- 1 -

- 2 -

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 -

- 3 -

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 -

- 4 -

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

- 5 -

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

- 6 -

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

- 7 -

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

- 8 -

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.

- 9 -

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.

- 10 -

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

- 11 -

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.

- 12 -

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

- 13 -

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.

- 14 -

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.

- 15 -

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:

- 16 -

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.

- 17 -

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.

- 18 -

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.

- 19 -

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

- 20 -

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.

- 21 -

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.

- 22 -

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.

- 23 -

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.

- 24 -

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

- 25 -

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.

- 26 -

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

- 27 -

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.

- 28 -

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.

- 29 -

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.

- 30 -

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,

- 31 -

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.

- 32 -

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.

- 33 -

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

- 34 -

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

- 35 -

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?

- 36 -

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

- 37 -

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.

- 38 -

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

- 39 -

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

- 40 -

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

- 41 -

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:

- 42 -

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.

- 43 -

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

- 44 -

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

- 45 -

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.

- 46 -

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.

- 47 -

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.

- 48 -

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

- 49 -

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.

- 50 -

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.

- 51 -

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.