Post on 03-Feb-2023
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Alive After The Fall
Contents
Alive After The Fall .................................................................................................................................... - 1 -
Introduction ............................................................................................................................................. - 4 -
What About an EMP? ................................................................................................................................ - 6 -
Just How Deadly Is an EMP? ................................................................................................................. - 7 -
Life in a Post-EMP World .......................................................................................................................... - 9 -
While That’s Going On ........................................................................................................................ - 10 -
As Time Goes On ................................................................................................................................. - 12 -
Can There Be Recovery from the EMP? .............................................................................................. - 13 -
Integrating Faith and Survival ................................................................................................................. - 15 -
God Never Guarantees Safety ............................................................................................................ - 16 -
Is Prepping Biblical? ............................................................................................................................ - 17 -
Preparing for an EMP .............................................................................................................................. - 21 -
Can You Survive at Home? .................................................................................................................. - 21 -
Getting Our Survival Priorities Straight ............................................................................................... - 22 -
How Will You Meet Those Needs? .......................................................................................................... - 26 -
Heating ................................................................................................................................................ - 26 -
Water .................................................................................................................................................. - 26 -
Food .................................................................................................................................................... - 28 -
Self-Defense ........................................................................................................................................ - 30 -
First Aid ............................................................................................................................................... - 32 -
Off-grid Electricity ............................................................................................................................... - 33 -
Building a Stockpile ................................................................................................................................. - 35 -
Stockpiling Food .................................................................................................................................. - 36 -
Stockpiling Other Supplies .................................................................................................................. - 38 -
Scavenging .......................................................................................................................................... - 40 -
Bartering ............................................................................................................................................. - 41 -
Off-Grid Living ......................................................................................................................................... - 43 -
Why Off-grid Living Is So Important to Long-term Survival ................................................................ - 43 -
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So, Just How Do We Go About That? .................................................................................................. - 44 -
Building Your Own Off-Grid System .................................................................................................... - 45 -
Time to Rebuild ....................................................................................................................................... - 47 -
Who Is Going to Do This Rebuilding? .................................................................................................. - 47 -
What’s It Going to Take? ..................................................................................................................... - 48 -
Where to Find the Resources .............................................................................................................. - 49 -
Let’s Wrap This Up .................................................................................................................................. - 51 -
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Introduction
The Book of Revelation is understood by theologians everywhere to be highly symbolic, as are the Old
Testament books of prophecy. While the coming Tribulation and end of this world as we know it is
accepted to be a fact; the symbolic part is how the various plagues and disasters mentioned will
manifest themselves. Written from the perspective of the apostle John, describing what he saw in a
series of visions, there is ample room for interpretation of what he was actually seeing in those visions
and describing in what has become scripture.
A perfect example of this is the “locusts” referred to in Revelation, chapter 9, verses 1 through 10. It has
been proposed that what John is describing in these verses is an Apache helicopter and its pilot. Not
having any understanding of such things, he would naturally describe it through the perspective of his
understanding, hence, the image of a locust.
The shape of the locusts was like horses prepared for battle. On their heads were crowns of
something like gold, and their faces were like the faces of men. 8 They had hair like women’s
hair, and their teeth were like lions’ teeth. 9 And they had breastplates like breastplates of iron,
and the sound of their wings was like the sound of chariots with many horses running into
battle. 10 They had tails like scorpions, and there were stings in their tails. Their power was to
hurt men five months.
Revelation 9:7-10
While there are things in those verses that don’t exactly fit the description of an Apache helicopter, that
can be attributed to John reaching to find words to describe what he saw. Nevertheless, I’m not here to
argue whether or not that interpretation is true, but merely using it as an illustration of how difficult it
can be to properly discern the true meaning behind biblical prophecy.
Another such example is the event leading up to the coming of those locusts, that of a star falling from
heaven to earth, opening a bottomless pit from which smoke arose, darkening the sky. Could this be
talking about a meteor striking the earth? If that meteor were to hit the Yellowstone caldera, causing
what to all intents and purposes would be an eruption, wouldn’t the ash from that darken the sky? Isn’t
that the common understanding of what Yellowstone’s eruption would mean?
The year 1816 is known in history as “The Year without a Summer” due to the eruption of Mount
Tambora the year before. The huge amount of ash ejected into the upper atmosphere by that eruption
blocked the sunlight, appearing much like this verse describes. Due to the lack of sunlight, temperatures
were lower worldwide and crops didn’t grow well. Tens of thousands of people are estimated to have
died as a result of this event.
Then the fifth angel sounded: And I saw a star fallen from heaven to the earth. To him was
given the key to the bottomless pit. 2 And he opened the bottomless pit, and smoke arose out of
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the pit like the smoke of a great furnace. So the sun and the air were darkened because of the
smoke of the pit.
Revelation 9:1-2
To put that eruption into perspective alongside a potential Yellowstone eruption, the eruption of Mount
Tambora ejected 36 cubic miles of lava, ash and smoke. All three of the known Yellowstone eruptions
were larger than that, with the smallest of the three (dated at 1.3 million years ago) accounting for 67
cubic miles of material and the largest (dated at 2 million years ago) erupting a whopping 600 cubic
miles of material. So, any future eruption of Yellowstone will most likely be considerably larger than
Mount Tambora, with a much greater impact on life.
I’d like to make a couple of points from these examples and others we can find listed in the Book of
Revelation:
It is eminently clear that the many disasters foretold in the Book of Revelation are going to come
to pass.
We can’t see how those disasters will unfold, no matter how hard we try. Since ancient times,
mankind has tried to interpret prophecy, with an astounding lack of success. We only truly know
what prophecy means once it is fulfilled.
The one thing we do know, is that all the books we’ve all read, where authors have tried to
interpret the events of the Tribulation and turn them into a story, are probably wrong.
Looking back at how God has worked throughout world history, everything He has done can be
explained away as something else, by those who don’t believe in Him. Supernatural events use
natural things, working in unnatural ways.
While I don’t know that the explanations of prophecy that I just gave you are true, I do know that they
are credible examples of how God fulfills His prophecy. That’s the point I really want to bring up. God
isn’t going to work in the End Times any different than He has before. He created the universe we live in
and He knows how to use it to accomplish His will. The fact that others can come up with an explanation
for His work doesn’t make it any less His work.
Back in the time of Joshua, the people of Israel were preparing to cross the Jordan River. God had given
Joshua specific directions on how this was to be done. In accordance with that, as soon as the priests
who were carrying the Ark of the Covenant set foot in the river, the waters dried up, so they could cross
over on dry ground.
As those who bore the ark came to the Jordan, and the feet of the priests who bore the ark
dipped in the edge of the water (for the Jordan overflows all its banks during the whole time of
harvest), 16 that the waters which came down from upstream stood still, and rose in a heap
very far away at Adam, the city that is beside Zaretan…
Joshua 3:15-16
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Some geologists have proclaimed that this wasn’t a miracle of God because they have discovered
evidence that there was an earthquake about that time, which caused the Jordan to change course. In
their thinking, finding natural evidence eliminated God’s involvement with the water stopping.
But why did the water stop right when the priests set foot in it? Couldn’t God have used the natural
event of the earthquake to fulfill His purposes? Couldn’t He have caused the earthquake at just the right
moment, which would have been before the priests stepped foot in the water, so that the water
stopped flowing at that exact instant in time? Isn’t that still supernatural? I think it is.
So whatever happens in our future, we can still believe that God is behind it, even if it appears to be a
naturally occurring event. It becomes supernatural because of God’s involvement in what is happening,
nothing else.
What About an EMP?
Throughout my long years as a survivalist, the focus of the survival community has changed time and
time again. Back when I got started, the big concern was the potential of thermonuclear war. That
passed away with the disbanding of the Soviet Union and the fall of the Berlin Wall.
But concern about potential disasters hasn’t gone away. Throughout my life, there has pretty much
always been something to be concerned about; whether drought, earthquakes, asteroids striking the
Earth, pandemics, or Y2K. The reality is that there are always risks we face, often multiple ones at the
same time. Anyone who has lived through 2020 should know that.
For the last several years, one of the biggest potential disasters that people in the know have been
concerned about is an attack by electromagnetic pulse (EMP). While this is not a natural disaster, it is a
disaster nonetheless. As we can see from biblical history, it can also be something orchestrated by or at
least allowed by God. There are many times in the Old Testament where God directed one nation or
another to attack the people of Israel in order to get the people to turn their hearts back to Him.
Don’t get me wrong; I’m not saying that if Iran or North Korea attack us with an EMP, that it’s definitely
God causing it. All I’m saying is that it could be God allowing it to happen. God is much more concerned
about the spiritual state of our country and the world in general, than He is about our financial or
political position in the world. If He decides it is necessary for us to suffer in the natural so that we can
grow spiritually, He is more than able to make that happen.
I realize that’s not a very popular position to take in the church today. But I’m not writing this to be
popular. Rather, I’m writing a warning to those who will listen. Noah didn’t become popular by telling
people a flood was coming. Unfortunately, he didn’t succeed in convincing anyone. I hope to do better.
Part of the reason why an EMP attack is being taken so seriously is that both of the rogue nations I just
mentioned have publically declared their intention of attacking us in that way. Both countries are
working hard on being able to accomplish their wish, with North Korea having succeeded in building
both tactical nukes and intercontinental ballistic missiles. While their missiles don’t yet have the range
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to reach the middle of the United States, they could destroy the western part of our country’s electrical
grid.
The EMP
When a nuclear bomb is detonated in outer space, there is nothing to convert the energy into heat and
blast force. This leaves the energy in its original electromagnetic form, which radiates in all directions.
Much of that energy would be lost in space, but a portion would be directed downwards to the surface
of the Earth, hitting everything within a visible line of sight of the explosion.
But a strange thing happens to that electromagnetic energy as it passes through the upper atmosphere.
The high electromagnetic charge strips electrons from molecules, actually increasing the amount of
electromagnetic radiation. So a relatively small nuke can have a relatively large effect.
So why haven’t they attacked us yet? That’s a good question; one that we don’t really know the answer
to. About the only thing I can say is that they’re probably waiting to perfect their delivery system,
wanting to be able to cause the greatest possible damage.
As it stands right now, if North Korea were to lob an EMP-causing nuke at the western United States, we
would still have the capability to turn their small country into a parking lot, sending in the Marines
afterwards to paint the stripes. Such an attack, right now, would see them losing more than they would
gain. But if they could increase the range of their ICBMS, so that they could explode a nuclear warhead
200 miles over Kansas, the nation’s entire electrical grid (there are actually three of them) would be
knocked out, preventing our retaliation.
Just How Deadly Is an EMP?
Should North Korea or one of our other enemies decide to attack the United States with an EMP strike,
the EMP itself wouldn’t kill anyone directly. For that matter, we probably wouldn’t even realize what
had happened at first. All that any of us would know is that we were experiencing a power outage.
There would probably be only a minimal flash of light, which few people would see. Nor would there be
a visible explosion in the sky or sound to indicate an explosion. Everything would just shut off. We would
have to determine that an EMP attack had occurred by looking at the evidence; no power and
everything electronic just stopping working.
That’s not to say that an EMP wouldn’t be deadly, though. According to the report of the EMP
Commission, somewhere between 60 and 90% of US citizens would die within the first year after an
EMP. Most of those people would die of starvation.
I must state that there is some disagreement about just how the EMP will affect those things that
depend on electricity. It is largely believed that the EMP will cause all automobiles to stop running. Yet
in the non-destructive testing performed by the EMP Commission, only three out of over 50 vehicles
stopped running and all of those restarted.
But that alone isn’t enough to base a conclusion on, as the testing done was only to find at what level of
EMP the cars would stop running. Should the level of EMP actually be higher than that used in the
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testing, we don’t know what the results will be. Cars could actually be permanently disabled. But even if
they aren’t, there will be a severe shortage of fuel, as refineries and oil pumps will shut down. That
alone will make all those vehicles unusable.
The same sort of question exists for airplanes. Many within the prepping and survival community think
that an EMP will cause all airplanes, civilian, commercial and military, to fall from the sky. But that’s not
so certain. First of all, military airplane designs are regularly tested for EMP resistance. Secondly, an
aluminum-skinned airplane is an almost perfect Faraday cage, as evidenced by them regularly surviving
lightning strikes. Actually, lightning just goes around the skin of the plane, continuing on to the ground.
Finally, even if the electronics go out, there are mechanical backup systems, which should allow most
pilots to land safely, albeit with much difficulty.
But here on the ground, we could count on everything we need which uses electricity shutting down.
That doesn’t just mean things that are connected to the grid, but also portable battery-powered
electronics. While some of those (like cell phone) might actually continue to function as long as they
have power, they won’t be much good without a network to connect to.
EMP actually consists of three pulses, named E1, E2, and E3. The E1 and E2 pulse arrive first in a one-two
punch. The electromagnetic radiation in these two pulses will attack electronics directly, overloading
delicate circuitry and causing it to stop. The only exceptions will be electronics, which are protected,
hardened against EMP, or so small that they aren’t struck by much of the pulse. Hence, the possibility
that cell phones might survive.
The most susceptible electronics to E1 and E2 are those with a lot of wires attached to them, such as
desktop computers and entertainment centers. All those wires will act as antennas, capturing the
electromagnetic pulse and channeling it to the device, thereby destroying the device with an overly
potent shock. But electronics without wires attached to them, such as wireless Bluetooth devices, may
have a chance of surviving these pulses.
The E3 pulse is slower than the previous two, but more potent. It will interact with the Earth’s magnetic
field, generating magnetic waves that will produce huge surges through electric power lines. This is what
will actually destroy the grid, as well as anything that is connected to it, even the alarm clock sitting
beside your bed.
We will be left living in a world without power, turning every day into a challenge for survival. Everything
we are used to depending on will be destroyed, leaving us without running water, sewage services, food
in the stores, gas in the gas pump and a whole lot more.
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Life in a Post-EMP World
Nobody has ever experienced life in a post-EMP world. That’s not to say that we can’t make some pretty
good guesses about it though. People have lived through other disasters, including ones that left them
without electricity. Based on that, we can make some pretty good guesses about what to expect should
an EMP be used against our country.
As mentioned above, most people will not realize that an EMP attack has happened. Their big concern
will be that the power has gone out. If cars and cell phones stop working, they’ll be concerned about
that as well. But it might take a day or two for people to realize what has actually happened.
During that first couple of days, people will check their cupboards and refrigerators, noting that they
have enough food to last a few days. While they might cook some frozen food to keep it from going bad,
they won’t really be concerned yet. That will happen as soon as they realize that the lights aren’t coming
back on. Then they’ll be rushing to the stores, to get whatever they can.
According to FEMA, the average family only has three days’ worth of food in the house. Once that is
gone or even close to gone, they’ll begin to get concerned. But grocery stores aren’t much better off, as
they only stock about three days’ worth of most items as well. Some items, especially fresh foods, are
delivered and restocked daily.
With the power out, most grocery stores won’t be able to sell. A few might allow those who can to pay
in cash, trusting them to pay something close to the right amount. But most won’t do that, as it will
mess up their inventory control. That will just push things to the next level, where people are looting the
stores. When it happens, this will occur suddenly, but will spread throughout the store in an instant,
with people all over the store grabbing whatever they can. It will continue until the stores are empty.
From there, looting will spread to other stores, specifically any stores that might have food, toilet paper
and household cleaners, including wholesalers, gas stations and industrial kitchens. About the same
time, liquor stores will be broken into and the shelves cleared. After that, some people will think of
hitting hardware stores and sporting goods stores, although the looting there will be more systematic
and not as hectic.
Please note that anyone who tries to get in the way of the looting will probably be trampled underfoot.
People will be panicked and won’t particularly care that they’re stealing. The large number of people
involved in the looting will ensure that mob mentality takes over, where people think they are immune
from the law. They definitely won’t be acting with reason.
All this looting will merely be a temporary solution to food shortages. Once that food is consumed, there
probably won’t be more coming to fill the shelves again. People will go back to the stores, expecting to
find them open with full shelves and be shocked when they aren’t filled. Unprepared people will spend a
lot of time trying to scavenge food wherever it can be found. Fights will break out to gain control of any
food that is found.
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While all this is happening, we’re going to find ourselves without running water. The water treatment
plants that provide us with water require a lot of electricity to operate. While they have backup
generators to keep them running during a power outage, it’s questionable if those diesel generators will
be running. Older style generators may be running, but any that are computer controlled won’t.
But even the generators that will be operating will only be able to operate as long as their fuel holds out.
That’s probably going to be somewhere between three to five days. Once that fuel is gone, it’s
questionable if there will be any possibility of resupply. Refineries won’t be running, but the fuel in
storage tanks should be available by gravity feed. Even that will only last so long before it runs out.
Then, there won’t be fuel even for emergency use.
Things won’t become really bad until food runs out. People will try to scavenge as long as they can until
long after there’s nothing left to scavenge. Once they hit that point, they’ll become desperate. There’s
nothing like having your child cry because they are hungry to make a parent desperate.
It’s at that point that people will turn to anything in order to get food. Some will try begging. Others will
offer to sell their bodies. But the bigger risk for you and I will be that these people will begin to gang
together and attack the homes of families who they believe have food. When it’s a choice of your child
dying of hunger and someone else dying, most people will pick someone else dying.
Please note that this will happen long before those people are at the point of dying. The feelings of
starvation are strong, motivating people to take action. By the time they reach the point that their
health is in real danger, those feelings begin to diminish severely.
Some people will try to abandon the city, thinking that things will have to be better in rural
communities. But they will be surprised if they make it to those rural communities. Few of them will be
any better off and those that are will be farming communities that just brought in the harvest. If it’s the
wrong time of year, even farming communities won’t have food, as they will have already shipped it off
to the food packaging plants.
It’s doubtful that those communities will be allowing anyone in but will more than likely establish
roadblocks outside of town. To them, the mobs of people coming out from the cities will be a threat.
Being close-knit communities, they will be likely to protect their own, especially if it looks to them like
those people are trying to invade their community and take what they have.
While That’s Going On
Food and water won’t be the only problems, although they will be the most urgent ones. In our modern
society, we depend on electricity for literally everything. There are few areas of human activity in the
developed world that don’t involve electrical power.
In our homes, we use electricity for:
Cooking
Heating and cooling
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Refrigeration
Washing clothes
Entertainment
Lighting
Communications
A host of other, less important uses.
One of our biggest challenges will be keeping our homes warm or cool, depending on the time of year.
When winter storm Uri hit the United States in February of 2021, millions of people were without
power. Fifty-seven of those people died from hypothermia in Texas alone. Even homes that are heated
by gas-fired furnaces will be without heat, as those systems require electricity for the control circuitry
and for the blowers to push the heated air through the home.
It is possible that people with gas stoves will still be able to cook for a while, if they have any food to
cook. But that will only last as long as there is pressure in the gas lines. While natural gas pumping
stations produce their own electricity, their systems are just as subject to EMP as anyone else’s are. The
ones who will be able to cook the longest will be those who heat and cook with propane, as that is
dependent on the pressure in the tank on their property.
Just like our homes, business and industry run off of electricity; perhaps even more so. With so many
jobs today dependent on computers, most people’s jobs will simply disappear, as there won’t be any
working computers for them to use. While some companies may try and have people come to work, so
as to try and repair things, that won’t last long, once they realize that it will take more than just their
company putting things back together to be able to return to life as normal.
How much of the government remains intact during this time is something that we’ll just have to wait
and see. Many of the people who work in emergency services, such as police, fire and hospitals, are
dedicated workers who have chosen their professions based upon a desire to help others. But when
their own families are suffering and they’ve got to survive without pay, will they stay on the job? If they
try to, will they even be able to do the job they were hired to do?
It’s more likely that these people will stay on the job in smaller towns than in the larger cities. Being a
police officer in a large city may just be like painting a bull’s eye on one’s back. Firefighters and
ambulance drivers may not even be able to do their jobs if their vehicles won’t run or they can’t get fuel.
However, what fuel does exist will most likely be reserved for their use.
As for the rest of the government, there will be little for them to do unless it is to take control of critical
supply stocks and ration them out. I suspect that many of these people will be without a job, as it will be
impossible for them to do what they were hired to do.
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As Time Goes On
The big thing that we’ll all be facing, as time goes on, is death all around us. There will essentially be
three phases of people dying off during the months following the EMP. As I mentioned earlier, the total
number of people who die will be somewhere between 60 and 90% of the population.
That’s not to say that 90% of the people will die in each community. There will be some communities
which fare better than others because of the resources they have available to them. Cities, especially
major metropolitan areas, will fare worse than smaller towns, due to the higher ratio of population to
available resources. Rural farming towns will probably fare the best, especially those which have a lot of
smaller farms around them, raising animals and growing fruit and vegetables, rather than the big
industrial conglomerates, which mostly grow grains.
The first wave of people who will die off will be those with preexisting medical conditions. Currently,
66% of all adults in the United States take medications for some sort of chronic disorder. This is
especially true for older people, who often have problems with diabetes and heart disease. But those
aren’t the only chronic conditions that exist and they aren’t limited to the elderly.
One can live with high blood sugar or high blood pressure, especially if they are on a good diet, get
exercise and manage to avoid stress. But there are many other chronic conditions that require
medications just to make it through the day. While type II diabetes can be controlled with diet and
exercise, type I diabetes requires insulin. But insulin needs to be refrigerated or it will go bad. So people
with type I diabetes, even children, will be some of the first to die.
Lack of medicine won’t just affect those who have chronic conditions, but anyone who becomes sick or
injured. Antibiotics are essential for stopping infection, but without them, even a fairly simple injury can
become badly infected and lead to death.
Dealing with death will start then and will continue through the first year. But it won’t be just the
emotional impact of death that we’ll have to be concerned with; it will also be the disposal of those
dead bodies. They will either have to be burned or buried to keep them from becoming a source of
disease.
Even with proper disposal of dead bodies, we can expect there to be disease. Personal hygiene will go
down the tubes, as well as keeping our homes clean. Both of those are essential parts of curbing
disease. At the same time, the population of scavengers like rats will increase. With the shortage of
water, soap and other cleaning products, disease rates will climb, bringing the second wave of death.
Finally, the third and by far the largest wave of death will be those who die of starvation. That will begin
about 60 days after the EMP and will continue, growing as time goes on and people run out of
resources. How fast it grows and how bad it actually gets will probably vary from place to place, but the
certainty of it won’t vary.
With so much death, things will obviously be difficult for those who survive. One major problem they
will face is the constant need for food to eat and clean water to drink. But there will be other problems
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to deal with as well. One of those will be gangs of hungry people who band together in search of food.
Many of these will turn to violence to get what they need, raiding homes, towns and communities along
their route. Some could become so desperate as to turn to cannibalism.
Within the community, those who survive will either need to be well prepared for survival in a post-EMP
world or will need to work together in order to meet their most basic needs. Communal farming is more
effective than growing your own, but opens the door to people stealing, taking more than their fair
share, disagreements and some expecting to receive without helping. In today’s world of entitlement
mentality, that could end up being a truly serious issue to deal with.
Any communal efforts will have to take place under strong leadership, with tight control on the
distribution of food, whether grown by the community or from community food stocks. Communal
kitchens for the cooking and distribution of that food will probably be necessary, along with some sort
of ration card system to make sure that everyone’s needs are being met while preventing people from
taking advantage of the situation.
During all this, some effort will need to be made towards the future, working out of a mere subsistence
level of survival and into a more productive society. People with the necessary skills will have to be
supported by the community, so that they can focus on putting their skills to use, rather than focusing
on raising food. This could cause resentment amongst those who are working to raise food, especially
while food is being rationed.
But if the community is ever going to get itself back out of subsistence living, it will be because of the
efforts of people who are working to find ways of making vehicles run without gasoline, generate
electricity locally and other critical technological breakthroughs.
Please note that what I’m suggesting here is much different than what most people in the prepping
movement adopt as their philosophy. But we humans are designed to work as part of a larger society,
not to work alone. Each individual is gifted with certain skills, not only for their own benefit, but for the
benefit of society in general. We all do our best and receive the most when the fullness of that is
realized and each member of society is contributing in the way they are best suited to, rather than each
person or family attempting to survive on their own.
Can There Be Recovery from the EMP?
An EMP does damage on so many levels that recovery will be a long-term problem, if it is possible at all.
We can expect our personal electronics to be destroyed, as well as our entire electric grid. That includes
the power generating stations, the transmission lines, and most especially the control systems and the
55,000 substations in our electric grid.
When the Atomic Energy Commission and the Defense Atomic Support Agency conducted the Starfish
Prime tests in 1962, the effects were felt in Hawaii, some 900 miles away. The EMP was much stronger
than expected, knocking out about 300 streetlights, setting off burglar alarms, and causing serious
damage to a microwave communications link belonging to the telephone company.
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It should be noted that Starfish Prime really wasn’t an EMP test, even though it provides us with the
best known information about EMP. Rather, it was a test of high-altitude nuclear explosions, taking
place 250 miles above ground. While an EMP was expected, it wasn’t expected to be anywhere near as
strong as it was. In fact, the level was higher than the available equipment was built to record, so there
is no accurate reading on how high it actually was. The only reason that Hawaii was affected was that
the explosion was above the visible horizon, giving the EMP a straight line of sight to the island.
EMP has been known of ever since the Manhattan Project. It was observed and measured in the first
nuclear explosion in 1945, at the Trinity test site. But back then, the instruments were much simpler and
hardier than they are today. Vacuum tube electronics aren’t sensitive enough to be destroyed by EMP.
Theoretically, an EMP will only destroy solid-state electronics. But as I mentioned a couple of paragraphs
back, the Starfish Prime test blew out some 300 street lights, perhaps some of the simplest electronics
in existence and definitely not solid-state. So it is a bit unclear what will actually be destroyed in an
actual EMP attack. There is no fine-tuning of the attack, allowing the attacker to select the level of
damage they want to inflict.
A directed EMP attack, 200 miles above Kansas, would serve to destroy the nation’s three electric grids,
shutting down electrical power. Power generating plants are all computer-controlled, so any not
hardened for EMP would be shut down by the E1 and E2 pulses. Following that, the E3 pulse would put
so much power through our distribution lines that there’s a possibility that some of them would melt
down. But the bigger risk is what they would do to the substations, where they would most likely melt
down the transformers, which are the core of those substations.
There are 55,000 of these substations here in the USA, and each of them has at least one transformer,
all of which are custom built. While there are a number of companies that produce these transformers
here in the United States, as well as abroad, there isn’t the necessary capacity to build all the
transformers that would need to be replaced. It would literally be a race against time, trying to build
equipment and replace it faster than the people doing the building and installation die from starvation.
Due to the difficulty of the task, it is widely believed that after an EMP it will be impossible to bring the
entire electric grid back online fast enough. I’m guessing that efforts will be concentrated on high
population areas along both coasts, where they can gain the greatest results from their efforts. But
without the breadbasket being able to produce food, how long will that benefit last?
Chances are high that we will lose that race, at least the first round of it. Perhaps we’ll be able to recover
later, but that’s a good decade or two down the road. Will the United States even exist then, or will
invaders have taken it over, integrating what’s left into their countries? Only time will tell.
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Integrating Faith and Survival
Please don’t take the things I’ve said in the last two chapters as reason for fear. While there is plenty of
real cause for concern about the potential for an EMP attack against the United States, fear and concern
aren’t the same thing. A legitimate concern should lead us to take action, while fear can and will
paralyze us.
The Bible tells us “fear not” in one form or another, a total of 365 times. That’s once for every day of the
year. Obviously God thinks it important that we not operate in fear, or He wouldn’t have repeated it so
many times. He understands how dangerous fear is for us and doesn’t want us to let it have any entry
into our lives, let alone gain control over us.
So, what’s so dangerous about fear? It’s that we can’t operate in both faith and fear at the same time.
Faith is the confidence that God will do what He has told us He will do. That means having confidence
that He will complete His promises, for our good. Fear on the other hand, is faith that something can
and will do you harm. It’s a misplaced form of faith. Faith in something bad, we could say, rather than
someone good.
Let me give you a simple example. If I were to walk into the room where you are right now and dump
out a box full of snakes on the floor, you would probably react in fear. Why? Because you know that
those snakes have the ability to do you harm. Most of us would react that way even with snakes that
can’t do us harm because we don’t have the ability to identify which snakes can hurt us and which ones
can’t. So we react to all snakes as if they can. We have confidence that they can all harm us.
As long as we are focused on our fear, we aren’t operating in faith. But here’s the thing… we can
overcome our fear with our faith.
There’s an old Indian proverb that goes something like this: “I have two wolves fighting inside of me, a
white wolf and a black wolf. The one which will win is the one I feed. You see… that’s the issue… which
one are you feeding; faith or fear? That one will prevail. So how do you feed faith?
So then faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God.
Romans 10:17
Don’t expect faith to overcome fear if you’re not in the Word of God. I’m not talking about reading “a
chapter a day to keep the devil away;” I’m talking about studying the word of God; consuming the Word
of God; becoming so filled with the Word of God that every time fear tries to rear its ugly head, your
spirit responds with the Word of God, destroying that fear.
That’s not to say that the problem won’t still come. It probably will. But when we face the problem in
faith, we face it with God at our side. When we face it in fear, the devil has already won half the battle.
Remember what God said through the prophet Isaiah:
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When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not
overflow you. When you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned, Nor shall the flame
scorch you.
Isaiah 43:2
The verse directly before this is one of those 365 in which God says, “Fear not” in the Bible. I’m sure
that’s not a coincidence. But rather that God was giving instruction in how not to have fear. Verse two
doesn’t say anything about God getting rid of the water or the fire. Nor does it say that He will give us a
way to avoid going through it. Rather, it says that He will be with us in the middle of it. In other words,
He will help us to overcome those waters and that fire.
In the case of the damage caused by an EMP, I’ve done a pretty good job of painting a rather bleak
picture of what the EMP can do, without really getting into the details of the technicalities of how it
operates. Chances are, I’ve managed to convince you that things will be pretty bad, when and if we are
subject to such an attack. But you’ve got to understand that as I was writing those words, I was doing so
from the world’s viewpoint, without bringing God into the picture. He can change the whole thing for us.
In this chapter, I want to talk about how.
God Never Guarantees Safety
Let’s get this out of the way first. I’ve heard many a believer state at one time or another that God won’t
allow anything bad to happen to His people. I really don’t know where that teaching comes from, as I
can’t find that principle taught in the Bible. On the contrary, I see lots of cases of believers who have bad
things happen to them, in both the Old and New Testaments.
The classic example of this is Job. If there was ever a story of bad things happening to a good person,
that’s it. Job lost his children, his wealth, and his health, being left only with his wife. Yet by the end of
the story, we find that God restored his children, his health, and double his wealth.
Yet some believers will dismiss the book of Job because it happened in the Old Testament. I guess their
understanding of “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever” (Hebrews 13:8) (and by
extension, we can say that “Jehovah God is the same yesterday, today, and forever”) is different than
mine.
But that’s okay; let’s stick with New Testament examples, since we have those available to us.
Specifically, let’s look at Jesus’s 12 disciples, who became the apostles. Of the 12, Judas committed
suicide, so we’ll leave him out. That leaves 11, of which only John died a natural death. All ten of the
others were martyred in one way or another. While the Bible itself only mentions the death of James,
the son of Zebedee, who was executed by King Herod in 44AD (Acts 12:2), church history, specifically
Foxe’s Book of Martyrs, tells us what happened to the rest. Paul was beheaded, while Peter was hung
upside down on a cross (at his request, saying he was unworthy to die as Jesus had); Andrew was
crucified as well, hung on an olive tree in Patrae; Thomas was thrust through with a spear, Bartholomew
was skinned alive and the other disciples suffered similar fates. Even John, who didn’t die a martyr’s
death, was boiled in oil.
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If the Lord could allow these men, who we know were all close to Him, clearly had faith enough to
spread the gospel throughout the known world and were apparently godly men, to die for their faith,
what makes any of us think that there’s any guarantee in scripture that He will protect us from all harm?
Rather, we are promised that we will suffer harm:
Indeed, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.
2 Timothy 3:12
Granted, this is talking about persecution, not dealing with an EMP. But remember, when the Bible talks
about persecution or when it is talked about in church history, it’s talking about people being killed for
their faith. That’s about as serious as it gets. By comparison, an EMP at least gives us a chance at
survival.
“But if there’s going to be an EMP, wouldn’t it happen after the rapture?”
The honest answer is we just don’t know. There is no verse we can point to in the Bible that promises
things will be hunky-dory up until the rapture. If there were, it would contradict what we’ve seen
through church history. Rather, Jesus Himself warned of coming problems.
And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not troubled; for all these
things must come to pass, but the end is not yet. 7 For nation will rise against nation, and
kingdom against kingdom. And there will be famines, pestilences, and earthquakes in various
places. 8 All these things are the beginning of sorrows.
Matthew 24:6-8
I don’t see EMP listed in there anyplace, but I do see wars. Since an attack by EMP would clearly be an
act of war, I think we can count it as part of that. But it’s actually the last three words there that I want
to focus on – “beginning of sorrows.” Just what is that?
According to Adam Clarke’s commentary, the beginning of sorrows is like the labor pains a woman goes
through in preparation to give birth. But in this case, we’re not talking about giving birth to a baby;
we’re talking about giving birth to the Tribulation, as foretold in the Book of Revelation. It is the Earth
itself which is having these labor pains, both the physical Earth and the system of the world.
Regardless of what end times theology you subscribe to, it is clear from scripture that an EMP could
come before the rapture, as part of the beginning of sorrows. Whether you and I are here to experience
it will depend on how long we live and when it happens.
Is Prepping Biblical?
Before answering the question of whether or not prepping is biblical, we need to ask ourselves if it is
even possible to prepare for an EMP. The short answer to that question is that yes, it is. It’s not easy, but
it is possible. We’ll get into more detail later on in this book, but it essentially requires becoming self-
sufficient so that you aren’t dependent on our massive infrastructure and supply system.
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Of course, the term “prepping” is relatively new, so there’s no way we’re going to find it in the Bible. But
the idea is that of preparing for a coming disaster, and that concept does exist. Probably the greatest
example is the world’s first prepper, Noah.
In Genesis, chapter six, God tells Noah that He is going to destroy all life, directing Noah to build an ark
out of gopher wood. He is to take two of every kind of animal into that ark, along with food for his family
and the animals. By doing so, Noah avoided the destruction that was to come, killing off everyone but
those who were with him in the ark.
That sounds an awful lot like prepping to me. “Prepare to protect your life and here’s how to do it.”
Then, after Noah has obeyed God, scripture tells us that “the Lord shut him in” (Gen 7:16).
I think this distinction between Noah’s part in the process and God’s part is important. God told Noah to
do what he could, building the ark and collecting the food. Apparently God took it upon Himself to
collect the animals, as there is no verse saying that Noah did so. Rather, it tells us that the animals went
into the ark, “two by two.” But the really interesting part is that God shut the door. That seems to
indicate that God took responsibility for making sure that Noah, his family, and all the animals were safe
once they entered the ark.
Breaking that down into a usable principle, it seems that we are to do the part we can and expect God to
do the rest. Of course, that means that we have to fully complete the part that belongs to us, not just do
a little and tell God to do the rest. Not doing all of our part and expecting God to finish it is presumption,
not faith.
This is a perfect application of the proverb, “God helps those who help themselves.” While not from the
Bible, that phrase, out of Poor Richard’s Almanac, perhaps should be, as it describes something
important about how our God operates. Yes, He takes care of us; no question about it. But it’s also clear
throughout scripture that God expects us to do our part.
For even when we were with you, we commanded you this: If anyone will not work, neither
shall he eat.
2 Thessalonians 3:10
Of course, there’s the issue of how much we prepare as well. I don’t see anywhere in scripture where
God told Noah just how much food to take into the ark. Yet it appears that Noah took enough. Had he
not, the carnivores in there would have killed off the rest of the animals, something that apparently
didn’t happen.
So how was it that Noah had enough food, without being told how long his voyage would be? All I can
say is that he was acting in faith, so the Holy Spirit would have been able to guide him. It may not have
been obvious to Noah that the Spirit was doing that, but he would probably have felt an imperative to
keep collecting food. Then at some point, that imperative would have gone, replaced by the confidence
that he had enough.
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Keep in mind that for this to work, it’s necessary to remain in faith. If that faith is ever replaced by fear,
then the Holy Spirit will no longer be able to get through to the heart. Panic will replace reason and
hoarding, probably of impractical things, will replace stockpiling. Isn’t that what happened when people
started hoarding toilet paper at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic?
I have seen Christian preppers become paralyzed by fear. They were no longer able to prepare with
reason, but rather focused on one thing they could not do. When that happened, their effectiveness
came to a screeching halt. If they did anything at all, it was something that didn’t really matter, like just
stockpiling toilet paper, while not stockpiling food.
On the other hand, I believe that many of the more unusual items that I’ve added to my own stockpile
have been due to the prompting of the Holy Spirit. While they might not seem like important items, they
ended up being more important than I would have expected. When I was faced with a disaster, those
were often some of the most important things I owned. So I expect that when faced with the coming
EMP, those things will end up being just as important, if not more so.
As you begin your own journey towards preparing for an EMP, do so in faith, depending on the Holy
Spirit to guide you. That doesn’t mean that you just sit there, not doing anything until the Holy Spirit
tells you what to do, but rather be sensitive to the prompting of the Holy Spirit, as you are in the journey
towards preparedness.
There was a young Christian man once, who was frustrated because the Holy Spirit never spoke to him.
He’d go to his church’s youth group, where he would hear one person or another testify about how the
Holy Spirit had guided them, using them to accomplish something, whether that was ministering to
others or meeting some need in their own life. He complained to God about it, but didn’t seem to get an
answer.
Driving home from the youth group, he felt a sudden urge to stop and buy milk. Not understanding why
he was doing so, he thought maybe they were out of milk at home. So he stopped at a convenience
store and bought a gallon of milk. Continuing homewards, he suddenly felt an urge to turn down a
particular street. But that wasn’t the way home, so he continued, passing the street. Suddenly, he felt
like he had made a mistake, so he turned around, going back to that street and turning.
He didn’t know that street, so he was driving slowly down it, looking at the houses. Finally, he stopped,
pulling over to the side of the road. He didn’t have any idea of why he was there, but his attention was
drawn to a house across the street, sitting there darkened, with the lights out.
Not sure why, he crossed the street and knocked on that door, milk in hand. After a moment, he heard
footsteps inside and the door opened. A large man stood there. Yelling in exclamation, the man grabbed
the milk from his hand and ran towards the back of the house with it. The young man, stunned, just
stood there.
After a moment, the man returned and asked the young man, “Are you an angel?” It turned out that the
man and his wife were believers. He had lost his job and they had run out of money. Needing milk for
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their baby, they had turned to God in prayer, a prayer that was answered by that young man and his
milk.
Often, we miss what the Holy Spirit is trying to say to us because we’re expecting Hollywood’s rendition
of God speaking. But God speaks with that still small voice that he spoke to the prophet Elijah with, in
the wilderness in First Kings, 19:12-18. He hasn’t changed, speaking to us today in the same way.
As you prepare, following the advice I’m going to give you, be sure to leave yourself open to the Holy
Spirit’s guidance. You may have no more idea of why the Holy Spirit is leading you to buy a certain thing
or undertake a certain action as you go along. Nevertheless, follow along and do what you sense you
should do. If it is the Holy Spirit, you will have done something critical to your preparation, but if you
missed it and it wasn’t Him, it won’t have hurt you.
As you go along, you’ll learn to discern His voice and it will become easier to follow His guidance. Like
anything else in life, being led by the Spirit requires practice. Don’t worry, as long as you’re a willing
student, He’ll teach you.
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Preparing for an EMP
While I suppose it is possible to survive an EMP and its aftermath without preparing for it, I wouldn’t
want to be the one to try it. Of all the disasters I can think of occurring today, an EMP is the most
serious. That’s because of the total destruction that an EMP will have on our way of life, without
physically destroying much of anything. The loss of electrical power and the systems that depend on it
are what will make surviving after an EMP so difficult.
Since we won’t be able to depend on anything we are used to depending on, EMP survival really consists
of becoming as self-sufficient as possible. We have to work from the assumption that there will be no
infrastructure, no services and no means of supply, other than what we have ourselves.
Allow me to note here that there’s a good chance that things won’t be as bad as we expect. The
problem is, we really can’t predict what will remain in place after the EMP. Will your local police
department still be functioning? Nobody knows. I imagine that it will in some communities, while it will
fall apart in many others, as police officers try to take care of their own families. Why should they go to
work, allowing their families to starve to death when the city can’t pay them in any meaningful way?
It is this uncertainty that makes it imperative that in preparing for an EMP, we plan on nothing working.
Then, if somehow some portion of society remains operative, it will be a benefit, making survival easier.
Perhaps our preparedness will even manage to help make it more possible for those systems to either
keep working or return to service all that much quicker.
Can You Survive at Home?
The first thing you have to decide is whether or not you will be able to survive where you live. I realize
that’s an impossible question to answer at this point, but I want to get you started thinking about it. As
we go on through what you will need, that question should be in the back of your mind, helping you
formulate your survival plan at the same time you are finding the answer to it.
There are a few basic criteria that will determine your potential to survive in your home, as opposed to
finding an alternative place to go to, in the event of an EMP. These are:
Availability of resources, especially water
Available space for raising food
Security – how likely you will be to suffer attack and how well you will be able to resist it
Others who might work together with you to survive.
At the same time, these same criteria affect your ability to survive elsewhere, along with the problems
of having someplace to go to and getting from your home to that alternate survival retreat. If you can’t
get there quickly, before people become desperate, then that location probably will be of no value.
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Getting Our Survival Priorities Straight
If you and your family are going to survive in the wake of an EMP, you’re going to have to be able to
fulfill your basic survival priorities and continue fulfilling them for the foreseeable future. The two are
actually separate, but interrelated things. First, you have to be able to meet your basic survival priorities
in the short-term. That means doing so out of a stockpile of supplies in your home or survival retreat.
Then you’ve got to have the means of renewing those supplies on a continual basis, so that your family
can continue to survive once your stockpile runs out.
Ok, so just what are those basic survival priorities? If you asked most Americans, they’d probably answer
in a very “first-world” way, talking about their smartphones and internet service. That just shows how
far removed we are from understanding what we really need. Our infrastructure and supply system has
us so far removed from even seeing those priorities that most people don’t know what they are.
They are often expressed in what is called the “Rule of 3s.” It states that you can survive:
Three minutes without oxygen
Thirty minutes without maintaining your body temperature (heat and shelter)
Three days without clean drinking water
Thirty days without food.
Please note that those times aren’t exact. Many people can survive longer than 30 days without food,
simply because we are overweight and can live off our body’s reserves. But at the same time, our body’s
reserves are just fat, which is broken down into simple sugars to provide our body with energy. Yet this
complex chemical factory we call a body needs much more than simple sugars to remain healthy. So,
while we might survive 30, 60 or 90 days without food, we probably won’t be healthy.
The other thing we need to take into consideration is that there are specialized circumstances, which
may require additions to that list. One of these is self-defense. If you’re out by yourself in a secure
location, chances are fairly good that you won’t need to be able to defend yourself against attack. But if
you’re in the middle of a city somewhere and people are breaking into homes to steal food, your ability
to defend yourself might be the most essential survival skill you have. Likewise, first-aid skills could keep
you alive, if one of those people manage to get a bullet into you.
Then there’s fire starting, the most important survival skill there is. While we don’t actually need fire to
survive, we desperately need fire to fulfill those survival needs mentioned in the Rule of 3s. Fire provides
us with heat, can be used to purify water, is used to cook our food, gives us light and can even be used
as a weapon to help us defend ourselves from attack.
Everything you do in preparing to survive an EMP will have to be focused around meeting these needs.
Once they are fulfilled, then you’ll be able to expand your preparations to include other things, like
communications to hear any broadcasts that might give you an idea of what’s going on in the wider
world around you.
Let’s look briefly at what each of these areas mean. We’ll go into more detail later.
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Oxygen
Our bodies use oxygen in chemical reactions to power everything. We breathe it in from the air around
us, expelling carbon dioxide when we exhale. Plants then take in that carbon dioxide and convert it back
into oxygen for our use.
Fortunately, an EMP won’t do anything to affect the oxygen level in our atmosphere, except in putting
an end to the burning of fossil fuels. Instead, we’ll burn wood for energy, which will also use up oxygen.
But it won’t burn up so much that we’ll have an oxygen shortage.
Maintaining Your Body Heat
It only requires a few degrees change in our body’s core temperature to make it impossible to survive. In
most circumstances, our bodies are able to produce enough heat on their own to survive, even if not to
survive comfortably. But that requires that we eat enough food or convert enough body fat to sugars, so
that we can produce that heat.
In addition to our body producing its own heat, there are three things that help us to maintain that body
heat: shelter, clothing and fire. Shelter helps us in that it protects us from rain and wind, both of which
will draw heat out of our body. Clothing acts as insulation, helping to trap that heat in place, so that it
doesn’t radiate out from our bodies. But clothing’s ability to do that is greatly reduced when the
clothing is wet from rain or when the wind is blowing. So clothing is more effective when it is combined
with shelter.
Fire is the one outside heat source that helps us to keep warm when it is cold. While sunlight can help
warm us, it isn’t all that effective. However, a fire produces enough heat to keep a shelter warm or to
directly warm our bodies when we are close enough to it. But keeping a fire burning requires fuel, so we
will need a long-term means of cutting wood for fuel.
Clean Drinking Water
Our bodies are largely composed of water, as every cell is filled with water. But the water that we drink
must be biologically clean and pure to protect our health. That means that bacteria and other
microscopic pathogens that are normally in the water must be either killed or removed.
While it is a good idea to stockpile water, it is impossible to stockpile enough water to survive for a
prolonged period of time. So in addition to whatever water we manage to stockpile, we need some way
of harvesting it from nature, whether on our own property or from some local river, stream, lake or
pond. Of course, that means having some means of hauling that water as well. Since that water will
probably not be biologically pure, we also need some way of purifying that water, making it safe to
drink.
Food
While we can get through a short period of time without food, not having food to eat affects our energy
level. Going too long without food denies critical nutrients, which can lead to disease. The solution, of
course, is to have a stockpile of food that we can eat when the stores no longer have any.
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But that stockpile of food will only last so long. Trying to build a stockpile that will last the rest of our
lives is unrealistic and financially impossible. The solution to that is to grow our own. But that’s not easy
and requires some preparation. More than anything, it requires learning how to grow food effectively,
as it’s more complicated that just sprinkling some seed on the ground and watering it.
One of mankind’s oldest struggles is having enough food to make it through the winter months. The
growing season in many parts of the world is very short, requiring that seed get in the ground as early as
possible, so that the harvest can be taken in before the first freeze in the fall. Then that food has to be
preserved, so that it will last through the winter until the next year’s harvest. We, too, will need to be
prepared to preserve the food that we grow.
Self-Defense
Defending home and family could be considerably more complicated in a post-EMP world than it is
today. Basically all we have to worry about today is home invaders and burglars. Both of those
categories of criminals operate under the philosophy of get in, get what you want, and get out, all
without attracting attention. But in the wake of an EMP, the attackers we will have won’t care about
attracting the attention of the police; they’ll be concerned about getting our food and other critical
supplies, no matter what it takes.
This could very well lead to situations where gangs of hungry people attack our homes. Rather than
being one or two criminals trying to sneak into your home, it might be more like a pitched battle, with
10 or 12 attackers storming your home, guns blazing. Defending from that risk, without any hope of
police assistance, will be considerably more challenging.
First Aid
Medical facilities typically end up overrun after a disaster due to people becoming injured. In the wake
of an EMP those medical facilities will also be dealing with a lack of supplies, in addition to trying to
operate without electricity. The generators and fuel storage tanks that hospitals have will only keep
them up and running for a few days.
On top of that, there will very likely be a problem even getting sick or injured family members to the
hospital. Even if cars are still running, gasoline supplies will be consumed quickly and refineries won’t be
able to produce more.
This all boils down to the need to deal with medical problems on your own, rather than depending on
the medical community to help. While I’m sure that our doctors and nurses will do what they can, good
first aid treatment will be essential to making sure that an injured family member makes it to the
hospital alive.
Fire Starting
If you ever take a survival course, you’ll find that the instructor spends a lot of time talking about and
teaching how to start fires. That’s partially because of the importance of fire and partially because we
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never know when we’ll be in a situation where our normal fire starting methods, like matches and
lighters, won’t be available. Fortunately, there are many other ways we can learn to start a fire.
Of all the major necessities for surviving in a post-EMP world, the ability to start a fire, even in adverse
conditions, is probably the easiest to accomplish. However, the potential for those adverse conditions,
such as rain and wind, mean that we must be prepared to start fires at times when it won’t be easy. That
means having more than a box of matches or a disposable lighter.
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How Will You Meet Those Needs?
Before we get into a discussion of the things you’ll need to stockpile in order to meet those various
needs, it would be helpful to talk about how you’re going to have to do things. If electric power is out,
we can’t use our furnaces and refrigerators; so we’ll need other options. While you may start out your
preparations by stockpiling food and other supplies, it would help to know how you’re going to be doing
things, so that you know what to stockpile. So let’s take a brief look at the different ways in which
preppers meet these challenges.
Heating
Without electricity, none of our modern home heating systems work. Even those where burning natural
gas is the source of heat require electricity for controllers, pumps and blowers. So we need an
alternative means of heating our homes.
The most likely solution for this is wood. Mankind has used wood fires for heating and cooking since
before recorded history. While wood may not be plentiful in all parts of the country, it is one of the only
fuels that can be harvested by the individual, with minimal equipment; even with non-powered
equipment.
That’s not to say that cutting wood for the fire is easy, but at least it is possible. For most of us, the
biggest problem won’t be cutting the wood but hauling it back to our homes. It can take four to six cords
of wood to heat a home through the winter, and that’s a lot of wood to haul, especially if there isn’t any
gasoline for our vehicles.
Once we get that wood home, it will need time to season, allowing the moisture to come out of it. That’s
why our ancestors usually cut wood in the winter, stacking and saving it to be used the next winter. For
this to work, the wood needs to be stacked somewhere it is protected from the rain, as rainwater will
soak right back into the wood, starting the need for drying it all over again.
In addition to the wood, it’s going to be necessary to have someplace to burn it, specifically a wood-
burning stove. If your home doesn’t have one now, you may want to look into installing one. That can be
a problem for a two-story home, as it is usually difficult to find someplace to run the chimney through
the second floor. In an emergency, the chimney can be run out through the wall or through a window,
closing up the space around the chimney. The chimney must still extend up three feet above the roof, so
that the smoke will clear properly.
The only other options are a catalytic propane heater or a kerosene heater, but both of those are really
only short-term solutions. While those can operate without electricity, they will only operate as long as
you have fuel in the tank. When that runs out, it will probably be impossible to refill.
Water
Many people talk about finding water locally, such as from a local stream or pond. If you have those
available, that’s great. But if not, then whatever water that’s available from local swimming pools and
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other such sources will run out quickly, with everyone else drawing water from them, leaving you
without water.
The best solution is to be able to harvest water on site, right there at your home. There are two ways of
doing that, if you don’t happen to have a stream running through your property. The easier and cheaper
method is through rainwater capture and the more expensive method is to drill a well.
While drilling a well is probably the most secure means of having a constant supply of water, it is cost-
prohibitive for many people. It will also require some sort of pump. If that’s electric, then you will need
some sort of electric power generation to supply electricity to the pump. The other option is a manual
pump. While not as common, you can still buy the old-fashioned manual pumps, even ones that will
pump water up from 200 feet below the surface.
Adding rainwater capture is much simpler and less expensive, something that you can do yourself as a
weekend project. The typical rainwater capture system consists of gutters and downspouts on a home,
with the downspouts emptying into rain barrels, rather than spilling out onto the ground. Connecting
several rain barrels together or running that water into a cistern (like your swimming pool) increases the
capacity of the system.
During a time of crisis any water harvested from nature must be considered to be contaminated, even
rainwater. While rainwater falling through the sky is clean, once it hits the roof it can pick up bacteria
from bird droppings. So the water should be purified.
There are three basic means of water purification: filtration, chemical and heat. Due to the importance
of being able to purify water, it’s recommended that you have more than one available as a backup to
your primary means of water purification.
Filtration
Not all water filtration systems will make your water safe to drink. Many are only intended to remove
sediment from the water. They don’t filter fine enough to remove bacteria. For that, a filtration level of
0.2 microns is needed.
One of the big problems with most filtration systems is that the filters become clogged, needing
replacement. You either need to stock a good supply of water filters to make up for this or have a back-
flushable filter, allowing you to clean it out and continue using it. While these do exist, there aren’t
many of them on the market.
Chemical
Chemical purification involves the addition of chemicals to the water, which kill bacteria and other
microscopic pathogens. The most common chemical used for this is chlorine, such as the chlorine used
in swimming pools and municipal water authorities. You can find chlorine easily in normal household
bleach. Adding eight drops of bleach to each gallon of water, stirring it and then allowing it to sit for 20
minutes will make it safe to drink.
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Heat
It’s common knowledge that one can purify water by boiling it, but not as many people realize that
water can be purified by pasteurizing it. Pasteurization is a process by which the temperature of the
water (or other liquid) is brought up to a high enough temperature to kill microscopic pathogens,
without bringing it up to boiling. The minimum temperature for this is 158°F.
A cooking thermometer can be used to monitor the temperature of the water for pasteurization, but
there’s another option. That’s a WAPI, which stands for “water pasteurization indicator.” This simple,
ingenious device consists of a wax bead in a plastic capsule. Placed in the water, the wax melts when the
water reaches 160°F, indicating that the water has been pasteurized. Once cooled, the wax solidifies,
allowing the WAPI to be reused.
Food
We will talk about stockpiling food in the next section, but your stockpile is only going to last so long.
With that being the case, you’ll need to start working on producing your own food as soon as possible.
That mostly means growing the food in your garden, but also includes raising animals for protein.
There have been those in the prepping community who have presented the idea that you can raise
enough food in a four-foot square garden to survive. That’s clearly not true, as shown by those who
currently raise all their own food in their backyards. In every case like that which I’ve seen, it takes the
entire backyard to grow enough food to get through the year.
As for animal protein, chickens laying eggs, rabbits and fish are the easiest options available. Many cities
limit how many animals you can have on your property, making it so that we can’t grow goats or cattle.
Even chickens are limited, with most municipalities setting a limit of five or six birds. But that should be
enough to provide one egg per person, per day, for a family of four.
If you’re thinking of hunting or fishing, keep in mind that there will be many other people out there who
will be trying to do the same. Unless you live in an area with a low human population and a high animal
population it will probably be impossible to get all that much by hunting and fishing.
Cooking
Electric stoves and ovens will clearly be out of order; however, there is some possibility that natural gas
will be available for some time, at least as long as pressure remains in the lines. After that, a gas stove
will be no more useful than an electric one.
This will leave us with wood as a means of cooking. If you’re already going to have a wood-burning stove
in the home for heat, then it might be able to be used for cooking as well. Not all of them accommodate
that, but many of the older ones do.
The other great option is to use the barbecue grille or fire pit. Even if you have a gas-burning grille, it can
be used with wood, allowing you to cook. That will probably mess up the gas lines and burner, but that’s
not an issue, as you’ll probably never be able to fill the fuel tank again.
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Some preppers have invested in either making or buying solar ovens to cook with. These work well, as
long as there is sunlight. They’re more of a slow cooker, but will still do an excellent job. I’ve cooked
anything from roasts to bread in a solar cooker. It just takes time to get used to cooking with it.
Storing Food
Any food that is grown in your garden, animals raised and anything you get hunting, but which is not
consumed immediately, will need to be preserved. Your preserved food is what’s going to get you
through the winter when you can’t grow food and when many animals are bedded down, awaiting
warmer times.
This age-old problem has led mankind to invent a wide variety of means to preserve food, many of
which have existed for centuries. For us, that means they are easy to do and don’t require a lot of
complex, specialized equipment.
Many means of food preservation use salt or sugar. That’s because they are natural preservatives,
especially the salt. Place either one on any cut food that contains moisture, such as meat, fruit or
vegetables and leave the food sitting for a few minutes. What you’ll see is that the water will start
leaching out of the food. It does this because of the principle of osmosis, which states that the
concentration of a solvent, such as water, will pass through a semi-permeable membrane, from a less
concentrated solution to a more concentrated one. Since there is more salt or sugar outside the food
than inside it, the water passes through the cell walls in that food, trying to bring about that balance.
Bacteria need a moist environment to survive. When the water starts leaving food, due to the salt or
sugar, it also draws water out of the bacteria; when enough water is drawn out, the bacteria die. As long
as that salt or sugar concentration stays there, any new bacteria that try to enter that food will die.
This is imperfect, at least in the area of sugar, in that sugar will attract some kinds of insects, causing
them to eat the food. Nevertheless, sugar is used to preserve fruit while salt is used to preserve many
other kinds of food. Ants will avoid salty food, as it dries out their exoskeleton, killing them.
The more basic types of food preservation are:
Canning – Canning is perhaps the perfect means of food preservation, even though it only works
for wet foods. The food is cooked and placed in a salt or sugar solution, inside of cans or jars.
Those are then heated to above the point of pasteurization, ensuring bacteria inside the jar is
dead. As the temperature of the contents cools, it shrinks, creating a vacuum, pulling the lid
down onto its rubber seal and ensuring that the container is fully sealed. All that’s required is
canning jars, with lids and a large pot. In the case of canning meat, a pressure cooker (pressure
canner) is needed to get the contents hot enough for pasteurization to occur.
Pickling – Pickling is normally considered a subset of canning, as most pickled foods are also
canned. It differs from canning in that acid, usually in the form of vinegar, is added to the food.
The acid acts as a preservative, killing bacteria. It also alters the flavor of the food, as it reacts
with it. Most of our condiments are pickled foods.
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Dehydrating – Dehydrating involves heating the food slightly, causing the water to evaporate
out of it. For meats, the sliced meat is first soaked in a marinade, which is salty (making it a
brine), then dried. For some fruits, the cut fruit is sometimes rolled in sugar to aid in preserving
it. Grains are naturally dehydrated on the stalk, before threshing.
Smoking – Smoking meats involves first soaking them in brine, then heating them in a smoker.
The first stage is “cold smoking” where the meat is allowed to pick up the flavor of the wood
smoke. Then the temperature is raised for “hot smoking,” which cooks the meat. In the process,
the collagen protein in the outer part of the meat change on a molecular level, forming a hard
skin called a “pellicle” that is impermeable to bacteria. However, when the meat is cut, bacteria
can still invade the part that hasn’t been converted to become part of the pellicle.
Curing – In past times, curing was used to preserve tough cuts of meat, turning what would
otherwise be considered waste into edible products. It involves adding salt, sugar, nitrates and
nitrites to the meat and allowing it to sit in a cool environment for the meat to cure. Many of
our deli meats were once known as cured meats.
Fermentation – A process in which bacteria or yeast are allowed to eat the food, thereby
converting carbohydrates to alcohol. When the alcohol level reaches a high enough point, it kills
the microorganisms, thereby preserving it.
Refrigeration – We currently use refrigeration, and its cousin freezing, extensively to preserve
food. But without electricity, our refrigerators won’t work. This doesn’t mean that we can’t use
cold to preserve food, though. The root cellar was used for centuries before modern
refrigeration. It takes advantage of the fact that it is cooler underground than it is on the
surface. A root cellar typically maintains a temperature of 55°F, allowing it to keep vegetables,
especially root vegetables from spoiling.
It would be a good idea to learn how to do these various methods of food preservation, using them now
in preparation for the time after the EMP. Not only are these good skills to know, but it will allow you to
prepare specialty foods, which your family can enjoy or can be used as gifts.
Self-Defense
To many believers, self-defense is a tricky subject. They look at the biblical commandment “Thou shalt
not murder” (Ex 20:13) as being all-inclusive, that we can never kill. But in fact, the word used for “kill” in
that verse, “ratsach,” literally means to commit murder, as in first-degree premeditated murder. There
are plenty of other references in scripture where God specifically tells His people to kill someone. That
includes the biblical foundation for what is known as the Castle Doctrine.
If the thief is found breaking in, and he is struck so that he dies, there shall be no guilt for his
bloodshed.
Exodus 22:2
One might argue that this verse only refers to accidentally striking the thief, but nobody accidentally
strikes a criminal breaking into their home. It’s always intentional. They could also argue that this
doesn’t talk about firearms, but only striking with the hand. There are several arguments against this,
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starting with the fact that the verse doesn’t include the words “with the hand.” While they didn’t have
firearms back then, I’m sure that anyone who was dealing with a thief coming into their home would
grab whatever they could to use it as a weapon. In the situation we’re looking at, there’s no way that
they’re going to be breaking into your home empty-handed. They’ll be armed, so you need to meet
them force on force. On the other hand, you want to avoid excessive force. Finally, they can argue that it
only refers to the blow accidentally causing the thief’s death. That can apply to a firearm as well, as it all
boils down to intent. If you strike a thief with your hand or with a bullet, it’s all for the same purpose –
to stop them. Whether or not they die is not really up to you. People survive gunshot wounds.
Having gone through that, I think it’s safe to say that we can be armed and we can protect our home and
family. But if we do, we want to make absolutely sure that anyone we shoot at is a legitimate threat. In
other words, we can’t shoot at someone down the street just because we think they’re heading for our
house. Both God’s law and man’s, limit killing to self-defense.
Preparing Your Home
Your first line of defense is your home itself. You want to do everything you can to make sure that any
attackers have a hard time getting in. That means much more than locking windows and installing a
deadbolt on the door. All it takes is a good kick with a booted foot and the average deadbolt will break
through the door frame, giving the attacker access to your home.
What you really need is things along the line of barring the door, like they used to bar the gate in
medieval castles. If that seems a bit extreme to you, then at least put in a security striker plate, so that
the deadbolt can’t break through the door frame. While you’re at it, install longer screws in the hinges,
so that the door can’t break out easily on that side either. The bar can be added over and above that,
when the EMP happens.
Windows are a real weak point for any home. All it takes is a rock or a hammer, and they can be broken
out, giving access to the home. Adding burglar bars to the windows may not look all that attractive, but
it will keep anyone from breaking in through them. Another option is to install window security film,
although that isn’t as strong or effective.
Defending Your Home
Defending your home requires more than just owning a gun and a box of ammo. You need the right
firearms and the ability to use them accurately. You’re also going to probably need more than that one
box of ammo.
Without going into a long discussion on various types of firearms, each potential shooter in your family
will need a pistol and a long gun. I personally prefer semi-automatic pistols, for the speed in which they
can be reloaded. If you have to defend yourself with it, that can make a world of difference. But the
sidearm is really only for use in cases where you don’t have your long gun in your hands. Unless it’s
really close range, you’re better off using a long gun to defend your home.
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As for long guns, I’m actually using that term intentionally, as it refers to both rifles and shotguns.
However, the rifles and shotguns we would want to use for home defense aren’t the same ones we
would want to use for hunting. Hunting rifles and shotguns tend to be long, making it difficult to use
them in the confined space of your home. Tactical ones are shorter, without being so short as to require
a special permit from the ATF. You’re better off with those.
Make sure you and any other shooters in your family get a lot of practice at the shooting range, and if
possible, get yourself some tactical training. Many ranges offer that at least periodically. You have to
assume that the adrenalin running through your system during the attack will mess up your shooting
accuracy, so the more accurately you can shoot, the better.
The other big question is when you can fire. I’ve already said that you can’t shoot at someone down the
street. In normal times, the courts only count it as self-defense if the invaders are in your home and
facing you. But that only works if there are only one or two of them. If your home is being attacked by
10 or 12 armed people and you let them get in the door, chances for your survival are extremely low.
Based on that, I would use your property line as your personal red line, challenging them before they
cross it. Ideally, you don’t want to fire the first shot, although that might be necessary. But it’s hard to
claim that it is self-defense if you start shooting first. Considering that someone is going to reestablish
the courts at some time, you want to be sure that your actions are clearly in self-defense.
When you do have to start shooting, there are two things to keep in mind:
You want to overwhelm them with firepower, shooting quickly, but as accurately as possible.
That will help to cause fear, hopefully leading to some of them turning tail and running.
You want to concentrate on hitting the leadership, those who are encouraging others and giving
commands. If you kill or even wound the leaders, the rest might flee.
Remember that this is self-defense. You don’t want to go beyond that. Once they turn tail and run, don’t
chase them with your bullets, stop and let them get away. That’s all you’re trying to do.
First Aid
First aid can be one of the biggest challenges for most people, as we typically have very minimal training
in dealing with wounds or injuries. But the types of things we’re probably going to be dealing with in a
post-EMP world are much more serious than a skinned knee. We’re going to be dealing with the kinds of
wounds that come from using tools we’re not accustomed to and possibly even gunshot wounds.
When thinking about this, think in terms of hitting yourself in the leg with an axe. How serious a wound
would that create? That’s what you need to be ready for. And that means we need much more to use in
treating those wounds than the kind of first aid kit found in the local pharmacy. What we need is called a
trauma kit.
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Unless you buy a trauma kit that’s intended for use in an EMP situation, it’s probably only going to have
enough in it to treat one serious wound. But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t buy it anyway. Rather, buy
the kit and then use it as a basis for purchasing extras to refill the kit with.
The bigger need isn’t the kit though; it’s the ability to make the most of using it. That means taking the
time to learn first aid in depth. Fortunately, there are a variety of places you can learn. The Red Cross
still offers first-aid classes, as well as some hospitals. I received some excellent training from my
concealed carry insurance company, including training on how to treat gunshot wounds to the chest. I
walked out of that training certified in treating gunshot wounds. You can also find plenty of videos
online, teaching basic and advanced first-aid techniques.
Keep in mind that first aid may be the only aid that an injured member of your family receives. So you’ll
want to go beyond having the ability to patch them up well enough to get to the hospital. While there
will always be things which are beyond your ability, the more you can learn, the better.
Off-grid Electricity
While not an actual survival priority, you may want to consider developing the means of producing your
own electricity. There are many things that we use electricity for, which will be gone without the grid
functioning. But you can use at least some of them, if you can produce your own power.
This means either solar panels or a wind turbine. You can buy either of these or make your own. Keep in
mind that one solar panel doesn’t really produce all that much electricity, so you’re actually going to
need a bunch of them to do much more than charge your phone. One small wind turbine will produce
about as much power as seven to ten solar panels, but only when the wind speed is above 10 MPH.
The other thing that any off-grid power solution needs is a battery backup system. Both solar and wind
power are dependent on the weather. So to be able to use that power when needed, a battery backup
system is required.
Twelve-volt lead-acid batteries, somewhat like car batteries, are usually used for battery backup
systems, not the lithium-based ones in the Tesla wall, as those are considerably more expensive. As with
the solar panels, you need several batteries, especially if that power is going to be boosted up to 120
volts for use in your home. You’ll also need a voltage inverter to do the boosting.
A Faraday Cage
Surprisingly, solar panels are fairly resilient against EMP. While they will receive some damage, it’s on
the order of 10% of their output. So they will still produce usable electricity, as they are always designed
with some overcapacity to make up for cloud cover and aging panels. But any electronics that you
intend to use in the post-EMP world need to be protected. That usually means buying spares and storing
them in a Faraday cage.
Electromagnetic pulse functions under the same physical laws as radio waves, making them predictable.
One of the keys to this is that they are absorbed by anything metal, effectively blocking the EMP from
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passing through. So anything stored in a metal container is protected from the EMP, just as long as it is
insulated from touching the metal itself. That’s what a Faraday cage is.
You can make a rather good Faraday cage out of a metal trash can, assuming you can find one. Just line
the inside of the trash can with either cardboard or Styrofoam, making sure you don’t leave any
surfaced uncovered. Then store those spare electronics inside the cage, protecting them.
So, what should you store in that Faraday cage?
Spare cell phone, with useful apps and data loaded
Tablet or laptop with references, especially survival references
Spare solar charge controller for your battery backup system
Spare voltage inverter to use with your battery backup system
Pump for your well (if you have a well)
A set of all the electronic modules, sensors and the computer for your primary vehicle
Medical electronics essential for family members’ health and well-being
Radios
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Building a Stockpile
The starting point for any of us is building a stockpile of necessary supplies. While it is impossible to
stockpile enough supplies to get us through the rest of our lives, we might be able to stockpile enough
to make it through the first year. That should hopefully give us enough time to switch over from a
lifestyle supported by our massive infrastructure, to growing our own food and making other things
we’ll need to have in order to survive.
Many people think of food when we talk about stockpiling. There’s nothing wrong with that, as we
definitely need to stockpile food. But we shouldn’t stop there, as there are many other things we’ll need
as well. Remember how toilet paper flew off the shelves during the Coronavirus pandemic? Well, where
are we going to get that toilet paper in a post-EMP world?
While there will probably be some products that can be found and scavenged in a post-EMP world and
people will eventually be starting cottage industries or opening up businesses again, we have to work
under the assumption that nothing will be available to us, other than what we already have.
This will be a challenge for any of us, mostly due to the cost of building a stockpile. If you think about
what you spend on food and household products in a year, it’s a rather large sum of money. Yet
somehow you and I have to come up with enough extra money out of our monthly budget, so that we
can buy a year’s worth or more of many of those items.
Keep in mind that this doesn’t have to be done in one week or even one month. Most preppers spend
years building their stockpile. While you may feel some urgency to do it quicker, remember that
everything you manage to add to your stockpile will increase your family’s chances of survival a little bit
more; and that’s really what this is all about.
Start by trying to build a month’s worth of stockpile, then add to it, month by month, as funds are
available. Having that year’s worth of supplies is your goal, not your starting point. So work towards that
goal.
Of course, while I say buy a whole year’s worth of food and other products, the reality is that you won’t
be buying the same things you normally do. There’s no reason to buy fresh meat and produce or frozen
food. Rather, you’ll be buying canned food and the ingredients you need to have for cooking. Bread
doesn’t keep well, but flour will, especially if it is unground grain to be ground for flour. That means
having a grist mill to grind the grain too.
Pretty much everyone who is successful at doing this counts heavily on sales and buying in bulk. Rice
costs close to a buck a pound, if you buy it by the pound. But if you buy it by the 50-pound bag, the price
goes down to about 35₵ a pound. Canned chicken is around $2 for a 10 oz. can, but you can pick it up on
sale for $1 per can if you’re patient. Wait until it is on sale, and then pick up a bunch at once.
So, just what do you need to have in your stockpile?
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Stockpiling Food
Most people start building their stockpile by buying food, specifically rice and beans. While there’s
nothing wrong with rice and beans and you should have those in your stockpile, they are only worth
stockpiling if your family will eat them. Granted, everything tastes better when you’re hungry, but most
of us aren’t used to having our eating controlled that way. We Americans tend to be fussy eaters.
Along with stockpiling food, you really need to stockpile some recipes. Specifically, you need to seek out
recipes that will allow you to use the food that you’re stockpiling. I’d recommend trying those recipes
out on your family too, modifying them, as needed, to make them palatable to your family.
As part of that, one important thing that many people forget to add to their food stockpile is spices and
other flavoring elements. Much of what passes as survival food isn’t very tasty because it isn’t well
seasoned. That problem is easy to rectify if you have the right spices to work with. You can make roadkill
taste good if you season it correctly. After all, anything, with spaghetti sauce on it, tastes like spaghetti,
doesn’t it?
Building a long-term food stockpile is a bit different than building a short-term one. For the short-term
stockpile, it’s necessary to concentrate on the macronutrients: carbohydrates, fats and proteins.
Micronutrients can be ignored, as the body can go short periods of time without them. But that’s not
the case with an EMP, where we’re looking at building a stockpile to last a year or more. We need to
make sure we fulfill the micronutrients as well, so as to retain our health. That mostly means ensuring
we have plenty of canned and dry fruit and vegetables.
So, what other sorts of food do we need?
Rice – white rice keeps better than brown rice
Whole grains (for baking) – will keep longer than ground flour, but this means having a grist mill
to turn the grain into flour
Pasta – another great source of carbohydrates, which is useful for soups and casseroles
Spaghetti sauce
Cream of mushroom soup – for casseroles
Canned fruit
Dry fruit
Canned vegetables
Dry vegetables – if you have a dehydrator; can be reconstituted in soup
Canned meat
Nuts – great source of both protein and fats
Dried beans – another great source of protein, as well as carbohydrates
Peanut butter & jelly – comfort food, especially for kids
Dehydrated and freeze dried meat
Spices – to flavor food
Sauce mixes – also to flavor food
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Bouillon (soup base) – soups are a staple of survival food
Salt, lots of salt – both for flavoring and for preserving food
Baking supplies – baking soda, baking powder, etc.
Shelf-stable butter
Dry milk – for baking with
Dehydrated eggs – also for baking with
Sugar & honey – more for baking with
Cooking oil
Coffee – because it’s coffee
Hard candies – something sweet, which also works to help sore throats
The problem with some of these items is that they aren’t packaged for long-term storage. Canned goods
are, regardless of what the date on the can says. Canning is a nearly perfect means of preserving wet
foods. That date is merely a “sell by” date; the last day that the cannery will guarantee it’s usability. But
there have been a number of cases of canned food surviving and still being edible after over 100 years.
As long as the can is not compromised and still holding a vacuum, the food inside is still edible.
But what about non-canned foods? Most of those are dry foods, which really can’t be canned. While
there are people who are experimenting with dry canning, it hasn’t been proven to be a reliable system
yet. Nevertheless, there is a means of packaging those dry foods for long-term storage, which will keep
them good and edible for 20 years or more. This method uses five-gallon plastic buckets, aluminized
Mylar bags and oxygen absorbers, protecting food from bacteria, insects and rodents.
To do this, make sure you have a lot of food to package, enough to fill several five-gallon buckets. The
oxygen absorbers are extremely fast-acting, so they can’t be saved and used later. In fact, when you use
them, you want to work as quickly as possible before they can absorb oxygen out of the atmosphere and
go bad. It might be helpful to have someone to assist you, working with just the oxygen absorbers.
1. Open six gallon aluminized Mylar bags and place them in five-gallon buckets.
2. Fill the bags with dry food, up to about one inch from the rim of the bucket. It’s generally best to
put only one type of food in each bag.
3. Mark the outside of the buckets in several places with the contents.
4. Using a hair straightener or clothes iron, seal the top 2” of the bags, leaving about a 2” gap along
one edge.
5. Working quickly, insert an oxygen absorber into the opening in the bag, then use a vacuum
cleaner hose to suck out as much air as possible (only insert the hose a couple of inches, so that
it doesn’t suck out the food). Remove the hose and seal the bag the rest of the way.
6. Fold the flap over and put the lid on the bucket, using a rubber mallet to drive it home.
While food packaged this way can be stored pretty much anywhere, it’s best to store it in a cool, dry
place. Heat can have an effect on food and moisture can cause the metal wire handle on the buckets to
rust. But other than that, the food will keep just fine.
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And Water
The other item that fits into the food category is water. The big problem with stockpiling water is that
we need so much of it and it takes up a lot of space. Many survival experts will tell you that you need
one gallon of water per person, per day to survive. But that’s just for drinking and cooking. When you
take into account bathing, cleaning and gardening, you’ll be doing good to get by on five gallons of
water per person, per day.
The first key here is water conservation. You can forget about using all your fancy appliances and you
need to reuse grey water as much as possible. Actually, I do my gardening with pretty much all grey
water, so as to conserve. In a post-EMP world, I hope we get plenty of rain to keep my garden growing.
Even at five gallons, that means a family of four needs something like 600 gallons of water per month.
Granted, that’s much less than the 200 gallons or so that the family currently uses per day, but still,
that’s a lot to store. It’s obviously impossible to store that in bottles or even gallons, although having
some in those forms can be a convenient part of your water stockpile.
For the large quantity of water needed, it’s best to use 55-gallon drums, 275-gallon IBCs (intermediate
bulk carriers), or my favorite stealth water tank, an above-ground swimming pool. Depending on the
diameter and depth, those can hold up to several thousand gallons of water, and do so in a way that the
neighbors won’t be any wiser as to what you’re doing.
Add eight drops of chlorine bleach (not the color-safe kind) per gallon of water to those containers, both
to purify the water and to keep microscopic pathogens from growing in it. For larger containers, there
are 20 drops in each milliliter, so 100 gallons of water needs 40 cc of bleach.
Stockpiling Other Supplies
While food and water are critical, they aren’t the only things you should stockpile, as they are not the
only things you need to have to survive. Since we’re working on the assumption that nothing will be
available, you’re going to need other supplies in your stockpile.
Obviously, some of these items, like the food above, will only be enough to get you through the first
year. Then you’ll have to come up with a way of harvesting those items from nature or making your
own. But there are other items that will not be replaceable once you use up what you’ve got. So it will
be important to make sure you have enough to last a while. After that, you’ll need some sort of
alternative to use.
Heating
Wood for fires
Fire starters and accelerants
Extra blankets
Bed warmer
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Water Purification
Some sort of water filtration system
Spare filters for the water filtration system
Bleach (for use as a purifier)
Food
Alternate means of cooking, such as a barbecue grille or camp stove
Fuel for cooking
Salt for preserving food
Canning jars, with lots of extra lids
Vinegar for pickling
Specialty items needed for food preparation, such as coffee filters
Plastic bags of all sizes
Pet food (if you have pets)
Baby food (if you have babies)
Aluminum foil
Seed
Gardening supplies
Fishing gear
Vitamins
Health & Medical
Trauma first-aid kit with replacement supplies
Over the counter medicines
Prescription medicines that family members need for chronic conditions
Antibiotics
Personal hygiene supplies
Soap, lots of soap
Lye, for making soap
Toilet paper
Feminine hygiene products
Lime, for using in an outhouse
Pest control
Cleaning supplies
Disinfectants
Personal protective equipment for chemical or biological hazards
Antibacterial hand cleaner
Self-Defense
Lots of extra ammunition
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Miscellaneous
Batteries, especially AA and AAA
Candles, oil lamps with oil
Wicking (to make candles and for oil lamps)
Repair parts for critical survival gear
Manual tools
Home repair materials
Tarps
Sewing supplies to repair clothing
Cloth diapers (if you have a baby)
Gasoline
Cash
Gold & silver
Please note that this list is not all-inclusive. There are many other things you might find to add to it.
That’s good. Figure out what you will need, not just what I say you need.
Scavenging
Some believers might look upon scavenging as treading on shaky ground, confusing it with looting. But
in reality, the two are quite different. Looting refers to stealing goods during a war or riot. In contrast to
that, scavenging is collecting anything useable from discarded items. With that definition, it can be fairly
argued that once someone dies, they no longer need the things they owned. In a post-EMP world,
there’s little to no chance that out-of-town relatives will be coming to look for those items, so
scavenging them is appropriate.
The other source that could be looked at for scavenging is abandoned businesses and warehouses.
Obviously if people still own those businesses, scavenging from them would be inappropriate. But like
the contents of their homes, if those people die, they no longer have need of anything in their business.
On the other hand, there may be things in that business property which will help members of the
community to survive or even rebuild.
Many warehouses in the US are metal buildings, which makes them perfect Faraday cages. The items
inside will most likely be insulated from the building itself by whatever packaging it is in. So electronics
that are stored in those warehouses will still be functional, once there is electric power to run them. The
problem will be to know what warehouses have useful things that can be used to rebuild.
In order to make best use of those things, it would be a good idea to seek out what businesses and
warehouses are in your area and make note of them for future reference. That will give you something
to work from in the post-EMP world.
The other problem will be physically getting into the buildings. Most commercial buildings and especially
warehouse are difficult to break into, especially without power tools to use. So it will be necessary to
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invest in having the right sorts of tools to use and possibly storing those in a Faraday cage to protect
them from becoming damaged by the EMP.
Bartering
Finally, bartering can be used as a means of exchange to get things that you don’t have. Of course, you’ll
probably be better off in that regard than most people, but there’s still a chance that some people in
your community will have things that you do not, possibly because they are business owners. In that
case, you should be ready to trade for them.
Money will become virtually worthless overnight. To start with, our money, including printed money, is
only valuable because of the shared belief that it is. Our money is no longer backed by gold, silver or
anything else of value. Worse than that, the physical money we do have only makes up about 11% of the
total money pool. The rest is nothing more than data on computers. When the computers stop working,
that 89% of the money pool will disappear.
Without the ability to use plastic forms of money and without the government standing behind
greenbacks, people will stop accepting it in trade. They will want something else of value in exchange for
whatever they have and value will be redefined to mean something that will help them survive.
During World War II, people in the occupied lands of Europe turned to barter for their black market in
food. Well off city dwellers would take trips to the country to visit “relatives” with their suitcases stuffed
full of silver and other valuables. The “relatives” they would visit were farmers, who would trade them
hams, sausage, cheese, and butter for those valuables. After the war, many of those farmers became
rich as they sold off those valuables.
This brings forth a very important point – that value is linked to need. While gold, silver, other precious
metals and gems may be considered valuable in these normal times, that value is largely based upon
their aesthetic value. But when people need food to eat, those items only retain their value for those
who have food. For everyone else, the value quickly fades.
However, even though the value fades, it will eventually come back; much quicker than the value of
currency. When people start accepting some form of “money” in exchange for goods and services once
again, it will most likely be in the form of silver or gold, not cash.
In the meantime, there’s bartering. Since long before any form of money existed, people traded goods
and services directly with one another. While that has its own problems, people see it as receiving
something that has intrinsic value. If they can’t use it themselves, they can trade it once again with
someone else for something they can use.
In order to take advantage of the possibilities of bartering, it’s a good idea to stockpile items specifically
for that purpose. Those items will largely be the same sorts of things you’re stockpiling for your own
family, as if they are useful for you, they’ll be useful for anyone else too, but they don’t have to be
limited to what you need. Some of the best barter goods are:
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Alcohol – stockpile it in small bottles, or have small bottles you can decant it into, making it
easier to have small “denominations” of that alcohol
Cigarettes – better to store tobacco and rolling papers, as cigarettes go stale
Coffee – probably the most common drug addiction there is.
Oddly enough, people will put these vices, and others, before necessities like food. In this, Maslow was
wrong in his hierarchy of needs. Time and time again, the sales of cigarettes and alcohol increase in the
midst of a disaster when people are desperate for food. People use these items, as well as drugs, to
escape their problems.
Of course, bartering means haggling back and forth to come up with a mutual agreement as to the value
of the items being traded. To make that easier, it’s best to have various things that you can trade, with a
wide variety in actual value. That way, if the deal isn’t quite good enough for the other party, you can
always throw in something that didn’t cost you much, but they will need, to “sweeten the deal.”
Take care in bartering, as making it known that you have things which people need can lead to people
showing up at your doorstep, either to beg for what you have or to attack you and take what you have.
Better to do your bartering away from home, in some public market, taking care to make sure that
nobody follows you home.
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Off-Grid Living
I mentioned earlier that while we don’t need electric power to survive, it sure makes things easier. But
with the electric power stations out of service and the substations destroyed, chances are pretty slim
that we’ll see the whole of the United States with power restored in our lifetime. Some local power may
become available, but even that would take a minor miracle.
But that’s not to say that you have to live without electricity. There’s always the possibility of generating
your own, something that people who go “off-grid” regularly do. Contrary to what some people might
think, going off-grid doesn’t mean living without electric power, although some take it to that extreme;
it means living without commercially generated electric power. There’s a huge difference between the
two of those.
Most preppers have some plans to generate their own electricity, even if it is only a couple of portable
solar panels. While that won’t be enough to run their homes off of, it will be enough to allow for some
things, such as charging small electronics and occasionally using small kitchen appliances.
That’s not really off-grid living, although it does illustrate one point about living off-grid. That is, that an
important element of living off-grid is finding ways of using less electricity to get things done. With
limited electrical power production capacity, one has to prioritize what they use their electricity for and
find better ways to save the power they have.
One way of doing this is to use 12-volt DC-powered items rather than those that require 120 volts AC.
Off-grid systems produce and store power in 12 volts DC. Having to boost it up to 120 volts AC through
an inverter requires the use of a huge amount of power, especially when you consider that many of
those things can be done with 12-volt versions of the same tool, device or appliance.
So part of going off-grid is finding the necessary 12-volt devices to use in place of those which currently
plug into your home’s electrical outlets. Fortunately, recreational vehicles also use those 12-volt devices,
so that’s a good starting point. They’re more expensive than what we’re used to buying, but they work.
Why Off-grid Living Is So Important to Long-term Survival
One of the big differences between short-term survival and long-term survival is the need to produce
your own food. That becomes the number one use of pretty much everyone’s time. But with so much
time involved in food production, it makes it difficult to do things that will make your life better and
hopefully help to restore a pre-EMP lifestyle, at least to some extent.
That means finding more efficient ways of doing things, so that those tasks don’t take up as much time.
Grinding grain by hand is an arduous, time-consuming task, but grinding it in an electric grinder takes
mere minutes. That frees up time for other necessary tasks.
The same can be said for pretty much any other such task you can imagine; drilling holes, cutting boards,
making batter for bread and pumping water from your well. Being able to electrify your long-term
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survival will not only make things easier for you, freeing up time for other tasks, but through that it will
increase your family’s chances of survival.
So, Just How Do We Go About That?
There are a number of different ways of producing electricity, but most people limit themselves to using
either solar or wind power. Not only are those the easiest to do, they are also less expensive than the
other options out there. That’s not to say that they are cheap because they are not, but they are
cheaper than building a hydroelectric or geothermal power plant.
The big question most people have is which of these two options is better. There’s actually no clear-cut
answer for that, as it varies from place to place. If you happen to live in Arizona, then solar power is
probably the way to go while it wouldn’t be in rainy Washington State. Wind power, on the other hand,
requires consistent wind speeds of more than 10 MPH, so it won’t work in places where there is little
wind.
Since neither wind nor solar power works all the time, your best bet is to use a combination of the two.
That will help ensure that you are producing at least some electricity, pretty much all the time. Of
course, that assumes that both means of generating power will work where you live.
Cost-wise, wind power and solar power have finally become comparable. You can buy a 1,000-watt wind
turbine for about $1,000. But from there on up, the prices tend to go up disproportionately. By
comparison, solar power is currently running at about the same price per watt, as the popularity of solar
panels has caused the cost of them to come down.
Keep in mind that 1,000 watts of power probably isn’t going to be enough to run more than minimal
electronics. I looked into powering my entire home with solar power a few years back, and was quoted
$60,000 for the installation. Living in the south, I use a lot of power for electricity; but even so, that’s a
huge investment.
More important than the solar panels and wind turbines is a battery backup system to store the power
that is being produced. Chances are pretty high that your times of high power consumption won’t be the
same times as your high power production. Storing the power you are producing allows you to
disconnect the two, maximizing the usable power you have.
A battery backup system consists of three components:
A solar charge controller – essentially a battery charger designed to accept a 12 to 24-volt input
and charge 12-volt batteries
Batteries (more than one) – typically deep cycle lead-acid batteries (otherwise known as boat
and RV batteries) are used, rather than the more expensive lithium-ion batteries in the Tesla
wall. Deep cycle batteries are necessary, as drawing down the power contained in a battery
below the 50% point will damage the battery. The more batteries in the system, the better.
A voltage inverter – to boost the 12-volt DC power stored in the batteries up to 120 volts AC, for
those applications that need 120 volts AC. When buying a voltage inverter, look at the normal
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running power, not the peak power. If you run it for more than five minutes at peak power, you
can damage it.
The three items are connected in parallel, with the power from the solar panels and wind turbine
feeding into the solar charge controller. That, in turn, connects to the batteries and the voltage inverter
draws power off the batteries. Batteries can be both charged and discharged at the same time.
Boosting 12 volts DC up to 120 volts AC requires drawing ten times the current from the batteries. In
other words, if you have a device that draws seven amps of power at 120 volts AC, say, your
refrigerator, the voltage inverter will have to draw 70 amps of 12-volt power out of the batteries to
provide what that device needs. So, if you only have one 100 amp-hour battery, you’re going to be able
to power it for about 1.5 hours before the battery is dead. Hence, the need for multiple batteries.
At the same time, that 70 amps of power needs to come from the solar panels or wind turbines. It will
require 8,400 watts of power generation per hour to keep those batteries charged, assuming that the
device runs continually. That’s a lot of solar panels.
Building Your Own Off-Grid System
While buying the components for an off-grid power system is expensive, there are ways of saving
money. I have a lot of used batteries, some of them automotive batteries and some from medical
equipment. Those sit beside some new deep-cycle lead-acid batteries, working just fine alongside them.
I have also built my own solar panels and wind turbine, saving about half the cost of buying in both
cases. Neither is very hard to build, although care must be taken, especially with the solar cells, which
are extremely fragile. But if you have average skills as a do-it-yourselfer, you can build either one.
Building Solar Panels
To build your own solar panels, you start with solar cells. I’ve found that the cheapest way to buy them
is to look for chipped ones on eBay. The chips reduce the power output slightly, but save a lot of money.
Each solar cell puts out 0.5 volts DC. Thirty-six of them need to be connected together in series, by
soldering wires to them, making them into strings. That gives you 18 volts; enough to charge the
batteries, even when it is slightly overcast and the panels aren’t operating at full capacity.
The strings of solar cells are mounted together on a backing board of some sort, turning them into one
long string. Typically, four strings of nine cells are mounted together, making a total of 36 cells in the
panel. The panel is then framed in and a glass front is placed on it, sealing it all together to keep
moisture out.
While the solar cells in the panels are wired together in series, the completed panels are connected
together in parallel for connection to the solar charge controller.
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Building Wind Turbines
A wind turbine is even easier to build than solar panels. The power generating part is a DC electric
motor. Some people talk about using a car alternator for this, but you’re better off buying a used DC
motor that runs at a lower speed. Alternators need to be running at over 1,000 RPM to produce 12 volts,
whereas a 48-volt DC motor only needs to be running at 250 RPM to give you the same 12 volts. Again,
eBay is a great source.
The motor will need three blades attached to it. Three gives the maximum efficiency. While an actual
airfoil shaped blade is the best, you can make a fairly good blade by splitting a 6” diameter PVC pipe into
three sections, then tapering each to make a blade out of it. Attach these equidistantly around a hub,
which will in turn need to attach to the motor’s shaft.
The only other thing that’s needed is a tail to point the blades into the wind and a bearing to allow the
turbine to turn freely. Mount it as high as reasonably possible, above the height of nearby trees and
buildings, so that it can get the most uninterrupted wind.
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Time to Rebuild
At some point in time, it will be necessary to rebuild from the damage the EMP has caused, at least to
the extent that it is possible. It’s hard to say just how long it will take to return what’s left of the United
States back to its pre-EMP level, as the amount of loss will be so great as to be incalculable. It’s also
impossible to say whether the United States will ever exist as a nation once again. Enemy nations could
see the destruction of our country as an opportunity to invade and take over.
While I’m sure that invasion will seem attractive to some of our enemies, they’ll have to take into
consideration the high cost of rebuilding what they conquer. The wealth of the United States will be
gone and anyone conquering what’s left would be faced with trying to make what’s left usable.
But assuming we are left alone by the rest of the world, it will be up to those of us who survive to at
least start the process of rebuilding our country. Perhaps we will receive some humanitarian aid from
overseas, but it won’t be enough, no matter how much they send. What aid does make it here will be
consumed by the coastal cities, without any of it reaching inland.
It is this lack of aid that will ultimately motivate us to rebuild society. None of us wants to pass on a
world of sustenance level survival to our children. So even though we probably won’t be able to restore
life to what we knew before; we will be motivated to find ways of generating power, restoring as much
of our infrastructure as we can, re-establishing government and making life more comfortable.
Whatever form rebuilding takes, it will be the work of years, quite possibly lasting into the next
generation. But it has to start somewhere. That somewhere is with us, those who are prepared and
survive. We will need to find ways of restoring the life we once knew, bit by bit.
Hopefully there will be some point we will reach, where outside help can really make a difference. But I
suspect that won’t really happen until we have a government and an economy back in place. At that
point we will be able to start exporting products once again, even if they are rather primitive by today’s
standards. Then with the money earned from doing that, we’ll be able to buy the technology that we’ve
lost.
Who Is Going to Do This Rebuilding?
If you think the job of rebuilding is going to fall to others, you’re wrong. If the federal government exists
at all, they’ll probably be mostly concerned with self-preservation. I mean that both on a personal level,
as the politicians and bureaucrats try to survive, and on a national level, as they will be trying to deal
with other countries and prevent an invasion.
But if there is one thing we can be sure of from the federal government, it is that they will put
themselves before us, in the sense that they won’t be sending resources to us, but rather taxing us in
the form of taking resources from us. It will be quite some time before the government is giving any
handouts, and those will probably go to the major population centers.
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Rather, rebuilding will be a grass-roots movement, starting at the local level. From there it may reach
upwards, restoring infrastructure and government at the state level and then connecting to whatever is
left of the federal government. But it clearly has to start out locally.
There are three basic parts to this rebuilding process at the local level:
Establishing commerce – People starting cottage industries and selling their products to others
in the community. It is commerce and trade that brings about the need for travel, trading
products and bringing communities together.
Rebuilding infrastructure – While we can’t be responsible for the entire infrastructure at the
local level, there will be a need to get the basics of electric power generation, other energy
sources, water treatment and sewage in place. From there, larger infrastructure projects can be
undertaken together with other municipalities.
Reinstituting local government – Local government is critical for rebuilding the infrastructure,
providing basic security and developing relationships with other communities. It might look
quite different than what we know today, stripping away less critical functions, to focus on the
basic needs.
More than anything, accomplishing any of this is going to require having people who know how to do
those things. Engineers, technicians of all types and backyard mechanics are all going to be very valuable
in recreating any form of society.
What’s It Going to Take?
Before any rebuilding can take place, people’s basic needs will need to be met. That means food, water
and heating for their homes, more than anything else. To even accomplish that is going to require
people working together. As long as we’re each fixed on just meeting our own needs, our time will be
fully consumed in doing just that. It’s going to require people taking an interest in their neighbors’
needs, reaching out to them and bringing neighborhoods together in a joint effort at growing food to
start us breaking out of survival mode.
This is one place where we, as prepared believers, can make a huge difference. A core part of Jesus’s
teaching was our responsibility towards others. While that is usually understood to be in reference to
the poor, we will be living in a time when everyone is poor. So, anything we do to reach out to others
and help them, will be meeting that biblical admonition.
In a practical sense, this means you helping them, either by feeding them or by helping them grow their
own food. I have several hundred pounds of rice and beans in my stockpile, which are earmarked just
for this purpose. It’s not as good a diet as what I have for my own family, but it will keep them alive.
I also have a considerable stockpile of seed and other gardening supplies, so that I can help my
neighbors start their own gardening efforts. While I can’t meet the needs of our entire community, I can
at least help my neighbors. Hopefully there will be others who can help their neighborhoods as well. But
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even if not, I’m hoping that as I help my neighbors, we’ll be able to expand our network outwards,
bringing more and more people into the fold and starting to rebuild the community.
While it is not my motivation for doing this, it seems to me that being the person or family who is
helping others to survive provides a strong incentive for others to look up to you as a leader in the
community. I feel this is important, as we need God’s help to survive and rebuild. Being in leadership
allows us the opportunity to bring Christ’s influence to the community, and motivates others to hear
what we have to say.
Where to Find the Resources
Obviously I don’t have enough resources in my stockpile to meet everyone’s needs. I really can’t provide
food for my neighbors for a year. All I can do is help them get started and organize a handful of families
to work together. But at least that’s a starting point.
Earlier in this book, I talked about scavenging. In that discussion, I mentioned the need to find out what
warehouses are in the community and what’s in them. That wasn’t so much for meeting your own
personal needs as it was for meeting the community’s needs. In all likelihood, there will be little in those
warehouses that will help you survive. But on the other hand, there will probably be a lot in them that
can help the community rebuild.
Keep in mind that you need the community to rebuild, so even if you’re not so keen on helping them,
it’s to your own benefit. More than that, it’s to your children’s benefit. Rebuilding will give them a better
future than what they will have otherwise.
The things you’re going to be looking for are things which will help restore infrastructure, more than
anything else. But at the same time, you’ll want to be keeping your eyes open for anything which will
help someone to start a cottage industry, helping to reestablish commerce. Maybe you won’t be able to
do all those cottage industries yourself or even manage them yourself, but helping others establish
them will help your community return to some semblance of normal.
Don’t forget vacant buildings, as they are useful resources too. Some of those cottage industries may
require more space than people have in their homes. That’s okay; because any community has vacant
buildings sitting around, which can be adapted to that purpose.
The real problem with those buildings is finding out who owns them. That might not be much of an issue
a year down the road, when a large number of people have died. But during the early days of the crisis it
will matter, as the owners will most likely be alive.
That problem can probably be solved by making the owners part of whatever business is being
established in the building. Perhaps they have skills which will make that easy. At a minimum, they
should have some business management skills, which could be put to work in helping make that
business a success, not only for those working in it, but for the community.
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Keep in mind that we’re talking about totally different businesses than what we know today. I’m not
talking about opening up stores as much as opening up workshops. If we’re going to have electrical
power, we’re going to need to build the generators to make that power. We’ll also need businesses that
can make things for everyday use, just as the village blacksmith and tinsmith did back in our colonial
past.
There may even be people in the community who know something about how these craftsmen did their
jobs. Ask around amongst the do-it-yourselfers in the community to find out who knows how to do
what. That information might be invaluable in the process of rebuilding.
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Let’s Wrap This Up
It’s really hard to quantify how much of a risk there is of our country being attacked by EMP. Even so, it
is one of the biggest risks we currently face. There are several bad actors on the international stage
which either already have the capability or are working on developing it. Many of these have already
expressed their desire to use that capability against the United States.
Should that happen, our electric power grid would be decimated, and most of our electronics destroyed.
We would be faced with living in a world without electricity or any other form of power. Survival would
become an all-encompassing task, as we tried to get through the aftermath.
As believers, we have God to lean on, during that time. Our faith in Him will have to see us through. But
our faith will have to be coupled with practical measures, both in preparing for the coming attack and in
what we do after the attack happens. That will be a time when it will be necessary to consider not only
our own needs, but that of our neighbors as well.
It will be a time for believers to shine, as best we can. Those around us are going to need our faith and
our practical survival ability. In providing this, we will have an excellent opportunity to influence not only
their lives, but the society that emerges from that disaster. Perhaps it will ultimately bring about
blessing, in turning our country back to God. But that can only happen if we are prepared and take
action to help others.
The first step in this is preparing, so that we and our families might survive. While faith in our God is an
important part of our survival, that faith has to be coupled with the practicality of building a stockpile of
food. The events of the last years should serve as a wake-up call to the believer, telling us that we need
to be prepared. And if there’s anything we should be prepared for, it’s an EMP.