How to survive a nuclear war
How are you going to survive if nukes start falling or zombies attack? Nicole Kobie shows how to prep for the nuclear winter
How are you going to survive when the nukes start falling? Nicole Kobie explains how to prep your gadgets for the coming apocalypse.
With the US and North Korea playing nuclear poker and the Doomsday Clock ticking ever closer to midnight, it’s time to consider how the hell we are going to get through this, well, hell. There’s never been a more apt time to turn “prepper” and follow the lead of survivalists making ready for the apocalypse by storing food supplies and preparing a “bug-out bag” for when the nukes start landing.
There are a few items common on bug-out bag lists – rope, knives, rain poncho, long-lasting food, water – that you should surely include. But alongside keeping fed and fending off thieves, we would also like to stay connected – life without the internet simply isn’t worth living, and if Trump is going to spark a real-life disaster movie, we’d like to monitor the end of days via his Twitter stream (“Zombies made up. FAKE NEWS spread by the LYING media. Sad!” And so on).
But it’s not only soft metropolitan elites that value connectivity – even survival expert Peter Stanford plans to carry his iPhone when the clock strikes midnight. “Say there was a news blackout on TV, I could still use my mobile phone to get on the internet,” he pointed out when I spoke to him, saying he’d leave the laptop in favour of a phone that does everything with less weight and power demands.
That said, Stanford isn’t planning on half-filling his backpack with electronic devices. “I don’t want to rely on technology… as a last resort I want to be as manual as possible. It’s being more independent: the less technological stuff you have, the more knowledge you have, the less kit you need. That tends to be a survival statement,” he told us. “The less I have to rely on technical stuff, the better.”
With only a bare minimum of tech to work with, you’ll want to make sure what you do have tucked away doesn’t break down, seize up or run out. So, without further ado, here’s a guide to keeping yourself powered up during the apocalypse.
DON’T FORGET THE BATTERIES
Depending on the nature of the disaster – I’m still betting on a zombie apocalypse – mobile networks may stay up indefinitely or be knocked out immediately. If it’s the former, you’ll still want your smartphone for mapping your escape route, as well as to stay in touch with loved ones.
Perhaps the best start is to have a phone with solid battery life. Options to recharge it include a power bank, although that will run out, as well as solar panels and hand-crank chargers.
Stanford favours a specific power
bank: the ThruNite C2. It’s tiny – he described it as “lipstick-sized” – and can be charged over USB, plus the battery is replaceable, so you can bring several with you. Other versions use standard AA batteries. “If you’ve got half a dozen batteries, once it gets discharged, you take that battery out and put a new battery in it, and you can still charge your phone,” he said. That will keep you going until the crisis is over, or until the networks fail and the new world order begins, rendering your iPhone nothing more than a memorial token of the old days.
Stanford warns that temperature affects power banks. If you’re dodging zombies in the British wilderness, make sure your recharging unit of choice isn’t too cold. “Any sort of battery unit in general, the colder temperature environment that it’s in, the less power it’s going to have and the longer it’s going to take to charge,” he explained. “It’s always really important, regardless of whether you’ve got a crank or solar panel to charge up a battery unit, that you always keep it thermally clad and protected because the energy and power will last for longer.”
SOLAR AND HAND CRANK POWER
If solar appeals (although it’s not a great option in a regular winter, let alone a nuclear one) you can pick up portable panels or even recharging rucksacks with solar panels built in, so you can power up while on the run. Combination devices offer the best of both worlds: the £17 Hiluckey Solar Charger is a waterproof 10,000mAH power bank that you can charge over USB for immediate power, but the top is a solar panel for when you’re away from the mains. The panel’s sensitive enough to charge on a dull London afternoon, and it also features a flashlight on the rear and a carabiner, so you can clip it to your bag to harvest the sun as you wander the desolation of this once great nation.
Hand-cranked units not only offer power for as long as you have the strength to turn them, but many manual chargers have been combined with built-in torches, radios and solar panels. Such a combination device might make a good EDC – your “everyday carry” that you bring everywhere because this is life in 2017 and anything could happen.
The £17 AngLink Dynamo is one such device. In a small package, it features a flashlight, radio and can recharge gadgets over USB, via a hand crank or solar power. Cranking with my RSI-addled wrists easily lit up the torch and ran the radio, but took ages to shift the HTC One’s battery by a single percentage point. Of course, come the apocalypse, you won’t have any better entertainment than twirling the plastic widget anyway.
Plus, the radio makes a handy backup communications device in case your phone dies or the networks fail. “If you needed to have comms to know what was going on, if information sources have gone down, at least you have a radio source,” Stanford said. He recommends finding one with walkie-talkie capabilities, and ensuring whoever you want to stay in touch with does the same. “If you’ve got a radio, you’ve got that as a fallback. It’s good to have two forms of comms.”
APPSOLUTELY USEFUL
You’ve got a powered-up smartphone and a comms backup, but you don’t want to waste battery Googling “can I eat this plant” or begging first-aid assistance from whoever’s in radio range. Instead, consider loading up a Kindle, as its month-long battery life will give you a Hitchhiker’s Guideworth of help without recharging. Prep it with maps (PDF format is best), as well as first aid, survival and other guides – plus whatever you’d like to read when you can’t access Netflix.
Alternatively, download ebooks or apps to your smartphone, and store an offline version of Google Maps for your local area, to help you find the best escape routes or the way to Dudley (nobody would waste a nuclear bomb on Dudley).
To start, Stanford suggests the free St John’s Ambulance app for first aid and the wide-ranging SAS Survival Guide for everything else. The latter is based on a classic survivalist book by John “Lofty” Wiseman, and covers everything from first aid to building a shelter and natural remedies. The tips on forecasting weather from cloud patterns and which insects are best to eat were particularly compelling.
“If the stuff does hit the fan and you’ve got the app or book, it’d be really good as it has a whole crosssection of stuff for the average person to deal with a variety of scenarios,” Stanford said.