Harder Homes & Gardens – Hurricanes Destroy Beachside Homes, But Not This One

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Mexico Beach, which sits halfway between the two, saw three-quarters of its homes, municipal buildings, and businesses damaged. But one structure withstood the storm, despite its front step sitting only 150 yards from the wet and windy Gulf of Mexico. Christened the “Sand Palace” by its owners, the blocky beach home survived not by luck or magic, but good design, says Lance Watson, vice president of Southeastern Consulting Engineers and lead engineer on the project. Here’s how—with money and expertise—the crew outmaneuvered Michael, and made this home a model of resilient architecture.

If you build a home on a beach where everyone and the .gov knows there’s gonna be strong hurricanes, it seems that when your house blows away like something out of The Wizard of Oz you really have no one to blame but yourself. However, if you’ve got the resources, and the inclination, you can apparently throw in some engineering to make sure you have the last house standing.

I’ve covered my fascination with concrete dwellings in other posts (search for the HHG tag). But sheer strength isn’t all you need…you gotta have solidly engineered ideas, quality materials, and competent construction. In the example shown in the article, these folks were willing to make some tradeoffs and lose a battle (sacrificing the ground floor storage area) to win the war (keep the house standing).

It’s hard to find old construction that has all the features we wacky survivalists would like to have, and retrofitting an older place can be almost as expensive as building new. I’m inclined to go for a purpose-built place. When it’s time to break ground on Commander Zero’s Post-Nuclear Bunker O’ Love and Lingerie Proving Ground (also known as the Fortress of Derpitude) ypu can bet everything is going to be done with an eye towards surviving forest fire, gun fire, economic meltdown, and as many other forseeable events as possible. Won’t be cheap, I’m sure, but I’ll bet I’ll sleep real good when its all done.

Link – Germs on the Big Screen: 11 Infectious Movies

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News of a disease outbreak or possible pandemic may readily conjure up Hollywood fantasies of horrible disease symptoms, government crackdowns and mass death. The very notion of infection, or viruses and bacteria invisibly taking over the human body, creates a sense of both uncertainty and helplessness that can lend itself to thoughts of doomsday. Movies have not hesitated to play out those worst-case scenarios time and again.

An interesting list, to be sure. However, one that was neglected but, in my opinion, worthy of a watch, is “Carriers”. (Featuring the smoking hot Emily Can Camp). Most notably for the ride into grittiness and ruthlessness as the characters start facing harder and harder choices.

But, really, who needs to watch stuff like this when it’s happening, to a slightly lesser degree, in real life?

The media is telling us that a ‘second wave’ is on the way, or that reported infection rates are increasing (keyword: reported…by whom? Reported how?), and that we should expect worse times to come.

Well, yeah….is there anyone who really thought this was over? Even if they came up with a vaccine tomorrow it will still be months, if not years, before the consequences of this thing are behind us. Even if you snapped your fingers and it disappeared tomorrow, the effects will still be here…the economic, social, and political fallout will linger even after the Kung Flu is considered ‘no longer a threat’.

You and I, we’ve been expecting something like this for a while…some sort of event that makes us start locking our doors more often, keeping a wary eye open, and start circling the wagons. Now it’s here and it’s time to see if we’ve been making smart choices these last few years (or decades).

If this really is an escalation of the current situation, it’s been a quiet one. I haven’t seen an increase in panic buying at the supermarket. However,  guns and ammo are still virtually unobtainable without paying ‘the Covid tax’. Fortunately, for many of us, guns and ammo were the first thing we stockpiled when we were a fresh wet-behind-the-ears newly minted survivalist.

Anyway, there you have it…a list of movies to download and watch in a darkened room while patting yourself on the back for your foresight and planning. You did stockpile popcorn, right?

 

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There’s a link at the top of the column on the right hand of your screen. I think what I’ll probably do is, on an experimental basis for now, post a footer in a random post once a week with a quick link. We’ll see if that doesn’t come across as too crass and self-serving.

Hindsight

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When all of this Kung Flu hit the fan, I stepped things up a bit and did a few things that, at the time, seemed prudent against threats that seemed reasonably possible. How’d that work out?

Cash – I pulled out a couple grand in cash to keep in the gun safe against the banks closing. As it turns out, the bank lobbies were closed, opened briefly, and closed again. ATM’s were always accessible but they limit your daily withdrawals. However, the drive-through lanes never closed so you could always get your money that way. So…was it necessary to pull out the cash and stuff it in the safe? No.

Gas – I beefed up the amount of gasoline I normally keep on hand. Again, this was under the threat of gas stations closing or fuel deliveries being disrupted due to quarantine, sick drivers, etc, etc. Best I can tell, no gas station was closed or was short on product. I did, however, beat the fifty-cents-per-gallon difference between then and now. So…gas stockpiling…unnecessary.

Consumables – I considerably ramped up the storage of food and other consumables, most notably cleaning supplies. Although there were initial shortages, and in some places there still are, the grocery shelves quickly were refilled. So, was it absolutely necessary to ‘go long’ on some things? No.

There’s three big things I did at the beginning of this pandemic that turned out to be unnecessary. Thus far. Do I feel I made any mistakes by doing those things? Do I wish I had not done them? Do I think I wasted resources?

Heck no.

Does anyone ever truly regret this sort of thing? (Stock photo)

Here’s why: this ain’t over. And even if the Kung Flu finally dies down and people stop wearing face masks and bathing in hand sanitizer I will be positioned exceptionally well for whatever comes next. Just because something hasn’t happened doesn’t mean it won’t .

At the time I did the things I did, no one knew what was coming down the pike. As a result, I erred (if you want to call it an error) on the side of caution. And I have zero regrets about it. None. Nada. Because when the next Big Thing comes along, I will be even more prepared than I already was. This stuff is like any other form of insurance – if you get it and don’t use it was it a waste? No, it was not. Because the insurance did exactly what it was supposed to do – it transferred the risk elsewhere.

My risk of being hungry? Gone My risk of being unable to fuel my vehicle? Gone. My risk of having to wipe my butt with leaves? Gone My risk of having to meekly hand over my things to some horde of thugs? Way, way gone. My risk of not having access to the cash needed in an emergency? Gone.

When your spouse starts giving you crap about how you ‘wasted all that money’ on ‘all that crap you have sitting in the garage/basement’ because ‘nothing happened’, ask them if they felt better knowing that stuff was there just in case. If so, then it was not a waste. And, by and large, a lot of the stuff you and I put back is good for years and years, if not decades.

So don’t second guess yourself if you took all sorts of preparations at the beginning of this event and feel like they were unnecessary and unneeded.Keep doing what you’re doing. The day ain’t over yet.

Box O’ Joy

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This is what addiction looks like. Three Ruger PC carbines (the old style) and a half dozen P95DC pistols to match with the carbines.

It’s also a decent example of what will fit in the Boyt51 rifle cases that are for sale at the local CostCo right now. This is the sort of package that goes up in the rafters or down in floorboards to sit quietly for decades until needed. More importantly this frees up a bunch of needed space in the gun safe. I know that the fact that two of those pistols are blued versus the other four that are not is pegging the OCD meter on some of you..have no fear. I swapped them out after this picture was taken for a couple stainless ones that were in the safe.

Independence Day

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I don’t want to be pedantic but….we celebrate Independence Day, not the fourth of July.

Now, having irritated many of you, I suggest you take that irritation to the range and go shoot some guns. Independence…whether its from other nations, people, ideas, or paradigms…does not come peacefully and without incident*. Be ready… emotionally ready, mentally ready, and physically ready.

“The price of freedom is the willingness to do sudden battle anywhere, any time and with utter recklessness.”  ― Robert A. Heinlein

 

* = I cannot hear the phrase ‘without incident’ without thinking of this incident.

Melange

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I received a very thoughtful note of encouragement from someone in the mail a couple weeks ago ( you know who you are, person in AZ), and a few people have, as of late, stepped up to chip in a few bucks towards keeping the lights on and the brain droppings flowing. Figured I should recognize their generosity… so, here ya go. Mucho thanks! ( I should also mention that while many people prefer to be anonymous in this sort of thing, the ones who do send me things in the mail and use their real return address wind up getting on the Paratus card list.)

The local CostCo is selling Boyt hard cases at a decent enough price that I might have to pick one (or five) up. Not as good as a Pelican case, IMHO, but nothing really is. However, for just organizing some of these guns that are laying all over the place here it should do nicely.  I do need to find a smoking deal on Pelican 1750’s though.

A loaned out copy of “One Second After” was returned to me the other day. It’s a good book, in terms of story, although a little heavy-handed at times. But it seems far more gritty and realistic than similar works. Two thing I really didn’t like was the obligatory armed-townies-versus-cannibal-army climax which seems to be a requirement for any post-apocalypse book, and I felt like the depths of starvation and it’s attendant issues were happening sooner than I think they would in real life. Nonetheless, it was a good read and certainly a bit motivating.

Independence Day is this weekend and, like Patriots Day, it is properly celebrated by including the handling of arms and the usage of same. Folks who fought and sacrificed in the Revolutionary War would expect no less of you. But…don’t shoot off all your ammo. We do, after all, seem to have a cold civil war a-brewing.

It’s pretty telling that it takes a global pandemic, economic upheaval, and race rioting to make Joe Biden look like a contender for President. Once again, this is going to be ‘the most important election of our generation’….as we are reminded Every. Single. Election.

It’s a heck of a time to try to stock up on guns and mags against the election, what with the ‘Corona Tax’ making guns more expensive than they were this time last year, but if you’ve been so remarkably short-sighted as to not have your thundertoys purchased by now….well…you kinda deserve this.

 

Working down the list

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As I’ve mentioned, every weekend I commit about fifty bucks towards working my way down the Perponomicon. It’s a bit more regimented and regulated than my previous acquisition process, which was basically to just pick up a few things each time I go shopping. Nope, this is a purposeful and deliberate task each weekend. (And, unsurprisingly, the secret, it seems, to getting anything worthwhile done is…deliberate and purposeful activity.)

The good news is that in the last several weeks I’ve moved a lot of stuff on my list ‘into the green‘. Which is nice. Thing is, though, those were all the easy..and relatively inexpensive…things. $2 cans of tomatoes, $9 jugs of cleaning solution, $20 packages of batteries….that sort of thing. The kinds of items that, no doubt, are definitely worth having on a list but what is starting to remain to be done is the more expensive things. The things like optics, radios, cases of ammo, gold, backup drives, large propane tanks, etc.

And, naturally, at the very top of the list…very tippy top….Rancho Ballistica – Commander Zero’s Post-Nuclear Bunker O’ Love and Lingerie Proving Ground. That’s the the big one. Right now, I’d be happy just to get the land..I can always build later. But get the land soonest since it usually doesn’t go down in price.

And then, on top of all that, I have to prepare for the non-EOTWAWKI. I have to prepare for civilization, such as it is, to keep on truckin’ on. Property taxes, Roth contributions, HSA contributions, insurance payments, emergency funds, property improvements, dental cleanings, etc, etc.

I wonder what would happen if, by some stroke of fortune, I managed to actually complete and compile every single thing I think I need or wanted in terms of preparedness. Would I then know not what to do with myself? Or…

 

Video – 1911 vs. M1 Carbine

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As you know, the M1 Carbine was never supposed to be a replacement for the M1 rifle. Rather, the purpose of the M1 Carbine was to give people who normally don’t carry a full-size rifle (radiomen, mortar crews, messengers, truck drivers, etc.) something more efficient than a pistol. Basically, the idea wasn’t to replace the M1 Rifle, the goal was to replace the 1911 pistol for people who would, normally, only be carrying a pistol.

The 1911, like any pistol really, is challenging to shoot well under stress. A carbine is way easier to handle and get hits with under stress. Gun Jesus ran an impromptu course using both a 1911 and an M1 Carbine and the results are interesting.

As Chuck Connors pointed out in virtually every episode of his show, a short carbine with a pistol cartridge at pistol ranges will outperform a pistol pretty often. This seems to answer the age-old question of ‘what good is a pistol caliber carbine’. Or..does it?

An M1 Garand is about ten pounds. The M1 carbine was about half that. Obviously, theres a tremendous weight advantage. But….a 9mm carbine like a 9mm AR is virtually the same weight as…a .223 AR. So you get virtually no advantage.

You could say, though, that a 9mm AR pistol would be more compact and lighter than a .223 AR carbine and you’d be right. But then you could also just carry a .223 AR pistol and be right back to zero.

So, comparing apples to apples…..AR platform to AR platform..is a zero-sum game it seems. But as mentioned, the M1 Carbine wasnt meant to replace the M1 Garand, it was meant to replace the pistol. So…what about when you compare the 9mm carbine against the pistol? Thats where things would change. But…since you can get your 9mm AR carbine in .223, why not just use your .223 carbine?

It’s an interesting mental exercise. Almost anything you can do with a 9mm carbine you can do with a .223 carbine, so why take the ballistic penalty of being in 9mm? I gotta say, it’s hard to imagine a scenario where a 9mm carbine is a better choice than an M4. Easy to suppress and marginally lower recoil but after that…………..?

Having said that, though…I still like my 9mm carbines. I especially like my Ruger PC Charger which is probably the only format (an arm-braced ‘pistol’) that gives an advantage over the M4..namely, compactness.

Anyway, an interesting video although I’m not sure the implications it suggests are as relevant in a world of M4 carbines that ape the M1 Carbine in terms of length and weight.

The utility of vacuum sealers

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Fella I know, who is getting started in the realm of preparedness had his birthday earlier this month.  I got him what I think is one of the best gifts you can get a fellow survivalist: a vacuum sealer. For the record, the best gift you can probably get for a survivalist is a huge chunk of land in the middle of nowhere. For this survivalist, the best gift you can get is a slightly drunk and mildly self-esteem-challenged Jennifer Lawrence. Or, if you’re on a budget, her body double.

Thing is, most people have a very narrow view of what a vacuum sealer is good for. In fact, the gift was met with a ‘my freezer is already full’ response. A lot of folks, in my experience, don’t think creatively about the uses for one of these things that have nothing to do with food. So, lemme mention a few of the non-food things I do with mine and maybe it’ll send you down a new road of thought in regard to using yours. (Or getting one.)

  •  Compressing high-loft items of clothing so they take up less space in a pack
  • Preventing powdered items from clumping – The cleanser that comes in the cardboard cans? I put each can into a bag and vaccuum seal it so that after years of sitting on the shelf it hasn’t drawn moisture and caked into a rock-like consistency.
  • Water bottles that get left in the vehicle in the winter are vacuum sealed in a bag so if the plastic bottle does explode from freezing (which almost never happens) any leakage is contained. And the water is still potable.
  • All the fire-starting materials in my hunting/bushwhacking packs are vacuum sealed to keep them dry, clean, and in one place.
  • Small first aid items get vacuum sealed for rather obvious reasons.
  • Critical documents are vacuum sealed so they are protected from moisture, wet, etc. For example, my birth certificate(s) and passport(s) are sealed up and sitting in the safe. (Uhm..yeah…plural….I know a guy…)
  • In the Pelican case I keep in the winter vehicle kit there is an an entire change of clothes that has been vacuum sealed to consere space and keep the clothing clean and dry so that in an emergency it’s ready to use.
  • Bulk first aid gear that would normally take up space gets vacuum sealed to allow me to pack more of it in a smaller space, as well as to protect it.
  • Have a dog? Dog food MRE’s. Phydeaux’s kibble and treats packed into individual servings.
  • Toilet paper that you keep in the truck or at the cabin. If you’re putting together a bugout bin or kit you really, really wanna make sure the TP is protected.
  • Medications in tablet form. Most pills come in plastic bottles that offer good protection, but a lot of stuff comes in blister packs and although you’d think those foil and plastic sheets would offer good protection…not always. So, into the sealer they go. Try to keep stuff in original packaging when you do this…last thin you want is a little vacuum sealed bag of unidentified pills laying around with nothing to tell you what they are or how much to take. And the cops really get curious when large quantities of pills are loose in a plastic bag.
  • Bars of soap. Bar soap seems to ossify over time. Seal ’em up so theyre still useful years later.
  • Road flares. Seal ’em up, wrap in cardboard to protect the integrity of the plastic bag, and tuck ’em away in your vehicle. Wet flares are the literal damp squib at a rescue.
  • Small electronics that absolutely need to be protected. Handheld radios get vacuum sealed with dessicant and then tucked away in a protective case of some kind. Suspenders and a belt, perhaps… but its an extra step that costs virtually nothing and makes sure that you have communications when you really, really need it. And thats worth pretty much anything.
  • Batteries. Water and batteries do not mix..at least, not in a good way. I store batteries in plastic tubs but I also vacuum seal the large CostCo-sized bulk packs of batteries.

The list goes on, but I think you get the idea. And, yeah, they are also handy for food as well. If you haven’t bought one already, do yourself a favor and don’t cheap out. Yeah, there are some models that are $50-$75. Skip them. This is not the kind of item you want to cut corners on. Get the Foodsaver brand, not the Cabelas, not the Walmart, not the other brand you’ve never heard of. Get the Foodsaver branded rolls of material as well. Plan on spending about $200. I absolutely promise you that it will be the best $200 you can spend on preparedness gear. Do it.