Event pre-registration

As a result of our Prepare Manila meetup in August, we came up with some events for the near future. If you are interested in attending, please fill out this form so we can contact you with more information. Thank you! Continue Reading

A Prepper’s Beans, Bandages & Bullets

Article by Pinoy Prepper, Emergency Research Center "Lamang ang Handa sa Hindi!" Prepper Definition:
Prepper (noun): An individual or group that prepares or makes preparations in advance of, or prior to, any change in normal circumstances or lifestyle without significant reliance on other persons (i.e., being self-reliant), or without substantial assistance from outside resources (govt., etc.) in order to minimize the effects of that change on their current lifestyle
Source: Prepper.org Rule of Threes
  • 3 minutes without air
  • 3 days without water
  • 3 weeks without food and you will die
These are your survival priorities. Remember them well. Do not eat food unless you have adequate water. In an emergency – you will generally have three options:
  • Lockdown
  • Shelter-In-Place
  • Evacuate
In any of the three cases above, you will need basic supplies:

BEANS – Food and Water

"We are 9 meals away from chaos" – Preppers predict that peace and order will be at risk after the population misses 9 meals. That’s only three days worth of meals. While it’s true that you may live several weeks without food provided you have water, that’s on the assumption that your are just lying down or sitting still. During a survival situation you may have a lot of tasks to perform. Walking from one place to another is one of them. Walking burns calories and you will need an appropriate amount of food to replenish your energy source. You may well be constantly avoiding hordes of hungry people. Remember the pack of kids begging for money at street intersections? Imagine this multiplied by the thousands. People begging for food and stealing what’s available. Plan your food stocks well. Consider nutrition, weight, portability and palatability. Your food stocks must be nutritious. This means most junk foods are out. Since you may end up carrying your food stocks, weight is a premium. This will take most canned goods out of the equation. Remember, you cannot eat if you do not have an adequate supply of water. Water is heavy as 1 liter weighs approximately 1 kilogram (weight to volume is dependent on temperature, water quality, etc). For this reason, have alternate means to purify your water. You can buy water filters or make simple ones that will filter out the coarser suspended particles. You can find details elsewhere in this book. In a pinch, you may have to resort to SODIS. Solar Disinfection is a UN approved method which involves any clear bottle, filling it with questionable water (filter the water first if its cloudy) and exposing it to the sun for a whole day. SODIS works by exposing the microorganisms in the water to ultra violet light in our sun’s rays killing them in the process. Use clear glass bottles for SODIS, only use clear plastic bottles if glass is not available. WARNING: SODIS will not keep toxins out of the water - use filters for this purpose.<.em> Store enough water for drinking. Avoid using the water for bathing! People can live without bathing.

BANDAGES – Medical Skills, Equipment and Supplies.

Its not enough to have a deluxe Medical kit with the latest bells and whistles. A Prepper should have enough first aid knowledge to handle medical, dental and mental emergencies. Emergency Childbirth is one of the must have skills in the Prepper’s medical tool kit. If you have to read the manual during an actual emergency, its too late! Learn life saving skills such as managing shock, controlling severe bleeding and performing CPR. Along the way, learn and practice basic first aid skills such as bandaging, splinting, and wound care. The time to learn is now, before it’s too late. To control severe bleeding, apply direct pressure to the wound until the bleeding visibly stops. One of the best improvised dressings one can use is a feminine napkin. This direct descendant of the battle dressing absorbs blood effectively and can thus perform an admirable job of controlling bleeding when coupled with direct pressure. To manage shock – watch the face. If the face is pale or bluish, raise the feet. This will make the blood from the extremities flow to the vital organs such as the brain, heart and lungs. Keep the victim warm by covering him/her with a blanket, jacket or other material. In as much as your pets will need to have their own supplies of food and water, don’t forget to learn first aid for your pets. You can even learn how to do CPR for man’s best friend - your dog!

BULLETS – Skills and equipment to defend oneself.

It’s not enough to have a gun and ammunition. One must be proficient in its safe and effective use. The same applies to knives, spears, sticks, bottles, stones, bows & arrows. Learn basic self defense moves. It is better to master one technique than be spotty with a thousand. Learn and practice your skills with different people. In self defense, familiarity breeds contempt. Remember: Trained fighters are predictable; but the world is full of dangerous amateurs!

BUGGING OUT – (Evacuating)

EDC (Every Day Carry) These are the items you carry on your person on an everyday basis. EDC’s are predicated on the premise that an emergency may strike at any moment, any time, any day. My EDC is my wallet, I have adhesive strips “band aids”, a large safety pin that I use for repairs, first aid, lock picking, and a host of other McGyver stuff. There’s also a survival multi-tool with a dozen uses and of course, cash. Bring a flashlight – the small LED button lights are marvelous. Bring a lighter – nothing beats a lighter for starting fires. An emergency situation is not the place to start learning how to light a fire. Rubbing sticks together or striking stones to make fire takes some time to learn. Study now. Learn how to start a fire with a battery (your cellphone has one – but only use it if a fire has priority over communications) and a staple wire. BOB (Bug Out Bag) My bug out bag is my 33 liter capacity laptop bag which contains my pocket survival kit, ten mile cloth bandanna, monocular, hoody wind/rain jacket, trauma medical kit and a host of other goodies. This bag goes with me to corporate meetings (my netbook, flash drives and peripherals are in it) as well as three day jaunts to the province, training courses, jungle treks and the rest of my Prepper activities. BOV (Bug Out Vehicle) Depending on where you live and your situation, your bug out vehicle may be a 4X4 monster truck, a family sedan, a dual purpose motorcycle, a mountain bike or a cariton! Consider the fact that in a bug out situation the usual routes will be clogged with fellow evacuees. Recall images of Hurricane Katrina in Florida and Louisiana – highways filled with so many cars they looked like giant parking lots. Figure out your PACE – Primary, Alternate, Contingency and Emergency routes. Have at least two and at best four routes out of your area. Consider waterways for your bug out. If you have the means, consider air travel as well. Otherwise, be prepared to hunker down and Shelter-In-Place in your home, office or school.

Pinoy Prepper’s Observations:

Its not the rich Prepper with the latest bells and whistles who will make it through a long term disaster. It’s the street dwellers who live on survival mode on a daily basis. It’s the person with the kariton poking through the garbage and cooking with the tin can you threw out months ago. It’s the street folk who are used to this environment. They know where the best pickings are, where to find water, how to prepare what food they forage. They live without most of the things we “civilized folks” take for granted. No bed, no bathroom, no water, no closet full of clothes, no laptop, no aircon, heck, no electricity! The point being raised here is the fact that we have to train and condition ourselves to survival conditions. Anybody who is comfort oriented will have a hard time surviving the big one. If you can’t sleep without air conditioning, can’t go to the corner convenience store without your car or can’t walk a city block, think again. You have to toughen yourself up for an emergency. Think about this… Scientists at the Pennington Biomedical Research Center in Louisiana analyzed the lifestyles of more than 17,000 men and women over about 13 years, and found that people who sit for most of the day are 54 percent more likely to die of heart attacks. Exercise! More than half of us chair sitters are going to die of a heart attack let alone a major emergency. If push comes to shove, can you walk 10 kilometers (that’s not far – runners run that distance)? Drink water from a nearby stream? Sleep under the stars? Can you live without your aircon? Cellphone? Car? Comfort food? Starbucks? Facebook? - if you can’t, have another think. Establish your priorities. Have you made peace with your maker? Do you have faith in your abilities? Are you trained? Do you have the skills needed to survive? This is what Prepping and being a Prepper is all about. Continue Reading

Check your flood exposure using online flood hazard maps

I've recently discovered some flood hazard maps at nababaha.com, a project by members of the Volcano-Tectonics Laboratory of the National Institute of Geological Sciences. According to their website:
"These hazard maps are indicative inundation maps for large flood events and useful only for knowing where not to be during extremely heavy rainfall. For local governments, these flood hazard maps can be used for localized emergency response (i.e. evacuation and access routes, road closures, siting of key rescue facilities) and for urban planning."
Take a look at the citizen reports at http://www.nababaha.com/report/view.php
Image of flood hazard map by nababaha.com
View the Flood Reporting & Mapping tool.
Continue Reading

A cheap and effective way to disinfect water in tropical countries

There are many ways to make water safe for drinking. One method that's starting to gain acceptance in tropical countries is solar water disinfection, or SODIS, because it is simple, practically free and uses low-tech, easy-to-find materials. The World Health Organisation, UNICEF, and the Red Cross recommend the SODIS method for treating drinking water in developing countries.
Pictogram showing the SODIS method
Pictogram showing the SODIS method by Samuel Luzi, Fundacion SODIS

How to apply the SODIS method to make safe drinking water

The process uses sunlight to disinfect water stored in common PET bottles which are used for soft-drinks. It works because sunlight contains radiation that kills pathogens including bacteria, viruses and parasites that cause diarrhea.
  1. Collect some colorless, transparent PET soft-drink bottles that will contain no more than 2 liters of liquid. Choose bottles that have few surface scratches and blemishes. Remove any labels and wash well with clean water. Sunlight may not penetrate the water adequately if the bottles are too large or heavily scratched.
  2. Fill the bottle three-quarters full with the water to be disinfected, screw on the cap and shake well for 20 seconds. After shaking, fill the bottle with more water but leave a space at the top for air, then screw on the lid once again. This step oxygenates the water which helps speed up the disinfection process.
  3. Expose the bottle to sunlight. A good place is on a sloped surface facing the sun, like a corrugated iron sheet roof. The length of exposure depends on your weather conditions.
  4. Once treated, the water should be stored in and consumed directly from the bottles to avoid re-contaminating the water.
Suggested exposure times
Weather conditions Minimum exposure duration
Sunny (less than 50% cloud cover) 6 hours
Cloudy (50-100% cloudy, with little or no rain) 2 days
Continuous rainfall The SODIS method cannot be reliably used to disinfect water

Important considerations

  • The SODIS method kills pathogens in the water but does not remove toxic chemicals.
  • Turbid (cloudy) water must first be filtered to remove the particles before being used to fill bottles.
  • Old bottles that are scratched or discolored should be replaced.
  • PET or PETE (polyethylene terephthalate) bottles should be used. The easiest way to find out if a bottle is made out of PET is to look for the recycling mark shown below. 1 is the resin identification code for PETE or PET.
    PET resin identification code: 1
    PET resin identification code stamp

Resources

Continue Reading

5 basic steps to start on the road to preparedness

The Survival Mom blog offers five baby steps for newbies on how to start on their preparedness journey:
  1. Plan for a Short-Term Emergency
  2. Prepare Your Vehicle
  3. Get Smart About Potential Disasters
  4. Get Home, No Matter What
  5. Develop a Mindset
You can read the rest of the article here where you can find links to more detailed postings. For many people new to preparedness, the task may seem daunting as there's so much to learn and do. Just the expense alone can make people give up as they feel they don't have the budget to be 'fully prepared'. My advice is to relax, start simply and build up your preparations over time. The world is unlikely to collapse around you tomorrow but every little thing you do today can only make you better off than you were yesterday. Continue Reading

Emergency cooking in a condo – is your fire kit appropriate?

I'd always been told that it's important for your survival kit to have three ways of making fire. For example, you may have a lighter, matches and flint and steel. All my emergency kits over the years had these and I'd been feeling pretty confident that I was prepared—that is, at least until Typhoon Ondoy. You see, while it was a major calamity for some people, my wife and I live in a condo in Metro Manila so for us, it ended up only being an inconvenience. The power was off and while we couldn't cook using our electric cooker, it was a simple matter to step out to buy food or eat at a restaurant. Breaking out my fire kit to start an open fire in our living room trash can wasn't a realistic option. This made me realize that my preparations in this area were inappropriate for our situation. Our fire kit may have been useful in a total catastrophe where we'd have to make a camp fire in an open space. However, it wasn't right for being holed up in a condo with no power. Our cooking capabilities were limited to two extremes: one in which utilities are working relatively normally or the other where there was a complete breakdown in social order. In reality, as Typhoon Ondoy demonstrated, we are more likely to experience varying degrees of intermediate emergencies. Fortunately, not being able to cook wasn't a major problem at that time as we had other options. Nevertheless, it did get me thinking about what would have happened if the situation had been more serious. I solved this problem by purchasing a portable gas cooker that takes small gas canisters. It allows us to do some basic cooking and sterilization inside our condo unit without posing an unacceptable fire hazard. Furthermore, the unit is small enough to be conveniently packed in a bag should we need to evacuate.
Portable gas cooker and spare canisters for your disaster preparedness kit
Portable gas cooker with carry case and spare canisters
A cooker like the one shown in the image can be purchased from many hardware stores like Ace Hardware and True Value for between Php800 and Php2,000. Spare gas canisters are about Php50 to Php80 depending on size. I've placed a spoon and fork next to the cooker to give you an idea of its size. The lesson here is to avoid blindly following rules-of-thumb when it comes to preparedness. What might work well for another person may be totally inappropriate to your environment and circumstances. Think realistically about how you and your family may respond to emergency scenarios and build your kit around that plan. Also remember to update your plan as your lifestyle changes. As a single person who enjoyed camping as a teenager, my simple fire kit would have been fine for almost any scenario. If things got bad enough, it wouldn't have been a problem to leave my condo for another location and live a little more ruggedly for a while. Now that I'm married and have a baby, this would not be at all desirable. Being equipped with only the bare basics may turn a manageable situation into an arduous challenge at best and life threatening scenario at worst. In conclusion, take a little time to run through a simple review of your current circumstances and make the necessary upgrades to your emergency kit. Continue Reading
previous 
1...23456
next