About Jim Cobb

Jim Cobb is the owner and lead trainer for DisasterPrepConsultants.com. His articles on preparedness have been published in national magazines such as OFFGRID, American Survival Guide, Survivor’s Edge, and Boy’s Life. You can find him online at SurvivalWeekly.com. Jim lives in the Upper Midwest with his beautiful wife and their three adolescent weapons of mass destruction.

Books by Jim Cobb

Click on the title to learn more or to order:

• Prepper’s Home Defense: Security Strategies to Protect Your Family by Any Means Necessary
• Prepper’s Communication Handbook: Lifesaving Strategies for Staying in Contact During and After a Disaster
• Prepper’s Armed Defense: Lifesaving Firearms and Alternative Weapons to Purchase, Master and Stockpile
• The Prepper’s Financial Guide: Strategies to Invest, Stockpile and Build Security for Today and the Post-Collapse Marketplace
• Urban Emergency Survival Plan: Readiness Strategies for the City and Suburbs
• The Prepper’s Complete Book of Disaster Readiness: Life-Saving Skills, Supplies, Tactics and Plans
• Countdown to Preparedness: The Prepper’s 52 Week Course to Total Disaster Readiness
• Prepper’s Survival Hacks: 50 DIY Projects for Lifesaving Gear, Gadgets and Kits
• Prepper’s Long-Term Survival Guide: Food, Shelter, Security, Off-the-Grid Power and More Life-Saving Strategies for Self-Sufficient Living

Jim’s websites

• DisasterPrepConsultants.com
• SurvivalWeekly.com
• Sign up for Jim’s Newsletter

Where to find Jim Cobb on Social Media

• Facebook

Do you ever feel like this is it? Did some world event (or a series of them) make you feel like time is running out for getting your preps in order? Have you decided that now is the time to pull up stakes and begin searching for the perfect prepper’s retreat?

Recently I’ve felt a renewed sense of urgency that has prompted me to make some big changes in order to get more prepared.  So many world events lately have pointed toward a looming crisis, and the truly scary thing is, the crisis could be one of many scenarios. Lately it seems that every single month, we are on the sidelines of a dramatic event.

• The horror of the recent terror attacks happening in places like Paris, Brussels, and right here in San Bernardino
• The collapses of places like Greece and Venezuela
• The onslaught of refugees who seem intent on changing the very fabric of Europe through sheer numbers, a refusal to conform, and undermining the safety of European women
• The slim pickings for the presidential election (do you want a psychopath, a narcissist, or someone suffering from delusions to lead the country?)
• The looming nuclear threats from that chubby little lunatic running North Korea, not to mention hostile feelings from at least half a dozen other countries
• The race war going on in our own back yard, egged on by those with an agenda of divisiveness

Combine all of these things and if you aren’t just a little bit uneasy, then you should probably stop reading right now and tune in to the latest episode following the antics of that crazy Kardashian family. Go on, who knows what they’ll do next?

Are you ready for our world to change dramatically?

Any of the things mentioned above could suddenly change our lives in the blink of an eye, and if you aren’t ready, you darn well better get your bootie in gear. Have you given any serious thought to how well your home would work for you in a long-term scenario?  Is it a place where you could dig in for the long haul? Could you raise food, defend it, stay warm in it, cook in it, and survive in it if the grid went down? If not, maybe you need to make some changes.

For some of us, getting down to business means improving the situation at our own homes, and for others it means seeking our version of the perfect prepper’s retreat. As I’ve written about before, planning to have a prepper’s homestead after disaster strikes is doomed to failure. It takes time to learn to raise your own food, and many people overestimate their abilities in this regard. It’s imperative to deal with the learning curve now, when the grocery store is accessible 24 hours a day.

After some eye-opening major issues with the house we moved to last summer, my family and I decided we couldn’t trust that location for the long haul. The week without a working septic system was enough to provide a reality check.  The house was simply too run down, too close to a main thoroughfare, and too dry, despite the coveted well and the most wonderful barn that I’ve ever laid eyes on. Never have I been so happy to be a renter who could pick up and leave an undesirable situation.  There were some red flags earlier, but the septic disaster was the last straw. Had it occurred post-disaster, we would have had no alternative but to leave our home and all of our careful preparations. Moving now was a pain, especially with preps and livestock, but moving later after working to build a homestead would have been even worse.

So, we did an intensive search to find a place that would serve as a retreat, but one that we will live in now. We moved deep into the mountains, down a road that is really more like a trail, to our long-term retreat.

What makes the perfect prepper’s retreat?

Everyone has a different idea in mind for their perfect retreat.  Some folks like balmy weather, while others prefer a cold, forbidding winter. Some people feel better in wide open spaces, while others feel safer nestled in the trees.

Regardless of your personal preferences, there are several characteristics that are imperative if you’re looking for property – the lack of any of these things could doom you to failure in a long-term scenario:

• Water

There is nothing more important than water.  Water is the difference between life and death, so start your search by looking for places with more than one source of water.  Look for a place with a well, a body of water, and/or a spring. Don’t count on something “nearby.”  What if you have to carry water on foot from that location? The supply you’ll need each day will get pretty darned heavy, and it’ll be even more work hauling enough to water a garden and care for livestock.

Another concern with “nearby” water is that the people who own the water rights just might not let you cross their property to fill up your vessels. Think about it: would you let people possibly befoul the most precious resource around?

Water is everything in a survival situation.

In the event of a long-term down-grid situation, municipal water will most likely stop flowing from the taps. Even if it does continue to flow, the water will not be treated and may not be safe to drink. Even more alarming is the threat that someone could easily taint a municipal water supply as an act of terror. Think about the accidental chemical spills that have occurred just over the past couple of years here in the US. Now, imagine that someone up to no good got access to our water supply.

Most of America is dependent on municipal water – you truly want your own sources and a way to purify the water to make it safe for drinking.

• Location

Is your location one of safety?  Some things to look for are defensibility, distance from large population centers, privacy, and difficulty of accessibility.

Defensibility: Can you protect the perimeter of the property? Can you see someone before they get the chance to sneak up on you? Is your property well fenced? Is your driveway gated? Is your community one that will band together to protect one another?

Distance:  Everyone knows that being as far away as possible from major thoroughfares and big cities is ideal.  However, not everyone can move out to the boondocks right now. Many of us have jobs, families, schools, and responsibilities that keep us near population centers.

Of course, it’s ideal to be about a tank of gas away from the major cities. That will mean that if the fuel pumps are no longer working, anyone headed your way will most likely arrive on foot. In this age of obesity and poor fitness, that rules out a whole lot of folks who might want to eat your food.  Most fuel tanks hold enough to get the passengers between 250-400 miles, assuming the driver starts out with a completely full tank.

If you do live near the city, try to find a place that keeps some distance between you and the major thoroughfares. If you happen to be right by the highway, where do you think people will go when their car runs out of gas? That’s right – they’ll head for the nearest home for help. You don’t want strangers showing up at your door.

Difficulty: If that type of distance is unattainable, another bonus is natural obstacles. If you are up a tall mountain, folks are less likely to hike up your way unless there is some kind of specific draw, like a large body of water.

On that note, while living on the banks of a river or lake might seem ideal, your home will be the target of every person from a nearby city who has ever visited your area.  This means that creeks, streams, ponds, and natural springs are more desirable features. Avoid the tourist spots that draw the crowds. Those same crowds may remember your home as the Promised Land in the aftermath of a disaster.

• Other Resources

There are other resources to look for when searching for your ideal location. You will want a way to provide food, a way to cook food, and a way to maintain a livable temperature. The following can help:

• • Fertile land
  • Space for raising animals
  • An area for hunting (only count on this if your location is fairly remote and you already hunt regularly. “Living off the land” is a prepper myth that will get you killed.)
  • A strong local economy made of people who produce instead of people who consume
  • Wood for fuel
  • Sun for solar power
  • Moderate temperatures in the absence of wood for fuel
  • A long growing season
  • A local government that supports self-sufficient endeavors, instead of one that charges fees and taxes for every single project
  • A place that isn’t upwind from military targets in case of a nuclear attack
  • An area not prone to natural disasters like tornadoes, hurricanes, volcanoes, earthquakes, or tsunamis

Home Sweet Home

When searching for a home there are different schools of thought. If you have building skills and the wherewithal to purchase necessary supplies, you can purchase a home that requires some tweaking to be perfect. If you’re really talented, you can even build your home yourself and end up with a prepper dream home.

However, this isn’t realistic for some of us. Personally, my budget is limited and I’m a single mom with iffy building skills. Therefore, I looked for a home that checked most of the boxes already.

If the power was out (as it often is in the aftermath of a variety of disasters) would the home you want or already live in be functional without the grid? This should be a top priority when seeking a retreat property.

The things that I looked for were:

• The ability to use passive solar for heating
• A secondary, off-grid heat source (woodstove or fireplace)
• The ability to cook in the absence of electricity (If your stove is propane, you will be able to use it for quite some time if you reserve your propane for that purpose only)
• Windows placed in a way that allow breezes to help cool the house
• Tree cover in summer that is absent in the winter to adjust the home’s temperature naturally
• A well with an off-grid back-up like a manual or solar-powered pump
• A septic system so you can use the toilet indoors (We have a family of girls – while this isn’t an absolute necessity, it’s certainly a perk)
• Shelter for livestock
• Ample storage space for preps (I now have an entire room in which to store these food buckets.)

The home we found is nearly perfect, although unfortunately there was no barn for housing our livestock.  In the grand scheme of stuff to add, that is fairly minimal, so we’re in the process of adding shelters.

The importance of the right neighbors

Very little is more important than the neighborhood you find yourself in.  It’s best if you have a longstanding relationship with your neighbors, of course, but you can get to know people in your vicinity fairly quickly if you put in a bit of effort.

Obviously, you want to be incredibly careful not to disclose too much information about your preps. (Never forget OPSEC!) I like to bond by finding people who also enjoy firearms, for example.  In the community where we relocated, you can often hear a few dozen rounds being fired as people send some lead down range.  Finding other vegetable gardeners is another good way to meet folks who might be like-minded.

When house-hunting during an election year, pay attention to the political signs in the yards. You want to be surrounded by people who think like you do, and if you find that most of the signs support a political view that is diametrically opposite yours, you may not be very happy there.

I chose a house at the very end of a country road. There is only one way to drive into the neighborhood, which means the road could easily be blocked off in the event of a long-term disaster. In fact, I discovered that the neighbors have discussed doing just that, which points to the fact that they will be cognizant of safety in an emergency.

Not everyone is in a position to relocate to a retreat

Not everyone can undertake a major relocation. There are times during which we have to live in circumstances that are less than ideal from a prepper’s perspective. Never let anyone tell you that you’re doomed if you can’t move to 20 acres in the country. We all have to live within our means and within the confines of our personal situations:

While your current situation may be less than ideal, you have to remember that very few locations are actually perfect for prepping. Nearly anywhere you live will be subject to some type of extreme weather, be it crippling cold, blazing heat, drought, tornadoes, or hurricanes. Chemical spills can taint water supplies anywhere. Riots and civil unrest can occur outside of the big city.

The point is, to borrow an old saying, you just have to bloom where you’re planted.

There are many things you can do to create a viable preparedness plan wherever you happen to live.  Apartment dwellers at the top of a city high rise, folks in the middle of the desert, those in a beachfront condo, and people in HOA-ruled suburban lots all have to examine their situations, figure out their pros and cons, and work towards resolving what they can.  With some pre-planning, there is a lot you can overcome if you have the right mindset.  I suspect there are just as many (and probably far more) preppers living in the ‘burbs than there are living in perfect rural locations, with a lake, 10 acres of cultivated farmland, and an off-grid house.

Stop waiting until you move to the perfect location. Make preparations for the situation you have, not the situation you want.

Is it time for you to search for the perfect prepper’s retreat for your family?

Sometimes, though, you just feel compelled to take the plunge. When you do, be sure to go about your search in an organized fashion. Figure out what your priorities are, have a clear picture of your budget, and find the retreat that fits your carefully chosen criteria.

Remember, it’s far easier to already be at a bug-out location than to go on a journey to get there after it all hits the fan. If you have to bug-out there are many things that can go wrong, such as an issue with your transportation, the inability to get enough gas to get there, impassable roads, and the horrifying reality that someone else may have already taken over your location.

Have you ever heard anyone utter some variation of one of these comments?

“I’m going to start prepping as soon as I can move.”

“I can’t prepare because I live in a tiny apartment.”

“Well, once we are able to get moved to our farm in two years I’ll start prepping hardcore.”

“I’m saving the money for moving instead of using it for preps.”

“There’s no point in prepping here because if the SHTF I’ll be dead.”

Maybe you didn’t overhear someone else saying it. Maybe you said it yourself. One of the most common excuses that people use for prepper procrastination is the unsuitability of where they currently live.

This is the kind of thinking that will get people killed.

While your current situation may be less than ideal, you have to remember that very few locations are actually perfect for prepping. Nearly anywhere you live will be subject to some type of extreme weather, be it crippling cold, blazing heat, drought, tornadoes, or hurricanes. Chemical spills can taint water supplies anywhere. Riots and civil unrest can occur outside of the big city.

The point is, to borrow an old saying, you just have to bloom where you’re planted.

There are many things you can do to create a viable preparedness plan wherever you happen to live.  Apartment dwellers at the top of a city high rise, folks in the middle of the desert, those in a beachfront condo, and people in HOA-ruled suburban lots all have to examine their situations, figure out their pros and cons, and work towards resolving what they can.  With some pre-planning, there is a lot you can overcome if you have the right mindset.  I suspect there are just as many (and probably far more) preppers living in the ‘burbs than there are living in perfect rural locations, with a lake, 10 acres of cultivated farmland, and an off-grid house.

Stop waiting until you move to the perfect location. Make preparations for the situation you have, not the situation you want.

Moving isn’t always an option.

One of the most ridiculous quasi-solutions you will hear is this one:  “Oh, you should just move.”

Preparedness forums are rife with this off the cuff advice from people who haven’t thought it through.  And if you’re one of the people giving that so-called advice, you need to consider how completely impractical this is.

There is no “just” when it relates to packing up everything you own; abandoning job, family, and friends; and relocating like money is no object.

“Just” picking up and moving isn’t that easy.  People have obligations and ties that some Joe-Blow on the internet shouting out advice can’t even begin to understand.  Some in the prepping community have a complete disconnect with the realities of everyday people.  There are reasons like:

• Not enough money to leave
• A good job (increasingly hard to come by these days)
• Family members in the area that you don’t want to abandon
• No work opportunities where you want to go
• Custody orders that require you to remain in a certain area
• A spouse who is not on board
• A house that won’t sell or with an upside-down mortgage

The list goes on and on.  There are as many reasons to remain in one place as there are people living in cities.  While we could sit here and logically refute each and every reason a person has chosen to remain, it is only philosophical. It still doesn’t address the practical reasons that people have for staying put.  Sometimes people who are interested in preparedness  are alienated when it seems that everything is black and white or like their personal decisions are somehow less valid than the decisions of some random person on the internet.

So, if you are interested in getting prepared but feel your current situation is hopeless, ignore the naysayers and forum curmudgeons. Take your current situation, warts and all, and work with it.  This doesn’t mean that you should abandon your plans for a better location sometime in the future if such a move is warranted.  But it means that you shouldn’t put off important preparedness steps until after that move is made.

Assess Your Situation

You don’t know where to go if you don’t know where you are.  The first and most vital step is an honest assessment of your current situation.  The situation that you have right now, this very minute, not the one you will have in a month or in a year. Assess your needs regarding the following:

• Water
• Sanitation
• Food/Cooking
• Heating
• Security
• Light
• Long-term sustainability

Once you know exactly where you are with these things, you can begin to look for solutions that will work for you, today.  Dig in and make a plan
for the survival of your family.

Survival in a Population Dense Area

A little note to those who say, “It doesn’t matter, I’m in midtown Manhattan. I’ll die anyway.”

No, you won’t.  You won’t be that lucky. You will be absolutely thoroughly miserable, breathing foul unhealthy air.  You’ll be thirsty enough to drink unsanitary water, which will cause bowel issues to worsen problem #1.  You’ll be hungry, but not hungry enough that you die of starvation.  You will be at the mercy of thugs better armed than you.  You won’t die, not right away, and neither will your children.  You will live like I just described, and it will be horrible.  Look at the residents of Manhattan during Hurricane Sandy.  They didn’t die but they were absolutely miserable, they were terrified, they were eating from dumpsters,  and much of it could have been avoided with some basic preparedness.

Before I relocated to the boondocks, I lived in a very metropolitan area.  I was lucky: I had 1/10th of an acre.  I did everything I could come up with to make my little house as sustainable as possible should the poop hit the oscillating device before I could get out.  A disaster in the city IS survivable.

I planted every inch of the backyard (and some of the front) and grew enough food that the home-canned and frozen produce lasted until Christmas.  I stockpiled groceries.  I had plywood cut and pre-drilled to cover each window of the house. I had printed official looking quarantine signs to hang on the door of my house as a deterrent should the city fall into civil unrest. I put together a little outdoor fireplace in the backyard behind my fence.  I got  a big dog.  I collected rainwater from downspouts at each corner of the house.  I purchased an antique oil heater in good working order, and stockpiled heating oil.  I had enough seeds to plant for the next 4 years.  I located nearby sources of water, wood, and nuts.  I got a wagon for hauling stuff if the transportation system was down.

In short, I did everything possible to make the best of a potentially terrible location.  It wasn’t perfect, but we were determined to resolve as many of the concerns as possible.

The Priorities

The major challenges that you face in an SHTF situation are the same no matter where you are.  Of course, the issues will vary from one situation to another – these lists aren’t meant to be comprehensive.  This is a starting point to get your wheels turning, so that you can figure out how you and your family can best survive, exactly where you’re planted right now.

Water

Water preparedness should be at the very top of your list.  You can only survive for 3 days without water (and you’ll be weak and suffering way before that). A water preparedness plan is essential for survival, even in a short-term scenario. Here are a few ways you can prep for a water emergency, no matter where you live:

• Store a  month supply of drinking water (plan on a gallon per day, per person and pet)
• Acquire a non-electric water filtration system (with spare filters)
• Scope out local water sources that are within walking distance
• Stock up on buckets and be prepared to transport them with a sled, wagon, or wheelbarrow (this depends on the season and climate).
• If you have a house instead of an apartment, set up a water catchment system
• Stock up on water purification supplies (bleach, pool shock, tablets)
• Figure out a system for catching gray water to be reused for flushing, washing, etc.

Sanitation

Figure out how you will go to the bathroom in the event that the public sewer system goes down. In the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy in New York, it was reported that people were defecating and urinating in the hallways of apartment buildings once the sewer system stopped working.  Lack of sanitation is not only unpleasant, but it spreads disease. Figure out ahead of time if any of these suggestions will work in your situation, and then stock up on the required supplies:

• Get a porta potty – there are camping ones that will hold several days worth of sewage. (Caveat: You have to have a safe place to empty this should the disaster persist.)
• Make a human litter box using 5-gallon buckets lined with heavy duty trash bags (get the kind designed for contractors).  Scoop in a small amount of kitty litter each time you use it. Don’t let it get too heavy to carry outside – you don’t want the bag to rip and spill several days worth of human waste in your home.
• Stock up on water for flushing if you have a septic system
• Learn how to shut off the main valve so that city sewage cannot back up into your house or apartment
• If you have enough outdoor space, keep on hand the supplies to build an outhouse. (Don’t forget the lime!)
• Keep these extra personal sanitation supplies on hand: baby wipes, antibacterial wipes (for cleaning food preparation areas), white vinegar, bleach,  hand sanitizer, extra toilet paper.

Food/Cooking

Not only should you stock up on food, but you need to consider how you’ll cook it. Most preppers have a food supply, but in a down-grid situation, food that takes 4 hours to cook will use a prohibitive amount of fuel. If you’re new at this, you might not yet have a food supply. Here are some considerations:

• Have a minimum of 1 month of food for each family member and pet.
• Figure out some alternative cooking methods for indoors: a fondue pot,  a woodstove or fireplace, or a gas kitchen stove
• If you have outdoor space, look at cooking methods like a barbecue (beware of tantalizing smells and hungry neighbors), an outdoor fireplace or firepit, a rocket stove, or a sun oven
• Be sure to keep abundant fuel for your chosen cooking method.
• Stock up on foods that don’t require cooking or heating.

Heating

If you live in a place with cold winters, a secondary heat source should be a priority. Of course, if you rent or live in a high-rise condo, installing a woodstove is unlikely to be a viable solution. The cold can kill, so this is a necessary part of your preparedness plan. Consider some of these options for a secondary heat source:

• Use your wood stove or fireplace (if you’re lucky, your house is already equipped with your secondary source!)
• Acquire a personal heating unit.  Look for one of the following: an oil heater, kerosene heater, or propane heater (We have this propane heater)

If you absolutely can’t get ahold of a secondary heating system, prepare with non-tech ideas like:

• Arctic sleeping bags
• Winter clothes and accessories
• Covers for windows
• Segregating one room to heat
• Setting up a tent in the warmest room to combine body heat

Security

In a disaster situation, the risk of potentially violent civil unrest always goes up.  Used a two-fold approach: try to avoid conflict by keeping a low profile, but be ready to deal with it if it can’t be avoided.

Some ideas:

• Have firearms and know how to use them. (Here’s why I believe you MUST be armed.)
• Secure heavy doors with reinforced frames.plywood or gridwork to cover the windows, keeping lights off or low, thorny plants around the perimeter of your house and yard, hardening access points, a big dog, an alarm system, and visual deterrents such as warning signs and quarantine signs.
• Cut plywood or gridwork to cover the windows, making them difficult to breach.
• Keep the lights off or low.
• Nurture some thorny plants around the perimeter of your house and yard.
• Harden the access points to your home.
• A dog can serve as both a warning system and a deterrent
• Install an alarm system
• Use visual deterrents such as warning signs or quarantine signs.
• Create a safe room to which vulnerable family members can retreat. (You can do this, even in an apartment or rental home.)

Light

Don’t underestimate the value of light in a dark world.  Most city dwellers don’t consider exactly how dark the night can be without streetlights and lights from houses.  Emotionally, having a bit of light can help soothe frazzled children (or adults) and help the night seem a little less scary.  Use caution that your light cannot be seen from the outside.  Like moths to a flame, people will be drawn to the only brightly lit house on the street.  Keep some of the following sources on hand.

• Solar garden lights
• Candles
• Kerosene or oil lamps (and extra fuel)
• Flashlights (and extra batteries)
• Headlamps
• Battery operated LED lights,
• Solar camping lanterns
• Glow sticks for children

 Increase Your Personal Sustainability

Of course, all of the above are solutions for a short-term situation. There’s always the possibility that a crisis could persist for a longer period of time. You should include in your plans as many ways as possible to be personally sustainable. This might include some of the following strategies:

• Set up a permanent water catchment system at your home.
• Grow food on every possible space available: balconies, windowsills, courtyards, backyards, front yards, flower beds.
• Consider raising some micro livestock: rabbits and chickens take up very little space and can be raised in most backyards. If your city has an ordinance against backyard chickens, rabbits are quiet and multiply…well…like rabbits.
• Learn to make things from scratch and practice your sustainable skills rather than relying on storebought goods.

This website and this one both have great solutions for preparing in apartments and small spaces.  Here is an excellent series about how to homestead when you rent.

Make a Plan

So, if you’re reading this and you’ve been putting off preparedness due to your location, what’s your plan?

If you’ve been feeling disheartened by all the folks grimly telling you that your home is a death trap, what can you do over the weekend to improve your chances, right where you are?

And if you are fortunate enough to be in an ideal location, please share your ideas about overcoming some of these difficulties in a less than perfect place on the map. As a community, we can all help one another solve problems that could otherwise seem insurmountable.

Recently, I spoke with Rory from The Daily Coin about the potential for economic collapse and why we need to pay attention to what’s going on in Venezuela. We discussed how to prepare for it, why everyone needs to work on becoming more self-reliant, and some actionable steps that you can take.

The situation in the US right now is very comparable to the early stages of the  Venezuelan collapse. It’s essential to watch Venezuela and treat it as a cautionary tale because the same signs are right in front of us.  How would you handle rationed food, rationed electricity, and mandatory cuts of work hours? What would you do if food was no longer available at the grocery store?

Even city dwellers in Venezuela have been told they need to grow their own food if they want to eat. If food is rationed, you can bet that the supplies will be meager. You’re going to want to supplement that if your family is to remain healthy.

The homes of many rich, famous people have a secret hidden within them.  Somewhere, in the depths of the home, is a secure room to which the residents can retreat in the event of a home invasion or violent intruder.  A safe room was carved into the original house plan, and many of these are state of the art.  Features might include a bank of monitors for viewing what’s going on outside the room, a small kitchenette, comfortable furnishings, fresh air venting, and a hardened communications system.  These expertly designed rooms can cost tens of thousands of dollars, but you don’t have to be a movie star or a multi-millionaire to build your own version of a safe room. Even the most humble home or apartment can have on a place to which vulnerable family members can retreat if they are under threat.

Why should you have a safe room?

Some folks may read this and think to themselves, “I don’t need a safe room when I have my 12 gauge shotgun and my 9 mm. That’s just running away.”

I completely understand your point. Most of the people who read prepping and survival sites are not of a “retreat” mentality.  But, if a gang of 12 thugs (possibly wearing badges) kicks down your door, how likely are you to shoot every single one of them before someone gets off a lucky shot and hits you?  Hint: If you aren’t tactically trained, the likelihood of this is pretty slim.

Here’s another reason: do you have vulnerable family members in the house? Children? A spouse or elderly relative? Someone who just isn’t a fighter?  Even if you intend to engage, you may have people in the home who are not willing or able to do so, and it will be better for you if they are safely out of the way.

A safe room is honestly just another prep. It doesn’t mean you are cowardly. It means you are ready for a variety of scenarios and that the safety of your family is paramount.  It is a layer of protection that allows vulnerable people to retreat until help arrives.

Here’s a perk: another great use for your safe room is that you can stash your valuables there. Most break-ins occur when you aren’t home.  If your valuables are locked away, a random tweaker searching for things to sell to support his habit is not going to be able to access your important papers, your fine jewelry, your firearms, or your most prized possessions.

Retreating to your safe room

When you retreat to your safe room, you have one goal: to end any possibility of interaction with an unwelcome person. Please don’t call it a panic room. That indicates that you are a scared victim.  You are retreating to a safer location because you don’t intend to be a victim. In a military gun battle, do soldiers move behind sandbags or into trenches? Of course. They want to limit the likelihood of being shot or otherwise injured. You may or may not be a trained soldier, but your goal is the same. It is to avoid being injured by a person who may be intent on injuring you.

A safe room is not a bunker. You probably aren’t going to be holed up in there for days during a stand-off. It is a point of retreat until help arrives.

The #1 rule of the safe room: DO NOT LEAVE IT UNTIL YOU ARE SAFE AND YOUR HOME HAS BEEN CLEARED. NOT FOR ANY REASON. A criminal will threaten, cajole, manipulate, and bully to try to make you come out. DON’T DO IT.

We’ve often talked about the importance of having a plan (as well as a few back-up plans) and running practice drills. A safe room is no different. All family members that are physically able should be able to quickly access the room. If you have several people in your household, you might want to put a keypad access on the door to the safe room so that whoever has retreated first is safely locked in without worrying about admitting the other family members.

Map out as many different ways as possible to get to the safe room from various locations in the house. This is a great time to get the kids involved, because children are explorers by nature. They may know routes that you had never even considered.  Practice, practice, practice.  Run timed drills and make a game out of how quickly all family members can get to the safe room and get the door secured.

Of course, the success of moving quickly to your safe room rests upon being alerted that someone is in your home.  You should have security measures in place that let you know that the home has been breached:

• A dog
• Inexpensive battery operated alarms on all entry points
• A high quality monitored alarm system
• A wireless alarm system that sounds an alarm and automatically calls for assistance
• Outdoor sensors that will alert you when someone comes through your gate or approaches your home. (Note: If you’re like us and you live somewhere with a lot of wildlife, this option may not work well for you.)

The more of these early warnings you have, the better off you’ll be. Someone might get through one of the alarms, but how likely are they to get through 3 or 4 without you being alerted?

Where should your safe room be?

If you are building a new home from the ground up, you have the unique opportunity to have this special room added to the plans. In this case, your far less limited by the existing design and layout of the house. In fact, there are companies whose sole purpose is designing safe rooms for homes and businesses.  One of the most reputable, Gaffco, offers consultations, plans, and even construction of these rooms. Additionally, they offer “pods” that were originally designed for the US military, which can be incorporated into the design of your home or connected to the home via a breezeway.  These options are top of the line, and may be out of the affordable price range for the average family.

Most of us aren’t in that building process though, so we need to adapt part of our living space to make a safe room.   Some people adapt a large walk-in closet or pantry, while others refurbish a room in their home. DuPont offers a “Stormroom” that is reinforced with Kevlar and is epoxied to your garage floor. It’s designed to withstand a Category 5 hurricane, so it’s a good be that it will also withstand your average home invasion.  These start at $6000 for the smallest size.

Here are some important qualities:

• No windows to the outside
• Ventilation
• Thick/reinforced walls
• Water and a bathroom
• Enough space for the number of people likely to shelter there
• Ease of accessibility for the family from multiple locations in the house

Of course, finding all of these things, sitting there in one room, waiting for you to reinforce the door may not be likely so you have to work with what you’ve got.

Some good options are:

• Walk-in closet
• Master bedroom with attached bath
• Basement family room
• Storage room
• Wine cellar (Not as outrageous as it sounds – surprisingly the humble little 2 bedroom Victorian cottage we used to live in had one)
• Interior den with no windows
• Inside an attached garage

If you intend to go full out and reinforce the walls, it will be less expensive to convert the smallest area that will house the required number of family members.

It is of vital importance to locate the safe room in a place that can be quicky and easily accessed by family members. If you have to run past the entry through which intruders just burst, you probably aren’t going to make it to the safe room. Remember, the most ideal safe room situation is one in which the criminal has no idea that you were home or, if he knows you’re home, has no idea where you may have gone.

One important thing to remember is that your safe room doesn’t have to only be a safe room. The best use of space would have the room used regularly for other purposes.  Most of the modifications you’ll make don’t have to be obvious. For example, if you’re reinforcing the walls, you can drywall over your reinforcements, paint the wall a happy color, and carry on with your life.  An attractive exterior type door can be painted to match the other interior doors in your home.  Even if you live in an apartment or condo, you can make some subtle changes to create a safe place to retreat.

The key here is to do the best you can with your resources and the space you have available. Let’s talk about the most important modifications.

The Door

The very first line of defense is the door you will slam behind you.  For many of us, this is where the majority of the money will be spent.

Forget about flimsy interior doors.  Most of them are hollow core and your average everyday axe wielding murderer or gangbanger intent on mayhem can get through them by kicking or punching through. Go to Home Depot and get yourself the very best exterior steel slab door that you can afford.  If your safe room is an ordinary room in the house, look for a door that can be painted to blend in with the other doors in the house. There’s no sense making it obvious that this room is special.

There’s no point in having a great door in a cruddy door frame. Your door is only as solid as the frame that holds it, so replace your standard interior door frame with reinforced steel. Get the absolute best quality you can afford, then paint it to match the rest of the door frames in your home.  Hang your door so it swings inward. Then you can add extra layers of security to the door.

You want to add more locks than just the doorknob type. For your primary lock, choose a heavy duty reinforced deadbolt system. You can also add a jimmy-proof security lock like this one for an added deterrent, but this should NOT be your primary lock.  You can add a door bar, the hardware for which would be fairly unobtrusive when the bar is not across it.  If you make all of these changes, NO ONE is getting through that door by kicking it in.

The Windows

Windows are a definite weak point in a safe room. If you are using a room that is also used for other purposes (like a master bedroom) you probably have them.  Don’t despair – they too can be reinforced.

The biggest threat with a window, of course, is that the glass will easily break, allowing someone to either get in the room or shoot people who are in the room.

You can go all out and replace the window in that room with a bulletproof security window.  Although they are very expensive, you may decide it’s worthwhile since it’s just for one room. If this is out of your price range, you can purchase ballistic film and apply it to your existing window.  This video shows you how much a high quality ballistic film will withstand.  If you’re doing this, do NOT skimp on quality.

If you have windows, no matter how resistant they are to impact, it’s a good idea to have curtains too.  You don’t want the aggressor standing out there watching you or casing your retreat.  Not only would that be mentally rattling, they just might figure out a way to breach your safe room or counteract your safety plan, like secondary communications.  They do not need to know how many people are in the safe room, what equipment and supplies you have, or what you’re doing in there.  Get heavy curtains and make sure they’re completely closed with no gaps whatsoever.

The Walls

This is where the serious expense comes in.  A round from a 9mm handgun can easily penetrate the walls of the average home. Dry wall does NOT stop bullets, not even from a weaker caliber gun. That’s why one of the most important rules of gun safety is to not only know your target, but what is beyond your target.  If your walls aren’t sturdy enough to withstand bullets, then you’ve basically just put your family into a box to be shot more easily.

One way to lessen the expense of this is to choose a room in the basement. If you build your retreat into a corner, then you have two exterior walls that are concrete surrounded by dirt – virtually unbreachable.  Then you only have two walls to worry about.  If you are in an apartment, the laws in most states insist that walls separating two apartments must be fire resistant. Therefore, the wall between your apartment and the next could be made of cement, providing one wall of safety.

Free plans for a variety of safe rooms are offered by the Department of Homeland Security. As well, FEMA offers free plans for a safe room that is designed to withstand natural disasters. This could be easily adapted for home security purposes too.

There are a few different ways to reinforce the walls of your safe room. Some of the following options may be out of your price range or skill level, and some may not be practical for your living situation.

• Armored steel panels: One of the best ways to convert an existing room into a ballistic haven is by adding armored steel panels to the walls. You can add drywall over the panels and no one will even realize they are there. These are heavy and use on upper floors could damage the integrity of your structure. They’re expensive, with a bottom end price of about $400 for a 4×8 panel, but depending on the layout of the room, they may not be needed on every wall.
• Kevlar: These resistant walls are made out of a fiberglass type material.  This is a much lighter weight alternative and can be used in places that can’t hold up to the addition of heavy steel or concrete. You can learn more about Kevlar construction from Total Security Solutions.
• Poured concrete:  This MUST be used on a ground floor or in a basement because of the extreme weight.  This is a far less expensive option and can withstand most threats.
• Sand:  This is another heavy weight option, but it can be far less expensive than other options, particularly if you live in an area with abundant sand.  A 12 inch thick barricade of sand can protect against many different ballistic threats. In a basement room, a sand-packed wall in between the exterior of the room and interior drywall can provide substantial protection at a lower price. The Prepper Journal has an interesting article on using sandbags to stop bullets. The ideas could potentially be adapted to the interior of your home.  For example, you could stack sandbags halfway up a wall and then build a lightweight wall over the sandbags – the inhabitants of the room would need to shelter behind the sandbags to remain safe.

Temporary options: For the average family, many of these solutions can be out of reach.  If you rent, you probably won’t want to do major construction, either. It’s best to choose a room that is already as sturdy as possible and then reinforce the weak points. Although these options aren’t anywhere near as resistant as the ones above, they are better than nothing.

• Have a heavy duty item you can shelter behind, like a steel desk or deep freezer.
• Line your walls with heavy furniture, like loaded bookcases with real wood backs, not flimsy particle board.
• Line your walls with metal filing cabinets, fill the drawers with anything, and stay low.

The Camouflaged Safe Room

Even though safe rooms aren’t really a “fun” topic, a secret hidden safe room is the kind of thing that stirs the imagination.  After all, how many awesome movies from your youth began with the magical discovery of a stairway or room hidden behind a bookcase or a mysterious doorway at the back of the closet?

The success of a camouflaged safe room rests on the residents of the home quickly moving into hiding without the intruders even knowing that they are home. This is the best case scenario for an event during which you need to retreat to a safe room.

You don’t have to have a mysterious Victorian mansion to have a hidden safe room. Amazon sells a hidden door hinge system that you can use to create a bookcase door. (You can also buy plans for installing a bookcase door or even an entire bookcase door kit.) Other options might include a trap door in the floor hidden under an attached throw rug or a discreet door at the back of a closet behind all the clothing.

Don’t rely strictly on the secret entry for your security. It should be followed up by the reinforcements described above, in the event that the intruders discover you’ve gotten away.

Communications

As was discussed in the introduction, a safe room is simply a retreat. If you don’t have help coming, you could remain trapped in there indefinitely, particularly if the intruders decide to wait you out.

Remember the #1 rule of the safe room? DO NOT LEAVE IT UNTIL YOU ARE SAFE AND YOUR HOME HAS BEEN CLEARED. NOT FOR ANY REASON. A criminal will threaten, cajole, manipulate, and bully to try to make you come out. DON’T DO IT.

You may not have had time to call 911 or your well-armed neighbor before sheltering in your safe room.  If that is the case, then you need to be able to summon assistance from within the safe room. Here are a few suggestions:

• Cell phone: Make sure you have an additional charger for your cellphone that stays in the safe room.  Remember that a cell phone is not 100% reliable.  While it’s not exceptionally likely that your average home invader will jam your cell phone, it’s possible. (WikiHow explains how easily one can be made and this device jams  both cell signals and WIFI. )
• Landline phone: Put an old-fashioned phone in your safe room. Don’t get one that relies on electricity to work. Even better, install a secondary buried line in the event that your primary line is disabled. If a criminal cuts one phone line, he generally won’t look for a secondary line.
• Computer: Just like the secondary landline, above, consider a secondary internet access as well.  If you have Skype, you can also have an internet telephone system from which you can call for assistance, but be warned that you many not immediately reach your local 911 from a Skype phone.

Once you have 911 on the line, be sure to let them know that you are armed. (Cops hate surprises.)  If at all possible, stay on the line with the 911 operator so that you can confirm that help has arrived without opening the door of your safe room.

• Two-way radio: If you have a trusted friend or neighbor nearby, a two way radio system is another way to summon help.
• Ham radio:  Be warned, you need an FCC license for a ham radio.  You can learn more about the different kinds of ham radios in this article.
• Cameras:  While cameras won’t help you summon help, they can let you know what’s going on outside your safe room.  Especially important, a camera outside the door of the room will give you some advance warning if your retreat is about to be breached.  It can let you know if help has actually arrived or if the intruders are just trying to trick you into thinking so. This system feeds into your cell phone or your computer.

Supplies

You want to have enough supplies to stay in your safe room for 24-48 hours. Since this is a safe room and not a bunker, you don’t need  year’s supply of beans and rice in there.

• Food: Stock up on food that doesn’t require any cooking or refrigeration. (This article is about food that you’d eat during a power outage but many of the suggestions will work for your safe room supply.)
• Water: Even if you have an attached bathroom with running water, store at least one gallon per person that is likely to be in the room.  Just in case. Because stuff happens, especially when bad guys are around.
• Cold weather gear: In the event that your heat stops working during cold weather, stash a selection of winter coats, gloves, hats, sleeping bags, and a warm change of clothing.
• Entertainment:  Really.  If you end up in the room for more than a couple of hours, you’ll go insane just staring at the monitors.  As well, if there are children in there with you, they’ll handle the ordeal much better with some distractions.  Keep some books, games, puzzles, DVDs, etc., in the safe room.
• Sanitation: Ideally, you’ll have an actual bathroom as part of your safe room. If not, you’ll need a place to relieve yourself.  The best portable option is a camping toilet, which will eventually have to be emptied, but holds over 5 gallons and should last throughout any amount of time you’d be in your safe room. Also stock hand sanitizer, baby wipes, feminine hygiene supplies, and diapers, if applicable to your family.
• Special needs items:  Remember that movie “Panic Room”, with Jodie Foster and Kristen Stewart?  They were forced to leave the safe room because it wasn’t stocked with the necessary supplies for the diabetic child.  Don’t let this happen to you. Not only will you stock your safe room with food, but keep extra medication for any family members with special needs.
• First aid supplies: Keep a full first aid kit, as well as a manual, in your safe room. If a family member was injured on the way to the room, you want to be able to provide some care for them. Particularly focus on supplies necessary for traumatic injuries.  Also, stock things like antacids, pain relievers,  and anti-diarrheal medications.
• Emergency supplies: Always keep a fire extinguisher, goggles, and some particulate masks in your safe room.  A very determined criminal might try to force you to leave the room by starting a fire. Depending on the materials used in the construction of your room, this could be successful.  The goggles and masks aren’t perfect, but they give you a chance to launch an offensive if you do have to leave the safe room.

Defense

Here’s the bottom line: If an intruder somehow manages to breach your safe room, the time for retreat is completely over.   There’s no option left – you have to be prepared to fight like your life depends on it.  If an intruder has gone to the trouble to break through all of your defenses to get to you, your life most likely does depend on your ability to mount an aggressive defense.

Aside from your primary defense weapon (which you’re probably carrying with you), all of your other weapons should be stored in your safe room. Your extra ammunition should be stored there too.

Is every person of reasonable age in your family able to handle a weapon? If not, it’s time to sign up for classes or go to the range.

You need to have a plan in the event your defenses are breached. You don’t want any “friendly fire” injuries to occur. This plan will be different for every family based on individual skills, on available weapons, and on the set-up of your safe room.

The safe room is your final point of retreat. You and your family are like fish in a barrel, neatly corralled targets for the intruders. If someone brings the battle to you, you must be prepared, both mentally and physically.

Lately, those who live the preparedness lifestyle have been more concerned than ever about the events going on in the world, and for many of us,  the urgency to convince loved ones to prep is at an all-time high as worries increase. The economic collapse of Venezuela, our own shaky markets and banking system, the threat of natural disasters, and worries about cyber attacks all have the potential to become life-changing catastrophes. These are the events we prep for and we clearly understand the ramifications of facing them without the necessary supplies.

And many of us have friends and family without those necessary supplies. Raise your hand if you have ever tried to convince loved ones to prep.  Yep, just as I thought. Hands everywhere.

Chances are that when you brought up the topic, your friends and family considered you anywhere on the nuts scale from “a bit eccentric” to “downright certifiable.” If you’ve ever broached the subject with them, the responses were probably one or more of the following:

“Lighten up!”

“I don’t want to sit there and think about the bad things all day long.”

“You don’t need to worry about me.”

“Live a little!”

“If the disaster is that bad, hopefully, I’ll just die in it. Who’d want to live in a world after ***fill in the disaster of your choice***”

“Hahahahahaha!!!!”

“You worry too much.”

“I’ll just come to your house.”

There’s the smug dismissal, the deer-in-headlights fear, the rolled eyes, and the outright denial that anything bad could ever happen to them. There’s the justification of “We keep a case of water in the pantry at all times” and the “I have survival skills” delusion. Most folks just don’t even want to think about it.

So. Incredibly. Frustrating.

This viewpoint, of course, makes it very difficult for you to talk with these loved ones and bring them over to the “dark side” of preparedness with you.  It’s painful to see people about whom you care, blithely going along, spending money frivolously, buying their groceries a couple of days at a time, and living in places that are totally unsustainable should disaster strike.

So, you have to try.

If you really care about the people in question, you probably feel strongly compelled to talk with them about emergency preparedness. But, how do you convince your loved ones to prep when the idea has never even crossed their minds before?

Why People Won’t Listen

First of all, it’s important to understand why your loved ones see the world through rose-colored glasses.  While they are busy casting mental health disorder epithets your way, it is actually the people who refuse to accept reality who are suffering from a psychological phenomenon called “cognitive dissonance”.

The phrase “cognitive dissonance” was coined by  Dr. Leon  Festinger in his book When Prophecy Fails, which was originally published in 1956.When two diverse values collide – the reality of a situation and the moral belief system of the person, it causes mental discomfort that for some people is quite extreme. The person must make alterations to one or the other in order to regain his mental equilibrium. According to Dr. Festinger

Dr. Festinger’s theory states that “dissonance reduction”can be achieved in one of three ways: lowering the importance of one of the discordant factors, adding consonant elements, or changing one of the dissonant factors. This bias sheds light on otherwise puzzling, irrational, and even destructive behavior.”

• lowering the importance of one of the discordant factors
• adding consonant elements
• changing one of the dissonant factors

This bias sheds light on why people behave in manners that are puzzling, irrational, and even destructive.

It’s very frustrating to watch otherwise intelligent people completely avoid the acceptance of our reality.  Those deeply into cognitive dissonance are simply NOT going to come around by hearing you preach to them.  If anything, it will only drive them further away from you.  The concept of, for example, a long-term disaster like and EMP or an economic collapse followed by total social failure are incomprehensible to them.

Because of this, no matter how fervently you believe these epic events to be likely in the future, it’s best to water down the reality into manageable bites.

Breaking Them In Gently

When trying to convince loved ones to prep, it’s best to break them into the concept gently. If you go too hardcore survivalist, too doomy, or too outrageous, they’ll simply shut down, as described above, and all of your efforts will be for naught. Below, you can find a few ways to introduce the concept.

• Point out weather-related events that have occurred nearby. Everyone has had an experience with the weather that inconvenienced them in some way. Because of this, it’s a disaster that seems more likely than something they’d consider far-fetched or overly dramatic.  You can easily provide recent examples, like Hurricane Katrina and Superstorm Sandy.   Other regions are prone to tornadoes, ice storms, snow storms, or earthquakes.  For those in regions where events like this occur, you can often persuade your loved ones to stock in at least a 2 week supply. Because you can give legitimate and recent examples of these occurrences, this can be a gentle introduction to preparedness.  You may be able to build on this base acceptance and begin to help your loved ones begin to extend their supplies. Note: always use mainstream sources when trying to gently nudge someone in the direction of preparedness. Those sources are familiar and to most people, thought to be more accurate and reliable.
• Teach them how building a pantry saves money. Another great tactic is promoting the economic logic behind a well-stocked pantry.  Prices are only going up – it doesn’t take a prepper to see this.  If you can convince someone of the investment value of a food supply, sometimes you can persuade them to prep without them even realizing that is what they are doing.  Then, when that supply comes in handy during a disaster event or a personal period of economic hardship, you can gently reinforce the lesson.
• Send them articles of interest…but don’t go overboard.  Sending gentle nudges via email is sometimes helpful, but inundating a non-prepper with preparedness advice will generally fall upon deaf ears.  Repetition of preparedness concepts without the scare tactics can help break through the normalcy bias, but it is important to limit yourself within the tolerance level of the person with whom you are communicating.  Remember, you do not want to be the Jehovah’s Witness of preparedness, knocking on the door during dinnertime while the non-prepper pretends not to be home.
• Sometimes fiction can really get people thinking.  If your loved one is a bookworm, try giving them the gift of some good prepper fiction. You don’t have to preach to them, “This is what could happen.”  Just find a good story that you enjoyed and pass it on as such. Some of my favorites are One Second After, the A. American Survivalist series, and Max Velocity’s Patriot series.  If you’re nudging teens in the right direction, this is a list of our favorite books to inspire the preparedness mindset for young people.
• Use movies as launching points for conversations. What could be better than prepper night at the movies? There’s nothing like a good disaster movie to get people contemplating the what-ifs. Host a movie night and invite your friends and family. Be sure that a discussion follows the movie – this can help you to learn what their thoughts are, which can aid you in your persuasive endeavors.  Here is a list of 40 survival-oriented movies that might help you devise the evening’s entertainment.
• Buy them preparedness-related gifts.  If it’s a person you are very close to, sometimes you can set your mind at ease a little by making certain that they have the supplies that they need on hand. Buy them supplies that they can stick in a closet and forget, like buckets of emergency food. If you’re feeling really generous, add some water, a filter, and an emergency cooking method to keep them fed and hydrated, if not completely prepared. Create an emergency kit for their car, put a multitool or Sawyer Mini filter in their Christmas stockings, or give them a pocket survival guide (this is my favorite) to stash in their purse or backpack.

What If They Won’t Listen?

Unfortunately, you have to realize there isn’t a lot you can do to convince others that preparing is vital.  People have to come to their own realizations, just the way you did.  You have to accept that constantly harping on preparedness will do nothing more than to drive a wedge between you and those you love.  Sometimes, you have to know when to give up.

But that isn’t the worst of it. Remember back in the intro to this article, that casual statement that makes every prepper grit his or her teeth?

“I don’t need to prep. I’ll just come to your house.”

As a prepper, you have to make a difficult decision.  Are you going to prepare for a few extra people, adding supplies and making room for them when the SHTF?  Or are you going to go about your preparedness business quietly, embracing OPSEC and building up your supplies with only your immediate family members in mind?

Some people state that they have absolutely no compunction turning away unprepared family members when disaster strikes, because they spent years warning them to get ready.  This is a choice that you may have to make one day, and there is no “one size fits all” answer.

If you allow unprepared loved ones to come to your house, that means there are fewer supplies for your immediate family. You’ll be sharing whatever you have and it won’t stretch for as long a period of time. As well, if they are unprepared despite your best efforts, there could be other problems down the line, like wastefulness, folks who talk too much (and to the wrong people), and loved ones who just don’t grasp the importance of every decision in an emergency. What if they can’t accept the necessity for armed self-defense? This could cause a lot of discord, and even be life-threatening if the situation is dire.

On the other hand, the guilt of turning people away will be too much for some folks to handle. Many hands make lighter work, so if the family members will do their fair share or if they have special skills, then  having them at your retreat will probably be worth the division of supplies. Plus, family is family. Sometimes you have to go beyond the call of duty for those you love.

This is not something that should be decided at the spur of the moment when adrenaline is running high. To make a rational choice, it is important to discuss this among the decision-makers of your household and present a unified front, whichever conclusion you reach.

One of the many adages of the prepper world is, “If you can’t defend it, you don’t own it.”

If you’re new to the preparedness lifestyle, this saying basically means that all of your supplies, your stockpiles, your carefully selected buckets of food, and the time and money you spent on preparation will be for naught if you can’t protect it against those who may seek to take it from you.  This is generally accepted as a truth in the prepper community. Most of us believe that we must be prepared to defend ourselves and our property without relying on any type of “authorities” to protect us.

To me, preppers and guns go together like peas and carrots.I strongly believe that firearms are a necessary part of a home defense plan. So imagine my surprise when I got a negative response to a meme I posted shortly after the massacre in Paris.

Photo Credit

As it turns out, there are quite a few people in the lifestyle that actually do not believe in having firearms. Here are some of the comments that followed the meme, as well as comments from another discussion opened on the topic.

• I respectfully disagree. That is what has fueled this situation already.
• Only a coward thinks that everyone should be armed.
• Oh. What a shame that you posted this – and I enjoyed your page. Bail!
• I do not trust my fellow citizens to know how to safely take out a bomber without also potentially killing my loved ones! Do you want that bloodshed on your hands?

What?????????

Not everyone believes preppers need guns

(Edited to add) I wrote this article before the shootings in San Bernadino.  Despite the noisy refrain of people begging for gun control, despite that ridiculous and misleading “mass shootings map” (more on that HERE), I haven’t changed my stance one bit. In fact, it just solidifies my belief that we need to be prepared at all times to protect our families. These people were at an office Christmas party when things went down, not a place one would normally expect to need to be armed. This says to me that there are no places that are immune to danger. You have the inherent human right to protect your own life and the lives of others.

I understand not having a firearm if you live in a place where they are not available. (I spent 18 years in Canada and was unable to arm myself there.)  But when you’re blessed to be in a place with access to the tools you need to keep your family safe, it seems like just another prep to me.

But obviously not everyone feels this way. Check out this lady who was on an episode of Doomsday Preppers.

Hat tip to Erica from Living Life in Rural Iowa for the link to this video

(You can check out the entire episode here.)

The thing that I believe it’s important to remember here is that if you have stacked your supplies to the rafters but refused to plan for defending your home and family, you’ve basically just made them bait should a desperate situation arise.

Here are some reasons why preppers need to be armed.

Reason #1: Those who are desperate, unprepared, and feel entitled to be cared for

Remember Black Friday?  People climbed all over each other for cheap electronics. Fist fights erupted over vegetable steamers. People were ready to throw down and do battle for sale items.

I’d hazard a guess that folks who spend time and money fighting over electronics are not the kind of people who prep. That means that these are the people who will be hungry in a long-term disaster.  Look at those people, stampeding to get to a sale on things that they don’t actually need to survive. Their inhibitions are loosened because those around them are behaving in the same way.

You have to look at the psychology of this. People can justify pretty much anything when they or their children are starving. And I can understand that to a large degree – who could stand to watch their babies suffering?  But if someone can devolve to the above degree just to because everyone else is doing it, the chaos we saw above is only a tiny sample of what could come if people were truly hungry.

Do you really feel like you could prepare them one meal and they’d go away politely? Do you really think that reason and a polite but firm conversation will be sufficient to make them go away? It only takes one person to start the charge against you in a tense scenario, and when that happens, unless you take swift and shocking action, the others will follow, and your retreat will be overcome. Sort of like when the walkers overtook the prison after the fence got knocked down on The Walking Dead.

Reason #2: Those who are planning to take the supplies of others

But wait, there’s something even worse out there than the hungry unprepared. There are the folks who have built an entire preparedness plan around taking the things that other preppers have stored. Remember this guy from another episode of Doomsday Preppers?

If you aren’t ready for people like this, your survival retreat is a soft, easy target. These people are not nice, but desperate. Their entire survival plan hinges on taking what someone else has amassed using superior force. This yahoo (who was subsequently arrested after his appearance on Doomsday Preppers) blatantly explains his plan, and I can guarantee that he is not alone. He’s just the one dumb enough to announce it on national television.

These are the types of people who are only careful about breaking the law because they don’t want to be caught. If a situation arises in which being caught and thrown in prison is unlikely, it will be a free-for-all. Morals and ethics won’t stop them, because they don’t have any. The only thing capable of stopping people like that is people who are able and ready to defend their homes

Reason #3: Those who loot and pillage because, doggone it, they like it

Finally, there are those who simply enjoy mayhem.

Some people are just waiting for the opportunity to behave in this fashion. They enjoy destroying things and venting their anger on any person who has “more” than they do. They’d love to act like that every single day, but they don’t want to spend the rest of their lives in jail. But when a verdict gets rolled out, when a storm takes out the power, when a disaster strikes, they delight in the chance to rob, pillage, loot, and burn.  Who can forget the day before Superstorm Sandy hit the East Coast, when thugs were coordinating looting rampages via Twitter?

Here’s the scene in Ferguson, Missouri. These are definitely not folks out fulfilling needs.

I remember learning about “sublimation” in a high school psychology class.

Sublimation is a defense mechanism that allows us to act out unacceptable impulses by converting these behaviors into a more acceptable form. For example, a person experiencing extreme anger might take up kickboxing as a means of venting frustration. Freud believed that sublimation was a sign of maturity that allows people to function normally in socially acceptable ways. (source)

If you believe Freud’s theory, then it’s easy to see that many people look for an excuse to revert to their true natures.  In a situation where “everyone” is doing something, they are able to cast off their normal control of their impulses without much fear of reprisal. The number of looters and thugs far outstrips the number of arrests going on in Baltimore, so there’s a very good chance that someone swept up in that mentality can go burn somebody else’s home or business and completely get away with it.

These are the people who burned down their own neighborhoods after the verdict in Ferguson. And what businesses were left untouched? The ones for which the owners stood out front, armed, to defend their property.

You owe it to your family to be ready to protect them.

What if the world as we know it ended? What if there wasn’t food in the grocery stores? What if there was no longer any such thing as EBT, for those who have made a career out of milking the system? What if the police and military finally threw their hands up in the air, gave up, and went home to protect their own families?  Who’s going to keep your family safe then?

You are.

You have to realize that at any point in time, you could find yourself on your own, without backup from 911.

Whether civil unrest is right outside your door.

Whether a group of thugs decides to invade your home to rob and/or terrorize you.

Whether the world we know goes down, via an EMP that takes out the grid,  civil war, economic collapse, or a breakdown in the national transportation network.

The only person you can rely on to protect your family is yourself.

You can stockpile until you have a decade of supplies put back, but if you can’t defend it, you don’t actually own it. You only have it because no one has bothered taking it away from you yet.  You have what you have based on the goodwill of others, who are stronger, greater in number, and better armed.

Take a long hard look at the threats you face during civil unrest, and develop a plan for protecting your retreat. Wherever you live, whatever your situation, you need to plan as though 911 does not exist. Whether riots are occurring in the streets or not, in the seconds during which the lives of your family hang in the balance, you are completely on your own.

In some situations, it won’t stop with the destruction of your property. You may have to defend your home. And for this, you MUST BE ARMED.

I’m sure I’ll receive another barrage of email wishing me and my children dead by our own guns. (It always amazes me how people who swear vehemently that they’re against violence can send me those letters that fervently hope for bloody and terrifying deaths for us.) Some people are so terrified of self-defense tools that the very idea of using one causes veritable spasms of cognitive dissonance and denial.

Those very same people will tell you that they’ve survived riots or unrest and never had to have a gun or shoot anyone.

And do you know what?

Chances are, you won’t have to unholster your weapon. But this is a plan based on pure luck and the goodwill of others. Survival favors the prepared. I do not base my preparations for my family on the hope for good luck and nice people.

Firearms are an equalizer. A small woman can defend herself from multiple large intruders with a firearm, if she’s had some training and knows how to use it properly. But put a kitchen knife in her hand against those same intruders, and her odds decrease exponentially.

You are your own first responder.

If the situation does escalate and the lives of you and your loved ones are in danger, there is no substitute for meeting force with force. You may not wish to engage, but sometimes there’s no time to escape. Sometimes there’s no place to escape to. In these situations, you won’t be able to talk your way out of it, hide from it, or throw dishes at the intruders to fight them off.

When you need help in seconds, the police are only minutes away. By the time they arrive during a collapse scenario, your family will be dead, raped, or kidnapped, and your supplies will be long gone.

If you plan to survive a scenario of civil unrest or a Mad Max society meltdown, you are going to have to accept that  preppers need guns. This doesn’t mean that you want to hurt someone. It means that you intend to keep your loved ones safe by any means necessary.

Here are a few tips to prepare a home defense plan.

Your plan has to be unique to your situation. Be sure when making your plan to take into consideration things like: the layout of your property, your family, and their skill sets, your comfort with firearms, your neighbors – the list of variables goes on and on

Here are some specifics to help you begin planning.

Know how to use your firearm. Whatever your choice of weapon, practice, practice, practice. A weapon you don’t know how to use is more dangerous than having no weapon at all.  You have to spend time at the range. It’s a must. During a stressful, frightening situation, you will be relying on muscle memory, so make sure the muscles are well trained.  I’m not a firearms instructor, so I can’t recommend “the best gun” for preppers. The guns I chose for my rural property aren’t necessarily the same ones I’d choose if I lived in Suburbia. Every situation is different, and your firearm choice should reflect that. (Here’s some advice from someone who knows a lot more about weapons than I do to help you with that decision.)

Make sure your children are familiar with the rules of gun safety. Of course, it should go without saying that you will have pre-emptively taught your children the rules of gun safety so that no horrifying accidents occur. In fact, it’s my fervent hope that any child old enough to do so has been taught to safely and effectively use a firearm themselves. Knowledge is safety.

Spend time making a plan unique to your situation. You need to prepare your battlespace and make plans for defending it. Those plans will be different based on your experience and that of people in your family or group. For example, a family of preppers in the suburbs would  most likely have a very different plan than a group of former military guys protecting a compound.

Don’t rely on 911. If the disorder is widespread, don’t depend on a call to 911 to save you – you must be prepared to save yourself.  First responders may be tied up, and in some cases, the cops are not always your friends.  In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, some officers joined in the crime sprees, and others stomped all over the 2nd Amendment and confiscated people’s legal firearms at a time when they needed them the most.

Be armed and keep your firearm on your person.  When the door of your home is breached, you can be pretty sure the people coming in are not there to make friendly conversation over a nice cup of tea.  Make a plan to greet them with a deterring amount of force. Be sure to keep your firearm on your person during this type of situation, because there won’t be time to go get it from your gun safe. Don’t even go to the kitchen to get a snack without it. Home invasions go down in seconds, and you have to be constantly ready.

Have a safe room established for children or other vulnerable family members. If the worst happens and your home is breached, you need to have a room into which family members can escape.  This room needs to have a heavy exterior door instead of a regular hollow core interior door. There should be communications devices in the room so that the person can call for help, as well as a reliable weapon to be used in the unlikely event that the safe room is breached. The family members should be instructed not to come out of that room FOR ANY REASON until you give them the all clear or help has arrived. You can learn more about building a safe room HERE.  Focus the tips for creating a safe room in an apartment to put it together more quickly.

Plan an escape route.  If the odds are against you, devise a way to get your family to safety.  Your property is not worth your life. Be wise enough to know if you’re getting into a fight that you can’t win.

Civilization is just a veneer.

So many times, when interviewed after a disaster, people talk about being “shocked” at the behavior of others.  Their level of cognitive dissonance has lulled them into thinking that we’re safe and that we live in a civilized country.  They are unwilling to accept that civilization is only a glossy veneer, even when the evidence of that is right in front of them, aiming a gun at their faces, lighting their homes on fire, or raping their daughters.

They refuse to arm themselves and prepare for an uncivilized future.

Accept it now, and you’ll be a lot better off when the SHTF.

Do you have some specific advice for those making a home protection plan? Any thoughts on the use of firearms in that plan? Please share your suggestions in the comments below.

How often do we think about preparing to help our neighbors in a crisis? Neighborhood emergency preparedness isn’t something that gets a lot of attention, sometimes because in urban and suburban neighborhoods, we rely on our system of laws and the ability to call law enforcement to keep order. Neighborhood kids are known and the informal phone network keeps a close eye on them. Change is usually predictable or occurs at a reasonable pace; renters move in and out, trash is picked up regularly, and lawns get mowed. Neighbors are familiar, whether they are good, bad or anonymous.

And then disaster strikes — an earthquake, a major flood, or other long-term calamity. Disaster is, by its nature, unfair; it devastates one house and leaves another one nearby totally untouched. Suddenly, your neighborhood has changed, and it’s definitely in your best interest that you pay attention and prepare to exert your influence to keep the neighborhood stable.

A Stable Neighborhood Is a Safer Neighborhood

It’s a simple rule of civilization that a healthy, interactive neighborhood is much preferable to one with abandoned houses and no communication among neighbors. The latter welcomes crime and uncertainty, the former allows neighbors to support each other so everyone is kept safe. Everyone knows the elderly, the disabled, and others that need extra help…as well as the house rented by four strapping college football players (muscle can come in handy!).

Disasters can attract predators of the human variety, whether they be faux contractors looking to scam victims with a repair scheme, your basic thief looking for loot to pawn, or opportunists squatting in an abandoned home, they will thrive if your normal network of communications among neighbors is disrupted.

READ MORE: How can walking your dog help you prep? Read this!

Most Neighbors Won’t Be Prepared

It’s no secret that the unprepared greatly outnumber the prepared. If you’re reading this article, I’m betting you’re the latter. We quietly store extra food and water, tend to our generators and solar panels, and make our plans. What we usually don’t do is plan for the actions or inactions of our neighbors. However, your ability to safely stay in your home is somewhat dependent on your neighbors’ ability to stay in their homes. With a familiar presence next door, you are inherently safer.

On the Ragged Edge

We all have to make the calculation as to whether we go or we stay. For those of us who are well prepared, we have flexibility that those who were not prepared do not have. For some, it may come down to one thing that causes them to flee; it could be a lack of batteries for flashlights, lack of gas for a generator, or basic lack of food and water. Or it could be something as simple as having enough food for their dog. Civilization is surprisingly fragile.

Finally, if government assistance has not arrived and no one in the neighborhood can inspire confidence in those who are on the fence about staying or going, there’s a much greater likelihood that more than a few neighbors may feel the need to run and abandon their homes.

Reinforce That Castle Wall

Your commitment to stay and fight against whatever disaster has occurred can mean a lot to your neighbors. Nobody wants to be the last man standing, and everyone needs a hand here and there. Each time you help a neighbor, you’re strengthening the invisible castle wall that surrounds your neighborhood, not just your own home. You’re encouraging your neighbors, friends or foes, to stay and help keep you and your family safe. Even a simple thing like a running an extension cord from your generator to your front yard so neighbors can charge their cellular phones can make a huge difference. Sharing a hot meal can be a great way to perk up a neighbor used to cold pork and beans.

Two Types of Generosity

Providing support to your neighbors in a disaster can take two forms:

• During or immediately after the fact
• After the major threat is over during an extended disaster

This is an important distinction, as generosity shown early in the disaster does not imply the ability of your neighbor to obtain support from you later; in this early or rescue phase of the emergency, help is easily offered and easily accepted as a “Good Samaritan” gift.

Later, as the adrenaline from the immediate emergency leaves the body, the focus for most of your neighbors will turn inward to their own families and situations. Over time, the ability to communicate with people outside the neighborhood will become easier. Assistance given at this point has more implications, as noted below.

Preparing to Help

We don’t usually spend a lot of time preparing for what others might need in a disaster. And yet, this might be one of the most important things that we can accomplish in our preparedness. What I’m talking about is preparing giveaways: Small items that we stock in advance for the purpose of helping others in a disaster. In a way, it’s similar to stocking extra supplies with the idea that they would be valuable for bartering for things we might need in the future. In this case, we’re not bartering for supplies, but for less tangible things like safety or security.

ALSO READ: “Comfort and Care in a Crisis” and “Charity Prepping“

So what kinds of things make good giveaways? Some examples include a four pack of AA batteries, a juice or milk box, a candy bar, or a gallon of gas. A giveaway is simply an individual item that you can spare in order to obtain goodwill or stability and safety in your neighborhood.

Other suggestions:

• Chemical lights (glow sticks)
• Emergency blankets (mylar/aluminum)
• Cans of juice or soda
• Energy bars
• Band aids and antibiotic ointment
• Cleanup items like bleach or wet wipes
• Cigarettes or airline bottles of liquor
• Diapers or baby formula

A Friendly Chat

A big part of this strategy is gathering information. In law enforcement, we called this the “Walk and Talk”. This is simply making conversation, exchanging information and finding out what’s going on with the other person. It’s really not anything different than what you normally would do with your neighbors, but in this case you will have more of a purpose.

Each of your neighbors will have their individual issues, such as damage to their home, inability to contact a loved one, or their personal medical or mobility problems. One thing to watch for is common themes: ‘My car got broken into’, or ‘There’s a pack of dogs roaming the neighborhood’, or ‘I’m seriously thinking of getting out here.’ These may be indicators of serious problems to which you need to pay immediate attention. In most cases, it will be obvious who really needs help, and those that are doing okay. As for you, keep things vague if everything is fine with you and your family. You don’t want to become the target of opportunists.

Tread Carefully

One large pitfall that can occur is that your generosity can be quickly and easily abused. The last thing that you want is to be the house that everybody goes to for “stuff.” You must set boundaries immediately and strictly:

• Only use giveaways for neighbors that you know or can verify.
• Make it clear that the giveaway must be kept secret by the receiver.
• Limit giveaways to one per household per day.
• Don’t be afraid to say no, especially to unknown people.

Otherwise, you risk becoming a mob scene of people seeking free stuff. Think of an episode of The Walking Dead and you can imagine what your front yard could become. Firm boundaries are much easier to set early than to try and establish them after things have gotten out of hand.

Bottom line: Take care of your neighbors as well as you can. After all, they’ll still be your neighbors after the smoke clears.

Any person who has begun to seriously prepare has had to make compromises between current wants and future needs, how much to spend on preparations, and how many people to stock supplies for.  If you’re married, you need to have a spouse that shares your concerns or you’re going to fight over every #10 can the mailman delivers.  I don’t need to go into detail on how much you should store,  how to store it, or what makes the cut on your List of Lists.  The purpose of this article is to help communicate the need to prepare with those in your family that you want to help without alienating them or downgrading your own preparedness plans. It is about how to convince your loved ones to prepare.

I am a professional firearms instructor and am also employed full time as an emergency management planner.  Due to my job, my hobbies, and my personal beliefs, my former mother-in-law delighted in trying to insult me by calling me “Sgt. Tackleberry”.  She was unreachable, and I didn’t spent a lot of time trying to convince her of the importance in prepping.  She would rather buy timeshares of vacation property than spend money on a basic 72 hour kit.  That works for her, and I cannot judge her, but she would not be invited to,“come live with me if it ever did happen,” as she believed.

Other members of my family have thought my preparations were a, “phase”, or some harmless idiosyncrasy.  Those family members did not have a negative view of my preparations.  They mostly looked at my preparations with amusement.  They tolerated my teenage experiments with wild foods or earthquake kits.  As I have grown older and they have seen things on the horizon that will personally impact  them, they have begun to ask me for my opinion on coming winter storms or whether they should buy gold or guns.

It’s like being a firearm instructor and people asking you which gun to buy.  If you do your homework and build credibility, people respect you more.  If you take the long view and work diligently. these members of your family might be “converted” with patience and work.  While I cannot assume responsibility for them and make them prepare for disasters, I can be a role model and sounding board to help them understand the issues at play so they can build a plan that works for them.

If the world as we know it collapses, it’s not only about survival.  Once your survival needs are met, you’re going to have to rebuild and continue with your life.  Having your loved ones with you makes that a lot easier.  The problem is that each person I add to my retreat lowers my safety margin IF MY SUPPLY AMOUNTS REMAIN FIXED, but if those people I add to my retreat bring their own supplies, it dramatically increases my safety margin.  To me it is definitely worth it to help your family prepare.

I have a few precepts that I use when dealing with family or friends on this subject.

1. My first precept of dealing with family is not to preach.  My preparations are based on my needs and the things that I believe are important.  Each person has their own priorities, and preaching that you are right and they are wrong only pushes them away from the direction you need them to go.
2. My second is never to prepare for a particular event.  I am sure there is still a lot of rotting food out there that was bought in bulk specifically for Y2K, and some of those that bought it are convinced it was a waste of money.  I tell my family that my food storage can be used for Y2K, Armageddon, TEOTWAWKI, Pandemic Flu, Nuclear Winter, Job loss, or when I just don’t feel like cooking.   By having an all-hazards approach and building capability and skills rather than building for specific events, my planning work gets more bang for the buck.  The first time I read of the “Deep Larder” was an “ah-ha!” moment for me, and changing my terminology has worked well in changing the response I get from my close loved ones.
3. My last precept of helping my loved ones see the need to prepare is to foster an appropriate mindset instead of concentrating on gear acquisition.  I could buy my mom a Springfield Armory M-14 and 10,000 rounds of match ammo, but it would be much more effective to get her to go with me to the range a couple times and practice with a .22.  This would likely foster a desire to shoot, and then I could help her choose a firearm that fits her needs and desires.

Whenever the family conversation gets around to disaster preparation I bring up concepts like:

• “Buying car insurance is considered a responsible action, but you don’t have any tangible benefit from buying it, if you never get into an accident.”
• “With having a deep larder, even if zombies never attack, I still have the food.”
• Or as Dave Grossman has said, “You never hear of elementary schools burning down but they all have fire extinguishers.”
• My favorite is, “Noah built the Ark BEFORE the flood”.

I try to break everything down into manageable bites rather than cram it in and have them tune me out.

The best case scenario is that your loved ones will see the need to prepare for themselves and begin planning and preparing on their own, therefore augmenting your plan.  You cannot out-argue someone into adopting your position.  As Dale Carnegie said, “Those convinced against their will are of the same opinion still.”  What has worked for me is a quiet and consistent approach.

I love my family and want what is best for them.  The best way I know to do that is to help them become more aware of the need to prepare.  My goal is to foster a sense of self-sufficiency and personal responsibility, and to help mentor them through the beginning steps of basic preparedness.

Think about how overwhelming it was when you first began to prepare.  There is a LOT to learn and even more skills and equipment to acquire.  We know that we cannot stock everything needed or prepare too much.  The process of preparing is every bit as important as the items you acquire.

Researching and prioritizing is mental prep work so that when a large disaster occurs we are not comatose with emotional overload.  If I coddle my loved ones and try to remove their responsibility to prepare by doing it for them, then I am doing them a disservice.  When hard times come, they may not be emotionally ready to deal with the collapse.  What’s worse is that making them dependent on my charity would cause strain on otherwise healthy family relationships.  Because of this, I feel it is worth supreme effort to work with my loved ones to prepare so that we can grow together in adversity and make our family bonds stronger.

This year I had my breakthrough.  My parents asked me what they could do to prepare.  We had a very long discussion and came away with a workable plan.  At the time of our discussion their location was more favorable for a long-term retreat than my own, and they are going to provide the location and storage space for most of my preps.  We both win in the end.  Shortly after that discussion our town had an unusually long cold spell.  In the days before it we talked more about our short term plans and communication protocols and procedures.  While we did not have to evacuate to my parents, it was nice having all the details ironed out in the event we had to.

Disaster preparedness is not a fad or a short term race to buy a lot of cool gear.  It’s a lifestyle choice, and one that has a lot of benefits.  However, it comes the necessity of taking off the rose colored glasses.  Not everyone is ready to do this, but if you want to set an example and truly influence others, you must understand what you do is much louder than what you say.

By David Nash