Tuesday, October 30, 2012

The Readiness Mindset for the Prepper

Okay, so you've been prepping for a while now. You are beginning to feel more comfortable that when the time comes, you will be ready. Exactly how ready are you really? Sure, you have a lot of food, water, and ammo tucked away in the pantry, basement, and closets, but are you ready if it happened right now, this instant?

Picture yourself at work, or a friends house, or shopping, or on vacation, or just about anywhere you can think of except at your home. The quickest, most instantaneous disaster that could strike you at any moment is a HEMP attack, a high altitude magnetic pulse bomb that explodes a hundred miles up and wipes out all electricity and electronics. Iran (very soon), North Korea, Russia, China, and several other countries have this technology available to them and could use it at any time. You are not at home. What will you do? How will you get home? What last minute things can you do before the rest of the population figures out what happened?

This is what I call the readiness mindset. If this happens, you may only have about a two to four hour window of opportunity to act. If you work 20 miles from home, how long will it take you to walk home? If you walk 5 miles per hour, that just ate up your four hours. If your boss will let you, think about taking your old bicycle out of the shed, clean it up and oil it, and take it to work. If they ask, tell them you may want to get some exercise during a break or lunch time. Do it at least for a while. Then you could be home in as little as an hour.

In this four hour period, everyone will be confused as to what is going on. People will initially stay calm, because everyone has experienced a power outage in their lifetime. They will figure that the power will be restored soon. They realize that it may take some time for the electric company to get some workers out to the site and fix the problem. They will look at their cell phones or try to call someone, but their phones won't work. They'll probably figure that the power outage affected the cell tower also. Those in their cars will wonder why their car suddenly quit running. after a few minutes, they'll notice that the cars around them quit too. They'll think it was just something temporary. Something a local contractor did that caused it. They'll expect their cars to begin running again after whatever the contractor is doing, stops.

This four hour window is crucial to you. This is your opportunity to capitalize on the confusion and  get those last few things to supplement your stash. As this window of opportunity unfolds, it will get increasingly more unstable and dangerous. The first hour is the easiest. I recommend that you keep an emergency stash of cash in $20, $50, and $100 increments. If you can, tuck away as much as possible, up to $10,000.

If you can find an old pickup truck that has no computer, from the early 70's and older that still runs good, buy it now. It will come in very handy at this point. In the first hour or two, you will need to go grocery shopping, to the gun store, and anywhere else you can to stock up on to add to your stash. After the four hour window, money will cease to have any meaningful value, but in the first hours, cash is king! Grab your pistol and a few magazines, your cash, a pad and pencil, a flashlight, and a few family members, jump in your old pickup and weave around all the stalled cars on the road and get to the stores as quick as safely possible. Conceal your pistol as to not be obvious. You don't want to use it, but if things get ugly, you want the best chance to get out of there alive.

At the store, there will be a lot of confusion. Get in and out as quickly as you can. Use the flashlight to navigate the aisles. Write down what you put in the basket and keep a running total in the margin. as soon as you are ready (the atmosphere in the store could determine this also) find the store manager and give him the sheets of paper with the cash plus $50 for his trouble and exit the store as calmly but quickly as possible. Load up the truck and go home. Unload as quickly as possible (if your bugging out to another location, fill a trailer or boxes to be ready to leave as soon as you are done). Go to the next location and do the same. As soon as things start to go down hill, STOP! Don't get yourself killed trying to be greedy. Wide spread looting will begin and you don't want to be in the mix. Hunker down or get out of town as early as you can.

Bottom line: In everything you do and everywhere you go, think of what you will do if the lights go out. The readiness mindset...

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