• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

• Pre-1965 silver dimes

• One-gallon cans of kerosene

• Rolls of olive-drab parachute cord

• Rolls of olive-drab duct tape

• Spools of monofilament fishing line

• Rolls of ten-mil Visqueen (or similar) sheet plastic for replacing windows, isolating air spaces for nuke scenarios, etc.

• Strike-anywhere matches. Dip the heads in paraffin to make them waterproof.

• Playing cards

• Cooking spices. Do a Web search for reasonably priced bulk spices.

• Rope and string

• Sewing supplies

• Candle wax and wicking

• Lastly, any supplies necessary for operating a home-based business. Some that you might consider are leather crafting, small-appliance repair, gun repair, locksmithing, etc. Every family should have at least one home-based business (preferably two) that they can depend on in the event of an economic collapse.

• Stock up on additional items to dispense to refugees as charity.

As time goes on you’ll have the opportunity to expand and refine your lists. But don’t get too caught up in just the planning. There is the risk of planning endlessly and accomplishing nothing.

3

THE SURVIVAL RETREAT

Your First Big Decision: A Demographic Dilemma

Probably the most important decision you’ll make in your preparations for a crisis is the location of your retreat. The best choice is a dedicated safe haven—a family survival retreat. A retreat is not just “a cabin in the mountains.” Rather, it is a well-prepared and defensible redoubt with well-planned logistics. A proper survival retreat is in effect a modern-day castle able to provide for its inhabitants and protect them from any outside danger. You will have to weigh your options carefully as you decide whether to try to establish your retreat in your current home or whether you should consider relocating. I realize this may sound extreme, but my goal in this book is to provide you and your family the best chance for survival should the worst happen.

Ideally, a survival retreat is located in a region with most or all of the following characteristics:

• A long growing season

• Geographic isolation from major population centers

• Sufficient year-round precipitation and surface water

• Rich topsoil

• A diverse economy and agriculture

• Away from interstate freeways and other channelized areas

• Low taxes

• Nonintrusive scale of government

• Favorable zoning and inexpensive building permits

• Minimal gun laws

• No major earthquake, hurricane, or tornado risks

• No flooding risk

• No tidal-wave risk (at least two hundred feet above sea level)

• Minimal forest-fire risk

• A lifestyle geared toward self-sufficiency

• Plentiful local sources of wood or coal

• No restrictions on keeping livestock

• Defendable terrain

• Not near a prison or large mental institution

• Inexpensive insurance rates (home, auto, health)

• Upwind from major nuclear-weapons targets

This list should help you to narrow your search for potential retreat regions. You should also keep in mind that in troubled times fewer people means fewer problems. In the event of a social upheaval, rioting, urban looting, etc., being west of the Missouri River will mean a statistically much lower chance of coming face-to-face with lawless rioters or looters WTSHTF. Look at a population-density of map of the United States, or the “Satellite Photo of Earth at Night” images available on the Internet (snipurl.com/hokhx). The difference in population density in the western United States is immediately apparent.

Americans live in a highly urbanized society. Roughly 90 percent of the population is crammed into 5 percent of the land area. And most of that is within sixty miles of the coastlines. But there are large patches of the West with population densities of less than ten people per square mile—particularly in the Great Basin region that extends from the eastern slope of the Sierra Nevada mountains to Utah and Eastern Oregon. The average population density in this region is less than two people per square mile.