Tag Archives: emergency preparedness

I’ve been asked countless times how much food I recommend a family “put back” — i.e., have on hand for emergencies.

I hesitate to give my honest answer of “a year” because it sounds so overwhelming and discouraging to people who are just getting started and may have a limited budget. So instead, I encourage them to begin by amassing a few weeks’ worth of staples and to add to them as consistently as possible over time.

The most important thing is to just get started.

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Even though I write about preparedness for a living, fleeing your home in the dead of night with a raging inferno clearly visible on the horizon drives home certain lessons more effectively than any other means.

I’d like to share those learnings with you, as they’re true for any sort of emergency: natural (fire, flood, hurricane, tornado, earthquake, blizzard, etc), financial (market crash, currency crisis) or social (revolution, civil unrest, etc).

And I’d like you to be as prepared as possible should one of those happen to you, which is statistically likely.

Your survival, and that of your loved ones, may depend on it.

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With the bursting of the Everything Bubble, we declared last year as the 'Year Everything Changed'. This will be the 'Year of Instability', possibly preceding an upcoming 'Year Of Woe' in 2020.

But look, we're not saying the world is the process of ending imminently. It's just that we've entered the part of the timeline when things are going to start to get really rocky.

And we think it's much more useful to think of 2019 as the 'Year Resilience Matters'. It shifts the focus away from fear and instead towards the many things you can do to protect yourself and those you care about – and even to position yourself to prosper through the coming challenges.

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To make sense of which steps are most important to take soonest when preparing for a major disaster, we've invited Matthew Stein back on the program.

Mat is a design engineer, green builder, and author of the two bestselling books: When Disaster Strikes: A Comprehensive Guide to Emergency Planning and Crisis Survival (Chelsea Green 2011), and When Technology Fails: A Manual for Self-Reliance, Sustainability, and Surviving the Long Emergency (Chelsea Green 2008).

On this week's podcast, Mat details his recommended steps for those facing imminent threat of crisis (Hurricane Irma), those with more time to prepare for one (Hurricane Jose), and those dealing with the aftermath of disaster (Hurricane Harvey).

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Our resources are finite. Most of us don't feel we have all that we require to meet our own needs and goals. And the best-laid preparations of the most planful of us can suddenly become woefully insufficient if too many unexpected family, friends and neighbors show up demanding our charity.

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As we write about the risks of our over-indebted economy, of our unsustainable fossil fuel-dependent energy policies, and our accelerating depletion of key resources, it's not a far leap to start worrying about the potential for a coming degradation of our modern lifestyle — or even the possibility of full-blown societal collapse.

Sadly, collapse is not just a theoretical worry for a growing number of people around the world. They're living within it right now.

This week, we catch up with Fernando "FerFAL" Aguirre, who began blogging during the hyperinflationary destruction of Argentina’s economy in 2001 and has since dedicated his professional career to educating the public about his experiences and observations of its lingering aftermath. Given his first-hand experience with living through, and eventually escaping, economic collapse in South America, we asked him to offer his insider's perspective on the current crisis in Venezuela, as well as the devolving situation in Brazil.

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Continuing our focus on solutions, this week we're joined on the podcast by Jack Spirko. His daily podcast focuses on practical, actionable steps each of us can take to "live a better life, if times get tough or even if they don't" — a mission nicely aligned with the one we pursue here at Peak Prosperity.

In this wide-ranging discussion, Jack and Chris discuss the need for spreading awareness of the Three Es, the professional challenges in doing so, and how individuals can go about pursuing both security and prosperity in the face of the likely disruptive changes to come.

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If there’s one message to take away from this newly-updated Crash Course video series, it’s this:  It’s time for you to become more resilient and more engaged. Things are changing quickly and nobody knows how much time we have before the next economic, ecological or energy related crisis erupts.  Nobody knows when, but we do have a pretty good idea of what is coming.

And it is within your control to enter the coming future with a higher degree of security, prosperity and fulfillment than you enjoy now.

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For most people, planning for emergencies is similar to planning for a camping trip or any other outdoor adventure where the normal conveniences of home are not available. The biggest difference is determining whether to plan for being away from home or in your own residence – or perhaps both. The equipment to include in your emergency kit or camping supplies list will be very comparable. Differences and variations will generally depend upon the severity and length of time you anticipate for your emergency scenario. Long term emergencies and outdoor explorations will require, in addition to this list, more extensive planning and provisioning. Your skill level and knowledge set for survival techniques and resourcefulness will also play a big role in determining your needs.

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