Originally published at Notes from the bunker…. You can comment here or there.

I love Costco.

‘Kirkland Signature’ is CostCo’s ‘generic’ label. But the packagin is always identical to the ‘name brand’ and its probably made by the name-brand outfit for CostCo. Todays find:

CostCo brand triple antibiotic ointment versus Neosprin.
EXACT same ingredients. Price? Three tubes for $3.99 ($1.33@) versus 2/$9.00 ($4.50@) for an equal size on of neosporin. Needless to say, I’ll be distributing these amongst the bunker first aid supplies later.

And, since halloween is near, they have Cyalume lightsticks on sale. Fifteen for $12.49. Lightsticks are handy little rascals. No batteries, no flame, no heat, explosion-proof and reasonably effective. Only drawback is they do expire after a year or two. I keep one of these foil-sealed cigar-sized goodies on top of the doorways in each bedroom and the door to the basement. In case of power failure, I know where I can get some quick emergency lighting to help me find my way to my other lighting systems.

If you shop around, CostCo has some seriously nice stuff for those of us who are preparedness minded.

I love Costco.

‘Kirkland Signature’ is CostCo’s ‘generic’ label. But the packagin is always identical to the ‘name brand’ and its probably made by the name-brand outfit for CostCo. Todays find:

CostCo brand triple antibiotic ointment versus Neosprin.
EXACT same ingredients. Price? Three tubes for $3.99 ($1.33@) versus 2/$9.00 ($4.50@) for an equal size on of neosporin. Needless to say, I’ll be distributing these amongst the bunker first aid supplies later.

And, since halloween is near, they have Cyalume lightsticks on sale. Fifteen for $12.49. Lightsticks are handy little rascals. No batteries, no flame, no heat, explosion-proof and reasonably effective. Only drawback is they do expire after a year or two. I keep one of these foil-sealed cigar-sized goodies on top of the doorways in each bedroom and the door to the basement. In case of power failure, I know where I can get some quick emergency lighting to help me find my way to my other lighting systems.

If you shop around, CostCo has some seriously nice stuff for those of us who are preparedness minded.

Originally published at Notes from the bunker…. You can comment here or there.

Was sitting at the computer reading LJ when all of a sudden the power went out. Looked outside and all the signage and traffic lights were out too. Hmmm. Probably a localized blackout. Got on my neighbors cell phone and tried various numbers around town…appears it was confined to this side of the river. I grabbed my big MagLite from its readyrack and went next door to the underground manufacturing facility my landlord has. Let him borrow the light since theres no windows down there and for some reason they have almost no emergency lighting. Came back here and pulled out the Baygen radio, wound it up, and started looking for stations…my initial concern was that this was the result of some sort of large-scale problem (terrorist attack on the power grid leaving the whole northwest in the dark, etc) but once I found it was confined to this side of town I was a bit relieved. Most of the stations were off the air and the ones I did pick up didnt have anything to say so that told me it definitely was small-scale. Grabbed my backpack, which I always keep an extra MiniMagLite in, and sat out front and waited for the power to come back on. Took about an hour so it must have been a minor thing that caused it. I was prepared to head home if it lasted more than an hour, but……

Lessons learned:
Spare flashlights for those who are less prepared and you want to share with
Battery radios are a must.. the Baygen is ideal
Have a way to find out the extent of the outage..I called people all the way on the other side of town who had answering machines to see if they had power

Things I was deficient on:
When power went out, my cordless phone became useless. Need to have a regular wall-mounted phone in here

Was sitting at the computer reading LJ when all of a sudden the power went out. Looked outside and all the signage and traffic lights were out too. Hmmm. Probably a localized blackout. Got on my neighbors cell phone and tried various numbers around town…appears it was confined to this side of the river. I grabbed my big MagLite from its readyrack and went next door to the underground manufacturing facility my landlord has. Let him borrow the light since theres no windows down there and for some reason they have almost no emergency lighting. Came back here and pulled out the Baygen radio, wound it up, and started looking for stations…my initial concern was that this was the result of some sort of large-scale problem (terrorist attack on the power grid leaving the whole northwest in the dark, etc) but once I found it was confined to this side of town I was a bit relieved. Most of the stations were off the air and the ones I did pick up didnt have anything to say so that told me it definitely was small-scale. Grabbed my backpack, which I always keep an extra MiniMagLite in, and sat out front and waited for the power to come back on. Took about an hour so it must have been a minor thing that caused it. I was prepared to head home if it lasted more than an hour, but……

Lessons learned:
Spare flashlights for those who are less prepared and you want to share with
Battery radios are a must.. the Baygen is ideal
Have a way to find out the extent of the outage..I called people all the way on the other side of town who had answering machines to see if they had power

Things I was deficient on:
When power went out, my cordless phone became useless. Need to have a regular wall-mounted phone in here

Originally published at Notes from the bunker…. You can comment here or there.

Imagine waking up in your nice first-class berth aboard the Titanic and hearing the crew screaming that you have one minute to get up top and into the boats or youre gonna die. Now, in that minute you have to frantically assemble whatever you can to insure that you’ll survive the long wait in the chilly Atlantic waters. You scramble around looking for warm clothes, maybe a flask of whiskey, that sort of thing….painfully aware that in a minute youre going to have to make do with what you have.

See, thats how I feel most of the time…’under the gun’, so to speak. I know what I want (or need, for that matter)..its just getting those things thats a bottleneck..mostly because of money. Hey, preparing for the uncertain future isnt cheap.

In other news, I was rummaging through the freezer and determined the oldest food item in there is a vaccuum sealed package of ground beef from March of 2001. So I thawed it out and cooked it up yesterday and it was just fine. The big freezer keeps everything around zero degrees and the vaccuum sealing prevents freezer burn and helps to preserve things. So, 2.5 years is, thus far, not too long for properly stored frozen meats to last. Good to know. Also finished off a 15-gallon drum of rice last night. Part of my y2k stash. I’ll head up to CostCo this week and pick up another couple 50# bags and funnel ‘em into the drum. 100# of rice lasts quite a while…and stores very nicely.

Since winter is approaching I need to swing by Home Depot and pick up a few more 5-gallon cans of kerosene. Stores well and is quite safe to store…I can use it in my lamps, heater and camp stove. A very useful fuel.

Two acquisitions I need that are going to be huuuuuugely expensive: property for Rancho Ballistica (aka Area 52) and some sort of uber-reliable vehicle.

Money, money, money…..I should put on a suit and tie and take an ad in the NY Times calling myself a ‘Emergency and Crisis Preparedness Consultant’ and charge NY firms $500 a day to tell them to keep a flashlight and spare batteries in everyones desk.

Imagine waking up in your nice first-class berth aboard the Titanic and hearing the crew screaming that you have one minute to get up top and into the boats or youre gonna die. Now, in that minute you have to frantically assemble whatever you can to insure that you’ll survive the long wait in the chilly Atlantic waters. You scramble around looking for warm clothes, maybe a flask of whiskey, that sort of thing….painfully aware that in a minute youre going to have to make do with what you have.

See, thats how I feel most of the time…’under the gun’, so to speak. I know what I want (or need, for that matter)..its just getting those things thats a bottleneck..mostly because of money. Hey, preparing for the uncertain future isnt cheap.

In other news, I was rummaging through the freezer and determined the oldest food item in there is a vaccuum sealed package of ground beef from March of 2001. So I thawed it out and cooked it up yesterday and it was just fine. The big freezer keeps everything around zero degrees and the vaccuum sealing prevents freezer burn and helps to preserve things. So, 2.5 years is, thus far, not too long for properly stored frozen meats to last. Good to know. Also finished off a 15-gallon drum of rice last night. Part of my y2k stash. I’ll head up to CostCo this week and pick up another couple 50# bags and funnel ’em into the drum. 100# of rice lasts quite a while…and stores very nicely.

Since winter is approaching I need to swing by Home Depot and pick up a few more 5-gallon cans of kerosene. Stores well and is quite safe to store…I can use it in my lamps, heater and camp stove. A very useful fuel.

Two acquisitions I need that are going to be huuuuuugely expensive: property for Rancho Ballistica (aka Area 52) and some sort of uber-reliable vehicle.

Money, money, money…..I should put on a suit and tie and take an ad in the NY Times calling myself a ‘Emergency and Crisis Preparedness Consultant’ and charge NY firms $500 a day to tell them to keep a flashlight and spare batteries in everyones desk.

Originally published at Notes from the bunker…. You can comment here or there.

Ah..looters. Not in the ‘Atlas Shrugged’ context, but real honest to goodness running-down-the-street-with-a-VCR-in-each-hand looters… Its one thing to scavenge for food and water…its another to enter the ruins of someones house and help yourself to their belongings..and its a completely different story to set up your own little goon squad and start robbing the stricken survivors.

There is, of course, one recourse to such evil and ‘it is best delivered with a Winchester rifle’, as TR might say.

Living in Montana is a mixed blessing when it comes to worrying about looters. On the one hand, most looters won’t last long. On the other hand, any looters here are likely to be quite well armed.

Regardless, contrary to the stereotype, we dont spend all our resources worrying about looters and invading UN hordes. Really. But the fact is that when the lights are out, its the middle of winter and theres no idea when the supermarket is going to be open our little heated, illuminated and well-stocked homes are going to look mighty tempting and some people just dont take no for an answer.

What are the standard armaments for the LMI’s? I was mentioning this yesterday to a potential recruit…heres what we went with and why:

AR-15 rifle – We went with this because although an M1A would offer more power we wanted something that would let us get mags, parts and ammo anywhere….every National Guardsman or cop is a potential source. (”Hey soldier boy, trade you a bottle of Jack for five magazines and a firing pin…”)
Rem 870 shotgun – The most common shotgun in the US and a proven design with all sorts of accessories available. The Mossberg is a secondary standard.
1911 .45 – We all like .45’s so we standardized on the 1911 pattern
Browning P35 – 9mm is the most common ammo on the planet so it made sense to have something in that caliber…Glocks and Rugers are pretty common but the P35 has all the same controls as our 1911’s. Theyre also quite reliable and well made
Ruger 10/22 – Again, the most ubiquitous .22 rifle in the US. Mags and accessories are everywhere.

Additionally, we try to keep spare parts for everything as well as ’support materials’ (holsters, cleaning kits, screwdrivers, lubricants, etc).

Thats it for standardized weapons. After that theres caliber standards but no specifics on the firearm itself. For example, everyone has to have a .357 revolver but you can have whatever make you want. Same for a .308 bolt gun. (Although we’ve been thinking about standardizing on the Rem police package)

Although it isnt required, most of us try to have redundancy in our armaments. For example, 2 AR-15, 2 1911’s, 2 Ruger 10/22’s, etc, etc. Sounds paranoid, right? You’d be surprised….

Ah..looters. Not in the ‘Atlas Shrugged’ context, but real honest to goodness running-down-the-street-with-a-VCR-in-each-hand looters… Its one thing to scavenge for food and water…its another to enter the ruins of someones house and help yourself to their belongings..and its a completely different story to set up your own little goon squad and start robbing the stricken survivors.

There is, of course, one recourse to such evil and ‘it is best delivered with a Winchester rifle’, as TR might say.

Living in Montana is a mixed blessing when it comes to worrying about looters. On the one hand, most looters won’t last long. On the other hand, any looters here are likely to be quite well armed.

Regardless, contrary to the stereotype, we dont spend all our resources worrying about looters and invading UN hordes. Really. But the fact is that when the lights are out, its the middle of winter and theres no idea when the supermarket is going to be open our little heated, illuminated and well-stocked homes are going to look mighty tempting and some people just dont take no for an answer.

What are the standard armaments for the LMI’s? I was mentioning this yesterday to a potential recruit…heres what we went with and why:

AR-15 rifle – We went with this because although an M1A would offer more power we wanted something that would let us get mags, parts and ammo anywhere….every National Guardsman or cop is a potential source. (“Hey soldier boy, trade you a bottle of Jack for five magazines and a firing pin…”)
Rem 870 shotgun – The most common shotgun in the US and a proven design with all sorts of accessories available. The Mossberg is a secondary standard.
1911 .45 – We all like .45’s so we standardized on the 1911 pattern
Browning P35 – 9mm is the most common ammo on the planet so it made sense to have something in that caliber…Glocks and Rugers are pretty common but the P35 has all the same controls as our 1911’s. Theyre also quite reliable and well made
Ruger 10/22 – Again, the most ubiquitous .22 rifle in the US. Mags and accessories are everywhere.

Additionally, we try to keep spare parts for everything as well as ‘support materials’ (holsters, cleaning kits, screwdrivers, lubricants, etc).

Thats it for standardized weapons. After that theres caliber standards but no specifics on the firearm itself. For example, everyone has to have a .357 revolver but you can have whatever make you want. Same for a .308 bolt gun. (Although we’ve been thinking about standardizing on the Rem police package)

Although it isnt required, most of us try to have redundancy in our armaments. For example, 2 AR-15, 2 1911’s, 2 Ruger 10/22’s, etc, etc. Sounds paranoid, right? You’d be surprised….

Originally published at Notes from the bunker…. You can comment here or there.

Question for my favorite crazy-survivalist-type
, what kind of gear/supplies would you suggest that your average Joe Citizen should have in every room in his house?

I’m thinking things like flashlights, self-defense, food, water, blanket, etc – I mean, you can keep all that stuff in one room, but what if, when the time comes, you can’t get to that room?

I’m trying to mentally catalog what I need to find room for in every room in my new place.

Depends on what youre planning for. If you want something for the usual hurricane, power failure, blizzard, etc. you can fit all that in a couple of those black-n-grey ‘ActionPacker’ Rubbermaid containers. (Which I recommend.)

Simplest way to to it, in my opinion, is to stand naked in your living room in the dark in the middle of the night with the heat off and ask yourself “Okay, what do I need at this moment?” I’d go with a change of clothes, lighting, heating, cooking, water, food, communication, defense, portability and a few other things. Specifically:
Change of clothes inc. shoes…seasonably appropriate. You’ll probably be able to get some clothes out of your closet and dresser, but if you have to leave home for any reason in a hurry you’ll at least have one change of clothes with you. Comfortable clothes and shoes, please.
At least two quality flashlights and spare batteries. A good LED flashlight will save you on batteries and can be used alot more freely than a non-LED light. Whatever you get, make sure both take the same size batteries…MagLites are kind of the standard for flashlights. Candles and oil lamps are okay but obviously come with their own hazards.
Heating may or may not be an issue for you. A small propane heater works well indoors but you might just wanna go with a sleeping bag or blanket.
Some type of food that doesnt require much in the way of cooking is nice. If you have a gas stove you’ll probably still be able to use it. An electric stove is obviously another story. If you decide to get a small camp stove, be sure to use it in a well-ventilated area. Coleman makes propane stoves, lanterns and space heaters that run off the small 1# propane bottles that you normally use on torches. Theyre very handy, store well and give good service.
If you know theres going to be a possibility of an outage or other disruption, fill your bathtub. You can drink the water if you have to but its nice to use for washing up and flushing toilets. Save the bottled water for actual drinking. I keep a couple five gallon jugs but also a couple cases of 1-liter bottles. A case of bottled water is less than ten bucks at CostCo.
A good battery radio is a must. Preferably running on the same size batteries as your other battery-powered gear (flashlights, etc). Baygen, Grundig and a few other outfits make wind-up radios that dont use batteries at all. (They make flashlights like that too) and I highly recommend them. If you think you need them, the Motorola FRS walkie-talkies are pretty nice. Usual caveat about batteries.
Your Glock should serve you just fine…have at least a hundred rounds for it and a couple extra mags. A short shotgun would be nice.
Ideally, you want all this stuff in a ‘man-portable’ container so that you can, on a moments notice, grab it and throw it in the back of the vehicle and go, go, go. (If you have a garage where you keep your vehicle, I highly recommend a couple five-gallon cans of gas. Or, always make sure to never let your vehicle go below 1/2 tank.)
Keep some cash on hand. ATM’s will be out and no one is gonna want to take a check. Small denominations. Nothing bigger than $20.
All of this stuff should fit into a footlocker-size footprint. Or a couple of those ActionPackers. I cant say for sure, but I’d guess you could put together the FEMA/DHS suggested ‘72-hour’ kit for less than a couple hundred bucks.

Obviously, for a more….ugly….situation you would need more extensive preps. If you need really, really more specific details on things let me know…

Question for my favorite crazy-survivalist-type
commander_zero, what kind of gear/supplies would you suggest that your average Joe Citizen should have in every room in his house?

I’m trying to mentally catalog what I need to find room for in every room in my new place.

Depends on what youre planning for. If you want something for the usual hurricane, power failure, blizzard, etc. you can fit all that in a couple of those black-n-grey ‘ActionPacker’ Rubbermaid containers. (Which I recommend.)

Simplest way to to it, in my opinion, is to stand naked in your living room in the dark in the middle of the night with the heat off and ask yourself “Okay, what do I need at this moment?” I’d go with a change of clothes, lighting, heating, cooking, water, food, communication, defense, portability and a few other things. Specifically:
Change of clothes inc. shoes…seasonably appropriate. You’ll probably be able to get some clothes out of your closet and dresser, but if you have to leave home for any reason in a hurry you’ll at least have one change of clothes with you. Comfortable clothes and shoes, please.
At least two quality flashlights and spare batteries. A good LED flashlight will save you on batteries and can be used alot more freely than a non-LED light. Whatever you get, make sure both take the same size batteries…MagLites are kind of the standard for flashlights. Candles and oil lamps are okay but obviously come with their own hazards.
Heating may or may not be an issue for you. A small propane heater works well indoors but you might just wanna go with a sleeping bag or blanket.
Some type of food that doesnt require much in the way of cooking is nice. If you have a gas stove you’ll probably still be able to use it. An electric stove is obviously another story. If you decide to get a small camp stove, be sure to use it in a well-ventilated area. Coleman makes propane stoves, lanterns and space heaters that run off the small 1# propane bottles that you normally use on torches. Theyre very handy, store well and give good service.
If you know theres going to be a possibility of an outage or other disruption, fill your bathtub. You can drink the water if you have to but its nice to use for washing up and flushing toilets. Save the bottled water for actual drinking. I keep a couple five gallon jugs but also a couple cases of 1-liter bottles. A case of bottled water is less than ten bucks at CostCo.
A good battery radio is a must. Preferably running on the same size batteries as your other battery-powered gear (flashlights, etc). Baygen, Grundig and a few other outfits make wind-up radios that dont use batteries at all. (They make flashlights like that too) and I highly recommend them. If you think you need them, the Motorola FRS walkie-talkies are pretty nice. Usual caveat about batteries.
Your Glock should serve you just fine…have at least a hundred rounds for it and a couple extra mags. A short shotgun would be nice.
Ideally, you want all this stuff in a ‘man-portable’ container so that you can, on a moments notice, grab it and throw it in the back of the vehicle and go, go, go. (If you have a garage where you keep your vehicle, I highly recommend a couple five-gallon cans of gas. Or, always make sure to never let your vehicle go below 1/2 tank.)
Keep some cash on hand. ATM’s will be out and no one is gonna want to take a check. Small denominations. Nothing bigger than $20.
All of this stuff should fit into a footlocker-size footprint. Or a couple of those ActionPackers. I cant say for sure, but I’d guess you could put together the FEMA/DHS suggested ’72-hour’ kit for less than a couple hundred bucks.

Obviously, for a more….ugly….situation you would need more extensive preps. If you need really, really more specific details on things let me know…