Survive Infinite Dangers: The Family Survival Guide of 21st Century Dangers (2 page)

Chapter 18
Non-Government Organizations (NGO’s)

Chapter 19
Civil Unrest

Chapter
20
Communications and Electric Power

Chapter 2
1
Supplies, Equipment, Tools and Bartering

Chapter 2
2
Transportation

Chapter 2
3
Medical

Chapter 2
4
Sanitation

Chapter
25
Don’t Forget Your Pets!

Chapter
26
Your “GONe” (Get Out Now!) Bag

Chapter
27
Natural Disasters and Emergencies

Chapter
28
Panic and other People-The #1 Danger!

Chapter
29
The Future

Chapter
30
Resources

Chapter One

Introduction

FINALLY, a ‘survivalist” book written for the average suburbanite whose most dangerous task in life until now has been doing battle with crab grass. This book is not meant for the experienced outdoors type who enjoys solitary months “living off the land” in the backwoods of Alaska but, instead, is meant for people who are more at home at “camp Marriott”; someone who enjoys a walk in the park followed by a few hours in a hot tub. The author fits that description so this book was easy to write from first-person experience! You will not find instructions on which bug parts are edible or how to live in a dirt dug-out cave for a few years.

I believe most people just want to know (1) “what are these “dangers” in SIMPLE terms and (2) how do I best protect my family and others who join my group. You want information to tell you which disasters are not worth worrying about (that the media just scares viewers with for ratings) and which ones may be world changing. You won’t remember everything you read in this book but, keeping it handy, you will have a quick reference guide when a bulletin appears on a TV or radio station with “important information”. It could be anything from something that may lead to your life totally changing to something that won’t even be in the newspaper tomorrow. But you’ll probably have no idea as newscasters seem to love to repeat long scientific words given them by their producers. They also have no idea if it is important or not but they know to make it sound important!

People don’t want to spend hundreds of hours reading becoming an expert on every subject these media “talking heads” banter about. You don’t need to! You have no idea and you really don’t care. I’ve done all that for you in this book. All of these newly invented man-made “Infinite Dangers” that are easy to protect against make up at least 95% of the man-made dangers that didn’t exist twenty or even ten years ago. What exactly is “Infinite Dangers? Simple! Anything seriously dangerous to you and your family and/or group as well as a community, city, state, country or even the world! While the author is not an expert in survivalism, the information contained in this book comes from many expert sources and has been reviewed by experts for completeness and accuracy.

This book is more like 5,000 pages in length. Maybe even 50,000 if you count the contents of ALL the Web sites mentioned. No, that is not a typo. You’ll notice extensive mentions of Web sites. Why waste paper in this book to convey knowledge that is already extensively covered within many Internet sites. The Web sites referenced convey far more information than I could ever write in this book. They provide more detail and more information than I could jam into this book unless you want to buy a 5,000 page book printed in very small type. In fact, this book could be a six page list of small type Web sites except you wouldn’t know which sites are most important and you wouldn’t know what to do with the information. Thus, consider this your “reference book” that either has the information you need within this book, Web addresses of the sites that have the needed information or titles of other books you may wish to buy.

Since this book references Web sites, you may need a quick “techie tip” on using search engines. If you wish to search for a multiple word phrase, you put italics around the phrase. If you wish to search for the use of any of the words of a phrase or just a word or words then leave off the italics. For instance, if you wish to search for the phrase “may all people smile” then add the italics as I did. If you want to search for instances of any of those words leave off the italics. Then if the words smile or people appear somewhere they will show up in your search results. But if you only want uses of the complete phrase then use the italics. Simple! As an aside, spending time studying the usually excellent tutorials on the home page of most search engines will teach you many “search tricks” to make your Internet searches faster and more accurate. You’ll be able to “drill down” (“drill down” – a term used by techies – you’re on your way to being a computer techie!).

Note: (this is important) print out a copy of everything you find on the Internet you believe you may need if the power goes out and/or the Internet stops. That important information might as well be on the moon if your computer is suddenly dark. Be prepared to print thousands of pages! In many cases you won’t know what is important until it is one minute too late! I have over 10,000 pages printed from the Internet and add more every day. If in doubt, keep printed papers organized for quick reference. In times of stress, piles of unsorted paper are worthless.

A perfect example of a very useful “survival information” document on the Internet is
www.fema.gov/areyouready/
. It’s free to download and I believe you can buy printed copies. As much “flack” as FEMA receives for its much publicized mistakes made during disasters as it assisted in search, rescue and recovery, the 99% it does right rarely receives media coverage. Good news and boring stories of professionalism doesn’t sell newspapers or TV news coverage. But you already knew that. One thing FEMA does a very poor job of is making the public aware of the resources they already make available free of charge. One of the many very good documents on their excellent Web site waiting for you to download is this document called “Are You Ready?” Use their search engine on the site or the address of the document is:

http://www.fema.gov/pdf/areyouready/areyouready_full.pdf

It is 201 pages in length but print out every single page. It covers just about every possible man-made, terrorist or natural disaster. I don’t lump man-made with terrorist as there is such a thing as man-made disaster due to an unintentional accident. A nuclear power plant that has a melt-down disaster due to a series of accidents and oversights is not a terrorist attack but it causes the same amount of danger to life and damage to property as if Al Qaeda managed to break through our many defenses to get inside one of nuclear power plants.

As terrified as people are these days, we (the “good guys”) are doing a pretty good job keeping up with the terrorists and the potential accidents. Much of our many improvements cannot be made public as letting those who would do us harm know how well we are prepared compared to before “9/11” would also reveal our remaining weak areas. BUT we always have to keep in mind terrorists (or an accident) only has to happen once to do great harm even though we may have averted hundreds or thousands of potential disasters of the size our country has never experienced. Those whose job it is to keep us safe have done a very good job since “9/11”. Before then, saying we were “asleep at the switch” would be a kind assessment.

Politics and budgets today mean trying to second-guess terrorists and direct limited financial resources to what “they” (terrorists) are planning to try to do to “us” (anyone who is not a terrorist). A guessing game that means “wasting” money on possible threats terrorists might not have even thought about and never well. But wasting is not the proper word; “preparing” is the proper word. Just like which part of a dam might burst? No one knows so a dam inspector verifies the entire dam is as sturdy as possible. Another example is that nuclear power plants were mandated to be capable of taking a direct hit by a 747 aircraft and, while it would shut down, no radiation would be released. This was a subject of much debate when the first designs were being made. The 747 at the time was just a vague concept in the minds of engineers at Boeing but enough that nuclear power plant designers knew what would be flying in our skies by the time the power plants went on-line. This was often cited by some politicians as how “wasteful nuclear power is in comparison to (fill in the blank – the form of power they each favored instead of nuclear even including no additional power capping our country’s economic growth at 1950’s levels).

Putting a limit on our GNP (Gross National Product) is still debated today but “9/11” put an end to all conversations concerning spending money on nuclear power plants that they could withstand anything short of a direct hit by a nuclear bomb. As always, in such situations, those who were wildly vocal before only had “who me? I never said that” responses when asked about what they had said previously. Thank heavens for tape and video recorders to not allow naysayers to utter “I never said that”! Major disaster preparation by governments and NGO’s (Non-Government Organizations) includes “wasting” money on disasters that will never happen; “it comes with the territory”. So don’t let your elected officials get away with taking money away from disaster preparation to fund some vote buying boondoggle program. Your safety comes first!

Back to the Internet references you will notice in this book; please follow them! If you skip them considering them as just “extra but not important information” you will miss critical and vital information that you must know to have this book be of maximum use to you. Look at the number of pages of this book. I’ll then make a rough guess as to the Internet pages that are important – 5,000! That does not count the moderately important Web pages. Treat this as your Internet guide to the Internet for survival. You see some exact Web page addresses but you’ll see more references to “Google” followed by a word, phrase or series of words. That will lead you to a series of sites of which the first ten are probably worth reading.

To repeat again: print out anything you believe you may need if the power goes out and stays out. The Web page
www.fema.gov/areyouready/
lists many other useful government publications. I give FEMA and other government departments and NGO’s such as the Red Cross an A+ for the helpful, thorough and accurate material they offer (often for free) but an F for informing the public that the material is available usually free for the asking! You should visit hundreds of obvious Web sites such as FEMA, DHLS (Department of Homeland Security) and The Red Cross. I’m sure we can both think of hundreds more. Spend time searching through the maze of Web sites to find where and how to request material or download it then order or download what you are looking for. It will be time well spent!

There is a list of Web sites near the back of this book to get you started. It seems like NGO’s are just as incompetent as government agencies in letting people know of the availability of material I’m sure hard working government employees (surprise!; some do work very hard and have only good intentions to help you and me) are disappointed when they learn a document they spent, say, a year of their life writing has been requested all of seventeen times in its first six months, all because the government marketing bureaucrats in charge of making the public aware of what is available apparently “can’t sell the proverbial ice to Eskimos”. What a shame! You’ll have to do your own searching beginning with the list of Web sites near the back of this book, scattered throughout this book and ones you find on your own.

Compare the typical government and NGO sites to any consumer product or services site where they, say, want you to request a “handy reference guide on health insurance” (actually it will be a worthless two page sheet that says almost nothing but they now have your name to pester you for the next 18 months) . Here is a tip that has nothing to do with “survival” but is worth reading. When a telemarketer calls who has a legal right to call you (i.e. you requested something from them) do not just hang up when they call. They will just keep calling. Say “please take me off of your call list”. Then they are legally obligated to not call you again. Catch one calling again and you may collect a $10,000 fine if you can prove it and the government already has complaints lodged against the miscreant troublemakers! It is pretty rare but people like you and me have collected $10,000!

Note: a company that has an ongoing business relationship with you such as a credit card company, bank or utility can call you (but not to sell you something) no matter what for business reasons. The same holds true for politicians around election time. Politicians made sure to exempt themselves from this law! They can call to say “vote for me!” all they want although a polite “take me off your list” request from you almost always works. They do not want to make a voter mad! Personally, I use a phone “Zapper” to rid my phone of telemarketers (Google “telephone Zapper”). See, I just referenced “Googling” something! Prepare to see many “Googles” as your reading proceeds.