The first step to emergency preparedness is to educate yourself about your community's emergency plans, warning signals evacuation routes and shelters.

If your saying to yourself, you don't live near an ocean, just remember the effects of a hurricane can be felt 100's of miles inland. This can cause flooding and severe rainstorms. Every home should have a well stocked emergency survival kit that can accommodate 3 days. Along with well stocked emergency kit you should have a full prescription medications available. If your family is young you should have adequate supply of baby food, formulas, diapers and other needed supplies for babies. A large container of wipes for the whole family and hygiene products to keep clean. Along with these supplies you have an emergency survival kit for your car that contains food, flares, battery cables, tools, first aid kit, sleeping bags etc..

Hurricanes can be predicted through the national weather service and they can warn coastal areas within 24-36 hours. This gives you time to stock up on gas, medications, food, flares, cover windows and doors with ply wood, fill sinks and bathtubs with water as extra supply for washing.

According to the CDC the great majority of injuries during a hurricane are cuts caused by flying glass or other debris. Other injuries include puncture wounds resulting from exposed nails, metal or glass and lastly bone fractures.

The CDC recommends 5 actions to get through a hurricane.

• Monitor radio or television if possible
• Stay indoors until authorities declare the storm over
• Do not go outside even if the weather appears to have calmed because the eye of the storm can pass quickly.
• Stay away from windows and exterior doors seeking shelters in bathrooms or hallway or closet
• Prepare to evacuate to shelter or neighbors if your home is damaged. Hurricanes can be very scary, however if you have an emergency preparedness plan and well stocked emergency survival kit, the chances for survival for this kind of disaster increase dramatically.

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Food that has come in contact with flood waters may be contaminated. It is important to know what you can and cannot eat after the flood. Screw caps, snap lids, pull tops, and crimped cap food containers are not waterproof and are not safe to eat after the flood if they came in contact with the water.

Canned foods exposed to flood waters - discard any cans that are leaking, punctured, dented, swelling, or rusting. Some foods can be salvaged after the flood. But steps must be followed to ensure their safety.

• Remove the label. It may harbor dirt and germs. Use an indelible marker to write the contents of the can on the lid.
• Wash the can with hot soapy water.
• Rinse it well.
• Sanitize by either: Immersion in water and then allowed to boil for 2 minutes OR placed in a bleach solution (1 tablespoon bleach per gallon of water) and allowed to sit for 15 minutes.
• Allow the can to air dry thoroughly. At least one hour.
• Use the canned item as soon as possible.

Cleaning your cooking utensils thoroughly is very important.

You should:

• Thoroughly wash them with hot soapy water.
• Rinse completely.
• Sanitize by immersing in bleach solution (1 tablespoon of bleach per gallon of water)
• Allow to air dry completely

Your counter tops should be:

* Thoroughly washed with hot soapy water
* Rinsed completely
*Sanitized the bleach solution and allowed to air dry.

Special note: always use unscented plain bleach. No lemon (or any other flavor) scented bleaches should ever be used to sanitize your canned foods, cooking utensils, or counter tops.

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Disasters such as fire, flood, hurricane, snow or ice storm could jeopardize your foods' safety. Loss of power is common after a disaster. To reduce the risk of food borne illnesses, it is important to know how to determine if your food is safe.

A is for always. Always keep your meat, poultry, and fish at or below 40 degrees and frozen foods at or below 0 degrees. If the power is out, this may become very difficult. Keep the door closed on your refrigerator and freezer. The refrigerator will only stay cold for about 4 hours if the door is kept closed and significantly less than that if it is opened. A freezer will hold the temperature for about 48 hours (if it is full and 24 hours if it half full). Again, the amount of time the temperature will hold is significantly less if the door is opened.

B is for be prepared for any emergency. You can do this by keeping on hand items that are shelf stable (don't require refrigeration). These include items such as canned goods, pasta, and other ready to eat items. Be sure to not leave out your pets and keep plenty of their food on hand. Don't forget to keep a hand held can opener available. If you plan on cooking any of these items on your grill - make sure you have gas or charcoals for your grill.

C is for consider. Consider what you can do to store your food safely for an emergency. If you live a flood prone area, you may want to plan your food storage on shelves that are high off the ground. Coolers are a great idea. Keep frozen gel packs to keep your food cold in case of a power outage. Consider keeping water frozen in used milk containers if your freezer is not full. This will help keep your freezer cooler.

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Q: What is the cost difference between buying a survival kit and building one on my own?
A: Surprisingly, preassembled kits are less expensive than piecing one together on your own. Each item in a kit may only cost a dollar or two at a box store, but preassembled survival kits contain many items that cost-wise can add up quickly. Due to wholesale discounts that are available to many online retailers, preassembled kits give you more for your money.

Q: Is there a difference in quality between online and store-bought products?
A: Yes. Online retailers have access to high quality specialty products through wholesale that are not available at local box stores.

Q: How many items come in a preassembled kit and are they all necessary?
A: Most preassembled survival kits sold online are assembled to contain only the essential items that will be needed during an emergency. Even though emergency situations are unpredictable, items in a survival kit can be utilized in any type of emergency. Experts who have determined what items and how much of an item will be necessary in an emergency put preassembled survival kits together. Each kit is built for a specified amount of time, usually 24 or 72 hours.

Q: How much time would it take me to build my own kit?
A: Assembling your own survival kit will take a variable amount of time, but you can plan on it taking a significant amount of your attention. Before purchasing supplies, you would want to research how to build a kit, finding out what items are necessary and how much of an item is best for your needs. Once your research is completed, you would be required to spend time in various stores picking out the best items and for the best prices. And some items, which can be found in a preassembled kit, cannot be found at your local big box store. Locating items in a store takes time. On the other hand, preassembled kits include everything you need for an emergency and can be purchased in just a few minutes through an online retailer.

Q: Will I be able to find all the same items in a local store that are included in a preassembled kit?
A: Some items found in preassembled kits cannot be found elsewhere as they are specifically designed for the survival kit and are not sold separately. Also, preassembled survival kits contain items that are sized to easily fit into a survival pack. Items in a preassembled kit are also quantized for a specific time period.



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There are a variety of different stoves you can employ when you are practicing wilderness survival from MSR stoves to the humble tea light stove. And the large range in cost means you can find just the right thing to fit your pocket book.

A stove really only needs to contain two items - a fuel, and a container in which the fuel burners. Added components can be used to increase efficiency.

The simplest stoves are the tea light, cat food, and Altoid stoves. This article will discuss the bare bones Altoid stove, however the technique can be applied to just about any metal container you have lying around for wilderness survival.

The first item discussed will be the fuel used in the stove. At present, my current preferred fuel is the automotive additive called HEAT. You can get this at any gas station for about 2 or 3 dollars. It will easily ignite but does not produce fumes that can flare up light gasoline (do not EVER use gasoline as a fuel in a stove).

The stove itself is an empty Altoid tin with the top of the container removed prior to use. You do not want to have your cooking container sitting directly on the stove, as this may put the flames out. So you will need to either find an item that will allow your billycan or canteen cup to sit above the flames or you can just dig a small trench in the ground. This will house your stove and you can use the earth as your pot stand.

Place the stove in the trench or under your pot stand and add your fuel. With my test I found that 3 oz of fuel provides about a 20-minute burn, which should be sufficient to boil your water and heat your food. You can then light the fuel with your preferred method (match, lighter, ferro rod) and you are good to go. Just place your billycan or canteen on the pot stand and heat your food.

I thought that 3 oz of fuel was a lot to use in this stove, and you may be able to make the stove more efficient by adding some fiberglass insulation inside the tin. This will hold the fuel and provide a more even burn - but I have not yet tested this.



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Fire making is a need-to-know skill if you are planning on spending any time in the wilderness. Fire is the second most important need when in a survival situation, shelter being the first, and once obtained it can be used for many things including: boiling water to make it drinkable, hardening wood for spears, arrows, digging tools, firing pottery, keeping you warm, and the list goes on.

This article will discuss the different methods of fire creation that you should know about when venturing into the wild. We will cover flint and steel, ferro rods, lighters, matches, and different drill methods. This will not cover all the fire making methods in detail, but should be enough to inform you of the pro's and con's of each method and give you a place to start when choosing how you want to create fire when making camp.

Hand Drill Method

The drill methods for creating fire create a coal, which can then be blown into a flame, by using friction between two pieces of wood. A hearth board is placed on the ground and a spindle is then rotated back and forth onto the hearth board. The friction created between the two pieces of wood produces dust, which will heat up enough to form an ember or coal. This ember can then be moved into a bundle of tinder and blown into a flame. When using the hand drill method, the spindle used is usually a dry wood or vegetation (such as a mullien or cattail stalk) that has a very soft and pithy center. As the name implies, the spindles is turned with the power of the hands. The bow drill method utilizes a bow (much like a the type used to shoot arrows) to spin the spindle. This allows much more speed and power to be put into turning the spindle and it has less chance of blistering your hands. These drill methods are very reliable once you have the skill, however they can take some time to prepare.

Flint and steel have been around for ages. The basic concept is that you have a piece of flint, and a piece of steel - like that which metal files are made from. By striking the two together, sparks are created. These sparks are then caught by your tinder and can be blown into an ember and then into flames. It's a fairly easy method to use, and also compact and lightweight to carry. The only thing you need in addition to the flint and steel is charcloth. Charcloth is a natural fiber, such as cotton, which has been heated to the point that its chemical makeup changes, but the air is kept from the fibers so that it will not burst into flame, but rather just char. The reason you need charcloth is because it catches a spark extremely easy. You can then place your red hot charcloth into your tinder bundle and blow it into flames. You can usually use the container in which you carry your fire kit (i.e. an altoid tin) to make the charcloth. You just place the natural fiber into the container, close it up, and stick it in the fire. After awhile you can pull it out and it will be black but not burned up.

A ferrocerium rod (aka a ferro rod) is the next step in the flint and steel evolution. The rod will throw off a lot of sparks when a piece of steel (such as the back of your knife blade) is run down the rod. These sparks can then be caught in charcloth or another tinder and be blown into flames. The advantage of the ferro rod ofer flint and steel is that it is a smaller package and easier to use.

Matches take the "spark" step out of fire making and go directly to flame. Although matches generally work OK, if they are wet they will not light. They can also snap easily. Its not a bad idea to carry some on you, but don't depend on them.

Lighters are a step above matches. They also go directly to flame, but have the advantage of having a much larger fuel source (i.e. they can produce more flames for longer) and if they are wet, some can be dried out and used. Just as with the matches, its never a bad idea to have a lighter on you, just don't depend on it.



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