’ll typically see information regarding the pore size of their filters. Obviously, the smaller the pore size, the smaller the contaminant it can filter out. After a disaster, your 3 biggest concerns for water-borne illnesses are bacteria, protozoa, and viruses. Bacteria cells range from 1 to 10 microns. Protozoa which are larger than bacteria, like the kind that can cause malaria or dysentery, can be as small as 2 to 50 microns in diameter. Viruses are much smaller than bacteria and protozoa at 0.06 to 1.4 microns. Due to their extremely small size, most entry-level water filters will not filter out viruses due to their small size and by so using one of the other treatment methods we’ll cover momentarily in this video combined with filtration, you greatly increase your probability that the water you drink will not make you sick. It is rare that you’ll deal with viruses in water in the wild which is why most of these entry level filters are marketed to backpackers, but not entirely impossible. But when a disaster strikes a region, the likelihood of viruses contaminating water sources in an urban or suburban environment is much higher. Armed with this knowledge, when looking for a personal filtration device, consider these 5 things: the size of particle filtration in microns which we just covered, the weight of the unit, the amount it can filter, the time it takes to apply the filtration, and of course, the cost. Let’s look at entry-level water filters by starting with 2 primary options: portable and stationary. Portable water filtersThe options on the low end of pricing along with chemical treatment will ensure after a disaster, you can properly process water to make it safe for drinking. I’ll start from the low end and move up in price. The first is a MiniSawyer. This is popular among backpackers as it filters down to 0.1 microns and weighs just 2 ounces. It can filter up to 100,000 gallons of water and the flow rate on these is on the low end coming in at a little over $20. Of the portable, entry-level options, this is my personal favorite. The next option is the Lifestraw, a personal filtering straw. These filter down to 1 micron and also weighs about 2 ounces. These can filter up to 1,000 gallons and they come in at around $15. Like the mini-sawyer, their flow rate is on the low end. These are also geared more toward personal use and not something a group would be able to collectively utilize. The next option is a water filter with a gravity bag. If you are in a temporary location and not on the move, a place where passive filtration can be accomplished in larger quantities, I would recommend this option. This particular example from Lifestraw can filter down to 0.2 microns, up to 500 gallons, weighs just 6.9 ounces, and will allow you to filter more than 7 gallons per hour. That will be sufficient for a small group that has banded together after a disaster. At a little over $42, this is a great option for filtering water quickly and easily.The last option we’ll cover for entry-level, portable water filters is a Katadyn Vario water filter. They filter down to 0.2 microns, weigh 1.66 pounds, have a flow rate of 2 liters, or about half a gallon per minute. They are a bit more on the expensive side at around $75, but the advantage of these is that they include a replaceable carbon core that reduces chemicals, pesticides, and bad taste in water, something the other options can not do.One note about running water through these filters. If you’re obtaining water that is not clear and muddy or has any sediment in it, you should definitely consider pre-filtering it. By introducing sediment into your filter, you shorten the life span of the device. While not a comprehensive list, a few simple household items you could use to pre-filter the water are a coffee filter, bandana, or t-shirt. Stationary water filtersFor larger, stationary options that are at or under $300, there are 2 primary choices: gravity and forced. For gravity filtration, one of the go-to’s within the prepper community is the Berkey water filter. I have used a home Berkey for years to filter out chemicals from tap water. They can filter down to roughly 0.2 microns but come in at a much higher price than the portable filters at around $300 to $400 depending on the options you want. They can process several gallons of water per hour depending how many filters you have and can also remove various chemicals as well. I’ve had one for 5 years and still use it on a daily basis. For a true grid down, post-SHTF scenario, if you need to filter larger quantities of water at a time, you may want to consider a forced filtration system like a PortaWell. While rapid forced filtration isn’t new, the really great thing about the PortaWell is that you can interchange the filters with ones you can pick up at your local hardware store. I’ll do a review of this product shortly and you can check it out in the meantime at cityprepping.com/portawell
2-Boiling
Boiling is the best method for rendering dirty, raw water drinkable. Bringing water to a rolling boil for one minute effectively kills or inactivates protozoa, bacteria, and viruses. Before boiling the water, if it is cloudy, let it settle and filter it through a clean cloth or coffee filter as we discussed a moment ago. In addition to destroying pathogens and microscopic organisms in the water, it can also boil off impurities and pollutants that are lighter than H2O, but not all of them such as heavy metals, salts, and most other chemicals.Bring the water to a boil and let it roll for at least a full minute. When it cools, you can pour it into clean containers. As with any method described here, even your boiled water will be better if you can combine it with filtering.The biggest downside with boiling water is the energy required to do so which may be difficult to come by after a disaster. If boiling over a fire, you’ll alert others as they can see the smoke or fire. In order to keep the energy required to accomplish this and the smoke to a minimum when using sticks and other biomass material you can easily find after a disaster, one of my favorite options is the Kelly Kettle. I have reviewed these in the past and I’ll post a link in the cards above and the description section below. I like the Kelly Kettle because it uses very little material and can achieve a boil of a little over 40 ounces of water in mere minutes. For the purposes of boiling to make water drinkable, it is the easiest to use I have seen.
3-Chemical Treatment
People have been treating water in the wild with various chemicals for years to render it drinkable. Bleach, hydrogen peroxide, sodium hypochlorite, chlorine dioxide, calcium hypochlorite, and iodine are common additives. They all work to neutralize pathogens in the water. Some can leave a slight chemical taste behind that sometimes fades with time. Hikers and deployed military have used chemical additives for years to neutralize pathogens in wild water. Of the many different types, iodine, hydrogen peroxide, and potable aqua water purification tablets I think are the simplest. Iodine and hydrogen peroxide you probably already have on hand in your medical kit. If using a 2% tincture of liquid iodine, add five drops per quart or twenty drops per gallon. You should wait at least 30 minutes before drinking to let it do its work. Feel free to agitate the liquid a bit. If you are using hydrogen peroxide, use two tablespoons per gallon. It is said to wait 24 hours before drinking. Regarding the potable tablets, just follow the printed instructions on the bottle.The best thing about chemical additives is that you can carry enough to purify gallons and gallons of water in a tiny container. You can use it when you get to your bug-out location, as well. A one-pound bag of calcium hypochlorite, for instance, can treat 10,000 gallons of water. I recently did a video explaining how to make bleach with calcium hypochlorite which I’ll link to in the cards and description section below. Even a simple bottle of additive-free bleach can be used to kill pathogens. It’s a little like drinking pool water, but it will work in an emergency to keep you safe from pathogens that can kill you.
4-Light Treatment
Using a UV light on a pen or in a bottle is a new, popular way to render pathogens harmless. I have to admit they are pretty cool. All you have to do is stir the light in the water or place it in the bottle with the light built-in, and the UV light emitted will neutralize the pathogens. Rather than removing biological contaminants, including viruses, bacteria, and protozoa, they kill their DNA so they can’t reproduce if you do ingest them. Ultraviolet water purifiers do not neutralize or remove mineral contamination or pollutants, either. There are three types of UV light, A, B, and C. C band wavelengths are the most lethal to organic matter. The downsides of this technology are that they are going to be heavier and bulkier. They are more expensive, starting at about 60 dollars and going up from there. Like any technology, they are susceptible to breaking, and they are going to require a power source to charge or recharge. If you can afford the fancy gadgetry and you have the means to keep it charged on the go, this can be a viable option for making raw, natural water drinkable.In a truly desperate situation, some UV exposure to water can be accomplished merely by putting it in a clear container and placing the container in full sun. That won’t neutralize everything, as some protozoa may not like sunlight, but being in the sun won’t kill them. What is happening with the transparent container is part UV light treatment and part pasteurization. I’ll cover pasteurization in a future video. However, it is not very useful as the sole water treatment method, and this process takes prolonged exposure to the sun. Far more effective is a UV device specifically made for water purification.
Conclusion
You can live about three days without water, but your body can begin to suffer from dehydration within a day. Whichever of the four techniques you choose to use here, hopefully, it will be enough to keep you hydrated to survive after a disaster. Drinking raw, dirty water might not kill you right away, but it definitely can make you violently ill or get you sick enough to lose fluids as the body tries to flush the alien invaders. The subsequent dehydration can certainly kill you. Combining one or more treatment techniques increases the effectiveness of your purification. At the time of recording this video, Hurricane Ida has just hit Louisana and many parts of the state’s infrastructure, including water, is offline. If you woke up tomorrow and turned on the water and nothing came out of the sink, would you know how to process water to make it safe to drink? I hope this video gives you a solid starting point.I would love to read in the comments what you use to purify your water when in the outdoors or what you have packed in your bug-out bag for when the need arises. As always, stay safe out there.
“Water is the driving force of all nature.” – Leonardo Da Vinci.In this blog, we’re going to cover places you can find water after a disaster that many will simply overlook. These are places you can find in a typical urban, suburban environment and with a little knowledge and a few tools, they will provide water that can be easily processed giving you a precious gallon or two to ensure your survival. This blog is a stand-alone video in collaboration with several other fantastic YouTube preparedness channels as part of the 30 Days of Preparedness Collaboration and National Preparedness Month. I will link to these channels in the comments below that are involved in this project. After the electricity goes out, the failure of the water system is probably second. You are hopefully sitting on your stored water when it does. Still, you will need to continue to collect water and get it from other sources to maintain a supply of drinkable water and extend your chances of survival through a disaster. The truth is, water is all around us, even in the desert. I’ll structure a dozen or more locations working out from your home where you can find water after a disaster. You just need to know where to look for it and how to extract it. When others are desperate and fighting for every drop, you’ll be a couple of steps ahead of everyone armed with this knowledge. Let’s dive in…Let me be upfront and tell you that this isn’t a video about water storage, treatment, filtration, or purification. When a prolonged disaster impacts an area, the municipal water supply can be rendered unsafe to drink. So, have a plan to make your water drinkable. And if you don’t have a water storage setup, I would encourage you to do so now as there is no better option. So let’s look at some of the overlooked places where you can find water after a disaster starting in your home and moving outwards.
Your Home
If a storm is approaching and you have enough advanced warning, top off all your water supplies. Fill all your large containers, sinks, and bathtubs. Don’t forget any ice in your refrigerator will keep things colder when the power goes out, but as it melts, you will want to capture the water. There is also water in your pipes you can access even if the municipal water stops and can be accessed by opening your lowest tap or faucet. If you suspect the water coming to your house is compromised, immediately shut off the water valve coming into your residence to protect the water in the pipes. Even when pumping stations fail, municipal water sources use as much gravity as possible to get water to you. The power may be out, and the water will eventually stop flowing to you, but it will still flow for a while, so capture as much of it as you can, as long as you have no reason to believe it’s contaminated.
Canned Foods
Canned foods are typically packed in either sugar or sodium water. Don’t throw that water out. You can use any fruit syrups directly in your cooking or drink them straight for an energy boost. The saltier brine like your vegetables and beans can be mixed with a little stored water to provide vital electrolytes. You should avoid drinking the saltier brines straight, as this could dehydrate you. If you can dilute it a little by adding water, you will derive more significant benefits.
Hot Water Heater
You walk by, probably every day, around 40 to 50 gallons of water stored in your water heater, but would you know how to tap into it after a disaster safely? Here’s how: Start by turning off the gas supply line by turning the valve to the off position. Then you may want to wait awhile to allow your water to cool off. Then find the larger lever, which is the water source line, and close that off as well. Then, open the pressure relief valve to vent any high pressure. Finally, with a bucket under your water heater, open the drain valve to capture the water. If you do this in 5-gallon increments with a 5-gallon bucket, you can get a solid 40 to 50 gallons here. You can show a neighbor how to do the same in exchange for another five or more gallons off their water heater.
Toilet Tank
I know this may be a bit hard to believe, but that back tank of your toilet has some of the cleanest water you will be able to get your hands on after a disaster. The water comes in fresh from your municipal lines and is sealed off from fecal matter, so you could, in a crisis, drink it right out the back of the toilet, but it never hurts to treat it or filter it just to be safe. If you use chemicals in the reservoir like the kind that releases with each flush, you will need to treat and filter the water. The water in the tank is good, but you have to be genuinely desperate to drink from the bowl. You would definitely want to treat that water before you drink it from there; however, it is okay for your pets. Many bacterias that would make us sick they don’t even notice. Don’t overlook this supply of water.
Irrigation Lines
Do you have sprinklers in your yard? If you do, you are surrounded by water. Most irrigation lines are 3/4 inch or 1 inch. There are 231 cubic inches in a gallon. If my math is correct, the average suburban lot of 5,000 square feet will have a little over 420 feet of PVC irrigation, including lateral lines. If that’s a 1-inch line, that’s going to be at least two gallons and likely more of water just sitting in the underground lines of every similarly built house in your subdivision or neighborhood.To tap into this water source, you just need to know the width of the male threaded riser, have polyethylene or vinyl tubing to put over that riser, and the lowest sprinkler head. If there is a lower head in the system, it may weep naturally when the system is not on, and it is easy to identify in older systems. If the sprinklers are all built level, you can tap into anyone, but you may need a hand pump to extract the water. In fact, a hand pump with extra tubing will be a great addition to your prepping supplies because it will allow you to run a line to water sources that are out of your reach.Clear the dirt from around the sprinkler head with a shovel or trowel. Unscrew the sprinkler head and quickly put the tube on the riser. The water may have sufficient hydrostatic pressure to begin to flow and drain. If not, a small hand pump will be of great use to you. Also, a large sponge will allow you to collect water that is lost between the time you detach the sprinkler head and attach your collection tube. Just realize that water meant for irrigation is not 100 percent safe for consumption. Always treat and filter water collected in this way.
Transpiration and Plants
It won’t provide you a lot of water, but placing a plastic bag tightly over leaves will capture small amounts of water through what is called transpiration. Excess water drawn up from the plant’s roots is expelled in this process. The plastic bag seals the leaves in and captures the water out of this transpiration stream. The water will collect through the hottest times of the day. Harvest your water in the evening or early morning when water vapors have converted to liquid form. Be careful that the plant you are harvesting water from isn’t toxic. Depending upon your climate, you may also be able to harvest dew. Also, some cactus and succulents are edible and store large amounts of water. You can eat aloe vera and pear cactus plants to provide you vital water. Know what plants are in your area because you don’t want to be experimenting and taste testing after a disaster.
Harvesting Rain
Draping a tarp and collecting rain is an excellent way to capture natural water sources, assuming you get rain after a disaster. How much water can you gather from rain? To calculate this, take your tarp’s square area and multiply it by inches of rainfall and then by .62. Length times width times inches of rainfall times .62. So, a standard ten by twelve tarp collecting 1″ of rainfall will collect an incredible 74 gallons of water. After a disaster, realize that this same equation can be used to calculate rainfall on your roof. If your roof area is just 20 by 40, that same 1-inch of rain will be coming down your gutters to equate to 248 gallons of water. Make sure your gutters aren’t just draining into the dirt. Have a plan or system in place to channel and collect this water.
Fire Hydrant
Moving to the street, and while probably not exactly legal, you can obtain water from municipal lines by tapping into fire hydrants. Note that everybody else will be trying to get water in this way too. Be careful as hydrants are under tremendous pressure. This high pressure can easily cause injury. Were you to try and tap a hydrant, the method would be to unscrew the outlet then gently loosen the stem nut in a counterclockwise manner. If you can keep this action slight, you will be able to regulate the flow and won’t risk depressurizing the entire system. Loosening the stem nut opens the valve at the drain hole at the stem of the hydrant. Make sure you have a sizable collection container, and you’re going to need a mammoth wrench to do this.
Commercial Buildings
While we are on the topic of tapping municipal water supplies that aren’t ours and are, technically, stealing, many preppers make sure to have a 4-way sillcock key in their bug out bags. Every commercial building has an external water outlet. If the water is flowing, you simply put the sillcock key in and turn it counterclockwise to open the valve. Even if the water is out, the hydrostatic pressure of the latent water in the building will often still force the water out. So, even if the water is out, you would be draining the stored water in the pipes of the building.
Ponds, Fountains, and Pools
Ponds, fountains, and pools are large quantities of water, but they are not safe for consumption unless properly treated, which is possible. I’ll post a link in the cards above to a video detailing various approaches to safely treat water like these sources.Basically, there are two things that can make you sick or kill you from this water– organic components and chemical components. Pathogenic bacteria, protozoa, amoebas, and algae can all make you sick. There are also many toxic chemicals that runoff or are directly put into ponds, fountains, and pools. Filtering these sources of water can be a lifesaver, something we’ll cover in the next video.One note about finding these sources. While the grid is up, before disasters, it’s not a bad idea to get familiar with your neighborhood and surrounding area using something like Google maps using the satellite view. If you have a drone, you may want to consider surveying your neighborhood in advance to identify sources of water such as pools or small ponds in people’s backyards. Obviously, never trespass into people’s backyards, but if the grid goes down and people leave their home and it’s abandoned, you may be able to safely access these sources. Just know, you may not be the only one doing so.
Springs and Wells
Get to know your area as old water systems are still all around us, unseen and overlooked. Often wells and springs were sealed off when municipal water lines were built. It was no longer necessary to hall up buckets of water, so they fell into disuse. Taking a walk through the historical parts of your community and trying to find these hidden stores of water is a valuable exercise before disaster strikes. Knowing where they are and how you can access them after a crisis could be a lifesaver. With a little research, you may be able to find some of these sources.
Lakes, Creeks, Streams, & Rivers
I wouldn’t quite label this last source as overlooked per se, but for many urbanites and suburbanites, they may not consider these options as they’re not sure how to process these water sources to make them safe for drinking. There’s a few things you can observe before trusting these sources. When collecting water from the wild, it’s essential to see if other animals are enjoying that water. If there are many tracks around the lake or stream, you know that other animals enjoy and thrive in the source. If there are dead fish, large green algae blooms, or white or red bacterial blooms, the water will need some heavy filtration and treatment before it can be consumed. If it has an oily or murky sheen, try and find another source. Think of anything upstream that may be running into the water supply. Our ancestors drank straight from flowing creeks, streams, and rivers, and their bodies were heartier as a result. They also died at a younger average age than we do today. Contaminated drinking water is estimated to cause 485,000 diarrhoeal deaths worldwide each year. After a disaster is not the time you want your body to adjust to an occasional organic organism. If this water is your only option, you can drink it if you filter it and treat it appropriately.CONCLUSIONFinding water sources after a disaster is critical to your long-term survival strategy. That’s the first part of the equation when you need to move beyond the water you have stored and on-hand. The second part is rendering that water drinkable. There are other videos on that. Hopefully, these dozen or more places to find water have got you thinking, observing, and locating water sources around you that you can tap into in case of an emergency. You can only store so much water, and you need two to three gallons per day just to survive. Know where the water is around you now for when you may need it later.What do you think? Are there any sources of water around you that I didn’t mention here? What’s your water strategy in an SHTF situation? As always, please stay safe out there.
In this post, we will be making 600 parts per million bleach, similar to the concentration of store-bought bleach, out of Calcium Hypochlorite. Once you know this method, you may not ever buy store-bought bleach again. In fact, for $20 spent today, you will be able to make the equivalent of 768 gallons of bleach. Do you like saving money because that $20 today would equate to about $5,093 in store-bought bleach? That $20 spent today will allow you to treat 33,000 gallons of water, which is enough for a family of three to survive for ten years.
I have to say up front that this content is strictly for educational purposes. If you go this route, you also hold CityPrepping and its associates blameless. This is the recipe to make bleach. Chlorine treatment, while simple in concept, must be carefully performed because too much chlorine can be toxic, and too little chlorine is ineffective. If you want to know the proper procedures for mixing a 600 part per million chlorine solution, proceed.
After any disaster, even disasters with low initial death tolls, most people die from lack of drinkable water. Once pretty reliable municipal water systems can quickly become contaminated or stop flowing altogether. Many don’t have adequate supplies or can use up what they have stored up sooner than expected. You have to know how to harvest water from the wild and render it drinkable. To do this, many turn to bleach to kill the organisms in the water that can make you violently ill or even kill you.
When you buy a bottle of bleach, it has a shelf life that begins to degrade after six months and is not very good at all after a year. The bleach will be highly effective for around six months and fine for home use for about nine months. Clorox, the leading manufacturer, recommends replacing any bottle of bleach that is over a year old. While bleach is fine for water purification and surface sanitation, the concentration and age of the bleach introduce some uncertainty into the correct amount to safely use. A better and more affordable method is to use Calcium Hypochlorite, more commonly known as pool shock. I will demonstrate how to use that here. It has a shelf-stable life of ten years. That is an obvious long-term solution that will get you a decade or more beyond any disaster. Let’s do this…
WHAT TO DO
For your safety, do this in a ventilated area and wear eye protection. Add 2/3 teaspoon to 1 gallon of water to make 600 parts per million chlorine solution, sufficient to treat water. I found out I didn’t have a ⅓ teaspoon, so I had to weigh 1 teaspoon of Calcium Hypochlorite and then subtract a third of it. If you’re guesstimating a teaspoon with this in a survival situation, you will probably be alright. The worst that could happen from eyeballing a teaspoon is you end up with a 500ppm mix, which is equivalent to store-bought bleach, or you end up at a higher 700ppm mix, which will take you longer to aerate.
Gently swirl or stir the mixture until fully dissolved. This is similar to a store-bought bleach. You can use this chlorine solution for basic sanitation on any surface.
To use the mixture to disinfect water, use one tablespoon and 1/4 teaspoon of your new bleach mixture in 1 gallon of water. I just use one gently rounded tablespoon. That would be 1/3 cup in 5 gallons of water. Stir it and let it stand for 30 minutes. Chlorine needs at least 45 minutes of contact time with water to disinfect it. Some say 30 minutes, but the truth is that Giardia Protozoan can survive up to 45 minutes in chlorinated water. To remove the bleach smell, pour the water back and forth between containers and allow it to stand for a period with full exposure to sun and air. Sunlight will help to break down the chlorine. This will render any biological organic contaminants inert. This will not remove pollutants or particulate matter from the water. For this, you will need to filter the water.
I am using water right out of my small backyard pond. If you saw the things growing and swimming in there, I guarantee you that you wouldn’t want to drink it. Still, in a disaster, my little koi pond will provide me a number of edible plants, animals, and hundreds of gallons of water. In a future post, I’ll run this freshly treated water through a PortaWell, a portable emergency water filter with excellent output. Subscribe to this channel to be notified when that video comes out.
You can see here that I had pulled up some critters in my unfiltered pond water. There was a mosquito pupa in there. I left him in there as a control to make sure the bleach was going to be effective. Sure enough, he was dead and floating next to some maidenhair moss. When it comes to water from the wild there are 4 main organic components that can kill you or make you sick: parasites, bacteria, amoebas, and viruses. Simply touching your mouth without washing your hands can transfer these microscopic killers to you. That’s why it is important to treat your water and filter it. Check out this site for more videos on the water in the wild.
To understand chlorine in water, know that standard tap water often has residual chlorine levels between 0.2 and 0.5 mg/l. Here I suggest you put some basic test strips with your prepping water supplies. Strips come in a range of different types. My preferred strips I will link to in the comments below. They test for 16 different things, from chlorine and fluoride to hardness and pH. The two tests we are interested in here are the Free Chlorine and Total Chlorine. Free chlorine involves the amount of chlorine that can sanitize contaminants, while combined chlorine refers to chlorine that has been combined directly with the contaminants. Total chlorine is the sum of free chlorine and combined chlorine. So, with my strips, I can derive the combined chlorine number by subtracting the free chlorine from the total chlorine. That’s a lot to say, we just want to make sure our water is safe to drink.
We want our finished water to measure around four parts per million or lower chlorine. Above that and we start to irritate our bodies. At six or higher, we do damage to our internal and external membranes. Also, you want your pH between 6.5 and 8.5. Fortunately, with chlorine, we can smell it and taste it. If it is high or seems high, continue to aerate and circulate your water until it is safely in range and doesn’t taste like pool water. I checked the chlorine levels three times. First, when I made the solution, the solution gave me a reading that was off the charts on pH and Chlorine. That would do great harm to you if ingested directly. I then measured the untreated 5 gallon batch of water. It was at .05 chlorine and 7.8 pH, which is probably because I added water to the pond with my garden hose the night before.
I then treated the 5 gallons with 1/3 cup of the solution and stirred it for a few minutes, waited 45 minutes with it in the sun, stirred again, and took a reading. At this point, I could drink it, but considering the wildness of the source, I also want to filter it. After waiting overnight after re-affixing the lid, it had a total chlorine reading of 0, imperceptible to the strips, and a pH of 7.2. You could drink it at that level, and it should be free of live organic contaminants, but it is always better to filter it as well. In another post, I will use a PortaWell to filter this to an absolutely clean state.
An activated charcoal filter will remove some chlorine from water. Distillation will remove all chlorine. Boiling water for 15 minutes will release all the chlorine in the water. But these extremes aren’t needed with chlorine. At room temperature, chlorine gas weighs less than air and will naturally evaporate off without boiling. Cover the opening with a cloth, however, to minimize exposure to foreign organisms. Boiling is the go-to for most people because you can see the boil and know you’re good. I’ll tell you a secret, though; boiling isn’t necessary to render water safe to drink.
Contrary to what many people believe, it is not necessary to boil water to make it safe to drink. Boiling is the go-to because it’s a visual confirmation of the successful sterilization of the water. However, heating water to 65° C (149° F) for 6 minutes or to a higher temperature for a shorter time like 80° C (176° F) degrees for 10 minutes will kill all germs, viruses, and parasites. This process is called pasteurization, and pasteurization is much easier to achieve than a boil, but you have to be able to measure temperature to make sure you’re in range. For this reason, make sure a thermometer is also in your prepping supplies.
When it comes to drinking water in the wild, the two-step process of treatment and filtration is always your best bet, though some filters are at a micron level so low that they effectively strain out everything. Those filters, however, can be costly and have an effective use period. There are many different types of filters on the market, and we will review a couple of them on this channel.
WHY POOL SHOCK?
“Shocking” refers to the process of adding chlorine or non-chlorine pool chemicals to the water to raise the “free chlorine” level. The goal is to increase this level to a point where contaminants such as algae, chloramines, and bacteria are destroyed. Pool shock tends to be around 50% Calcium Hypochlorite or Trichloro-s-triazinetrione, derived from copper citrate.
If you use pool shock for massive water purification, make sure it doesn’t have other algaecides or fungicides in it. Since that isn’t always listed in the active ingredients, I just went and purchased pure Calcium Hypochlorite for laboratory use so that I could be assured of a 99% or greater assay level. Calcium hypochlorite is the main active ingredient of commercial products called bleaching powder, chlorine powder, or chlorinated lime, used for water treatment and as a bleaching agent. At that purity level, it should be treated as you would any laboratory chemical. It can cause severe tissue damage to the eyes, skin, and lungs, so take all safety precautions when handling, storing and mixing.
The reason I recommend Calcium Hypochlorite, and here is a link https://amzn.to/3CYoQIj, is because 1lb of this is a container about 1 1/2 inches wide and a little over 6 inches tall. as It contains roughly 96 teaspoons. That would allow a person to make 384 gallons of 600 parts per million chlorine solution. That would enable a person to treat 18,432 gallons of water, roughly the equivalent of a 16 by 32 foot swimming pool. Put another way, that’s enough water to be treated to allow a family of four the three gallons minimum per day that they would need for an incredible four years. Whether you are starting up a community after a disaster or you’re just looking at ensuring your own drinkable water supply after everything falls apart, Calcium Hypochlorite is the big solution.
The other aspect of clean drinking water, however, is pollution– specifically non-organic pollution. The chlorine solution will treat water against bacteria, protozoa, and viruses, and it will dissipate from the water through exposure to air and light. Still, it will have no effect on any chemical toxins in your water like benzene, pesticides, fertilizers, heavy metals, and so on. This is just one part of the solution to the more significant problem of rendering water safe to drink. You are more likely to succumb to organic contaminants when water is harvested from the wild. So, you want to make sure part of your solution also involves a filter or process that will remove chemical toxins if you are using a source of water that is likely contaminated in these ways. Still, these chemical toxins will be slower to do you harm or long-term damage than one pathogenic bacteria, virus, amoeba, or protozoa. That’s why your first line of defense against drinking dirty, wild water is this method.
I have to be honest and tell you that for under 20 bucks for 2 pounds of stable Calcium Hypochlorite and the ability to treat almost 33,000 gallons of water, you should definitely get this in your prepping supplies. You need to keep the Calcium Hypochlorite stored in a cool and dry location like the majority of your preps, but your Calcium Hypochlorite has a nearly indefinite shelf life. At the absolute longest, your bottle of bleach is only suitable for 24 months, and calculating the proper amount can be problematic after a while.
Because of its lightweight, concentration, and ease of use, this will be a game-changer for many. Next time you run out of bleach, switch to mixing your own. Leave that expensive store-bought bottle on the shelf, and you will always be ready with this method. If you just start making your own bleach you’ll save hundreds of dollars in the long run. Remember, the only way I know if you like this post is if you let me know in the comments below.
“Ancient Rome was as confident of its world and the continual expansion and improvement of the human lot as we are today.” – Arthur EricksonHistorians, politicians, and pundits will argue for the next several decades and maybe longer about why the withdrawal from Afghanistan unraveled so quickly. They will speculate how a country descended back into being ruled by a Deobandi Islamist religious-political movement and military organization so rapidly and with hardly a shot being fired. There’s much to be unpacked and examined over the next several years, and we are perhaps too close to the fog of war to really see it clearly today. While the various MSM pundits are currently pointing fingers deciding who to blame for this debacle, I try to stay away from the political spin and instead try to figure out what can be learned and applied for myself and the prepper community. We can see with great clarity because it is unfolding before our eyes several lessons we should know now about how a nation falls apart and what we can do to keep alive when it does.In this blog, I will pull out the key lessons we should take away from what’s happening right now in Afghanistan, and we will look at how we can apply those lessons learned to the preps we make today. I spent 3 months in Afghanistan in 2003 doing humanitarian work and I’ll do a follow up video shortly discussing my thoughts in more detail, but for now, let’s focus on what we can practically learn in this moment. It is hard for most people to imagine that the stability they enjoy one day can evaporate in mere hours and could never return, but that is more of a common reality throughout history and the world. Natural disasters, cyberattacks, overt attacks, a collapse of civility, riots, and martial law only exacerbate problems further and cause an acceleration of the destabilizing forces. As we have seen in Afghanistan, national stability can disappear in not days, weeks, or months but mere hours. So, what do you need to prepare for if it happens in your country or region? Let’s find out…PERVASIVE INCOMPETENCEIf there is one takeaway from the two-decade war, it’s that there is pervasive incompetence when governments try to do what they think at the moment is the “right thing.” We don’t need to see a war that lasts for several generations, a bungled response to a disaster, or a hacked and poisoned municipal water supply to understand fully that governments aren’t very effective at maintaining your security and well-being. Still, many put their complete faith in a party or policy, which isn’t dissimilar to fastening your seatbelt, praying, and handing over the steering wheel to someone who claims to know how to drive but has never really demonstrated the ability. The situation in Afghanistan displays the incompetence of several administrations, the extent of profits over people especially within the military-industrial complex which President Dwight Eisenhower warned about on Jan. 17, 1961 in his farewell speech, and how seemingly noble causes can evaporate over time.Many in the prepper community already know this. The reason many prep to begin with is that they have witnessed the pervasive incompetence of leaders firsthand. They understand that governments barely function and cannot be relied upon to be there for you when you need them. When high lead levels are detected in your drinking water or boil orders are issued, the first response is to establish blame. You can’t drink blame and survive, so it’s far better to reduce your dependent needs on systems that provide you with the basics of food, water, and shelter. Strive to become less dependent on what the government offers, and you become less susceptible to their influence. Many in Afghanistan right now are sheltering in place, unable to leave their homes for fear of their safety. The Taliban will eventually seek reprisals against former employees of the government, those that assisted foreign nations in the war effort, civil society activists, and women. People will not be able to hide in their homes forever, and when the final foreign troops leave Kabul airport, Islamic capital punishment will become the norm, and no one will be safe.When the civil government dissolves and is replaced by extremist groups, any civil laws disappear. When the seemingly organized government disappears, areas succumb to whatever local leader has the most prominent band of followers. The local leader becomes the judge and jury. And, it isn’t unimaginable that this could happen in any country where the government is crippled by infighting or unable to respond or reach an area to maintain control adequately. A wide scale power outage, communication lines down, and one significant natural disaster all at the same time would render the government useless to maintain order. If the National Guard were called in to establish order, everyone might not receive them as a friendly fighting force of neighbors. They may be viewed as tools of the government, and further conflicts and skirmishes could arise.Suppose there is just one takeaway to what we see happening in Afghanistan right now. In that case, it’s that reliance upon a government to maintain your food, water, and security is a guaranteed disaster at some point. Furthermore, this reliance leads to your inability to make decisions for yourself. In exchange for the illusion of security and stability, you become dependent upon that government’s decisions. If they feel it is in your best interest to relocate or surrender your food, you have no choice. That government can be foreign, or it could be domestic.HOW FAST IT ALL UNRAVELSThe second lesson we can take from what we see happening in Afghanistan is that things can unravel quickly. I don’t think anyone will argue that Afghanistan was the model of security and safety, but the semblance of security was at least in place. The Taliban takeover was far swifter than officials from any previous administration had envisioned. They seized control of province after province and took the capital Kabul in a mere ten days. The Taliban didn’t have to fight to do it, either. They simply moved in to fill the vacuum of leadership and brokered a series of surrenders. After nearly two decades of war, more than 6,000 American lives were lost, over 100,000 Afghans killed, and more than $2 trillion spent by the U.S., the speed of the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan has shocked many in the world.Again, Afghanistan and the US were war-weary and likely on this trajectory from the moment US officials inked an overly optimistic peace deal in February 2020. However, it should still serve as an example of how rapidly control can shift from one body to another without any input from the citizenry. Any area significantly detached from the controlling national government is subject to provincial rule. Just as vigilante bands might arise and seize control and jurisdiction over small areas and neighborhoods, several can band together to repel national efforts to regain control. As preppers, we often see the prolonged, slow collapse happening daily around us and often feel we are but a few steps in front of it. We can learn from this situation that when the wave finally breaks, it can be sudden, overwhelming, and quickly sweep up the entire area and populous.What is becoming more apparent to many is that just a few events can create a critical mass that can force an SHTF situation of interminable length and indeterminate recovery. What happens when a natural disaster strikes and the national government fails to maintain peace? Things will swiftly descend into chaos. Stores will be looted. Shipments replenishing vital supplies will stop. Fuel shipments will stop. Local governments, militias, Guard units, federal troops, law enforcement officers will all scramble to maintain control. Still, they will fail, and we are not talking about months and years, but hours and days. Within hours, evacuation routes might be rendered unsafe or impassable, and you would have no choice but to hunker down until some semblance of societal structure is reestablished. Even then, the new order may not be safe for you and may continually be in conflict with the old order.Once the tipping point is reached, everything unravels all at once. It’s fast, and it can be deadly and dangerous for you. Understand that now.GOVERNMENT ABANDONMENTThis situation shows how quickly the government will abandon what it may consider liabilities. If something or someone no longer serves a purpose, they’ll leave. Obviously, we should have left Afghanistan a long time ago and should have never set up shop in the country at the level we have. Both sides of the political aisle seem to agree on this point. America has a history of doing this to other nations: we often tend to use other countries for their resources and then pull out, leaving them to fend for their own. In Afghanistan’s case, it is one of the poorest countries in the world, but it is sitting on mineral deposits worth nearly one trillion dollars. Supplies of minerals such as iron, copper, and gold are scattered across provinces. There are also rare earth minerals and, perhaps most importantly, what could be one of the world’s most significant deposits of lithium — an essential but scarce component in rechargeable batteries and other technologies vital to tackling the climate crisis. Likely, China will swiftly fill the funding void. The country has already met with the Taliban before the withdrawal, and the country has no difficulty funding governments that serve their economic needs even at a humanitarian cost to the people. The lesson here is that if saving one area would force a more considerable instability, the government isn’t likely to pull out all the stops to ensure your safety and well-being. Governments work on the premise of containment. If your city or town, or State could be walled off to stop the spread of an epidemic, chaos, civil unrest, or a mass exodus, your government will do it. That’s fine if you have the means to shelter in place, but if you have to evacuate or bug out, you will struggle to do so safely.Knowing that the government is likely to abandon you for the greater good, it becomes imperative that you have both a long-term bug-in plan and more than one kit and route to bugout. If you are forced to bug out, your goal is to get far beyond the government’s walls and barriers of containment. Those poor souls in Afghanistan have only two routes out of danger. Either they brave roadblock after roadblock of Taliban, which isn’t a very high probability of success or they wait in containment at the Kabul airport, entirely at the mercy of the world’s goodwill. It has been a few years since I was in Afghanistan, and the dynamics could have changed considerably since then, but it seems that there was likely more than one indicator that the Taliban was moving in and siezing control. At some point in the initial ten days between the first province surrendering and Kabul falling, every citizen who was concerned was probably desperately fleeing or hiding out. Those in hiding must have still been holding onto hope that the wave of Taliban would recede or fall. It should be glaringly apparent right now that there was no rescue coming from the Afghanistan government, Afghan National Army, or international forces.ONLY YOU ARE IN CONTROLThe final lesson here for us is that only you are in control of your survival. When you fail to prep and plan for the worst, you freely surrender to the random winds of chaos and the boot heels of whatever brute or political faction is the strongest to rule with fear. The government has a slight percentage chance of swooping in and being your savior, assuming all conditions are perfectly right, roads are passable, security is established, and resources are available to you. That all said, even in the United States, vital relief funds and aid have been held up after previous disasters while political parties argued. Impassable roads led to desperation at the Superdome after Katrina, as some 16,000 people sought safety there. At least two people were raped in the darkness. One man jumped 50 feet to his death, saying he had nothing to live for, and people had no option but to urinate and defecate along the walls as sewer systems failed along with all the other infrastructure systems. Just recently, floodwaters ravaged rural Tennessee, North Carolina, and other areas leaving many dead and even more missing. Most were from rural areas, and those tend to be the last to receive any government assistance, aid, or relief.You have to look at the world and understand that you have to be in charge of your preps and your plans. The government, even the local government, police, fire, and medical services aren’t going to magically appear and whisk you somewhere safer. As many will sadly find out in Afghanistan, even relying upon your neighbor to help you through isn’t the best of plans. Your resources can be targeted, and you could be sold out or preyed upon. How extreme any disaster gets for you will depend upon your preparation and planning before the disaster occurs. Your future shouldn’t rely upon the charity of your government because that may never come. How long has Flint, Michigan, been trying to get clean drinking water? How many homeowners had to sue their insurance company for a fraction of the losses that should have been paid through insurance policies after hurricanes Harvey and Katrina? The best insurance policy you can have is your preps and preparation.Have a minimum of 72-hours of food and water. That will get you through most short-term natural disasters. Strive to build that up to 3-weeks or more of each. That will get you through more protracted disasters of a regional nature. Have at least one plan to bug in, another to huddle up at one location with your secure network or group, and at least two escape routes in case you need to bug out. Many will say that they will never bug out, but if the levee breaks, the creeks rise, or your walls burn, you won’t have a choice. HAVE A BUG OUT PLANMake sure you have at least two routes and more than one method to get safely beyond the border of your neighborhood, your town, your city, even your state. If you feel the chaos is brewing, you might preemptively move to get ahead of it. Stay ahead of the wave before it crashes down around you and on top of you. Many people on the ground in Afghanistan were caught off-guard by the quick deterioration, including many western humanitarian workers. Having the ability to quickly get out of a situation and promptly execute that plan with short notice is so important. The time to pull together your bug out bag or run to the grocery store ends the moment the disaster strikes, and it might not come back for you again.It doesn’t matter the situation, be it civil unrest, economic collapse, or a natural disaster that rips through your community, have a plan B and C. Know how to get out of your area and get to a safer area. Maybe turn to family and friends in other areas and develop backup plans. Have your bug-out bags ready to go, even if you live in a fortress, and you don’t envision yourself ever leaving under any condition.The time may come when you will have to either leave or perish amongst your preps. You won’t be able to take 300-gallons of stored up water with you, but make sure you have the means to filter water in your bug-out bag. Make sure you have the means to start a fire. Make sure you have a printed map. Make sure you have what you need to survive even if you’re moving slowly from the chaos. Have a bug-out plan. Don’t get stuck at the airport, train station, bus depot, or in a mass of refugees.CONCLUSIONIt’s somewhat easy to look at the crisis on the other side of the world and argue with lofty opinions about who is responsible for the chaos and why, but that won’t get us far. I’ll leave that up to the historians to decipher and shape into reality. As preppers, we should be hard-focused on the lessons we can learn here about how quickly things can fall apart and how we need to be as independent as we can from even the most seemingly solid government structures. The important takeaways are that when things go south, it happens faster than anyone expects it to. Your government isn’t likely to show up at your door, thank you for all those years of paying taxes and roll out a red carpet for you. To the contrary, it will be pretty clear that you are entirely on your own. The plans you make for yourself will make you stronger in the crisis. The plans you forge with others will make you stronger still as a group. You are in control of the crisis now before it has occurred. Once it occurs, you can fall back on the plans you have made, but the time to coordinate new plans has passed.What do you think? What is the big takeaway we should be understanding from the situation in Afghanistan? Has it changed your prepping focus? As always, please stay safe out there.
If they ever had to turn to their food preps out of a pure emergency, many preppers would find it extremely tough to make it through on rice, beans, and canned goods alone. Getting the right nutrient mix and maintaining that through an extended disaster is of vital importance. When it comes to protein, flavor, vitamins, and nutrients, meat has to be a part of the equation. Hunting protein sources may not be a possibility. Stored jerky has a short shelf life and can be hard to chew and process. Freeze-dried meats are ideal, but they’re also expensive.
In this post, we will preserve and store our meat the way people have done for thousands of years by making it into meat powder. It may sound gross, but you’ve probably already eaten it regularly when you’ve used bouillion or beef or chicken flavorings. In our homemade product, however, we get to control the ingredients, so we’re not ingesting strange ingredients from factories around the world. Just 3 ounces of our meat powder will add to your largely fiber beans and rice 140 calories, folate, iron, zinc, choline, magnesium, selenium, coenzyme Q10, B2, B6, and B12 vitamins, an incredible 24 grams of protein, tons of flavor and a mere 4 grams of fat. It’s the beefy flavor addition to any meal, which will be the main reason you’re going to want to make this and get meat powder in your preps and cooking. I will show you how to make it. Then I’ll show you how to use it. Let’s do this…
WHAT YOU NEED
Beef heart.
I’m using beef heart because you want the absolute leanest beef to create a longer shelf-life. Also, I’m choosing organ meet because of the more robust flavor and nutritional profile. You will get more benefits from it than just regular beef alone. After a disaster, three ounces of the beef heart contains 24.2 grams of protein, which is more than enough to ensure muscle synthesis and brain health. We’re just going to use a small amount here, so you can scale up or down the rest of the recipe based upon the amount you use.
One celery stalk, chopped
One carrot, chopped
1 Teaspoon to 1 Tablespoon salt. Mine will be on the saltier side, because I am making it more like a bouillon. You can use as little as 1 Teaspoon if you would prefer. If you plan to use it frequently, use a teaspoon. If you are putting it away for more extended storage and occasional use, use a Tablespoon and less actual salt in whatever you are making.
1/4 cup water
1 Tbsp Apple Cider Vinegar
If you are making this for your pet, as many people do, that’s all you want in there. If it’s for human consumption, you will add.
One clove garlic, split
1 Bay Leaf
Half onion, cubed
Here I have to mention that meat powder is extraordinary for your pets. However, dogs and cats shouldn’t eat onions or garlic, and the Bay Leaf has tannins, so consider these optional ingredients if you are making meat powder for both human and pet consumption. If you are looking for a way to boost your aging cat or dog’s nutrition and provide them vital nutrients too, make this recipe and sprinkle a tablespoon on their meals or make it into a dog biscuit. It will be like a miracle for your elderly pet. Just remember to skip the onions and garlic.
THE PROCESS
Cube the beef heart into 1 inch or smaller pieces. Place all the ingredients into a pot and put on medium heat with the lid on the pot. Cook for 45 minutes to 1-hour, stirring occasionally. Remove from heat and let cool to room temperature. Strain any broth off the mix. You can use this broth immediately. Drink it yourself for a hearty nutritional boost, or reserve it in your refrigerator for your next beef dish requiring broth.
Once your mix has come down to room temperature, chop it all together fine or pulse in a food processer.
Spread finely chopped or minced mixture on a parchment paper-lined cookie sheet and place in oven at 175 degrees. If you have a dehydrator or freeze-dryer, feel free to use them for this step. Our basic dehydration method will provide you a shelf-stable product for a year when stored in a sealed mylar bag with an oxygen absorber or in a mason jar in the refrigerator. If you freeze-dry it, it will last from 10-15 years. While I can’t guarantee the shelf-life of your final product, as preparation methods will vary, I would confidently eat my meat powder when stored in a mylar bag with an oxygen absorber even after a couple of years. The compactness of the powder, the oxygen absorber, and the mylar bag would make it incredibly difficult for any bacteria to thrive in that environment.
Dry your mix for as long as required. You cannot over-dry it. Any moisture could lead to mold, and meat powder is typically sold as a cultural media in labs, so you want to make sure you have dried out all the moisture you can from it. Once it is dry, remove it from your oven, dehydrator, or freeze-drier, and let cool to room temperature. Grind in a food processor, blender, or mill to as fine a powder as possible. If using the oven or dehydrator, return to a freshly lined parchment tray or cookie sheet and dry powder for an additional two hours.
Remove from dryer and let cool to room temperature. Process in a food mill, blender, or food processor again until no chunks exist and you are left with a fine powder. Store in a ziplock baggy, in a mason jar, or one of the long-term storage methods discussed.
USING YOUR MEAT POWDER
There are several ways to use your meat powder. The simplest method to consume it is to make a broth out of it by adding a minimum of one tablespoon to 4 cups boiling water. You can add more until the consistency you want is achieved. You’ll get an instant nutritional boost, and you can do this anywhere you can get water to boil. The second method is to add the powder on top of your rice or beans. This will provide more flavor to your food and more nutrition and protein. I like to use mine during non-disasters just as a beefy flavor boost to any dish that uses beef.
Want to get more umami and flavor out of your beef and broccoli? Add a tablespoon of your meat powder. Want to kick your beef stew up to an entirely new level? Add a tablespoon or two of your meat powder. This has what you need to make it through a disaster.
Try this recipe and make some Beef Heart Meat Powder today. There isn’t a comparable nutritional blend with as much flavor and vital nutrients you will need after a disaster when calories and nutrients are critical. Let me know how your batch turned out in the comments below or if there is anything you would add to my simple recipe, as there are many variations to this essential staple.
NOTES: *So I decided to save some seeds. I have two tomato plants that I really like. One is a cherry tomato, and the other is like a mini-cherry tomato. Every
day I go into the garden, I take off the ripe ones and plop them in my mouth. They have a “burst” of flavor. So sweet. But, I bought the plants and not the seeds. So…I thought I would try saving the seeds.
I scraped seeds from 3-4 ripe tomatoes and put them in water.
The directions said to let them sit for 2 days, but NOT too long. So, 2 days it was. Then I strained them and spread them out to dry.
A kind of gel surrounds tomato seeds. The two days of soaking are supposed to “free” the seeds. The mini cherry tomato seeds probably could have used another day. The cherry tomato seeds look good. I decided to plant 3 of each kind, to see what I’d get.
They came up in 5 days!
This only means the seeds are viable. We’ve yet to see exactly WHAT kind of tomatoes I get from them. BUT…… no matter what…..it will be food!
* You can still plant. Late Summer & Fall Garden Planting – YouTube Here in So Cal, we are zone 9b. Our first frost date is Dec. 15. That’s 117 days. Even though you have the time, you will need to have a place that gets good sun. As the temperatures decrease, you will need sun, especially if you want to plant another crop of zucchini, cucumbers, beans, or tomatoes. Cauliflower, carrots, turnips, beets, peas, and broccoli are “cold weather” vegetables. Go ahead and plant them. If we DO, by chance, have a frost in December (we usually get them in Feb & Mar), the frost will NOT kill the plants. But, the shortened days tend to extend the growing time…. so…. lots of sun is the key! Especially after we pass the Autumn Equinox, I have to move my garden out by the pool and into the sun. I started my second crop last week. They look so nice not eaten by bugs and covered with blight. LOL, You still have time!
* I saw a good article about the first 72 hours after a disaster. Her basic advice is NO ONE IS COMING TO HELP YOU!!!Why the First 72 Hours After a Disaster Are Critical Of course, we all belong to a community (church, family, friends), and hopefully, we won’t be totally alone. But you cannot count on ANYONE to support you. It’s an interesting read with some good ideas.
SHORT-TERM FOCUS: Feminine Hygiene It’s a reality, ladies. Time to think about this. Check out this article: Periods and the Apocalypse: How to Deal with Feminine Hygiene during Disasters. Start with just buying a month or two ahead. Do that every month until you have a stockpile stored. Just like TP, you will NOT want to be caught without any supplies.
72-HOUR KIT FOCUS: Cash Time to add some money to your kit. Maybe you can find a hiding place in your car for a few $10 bills. You should put some cash in EVERY 72-hour kit. The amount will depend on you. It would help if you also had cash at home, preferably in a fire-safe box. How much? The suggested amount is 3 months’ worth of income. I WISH I could do that. But something is better than nothing. $5 here and $2-3 there will add up.
MISC FOCUS: Bath Tissue It’s time to stock up on TP. According to Google, the average person uses about 100 rolls of TP a year. We have 2 people, so if I store 100 rolls, that will last me 6 months. But, we know all rolls are NOT equal. The Costco packs have 30 rolls. If I store 3 of those packs, I’ll have 90 rolls – close enough. Luckily, you can store it in the attic, or the rafters of the garage, or even outside in a container or under a tarp. The best estimate would be to keep track of how much you buy for your family size. Do you buy TP every time you shop? Then buy 2 each time and put one away. Didn’t you find it odd (ironic, funny, a little scary) that TP was the first thing to disappear from the shelves? What about a long-term solution? Well, it’s not too nice, but instead of throwing away any old towels, just cut them in squares (about 6 inches X 6 inches). They could be used in emergencies, then soaked in buckets with a little bleach water, washed, and reused. This is how we did baby diapers in the dark ages. You gotta admit that 4 towels, cut into squares, will take up a lot less space than 100 rolls of TP.
FOOD STORAGE RECIPES
Refried Beans
I “used” to make these – when I was young and poor. They are pretty inexpensive, just time-consuming. BUT, there is no need to store dehydrated refried beans. I’ve tried the dehydrated refried beans, and I didn’t like them. I much prefer this recipe if you’re going to DIY.
Soak 2 c. pinto beans and 1 chopped onion overnight in 2 quarts of water. (You can boil first, or not. I prefer to boil) The next day, drain and cover with clean water. Simmer beans until tender (1-2 hours). You can do this any time during the day. Check it partway through to see if you need to add a little more water. Don’t let them burn (I may have done that before). Add 1 tsp salt (or to taste).
Option 1. Add about 1/4 c. oil and mix with an immersion blender.
Option 2. I didn’t have an immersion blender in the ’70s, so I would drain the beans, add some oil to a frying pan, dump in the beans and mash with a fork.
They are SOOO good this way. So easy to change this recipe. Add some bell pepper to the water as it simmers. Add some tomato sauce or paste when you mash them. Add something spicy? Add some salsa? Lots of ways to flavor them. Roll in a tortilla with or without meat and cheese. Makes a filling meal.
Brigham’s Buttermilk Doughnuts (a pioneer recipe from Cookin’ With Home Storage by Peggy Layton. This recipe came from Brigham Young’s wife, Emily Dow Partridge Young.)
2 c. buttermilk 2 eggs, beaten 1 c. sugar Combine and mix well 2 tsp baking soda 1 tsp baking powder 1 tsp nutmeg 5 c. flour Combine dry ingredients and add with 1/4 c. melted butter or oil Mix and roll to 1/4 inch thick. Cut with a doughnut cutter. Fry in hot oil until brown. Drain and sprinkle with sugar.
Little Jake’s Mashed Potato Boats from Cookin’ With Home Storage by Peggy Layton
Shape 8 pieces of tin foil into boat shapes. 2 TB dehydrated onion minced In a small cup, add the potatoes to some hot water and soak for 10 minutes. Drain 4 c. of mashed potatoes made with instant potato flakes or potato pearls To the mashed potatoes, add the rehydrated onions, 1/4 c. dried butter or margarine powder (or use regular butter or margarine) 1/4 c. dried cheese powder (you can get this at Winco) salt and pepper to taste bacon bits if you have them.
Spoon the potato mix into the foil boats. Sprinkle paprika on them. Bake 350˚ for 20 minutes until lightly browned.
Carry on, everyone. World events continue to remind us that we need to get ready. Be consistent. Be committed. Be prepared. Marti
* I found another great resource for helping families be prepared for emergencies. It includes ideas for avoiding debt, How to Make an Emergency Communication Plan, getting an adequate education, and keeping a reserve of food. Links and videos are included. Emergency Preparedness
** Some ideas for diagnosing garden problems:
THIS is the story of my garden: Something is wrong. I spend time worrying and researching. When I finally decide what it is, the problem has exploded and then I frantically prune, spray, and babysit the plants until I can get it under control, cursing myself for letting it go so long. Really, you need to be in the garden often to monitor what’s going on.
LONG TERM FOCUS: Dehydrated Hash Browns
Several months ago, I bought some of these: Idaho Spuds Premium Hashbrown Potatoes 4.2 oz, 8 Pack. I liked how you just fill up the container with boiling water, let them sit 12 minutes, then dump in the frying pan. Well…… I found the same thing in the bulk section of Winco and bought a BIG bag. The dehydrated potatoes are sold by weight, and they weigh next to nothing. I took a baggie of the dehydrated hash browns with us camping. I filled a red cup 3/4 full with dry potatoes, poured boiling water in the cup and let it sit for 12 minutes. I poured off the water and dumped the potatoes right into the frying pan. I fried them in a little butter. They were perfect! I’m going to go back and get more. I’ll probably seal them in mylar bags. Trying to vacuum shrink them won’t work because they are “pokey” and will poke holes in the plastic as it shrinks. Another idea is to cut off the tops of 2 2-liter soda bottles, cut a slit in one so it will slide into the other one, and store potatoes that way. OR, any kind of bug-proof container.
The product above from Amazon only has 8 containers and is over $16. In essence, it is 2 pounds of potatoes for $16. THAT’s a lot of money.
SHORT-TERM FOCUS: Green Chiles
I have a few recipes that call for green chiles. Watch for them to go on sale, and pick up 4-6 cans. Write the date on them (I do month and year 8-21) and put them in the pantry, or under your bed, or in the closet.
72-HOUR KIT FOCUS: Emergency Contacts
I still remember my phone number from grade school. But I can barely remember my husband’s cell number and I have to check it EVERY TIME! You don’t need to include all phone numbers ever. But on a 3X5 card – better a 4X6. One side can be for personal numbers. All immediate family members, a close relative, maybe a neighbor or best friend. Be sure to include an out-of-state number as well. AND make sure to put your address on this card. On the other side, including police, poison control, emergency doctor, or any other emergency number you can think of.
Get your kids to fill out their own cards for their own kits. Talk about what kind of emergencies they might have. 1) At the school I taught at, there was a sighting of an armed gunman. The school locked down as police patrolled the area. It was super scary for the kids and a little nerve-wracking for the teachers as well. 2) There could be an earthquake during school. Let the kids know their teachers will take care of them. 3) One time my kids got lost at the beach. Of course, they didn’t have a 72-hour kit with them, but it gave us a good chance to talk about getting lost and what to do. 4) One time I drove home and left one of my kids at the store. Ditto above. LOL
What happens if they are home alone (because you ran to school to pick up someone, or dashed next door to borrow sugar, or whatever) and there is an accident.
What if YOU have an accident? What should the kids do?
The reason we practice disaster response at school is so this doesn’t happen: Kindergarten Cop-Fire Drill – YouTube You should also talk about and have practices at home so kids will be calm and know what to do.
It doesn’t fit in my drawer, so it is with my emergency stuff.
FOOD STORAGE RECIPES
Stuffing Casserole
I like this one because it is totally shelf-stable. I have NOT yet learned how to dehydrate my own stuffing from leftover bread, but how hard can that be??? For now, I just buy stuffing, then vacuum seal the bags so the pantry moths don’t get into them.
4 c. stuffing 1 c. melted butter Mix together. Put 1/2 of the stuffing mix on the bottom of a 13 X 9 casserole dish. Filling: 1 1/2 c. peas 1 c. milk 1 can Cream of Chicken soup 1 can Cream of Celery soup 3 c. chicken (I usually use 1 jar which is only 2 c.) 2 TB dry onions Simmer in a small pan until mixed and heated. Pour filling over stuffing. Top with remaining stuffing. Bake 375˚ for 30 minutes.
Chicken & Broccoli
Although I use fresh or frozen broccoli in this recipe, you can easily substitute freeze-dried broccoli. Just rehydrate it first. Cook broccoli and set aside If you boil a fryer, debone and keep the broth. If you use canned chicken, you will need bouillon for chicken broth.
Sauce:
Melt 1/4 c. butter Blend in 1/4 c. flour It will be thick. Let it bubble a little to dampen the flour taste. Add 2 c. chicken broth. Stir and heat to make a nice sauce. Add both cans of soup and blend Add 1 c. cream. In a 13 X 9 pan, layer broccoli, a little sauce, chicken, more sauce Top with 1 c. cheese
It’s really good served with mashed potatoes
Bean Chowder From Cookin’ With Home Storage by Peggy Layton
It doesn’t specify, but I’m thinking this will feed 4 people? 3/4 c. dry beans = 2 1/4 c. cooked beans
3/4 c. dry beans – soak overnight and pour off the water. 3 c. water 1 1/2 tsp salt Cover and boil until almost done, about an hour. 3/4 c. diced potatoes (Can use canned or dehydrated) 1/2 c. chopped onion (or 1 TB dry) Cook 30 minutes more. In a separate bowl, mix 1 TB butter and 1 1/2 tsp flour. Stir into the beans. 3/4 c. diced tomatoes (about 1/2 jar) 1/3 c. green pepper, or 2 tsp dehydrated Cover over low heat for about 10 more minutes until thickened. 1 1/2 c. milk – Stir in and serve.
Doesn’t this sound like one of those recipes you can add just about anything to? Add some meat? Some corn, beans? Whatever you have on hand. Throw some barley or lentils into the mix.
Serve with warm biscuits or bread.
Let’s be kind to each other this week. Let’s assume we’re all doing the best we can. Make “being prepared” part of something you think about all the time – especially every trip to the store. Just a little at a time. Baby steps.
Be consistent. Be committed. Be prepared.
Marti
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Hi Everyone,
and leaves on a tiny bare stalk)
Powdered milk today is SOOO much better than it was 30 years ago. If you bought milk 20 years ago, you should probably get more. By using powdered milk, you can then make yogurt, sour cream, cream cheese, sweetened condensed milk, whipped topping, buttermilk, day cheese, cottage cheese, bakers’ cheese, white sauce, pudding, etc. 
Without getting into the middle of a debate on health options, it would help us all to strengthen our immune systems.
in #10 cans, potatoes are a filling comfort food. Along with rice, they are gluten-free and can take the place of pasta in many dishes. The recommended amount is 1 #10 can per person per month. I can’t imagine that any of you have never used potato flakes. Just in case there is a “I-always-use-real-potatoes” reader out there, making potato flakes taste good requires water, milk, butter, and salt. You might want to store some butter 
So, I found large containers of minced onion and minced garlic in the spice section at Winco. They were about $5 each? I pretty much use the dehydrated onions exclusively now, and I wanted to see how the garlic works as well. I use the jars of minced garlic now but wanted to see how the dehydrated will work for long-term storage.
We lived in Indiana for two years. While there, we had spray cans of Off in the car, and next to the front door. We never left the house without spraying ourselves. And if we forgot, we had some in the car. I think some movie I watched once had a line that said, “Just assume everything out there wants to eat you.” Pretty much. Typically, I seldom use it. But when we go camping, I bring it along.
What I call commercial filtration includes all types of individual water filters you can purchase. These can range in price, method, and micron filtration level. Before we cover the various options, let’s quickly cover a few important points to ensure you understand your options. 
The options on the low end of pricing along with chemical treatment will ensure after a disaster, you can properly process water to make it safe for drinking. I’ll start from the low end and move up in price. 
For larger, stationary options that are at or under $300, there are 2 primary choices: gravity and forced. For gravity filtration, one of the go-to’s within the prepper community is the Berkey water filter. I have used a home Berkey for years to filter out chemicals from tap water. They can filter down to roughly 0.2 microns but come in at a much higher price than the portable filters at around $300 to $400 depending on the options you want. They can process several gallons of water per hour depending how many filters you have and can also remove various chemicals as well. I’ve had one for 5 years and still use it on a daily basis. 
Boiling is the best method for rendering dirty, raw water drinkable. Bringing water to a rolling boil for one minute effectively kills or inactivates protozoa, bacteria, and viruses. Before boiling the water, if it is cloudy, let it settle and filter it through a clean cloth or coffee filter as we discussed a moment ago. In addition to destroying pathogens and microscopic organisms in the water, it can also boil off impurities and pollutants that are lighter than H2O, but not all of them such as heavy metals, salts, and most other chemicals.
People have been treating water in the wild with various chemicals for years to render it drinkable. Bleach, hydrogen peroxide, sodium hypochlorite, chlorine dioxide, calcium hypochlorite, and iodine are common additives. They all work to neutralize pathogens in the water. Some can leave a slight chemical taste behind that sometimes fades with time. Hikers and deployed military have used chemical additives for years to neutralize pathogens in wild water. 
Using a UV light on a pen or in a bottle is a new, popular way to render pathogens harmless. I have to admit they are pretty cool. All you have to do is stir the light in the water or place it in the bottle with the light built-in, and the UV light emitted will neutralize the pathogens. Rather than removing biological contaminants, including viruses, bacteria, and protozoa, they kill their DNA so they can’t reproduce if you do ingest them. Ultraviolet water purifiers do not neutralize or remove mineral contamination or pollutants, either. There are three types of UV light, A, B, and C. C band wavelengths are the most lethal to organic matter. 
If a storm is approaching and you have enough advanced warning, top off all your water supplies. Fill all your large containers, sinks, and bathtubs. Don’t forget any ice in your refrigerator will keep things colder when the power goes out, but as it melts, you will want to capture the water. There is also water in your pipes you can access even if the municipal water stops and can be accessed by opening your lowest tap or faucet. If you suspect the water coming to your house is compromised, immediately shut off the water valve coming into your residence to protect the water in the pipes. Even when pumping stations fail, municipal water sources use as much gravity as possible to get water to you. The power may be out, and the water will eventually stop flowing to you, but it will still flow for a while, so capture as much of it as you can, as long as you have no reason to believe it’s contaminated.
Canned foods are typically packed in either sugar or sodium water. Don’t throw that water out. You can use any fruit syrups directly in your cooking or drink them straight for an energy boost. The saltier brine like your vegetables and beans can be mixed with a little stored water to provide vital electrolytes. You should avoid drinking the saltier brines straight, as this could dehydrate you. If you can dilute it a little by adding water, you will derive more significant benefits.
You walk by, probably every day, around 40 to 50 gallons of water stored in your water heater, but would you know how to tap into it after a disaster safely? Here’s how: Start by turning off the gas supply line by turning the valve to the off position. Then you may want to wait awhile to allow your water to cool off. Then find the larger lever, which is the water source line, and close that off as well. Then, open the pressure relief valve to vent any high pressure. Finally, with a bucket under your water heater, open the drain valve to capture the water. If you do this in 5-gallon increments with a 5-gallon bucket, you can get a solid 40 to 50 gallons here. You can show a neighbor how to do the same in exchange for another five or more gallons off their water heater.
I know this may be a bit hard to believe, but that back tank of your toilet has some of the cleanest water you will be able to get your hands on after a disaster. The water comes in fresh from your municipal lines and is sealed off from fecal matter, so you could, in a crisis, drink it right out the back of the toilet, but it never hurts to treat it or filter it just to be safe. If you use chemicals in the reservoir like the kind that releases with each flush, you will need to treat and filter the water. The water in the tank is good, but you have to be genuinely desperate to drink from the bowl. You would definitely want to treat that water before you drink it from there; however, it is okay for your pets. Many bacterias that would make us sick they don’t even notice. Don’t overlook this supply of water.
Do you have sprinklers in your yard? If you do, you are surrounded by water. Most irrigation lines are 3/4 inch or 1 inch. There are 231 cubic inches in a gallon. If my math is correct, the average suburban lot of 5,000 square feet will have a little over 420 feet of PVC irrigation, including lateral lines. If that’s a 1-inch line, that’s going to be at least two gallons and likely more of water just sitting in the underground lines of every similarly built house in your subdivision or neighborhood.
It won’t provide you a lot of water, but placing a plastic bag tightly over leaves will capture small amounts of water through what is called transpiration. Excess water drawn up from the plant’s roots is expelled in this process. The plastic bag seals the leaves in and captures the water out of this transpiration stream. The water will collect through the hottest times of the day. Harvest your water in the evening or early morning when water vapors have converted to liquid form. Be careful that the plant you are harvesting water from isn’t toxic. Depending upon your climate, you may also be able to harvest dew. Also, some cactus and succulents are edible and store large amounts of water. You can eat aloe vera and pear cactus plants to provide you vital water. Know what plants are in your area because you don’t want to be experimenting and taste testing after a disaster.
Draping a tarp and collecting rain is an excellent way to capture natural water sources, assuming you get rain after a disaster. How much water can you gather from rain? To calculate this, take your tarp’s square area and multiply it by inches of rainfall and then by .62. Length times width times inches of rainfall times .62. So, a standard ten by twelve tarp collecting 1″ of rainfall will collect an incredible 74 gallons of water. After a disaster, realize that this same equation can be used to calculate rainfall on your roof. If your roof area is just 20 by 40, that same 1-inch of rain will be coming down your gutters to equate to 248 gallons of water. Make sure your gutters aren’t just draining into the dirt. Have a plan or system in place to channel and collect this water.
Moving to the street, and while probably not exactly legal, you can obtain water from municipal lines by tapping into fire hydrants. Note that everybody else will be trying to get water in this way too. Be careful as hydrants are under tremendous pressure. This high pressure can easily cause injury. Were you to try and tap a hydrant, the method would be to unscrew the outlet then gently loosen the stem nut in a counterclockwise manner. If you can keep this action slight, you will be able to regulate the flow and won’t risk depressurizing the entire system. Loosening the stem nut opens the valve at the drain hole at the stem of the hydrant. Make sure you have a sizable collection container, and you’re going to need a mammoth wrench to do this.
While we are on the topic of tapping municipal water supplies that aren’t ours and are, technically, stealing, many preppers make sure to have a 4-way sillcock key in their bug out bags. Every commercial building has an external water outlet. If the water is flowing, you simply put the sillcock key in and turn it counterclockwise to open the valve. Even if the water is out, the hydrostatic pressure of the latent water in the building will often still force the water out. So, even if the water is out, you would be draining the stored water in the pipes of the building.
Ponds, fountains, and pools are large quantities of water, but they are not safe for consumption unless properly treated, which is possible. I’ll post a link in the cards above to a video detailing various approaches to safely treat water like these sources.
Get to know your area as old water systems are still all around us, unseen and overlooked. Often wells and springs were sealed off when municipal water lines were built. It was no longer necessary to hall up buckets of water, so they fell into disuse. Taking a walk through the historical parts of your community and trying to find these hidden stores of water is a valuable exercise before disaster strikes. Knowing where they are and how you can access them after a crisis could be a lifesaver. With a little research, you may be able to find some of these sources. 
I wouldn’t quite label this last source as overlooked per se, but for many urbanites and suburbanites, they may not consider these options as they’re not sure how to process these water sources to make them safe for drinking. There’s a few things you can observe before trusting these sources. When collecting water from the wild, it’s essential to see if other animals are enjoying that water. If there are many tracks around the lake or stream, you know that other animals enjoy and thrive in the source. If there are dead fish, large green algae blooms, or white or red bacterial blooms, the water will need some heavy filtration and treatment before it can be consumed. If it has an oily or murky sheen, try and find another source. Think of anything upstream that may be running into the water supply. 
In this post, we will be making 600 parts per million bleach, similar to the concentration of store-bought bleach, out of Calcium Hypochlorite. Once you know this method, you may not ever buy store-bought bleach again. In fact, for $20 spent today, you will be able to make the equivalent of 768 gallons of bleach. Do you like saving money because that $20 today would equate to about $5,093 in store-bought bleach? That $20 spent today will allow you to treat 33,000 gallons of water, which is enough for a family of three to survive for ten years.
After any disaster, even disasters with low initial death tolls, most people die from lack of drinkable water. Once pretty reliable municipal water systems can quickly become contaminated or stop flowing altogether. Many don’t have adequate supplies or can use up what they have stored up sooner than expected. You have to know how to harvest water from the wild and render it drinkable. To do this, many turn to bleach to kill the organisms in the water that can make you violently ill or even kill you.
You can see here that I had pulled up some critters in my unfiltered pond water. There was a mosquito pupa in there. I left him in there as a control to make sure the bleach was going to be effective. Sure enough, he was dead and floating next to some maidenhair moss. When it comes to water from the wild there are 4 main organic components that can kill you or make you sick: parasites, bacteria, amoebas, and viruses. Simply touching your mouth without washing your hands can transfer these microscopic killers to you. That’s why it is important to treat your water and filter it. Check out this site for more videos on the water in the wild. 
drink. 
The reason I recommend Calcium Hypochlorite, and here is a link 
If there is one takeaway from the two-decade war, it’s that there is pervasive incompetence when governments try to do what they think at the moment is the “right thing.” We don’t need to see a war that lasts for several generations, a bungled response to a disaster, or a hacked and poisoned municipal water supply to understand fully that governments aren’t very effective at maintaining your security and well-being. Still, many put their complete faith in a party or policy, which isn’t dissimilar to fastening your seatbelt, praying, and handing over the steering wheel to someone who claims to know how to drive but has never really demonstrated the ability. The situation in Afghanistan displays the incompetence of several administrations, the extent of profits over people especially within the military-industrial complex which President Dwight Eisenhower warned about on Jan. 17, 1961 in his farewell speech, and how seemingly noble causes can evaporate over time.
The second lesson we can take from what we see happening in Afghanistan is that things can unravel quickly. I don’t think anyone will argue that Afghanistan was the model of security and safety, but the semblance of security was at least in place. The Taliban takeover was far swifter than officials from any previous administration had envisioned. They seized control of province after province and took the capital Kabul in a mere ten days. The Taliban didn’t have to fight to do it, either. They simply moved in to fill the vacuum of leadership and brokered a series of surrenders. After nearly two decades of war, more than 6,000 American lives were lost, over 100,000 Afghans killed, and more than $2 trillion spent by the U.S., the speed of the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan has shocked many in the world.
This situation shows how quickly the government will abandon what it may consider liabilities. If something or someone no longer serves a purpose, they’ll leave. Obviously, we should have left Afghanistan a long time ago and should have never set up shop in the country at the level we have. Both sides of the political aisle seem to agree on this point. America has a history of doing this to other nations: we often tend to use other countries for their resources and then pull out, leaving them to fend for their own. In Afghanistan’s case, it is one of the poorest countries in the world, but it is sitting on mineral deposits worth nearly one trillion dollars. 
The final lesson here for us is that only you are in control of your survival. When you fail to prep and plan for the worst, you freely surrender to the random winds of chaos and the boot heels of whatever brute or political faction is the strongest to rule with fear. The government has a slight percentage chance of swooping in and being your savior, assuming all conditions are perfectly right, roads are passable, security is established, and resources are available to you. That all said, even in the United States, vital relief funds and aid have been held up after previous disasters while political parties argued. Impassable roads led to desperation at the Superdome after Katrina, as some 16,000 people sought safety there. At least two people were raped in the darkness. One man jumped 50 feet to his death, saying he had nothing to live for, and people had no option but to urinate and defecate along the walls as sewer systems failed along with all the other infrastructure systems. Just recently, floodwaters ravaged rural Tennessee, North Carolina, and other areas leaving many dead and even more missing. Most were from rural areas, and those tend to be the last to receive any government assistance, aid, or relief.
Make sure you have at least two routes and more than one method to get safely beyond the border of your neighborhood, your town, your city, even your state. If you feel the chaos is brewing, you might preemptively move to get ahead of it. Stay ahead of the wave before it crashes down around you and on top of you. Many people on the ground in Afghanistan were caught off-guard by the quick deterioration, including many western humanitarian workers. Having the ability to quickly get out of a situation and promptly execute that plan with short notice is so important. The time to pull together your bug out bag or run to the grocery store ends the moment the disaster strikes, and it might not come back for you again.
If they ever had to turn to their food preps out of a pure emergency, many preppers would find it extremely tough to make it through on rice, beans, and canned goods alone. Getting the right nutrient mix and maintaining that through an extended disaster is of vital importance. When it comes to protein, flavor, vitamins, and nutrients, meat has to be a part of the equation. Hunting protein sources may not be a possibility. Stored jerky has a short shelf life and can be hard to chew and process. Freeze-dried meats are ideal, but they’re also expensive.
more benefits from it than just regular beef alone. After a disaster, three ounces of the beef heart contains 24.2 grams of protein, which is more than enough to ensure muscle synthesis and brain health. We’re just going to use a small amount here, so you can scale up or down the rest of the recipe based upon the amount you use.
Here I have to mention that meat powder is extraordinary for your pets. However, dogs and cats shouldn’t eat onions or garlic, and the Bay Leaf has tannins, so consider these optional ingredients if you are making meat powder for both human and pet consumption. If you are looking for a way to boost your aging cat or dog’s nutrition and provide them vital nutrients too, make this recipe and sprinkle a tablespoon on their meals or make it into a dog biscuit. It will be like a miracle for your elderly pet. Just remember to skip the onions and garlic.
There are several ways to use your meat powder. The simplest method to consume it is to make a broth out of it by adding a minimum of one tablespoon to 4 cups boiling water. You can add more until the consistency you want is achieved. You’ll get an instant nutritional boost, and you can do this anywhere you can get water to boil. The second method is to add the powder on top of your rice or beans. This will provide more flavor to your food and more nutrition and protein. I like to use mine during non-disasters just as a beefy flavor boost to any dish that uses beef. 
Hi Everyone,
*So I decided to save some seeds. I have two tomato plants that I really like. One is a cherry tomato, and the other is like a mini-cherry tomato. Every 
Time to add some money to your kit. Maybe you can find a hiding place in your car for a few $10 bills. You should put some cash in EVERY 72-hour kit. The amount will depend on you. It would help if you also had cash at home, preferably in a fire-safe box. How much? The suggested amount is 3 months’ worth of income. I WISH I could do that. But something is better than nothing. $5 here and $2-3 there will add up.
enough. Luckily, you can store it in the attic, or the rafters of the garage, or even outside in a container or under a tarp. The best estimate would be to keep track of how much you buy for your family size. Do you buy TP every time you shop? Then buy 2 each time and put one away. Didn’t you find it odd (ironic, funny, a little scary) that TP was the first thing to disappear from the shelves? What about a long-term solution? Well, it’s not too nice, but instead of throwing away any old towels, just cut them in squares (about 6 inches X 6 inches). They could be used in emergencies, then soaked in buckets with a little bleach water, washed, and reused. This is how we did baby diapers in the dark ages. You gotta admit that 4 towels, cut into squares, will take up a lot less space than 100 rolls of TP.
Several months ago, I bought some of these: 
number as well. AND make sure to put your address on this card. 
It IS possible to open cans without an opener. This only works if you are in the city, or can find a sidewalk or piece of concrete.