When All Hell Breaks Loose (95 page)

Scanners allow you to monitor the conversations of many emergency response authorities such as the police, the sheriff's office, or the fire department. Check your state rules and regulations for the legality of doing so.

A
lthough this book is based upon making your home more self-reliant, it assumes that you'll be home when the crisis hits. Whether you're at home, across the county, or at the office, your transportation options may be severely limited during the chaos. Perhaps no other country on earth is more enslaved to conventional, fuel-burning transportation than the United States. Transportation is the lifeblood of the economy, which would quickly collapse if the means for transporting needed supplies were disrupted in any way. Grocery stores commonly carry only a three-day supply of food. This statistical three-day surplus would disappear within a few hours during an emergency situation; a panicked populace would make sure of that.

Civilization is like a great web upon which all things are connected. Bop one strand and the whole thing jiggles. Consider for a moment the 1996 northeast power outage and some of the aftereffects that rippled across the nation. Gas stations closed due to a lack of power. Only a few stations had backup power to run gas pumps and were providing what little gas they had to lined-up customers for cash only. ATM machines wouldn't work so people were unable to get cash. Grocery stores closed due to their inability to scan the barcodes on food or to take credit cards. I won't go into the drama about power-dependent medical needs and water and sewage pumps.

Complacency as to the ease at which modern transportation systems operate can do wonders in dumbing you down as to what options you might have when the Pontiac is forced to collect dust. Below are some common-sense and exotic tidbits to ponder if you get caught out in the open away from your casa, or you need to relocate.

Preparing Your Motorized Vehicle[s]

Most of us in this country rely upon the automobile for getting around. As we have discussed in earlier chapters, anything that you have a strong reliance upon should be in the best possible working order, with backup options if possible. Keep in good repair the best vehicle you can afford. If you suck at car repairs, and aren't married to Mr. or Mrs. Goodwrench, it's all the more reason to keep on top of servicing your vehicle. Whether something is wrong or not, it pays to take your vehicle to a reputable shop at least once a year to have them do a top-to-bottom inspection. Like survival training, it's easier to prevent a problem than to suffer from its effects because you were too cheap or preoccupied to take your ride in for some TLC. Your car, truck, or SUV should carry basic supplies that will allow you to get back home (on foot if necessary) and accomplish minor repairs to the vehicle itself if needed. The "Should I Stay or Should I Go" chapter contains some general ideas for portable survival kits and bug-out packs.

You know your daily living schedule better than anyone. If your work takes you many miles from home, get into the habit of keeping your gas tank topped off. One of the main disadvantages of our current means of transportation is its slap-in-the-face dependency on petroleum fuel. The last place you want to be when chaos strikes is stuck in the two-mile line at the gas station because you failed to keep your fuel level on the high side. That's what your gas tank is for, to store fuel in times of need, so do it.

What about Public Transportation?

Even the most hardcore New York City cab driver is powerless when streets are stuffed with traffic. You will go nowhere fast, if at all. Mass exoduses like those preceding and following disasters such as Hurricane Katrina are case in point that it will be hell to negotiate traffic in a private vehicle, let alone rely upon public transit systems. If Lady Luck smiles on you in your quest to catch a bus or cab, congratulations, but don't count on it. Local, state, or federal governmental agencies that do manage to implement some type of public emergency transportation will more than likely limit their passengers to one carry-on bag, if that. Have an emergency bug-out kit ready to go at all times.

Bodacious Biodiesel and Veggie Oil

"T
HE USE OF VEGETABLE OILS FOR ENGINE FUELS MAY SEEM INSIGNIFICANT TODAY, BUT SUCH OILS MAY BECOME, IN THE COURSE OF TIME, AS IMPORTANT AS PETROLEUM AND THE COAL-TAR OF THE PRESENT TIME
."

—R
UDOLF
D
IESEL
, 1912

 

For those with the opportunity, the interest, and a form of transportation or backup power that involves a diesel engine, there are pockets of people around the nation and world who are reclaiming their independence with the technology of biodiesel and waste cooking oils.
Biodiesel
is derived from biological sources, from rapeseed and soybean oils to animal fats and many others, yet it goes through a refinery process called
transesterification
. As a refined fuel, biodiesel is ready to use to power diesel engines and is not the same as burning straight
filtered vegetable oil
. Biodiesel has also been used as a heating fuel in domestic and commercial boilers. This alternative fuel is gaining more and more popularity as time passes and people feel the pinch of precarious petroleum. According to the National Biodiesel Board (NBB), the United States went from consuming 500,000 gallons in 1999 to 75 million gallons of biodiesel in 2005. Even country crooner Willie Nelson has been bitten by the bio bug and actively promotes the stuff.

If you think biodiesel is made for hippies by hippies, you haven't explored its technical side, which involves aspects of extreme mathematics, chemistry, physics, and linguistics when trying to read through some of the technical papers. Some biodiesel advocates tout the recycling aspects of biodiesel by the fact that it can be manufactured from used vegetable oil. Others argue that to compete with the sheer volume of fuel needed to keep just America running at its current level, even biodiesel would have its problems in trying to meet the demand. Since the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) states that restaurants in the United States produce 300 million gallons of waste cooking oil each year, and the estimated transportation fuel and home heating oil use for America is a staggering 230 billion gallons annually, they may be correct.

The art of making and using biodiesel or using filtered oils or fats in a modified diesel engine is a book in itself. Researching on the Web will pull up loads of information for those who want to pursue the matter further. You may already have a neighbor who has been commuting to work for years thanks to the dregs from greasy spoon restaurants. I know several people who make and use both biodiesel and filtered-waste cooking oils in their backyard processing plants. One of my clients owns a converted school bus he uses for cross-country trips that runs on filtered veggie oil. He simply stops at restaurants instead of gas stations and they are all too willing to give him the goop, which otherwise the restaurant must pay to have removed. They've driven thousands of miles with their veggie bus and, yes, the tailpipe smells like French fries.

Regardless of saving the world or not, after a calamity, alternative fuel options such as biodiesel and filtered cooking oils may be the cat's meow. If you have a diesel-burning engine in your car, truck, or generator, you might want to pursue this further. For a current list of who sells biodiesel around the nation, or for questions, and access to the largest library of biodiesel information in the United States, visit the National Biodiesel Board Web site at www.biodiesel.org.

Motorcycles, Mopeds, and ATVs

While the above-mentioned goodies are still slaves to OPEC, they excel at making the most out of a gallon of gas. Some hybrid electric mopeds claim to get an astounding 150 miles per gallon! Scooters and ATVs also have the advantage of being small and maneuverable, thus they are able to fit in and around places that would stop a car dead in its tracks. Remember seeing those motorcycle maniacs on the highway snake between vehicles like they were standing still? You acted disgusted but were probably jealous, right? "Quads" or All-Terrain Vehicles (ATVs) are very popular in my part of the country. Some can haul a ridiculous amount of gear due to generous cargo space.

One of my favorite alternative vehicles is the street-legal dirt bike. A good quality dirt bike that's well maintained will run almost forever with minimal fuss. In town or country, there is almost no terrain these bikes will not cross with a proficient rider. They possess a stupid amount of power that will peel your skin off, can cover rugged ground in a fraction of the time it takes a hearty four-wheel drive, and still get up to 120 miles on a gallon and a half of gas. A rider can purchase or make racks for hauling gear, or simply wear a backpack when needing to transport goods. Dirt bikes are truly modern horses that require minimal feed and no water, don't spook or become moody or go lame, and will take you like a rocket as far as your butt can stand to go.

Beautiful Bicycles

I love bicycles. After all, can zillions of Chinese folks be wrong? I spent a few years riding a mountain bike to work, school, and back up into the woods where I was living at the time. My stashed bike was easy to conceal in the bushes as I hiked toward my home, thus it left no trace that I was camped nearby. Bikes are simple, affordable, easy to ride or learn to ride, fairly easy to repair, commonly available, quick, quiet, and save tremendous amounts of your personal calories (food) and water, which is their only required fuel. Being able to coast and still cover ground is a gift in any scenario where food supplies may be compromised. Generic, cheap mountain-bike-style bicycles have the balls to cruise over everything from beer cans to bloated bodies with minimal effort. Many bikes on the market have options for saddlebags or other pouches that can carry all sorts of supplies to boot. You don't have to break the bank to purchase a battle-worthy bicycle, and for many urban dwellers, bicycles will be worth their weight in gold as a super-transportation option if the petrol gets pinched.

Animal Magnetism

Animals have been used for thousands of years to carry people and goods. My family owns horses and pack mules, and I have friends who own pack llamas. While these animals are not likely to be accessible in downtown San Francisco, you can mimic the intention with a decent-size dog. My family has owned several big dogs and all of them had doggie packs in which they carried their stuff and some of ours too on cross-country treks. Long before the horse, native peoples on this continent routinely used camp dogs and
travois
(two wooden poles laden with gear and anchored to the dog's back) to move their camp from place to place. The dogs also served as hunters, heaters, guard dogs, and emergency food—although I promised you I wouldn't talk about cooking the family pet in this book.

Walk This Way: Fabulously Functional Footwear

During prehistoric times people were very mobile yet had limited means of getting around other than by foot. Indigenous peoples across the world commonly embarked upon great journeys of hundreds of miles on foot through extreme wilderness with the barest of survival necessities made from Nature Herself. Reflecting upon the forced marches that were perpetrated upon our own native peoples in the late 1800s should foster within you a "can-do" attitude regarding walking across town if the grid goes flop. Even during good times, your hunter-gatherer ancestors migrated hundreds of miles each season in order to find what was needed to put soup on the table.

A crucial item for transportation is a comfortable pair of footwear suitable for walking long distances
. Although it may sound obvious, look down at your feet. Could you walk a few miles across your town or city with what you're wearing now? Would the Snoopy slippers hold up? If you're living in a rural area, would your trashy tennies cut it for the journey across the woods or desert? Many urban dwellers don footwear, especially for the office or nightclub, that would cripple them in a mile or two. If you blister your feet during the first ten blocks while trying to make it back home, the remainder of your journey will be extremely painful if not impossible. I'm not trying to cramp your style scene, just have a pair of spare
brokenin
shoes or boots, along with an extra pair of socks, at the office or in the car as a backup.
Take heed, there is nothing that will ruin your day, and your feet, quicker than ill-fitting, new, or inappropriate footwear when you need to walk even a short distance
. Your ability to walk or run may be your only option for evading surrounding dangers to your survival.