New essentials for the coming Apocalypse
Bug-out bags and beyond: a checklist for the neo-survivalist
President Donald Trump threatens to “totally destroy North Korea.”
Another hurricane lashes out. A second monster earthquake jolts Mexico. Terrorists strike in London. And that’s just the recent news.
Yes, the world is clearly coming to an end. But is there anything you can do to prepare?
But if you are among the swelling class of weekend paranoiacs of affluent means who are starting to mull fantasies of urban escape following the endless headlines about disasters, both natural and manufactured, you may be starting to see a different image in your mind when think “survivalist.”
You may no longer see the wildeyed cave dweller in camouflage fatigues, hoarding canned goods. You may even see one in the mirror.
Here is a checklist for the neosurvivalist preparing for the apocalypse.
1. Satchels for survival
The power grid has collapsed. Supermarkets are looted. With the city teetering on the brink of collapse, the first thing you want to reach for — after the Xanax — is a well-stocked “bug-out” bag.
These suddenly chic survival satchels, also known as go bags, are typically lightweight militarygrade backpacks stocked with provisions for at least 72 hours.
Ready-made bug-out bags containing staples like water purification tablets, a 20-hour body warmer and a multifunction shovel are available on Amazon for under than $200.
Hard-core preppers, however, would never leave their survival up to a mouse click, which is why some sites suggest endless creative tweaks to the standard equipment.
Graywolf Survival recommends a chain-saw blade stashed in an Altoids tin to harvest firewood. Survival Life touts feminine hygiene products, even for men, to soak up blood from wounds.
“As long as the gear gets the job done, that’s what matters,” said Andrew Pontius, a marketing consultant and disaster preparedness instructor in Kansas City, Missouri, who helps run a site called Bug Out Bag Academy.
2. Go for the silver
Two years ago, Greece was forced to shutter banks and limit ATM withdrawals during a debt crisis that threatened to shatter Europe’s currency union.
In the United States, prominent authors like James Rickards, a hedge fund veteran, and David Stockman, once the budget director for the Reagan administration, insist that an even bigger crisis will soon tank Wall Street and torpedo the dollar.
No wonder so many preppers, some of them wearing pinstriped suits, consider gold and silver to be a crucial hedge against a crisis.
While Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies make news, many preppers are quietly packing their bug-out bags with rolls of pre-1965 American dimes, quarters or half-dollars, which are 90 per cent silver and available from coin dealers and precious-metals websites (silver is currently about $17 an ounce).
Unlike gold, which is hovering around $1,300 an ounce, these old silver coins come in small enough denominations to barter for a loaf of bread or a socket wrench in an economic “Mad Max” scenario. Even so, some survivalists remain silver skeptics.
“For $100, let’s say you get five silver coins,” said an urban preparedness expert who goes by the nom de guerre Selco. “Why not buy 100 cans of soup?”
3. Alt-currencies
Imagine a true economic apocalypse, one that makes the German hyperinflation of the 1920s, with its wheelbarrows of near-worthless paper currency, look like a hiccup. To prepare for the worst worst-case scenario, some doomers prefer daily staples like tampons, vegetable seeds and cigarettes (that timeless prison medium of exchange) to silver or gold as an alt-currency.
Liquor, too — particularly in easy-to-swap airline bottles — would likely prove a hot commodity, since it not only deadens the pain of surviving in a post-apocalyptic wasteland, but, as a blogger named Survival Mom points out, also provides useful off-label functions as a disinfectant or an ingredient in herbal remedy tinctures.
Visions of a barter economy are not necessarily the stuff of doomer fever dreams, said Xavier Thomas, who runs the British site MoreThanJustSurviving.com with his wife, Elise.
“If we look at examples of systematic social breakdowns, like Argentina in 2001, or the war in the Balkans, goods that people understood on an intrinsic level clearly carried the most value when trading — cans of food, gas, batteries, cheap Bic lighters,” he said. “A good rule of thumb: if you’d find it useful in an emergency, you’ll be able to find someone who will trade for it.”
4. Beyond ‘duck and cover’
When Trump issued his threat to North Korea at the United Nations, many preppers had an almost Pavlovian response: to check their nuclear survival kit. Ever since the backyard bomb shelter went the way of tail fins, survival in the face of mushroom clouds has seemed highly relative.
Some preppers place their faith in unproven home remedies, like bedsheets dusted with baby powder, which they hope will block X-rays, or generous helpings of turmeric mixed with black pepper, to inhibit tumour formation. Others turn to basics, like Geiger counters, wallet-size RAD badges, potassium iodide tablets or a Seychelle radiological family water pitcher, which the manufacturer claims will filter out “99.99 per cent of the major contaminants that can be found after a nuclear event.”
5. The other bug-out bag
In the event of apocalypse, bring condoms. This may sound like a slogan from a fraternity party T-shirt, but survivalists absolutely adore condoms. Featherweight, ultracompact and durable, condoms (nonlubricated, please) can be used as a makeshift canteen to store water, a fire starter or as elastic bands for an improvised slingshot to hunt small game, according to Creek Stewart, a survival instructor and television host.
When inflated, they can also be used as fishing bobbers or signalling devices for semaphore, according to SensiblePrepper. Oh, and they’re also great for the obvious use, too.
6. Armed to the teeth, but with what?
Should law and order on the streets break down after, say, a massive hurricane or nuclearreactor meltdown, that condom slingshot might come in handy in communities where possession of the most fundamental survivalist self-defence staple — the gun — is restricted by law.
So what is a defenceless, lawabiding survivalist to do? Prepper bibles like “100 Deadly Skills,” by Clint Emerson, a former Navy SEAL, are filled with improvised alternative weapons, like a collapsible umbrella lined with wrenches, which is “not illegal to possess,” a New York City Police Department spokesperson said, but “would be considered a weapon if you used it on someone.” Sure, you could master jujitsu. “But if it’s really on, hand-tohand self-defence will only take you so far,” said Jason Charles, a firefighter and organizer of the New York City Prepper’s Network.
To balance legality with lethality in a bug-out bag, he said, “You have to go simpler — hammers, hatchets, certain heavy tools.”
That roll of old silver quarters might come in handy, too.
7. Paddling to safety
In the event of a cataclysmic emergency, bridges and tunnels may be closed or choked off by marauding mobs, forcing survivors to consider waterborne escape.
A lightweight, folding kayak like the Oru Beach LT is a savvy, albeit expensive option (US$1,299) since it weighs 30 pounds and collapses to the size of a suitcase.
8. Deliverance from above
Since the Sept. 11 attacks, many cubicle dwellers have been haunted by fears of being stuck in a skyscraper when disaster strikes. In fact, tragic images from the World Trade Center inspired a micro-industry of high-rise-escape options. There are now escape chutes (basically, giant collapsible fabric tubes for shinnying down) and small parachutes.
The SOS Parachute (about $2,400) is compact enough to store in a cubicle, opens in about two seconds and is designed to work for the 11th floor and higher. Granted, the parachute is exactly not 82nd Airborne-grade, and a 200-pound man might find the landing a little rough.
“You may twist an ankle,” said Nicolas Havett, a company executive.
But in a situation serious enough to warrant a parachute, that’s a deal that many would take.
9. Who are you calling ‘rocket man’?
They were a science-fiction fantasy in the Bond movie “Thunderball,” a space-age gag in “Gilligan’s Island.” But a half-century later, jet packs actually exist.
A California company called JetPack Aviation unveiled a functioning turbojet version two years ago, capable of staying aloft for 10 minutes, travelling at speeds up to 160 km/h.
Current models are available only to the military, but David Mayman, the company’s founder, said he plans to introduce a commercial version within 18 months.
10. No place like dome
In the event of a megadisaster that leaves parts of a city uninhabitable, survivors might require cheap, stormproof shelter to start a new life.
In the best of times, prefabricated dome shelters receive high marks from environmentalists and penny pinchers alike because of their low cost and minimal environmental impact.
A company called Intershelter sells igloo-shape pleasure domes that call to mind Luke Skywalker’s old pad on Tatooine, but cost only US$12,000 for one big enough to include a kitchen; it can be thrown together in a few hours, to make an instant hunting or fishing lodge.
But in the worst of times, this dome, “built to sustain hurricane strength winds or earthquakes,” makes great relief housing for disaster victims and, in theory, would make great bug-out bunkers for urbanites looking to build a survivalist compound on the fly.
11. Pets or meat
In the event of a breakdown of the food supply that leaves supermarket shelves bare and restaurants empty on a Saturday night, you will still have to eat. Often.
That is why many survivalists are placing their hopes of sustenance in rabbit, a high-protein, low-fat meat being embraced as “the new chicken” by sustainable food types including Michael Pollan.
“Raising meat rabbits is one of the most space-efficient means of growing livestock for meat,” according to the site Survivalist 101.
By livestock standards, rabbits are relatively clean and quiet, too. They can survive on table-scrap vegetables or even grass, and as a bonus, yield valuable fur for improvised winter clothing. And boy do they breed. A doe can produce up to 50 kits a year, yielding 250 pounds of meat, according to researchers at the Penn State Extension.
12. Beyond Medieval Times
To master archery and broadsword combat; to learn to manufacture fabric, bread, ceramic cookware and wood furniture by hand; to perfect the preindustrial arts of iron craft and tanning: yes, there are worse things to carry into a post-apocalyptic world than a membership card to the Society for Creative Anachronism.
In normal times, this international historical-re-enactment organization seems like little more than a harmless bunch of Renaissance Faire types playing dress up on weekends and celebrating the arts, skills and costumes of pre-17th-century Europe.
But should Armageddon arrive — say, in the form of a limited nuclear exchange, global pandemic or cyber mega-attack — these hobbies could mean your survival.