Readiness

Readiness Watch is a weekly publication intended to provide current, relevant, and actionable readiness information to people determined to be ready for whatever comes next, and especially for those people who are just starting their journey down the road to readiness. Readiness Watch will include observations, commentary, advice, links to resources, and related news.

I always welcome input from my readers, especially tips on information or ways to make this publication better. Feel free to contact me with information, advice, or tips or for ways you can support this effort.

Readiness Watch for the week of 21 March 2011

Previous Readiness Watch posts.

DLH

Be ready now is a weekly post about things you can do right now to get ready for whatever might come next courtesy of Dennis L Hitzeman’s Readiness Weblog. You can find other posts in this series in the “Be ready now” category.

This week’s theme: Food

• Immediate: Buy at stockpile of ready to eat food. The fastest and (over time) cheapest way to stockpile ready to eat food is to buy case lots of MREs from one of the thousands of places that sell them. MREs, unlike most food you buy at the grocery, can last as long as ten years when stored in the proper environment. Here are some examples.
• Intermediate: Decide how long you need to have food on hand for in the case of an extended emergency. How soon will you be able to grow your own food or get it from another source?
• Long-term: Develop a plan for growing your own food or for procuring it from a source other than a grocery store. Can you grow it yourself? Can you trade skills or labor?

Do you find this information informative and helpful? Feel free to contact me and let me know. You can also contact me about ways you can support this effort.

DLH

Readiness Watch is a weekly publication intended to provide current, relevant, and actionable readiness information to people determined to be ready for whatever comes next, and especially for those people who are just starting their journey down the road to readiness. Readiness Watch will include observations, commentary, advice, links to resources, and related news.

I always welcome input from my readers, especially tips on information or ways to make this publication better. Feel free to contact me with information, advice, or tips or for ways you can support this effort.

Readiness Watch for the Week of 14 March 2011

Previous Readiness Watch posts.

DLH

Be ready now is a weekly post about things you can do right now to get ready for whatever might come next courtesy of Dennis L Hitzeman’s Readiness Weblog. You can find other posts in this series in the “Be ready now” category.

This week’s theme: Planning

• Immediate: Discuss and write out plans for such emergencies can include what to do in the case of a fire, a natural disaster, or civil unrest. Immediate readiness plans should include such items as who is involved, what kind of resources will be involved, where those involved should meet, and where they should evacuate to, if necessary. Keep the plans simple, and share copies of what you wrote down with everyone involved.
• Intermediate: Consider what resources you and those who depend on you will need to survive for an extended time without electricity or fuel. Can you weather such an extended shortage in place, or will you need to find a better location? What kind of supplies will you need to have on-hand? What can you get from the local area?
• Long-term: What would it take to make your living situation independent from regular supplies of outside electricity and fuel? How can you provide for your basic necessities (food, clothing, shelter, etc.) without depending on supplies from retail outlets?

Do you find this information informative and helpful? Feel free to contact me and let me know. You can also contact me about ways you can support this effort.

DLH

Readiness Watch is a weekly publication intended to provide current, relevant, and actionable readiness information to people determined to be ready for whatever comes next, and especially for those people who are just starting their journey down the road to readiness. Readiness Watch will include observations, commentary, advice, links to resources, and related news.

I always welcome input from my readers, especially tips on information or ways to make this publication better. Feel free to contact me with information, advice, or tips or for ways you can support this effort.

Readiness Watch for the week of 7 March 2011

Be ready now is a weekly post about things you can do right now to get ready for whatever might come next courtesy of Dennis L Hitzeman’s Readiness Weblog.

This week’s theme: Water

• Immediate: Buy one 2.5 gallon water jug at your local grocer for every person dependent on your immediate readiness plan.
• Intermediate: Locate a site to store 110 gallons (two 55 gallon drums) of potable water. Buy the drums and a means to extract the water. Buy long-term water preservative. Fill the drums.
• Long-term: Do you have access to a well? Do you know someone who does? How to they get their water out of their well? As them if they would be willing to work with you to come up with a plan to get water out of the well in the case of a long-term power failure.

Do you find this information informative and helpful? Feel free to contact me and let me know. You can also contact me about ways you can support this effort.

DLH

If an emergency were to happen today, what would you do? What if the power went out? What if you could not buy gas or groceries?

What is your plan?

We live in unsettled times. Riots aren’t just for the Middle East anymore. Financial uncertainty, inflation, and shortages of critical goods are spreading. History tells us that it is exactly at times like these that you need to be ready because disasters happen quickly.

You don’t have to listen to me. There are plenty of other people saying the same thing, but the message is the same. Get ready. Be ready. There is danger ahead.

DLH

UPDATE: For those who find the linked video too painful (that is badly done) to watch, if you browse away from it, then click “Stay on this page” from the resulting pop-up” it will take you to a transcript of the video.

I’m not much for investment research firms for the most part, so I am skeptical when they give advice for free or as part of a thinly veiled promo for a product or service they provide. It is with that skepticism that I viewed Porter Stansberry‘s apocalyptically titled “The End of America” video.

Most people find the subject of the video boring. Many people who actually watch it will see the video as a scare tactic designed to frighten them into using Stansberry’s products or services and will ignore its message.

I believe they will do so to their own detriment.

Whatever Stansberry might be selling, his analysis of the looming crisis with the American dollar and everything it could mean for our way of life is dead on. And, he only focuses on one narrow aspect of looming problems that threaten to create the perfect storm that could bring the American and world economy to its knees.

Again, it is easy to ignore what people like Stansberry or me are saying because it sounds so impossible, yet it is only impossible if one ignores the inevitable lessons history taught past nations and civilizations who thought the same things.

Now is the time, more immediate than ever before, for you to get ready. Get out of debt. Make sure you can provide for your own basic needs without the need for constant infusions of cash. If you live in a city, have a plan for how to get out and where you are going to go. Have supplies and means of self-defense on-hand.

I grant that I could be wrong and that these things may never come to pass. History is quirky that way. Yet, I cannot miss the fact that it can and does happen and that the United States is not exempt from that reality.

The signs are all there. Are you going to pay attention?

DLH

Do you have ideas about how to help individuals, families, and communities be ready? If so, the Preparing our Communities Before a Disaster Strikes challenge from the Federal Emergency Management Agency is the thing for you.

According to the challenge, the goal is to: “To come up with ideas on how we can all help prepare our communities before disaster strikes and how the government can support community-based activities to help everyone be more prepared.”

The deadline for entries in this challenge is 29 January with the prize being your idea being showcased on the FEMA website.

DLH

I believe being ready is more than having a stockpile of supplies just in case something happens that deprives me of the modern comforts I have come to expect. Readiness is a state of being; a world view focused on the art of living and a lifestyle adaptable to whatever circumstances might present themselves at the moment.

I want to inspire other people to pursue being ready the way I want to be ready myself, hence this weblog. Yet, over the last year, I have discovered just how much of a task readiness is and how hard it is to convince other people it is worth doing at all.

That last statement is not despair of trying. To the contrary, it is an acknowledgement of the difficulty of the task at hand and an acceptance that it is not going to happen quickly or easily.

I plan to be more ready when 2011 ends than I am now that it has started, and I hope you will join me in the quest.

DLH