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One compromise approach is to leave your retreat house unoccupied and rent a commercial storage space in the town nearest your retreat. This constitutes pitiful operational security (OPSEC), but it is better than leaving valuable gear unattended and vulnerable to burglary. This approach also makes it difficult to practice using your gear, or to rotate your storage food or establish a garden and livestock between now and TEOTWAWKI, but it might be the best option for many of you.

G.O.O.D. Backpack

Put together a Get Out of Dodge backpack. This is especially important if you don’t live year-round at your retreat. The pack is intended only for a very short period—to get you to your retreat—in the event that for whatever reason a vehicle is not available. You should dread ever having to use that pack when you are overrun and forced to abandon a well-stocked retreat and taking off on foot to fend for yourself.

Recommended G.O.O.D. Backpack Contents

Tailor this list to meet your personal and regional requirements. Obviously, if you live in Florida, your list will be much different than if you live in Maine.

• Sleeping bag

• Jacket

• Gloves

• Boots

• Poncho

• Small tarp (six feet by eight feet)

• Financial and personal papers

• Cash and a roll of quarters for making phone calls

• Road maps

• First-aid kit

• Insect repellent

• Fire-starting kit

• Leatherman-type multipurpose tool with knife and pliers

• Utility knife

• Ten to fifteen MRE entrées

• Extra socks and underwear

• Two canteens or a CamelBak hydration pack

• Broad-brim hat

• LED flashlight with extra lithium batteries

• Firearms or other weapons (depending on your local laws)

• Cell phone

• GPS

• Brunton SolarPort (www.brunton.com/product.php?id=280) or similar compact photovoltaic-panel charger, with cabling and/or battery trays for all of your electronic gear

Add-on Kits:

• Note: These are usually too heavy or bulky to carry in your backpack, but can be carried in your vehicle. Store these in plastic tote bins to keep everything together and handy to load quickly.

Camp-Kitchen Kit:

• Stainless steel eating utensils

• Reusable plastic plates

• Cups and bowls

• Small grill to place over rocks

• Coffee pot

• Several large serving spoons

• Spatulas

• Kitchen knives

• Roll of heavy-duty aluminum foil

• Plastic wrap

• Half-gallon Ziploc bags

• Box of strike-anywhere matches

• Long neck lighter

• Bar soap

• Small bottle of dish soap

• Washcloth

• Hand towel

• Steel wool and scrub pads

• Paper towels

• Coffee filters

• Paper plates

• Dutch oven with lid and a lid-lifting handle

• Cast-iron skillet

• Salt, pepper, and other spices

Field Food Kit

• A tote bin (or bins) filled with camping foods. These can be the usual soup, chili, canned meats, rice, beans, noodles, MREs, and freeze-dried food.

• PowerBars, Gatorade, and whatever else you prefer for quick field meals

Shelter and Camp Kit

• In a waterproof white-water-rafting bag:

~ full-size camping tent

~ all of the tent’s poles and stakes

~ rope

~ cloth ground tarp

~ two or three tarps of various sizes

• Extra rope

• Sewing kit

• Collapsing four-gallon water container

• Entrenching tool

• Miner’s (short-handle) axe

4

WATER The Key Resource

Water is the key resource for family-preparedness planning. Plentiful fresh water for drinking, cooking, washing, and gardening is the most critical resource for all societies. You can improvise a lot of things, but you can’t improvise water. (Well, actually, you can now buy a machine that will suck water out of the atmosphere, but it’s an expensive, high-maintenance power hog.)

The vast majority of the residents of First World countries are dependent on grid power to supply their water. When the grid goes down for more than a few days, water towers