Monthly Archives: November 2013

50 Last Minute Ways to Prepare for an Emergency

This article was written by Jodi and Julie of Food Storage Made Easy fame. It was one of their most popular articles this year. You can listen to Jodi and Julie every other Thursday on The Survival Mom Radio Network.

When disaster is “about” to strike, you may have a couple of days, hours or minutes to prepare. When the disaster is like that of Hurricane Sandy, people had a few days to “prepare” for it. Although we teach to be prepared far before a few days ahead of time, we had some great suggestions from our readers of things you could do “relatively” last minute.

Follow our FREE checklists to be prepared long before the storm hits next time. Whether that storm be a natural disaster, economic crisis, or just a personal disaster.

  1. Fill your gas tank.
  2. Have a 72 hour kit for every person in your family.
  3. You should have cash in your 72 hour kits because if electricity is out bank ATM’s won’t work.
  4. Turn your fridge and freezer to a colder setting & if you lose power keep the doors closed as much as possible.
  5. If you have extra space in your freezer, take containers or zip-loc bags full of water and fill in the extra space.
  6. Charge all your electronic devices and keep them charged just in case you lose power.
  7. Keep a list of emergency numbers handy, along with family members’ phone numbers. Write them down if you only have them stored in your phone.
  8. Have an emergency escape plan from your home and make sure all family members know it and know where to meet.
  9. Clean out your gutters before the storm comes and make sure that the storm drains on your street are clear from all the fall foliage.
  10. Check your sump pumps.
  11. Be ready to help your neighbors.
  12. Get batteries.
  13. Get a radio so you know what’s going on.
  14. Board up your windows. Stay away from windows.
  15. Have everyone one sleep in the same room so you can keep tabs on them.
  16. Make a few meals and snacks that will last without power.
  17. Make sure to have a non-electric can opener.
  18. Have lots of non-perishables on hand.
  19. Have enough food and litter for your pets.
  20. Have an emergency binder with all important paperwork ready to go.
  21. Have your prescriptions filled.
  22. If you have a gas grill, make sure you have a full tank of propane.
  23. Do your laundry now, so you have clothes that are dry and clean.
  24. Make sure you have a car charger for your cell phone.
  25. If you have a fireplace that you can use to cook in, have a supply of wood.
  26. Check with your elderly and family to make sure they are prepared or invite them over.
  27. Find your glasses so you don’t have to deal with contacts in an emergency.
  28. You can use your water heater for extra water too. Just shut off the intake valve so that you aren’t bringing in contaminated water and use the spigot in the front to dispense water.
  29. Fill up some quart and gallon bags with water and freeze them, you can use them for ice or in the cooler if needed.
  30. Keep items you don’t want damaged by water in the dishwasher as it is waterproof.
  31. Have glow sticks on hand for little ones, especially at bedtime.
  32. 32. Consider filling large containers (the big 40-gal Rubbermaid totes) from the tub spigot, and storing them in the tub. COVER all bins/tubs of water to keep kids and pets safe.
  33. Get hand sanitizer and wet wipes to wash with.
  34. Improvise an emergency toilet with a bucket lined with a bin bag and some sawdust or cat litter to cover the contents after each use.
  35. Be careful of carbon monoxide when using gas heaters/stoves or candles.
  36. Take pictures of every room and closet in your house – it makes a huge difference if you have to deal with insurance companies.
  37. Have a rain barrel to collect water you can use to flush toilets.
  38. Get solar outdoor lights, you can use olive oil in jars with wicks as well.
  39. Pick up a solar phone charger then you will still have power for your cell phone.
  40. If you have a good old fashioned plug in land line phone and socket this will serve you better than a cell phone.
  41. Refill dish soap/laundry soap/ hand soap bottles back up slowly with water, you then have a easy bottles filled for light cleaning, and easy rinsing.
  42. If you have to use a gas-powered generator, make sure to have a little extra fuel on hand; just be very careful where you put it, and be mindful of your local laws on how much you can have on hand at one time.
  43. Don’t forget to pay attention to fire prevention measures. Have your extinguisher handy.
  44. A chainsaw is good for clearing fallen trees. Only use one if you have prior experience. The aftermath of a storm is not the time to be learning how to use it.
  45. Anyone with an oxygen tank – make certain you have 1) a travel tank, 2) a generator or means to operate your home device, 3) that you have notified health officials of your scheduled location during and after the hurricane.
  46. Have books and other non electric entertainment like board games ready for everyone (and flashlights or lanterns for when it gets dark).
  47. Have canning lids on hand so you can, can the meat if freezer defrosts. Use either the wood/coal stove or a gas range. Have the jars sterilized in the dishwasher ready.
  48. Use silicon caulking to seal a stopper in the bathtub before filling it. LOCK the door as a safety measure for kids that may climb in.
  49. Prepare an evacuation list of things you would need to grab in case you need to evacuate.
  50. Turn OFF the TV! If you want to keep updated check for updates then turn it OFF. The constant hype will stress you and your children out.

 

Start now to make sure you are staying prepared.

 

Via: thesurvivalmom

SIMPLE.. CHEAP.. USER FRIENDLY.. MULTI PURPOSE AND NEARLY DISPOSIABLE… TOOLS.

A simple review of a ‘tool’ most of us have seen and too few of us own.


You all know the tool I’m ‘talking’ about. Gawd bless the Chi-Coms for first marketing this lil gem to the American public. The first models had hardwood handles made of the same downed lumber they use on every Chi-Com AK and SKS Air Rifle they import to us all. This “Universal Survival Tool” is ‘cludge’ low tech with a poor finish that is just what one would expect on a Chi-Com field grade ‘issue’ tool.

The quality of steel is rather good considering the overall ‘grade’ this tool earns. I own an unknown number of these now that WWW.MAJORSURPLUS.COM has them on a BOGOesque sale for (2) two for $9.9ish. Major Surplus & Survival has the best deal I’ve found on these at the moment. Even Amazon.com is billing them at $9.9ish…. EACH.  I leave one in the trunk of each car, under the seat of my olde rusty pick up, on the potting bench rack, in my house tool bag, in the garage, and there is one sitting in the wire mesh rack in the mud room along with the duct tape, work gloves, bug sprays, 9volt flash lights and canned cat food.

I used to find these in the ‘please take em’ piles at the gun shows. MS&S used to give em away with purchase. These lil chunks o iron are one of those things that are simply…. Handy. My crew took these with them to the post Katrina Gulf Coast as University Of Toledo volunteer belt tools.

My fellow ‘Preppers’, do consider one of these ‘simple tools’ in your preps. At the current ‘BOGO’ price at MS&S of $9.9ish…. These puppies are hard to sharpen which speaks well, in a manner, for the hardness of the steel used and its ability to hold a working edge once you put one on em.

 

Start now to make sure you are staying prepared.

 

Via: thesurvivalistblog

Happy Thanksgiving!

Wishing all of you a very Happy Thanksgiving!

I am thankful for my great family and this website.

 

Start now to make sure you are staying prepared.

Poor man’s fruit cake

Combine in sauce pan… 2 cups of raisins, 2 cups hot water and 3/4 cup lard. Coo for five minutes, boil rapidly, but don’t let it burn. Set aside.

Sift together 3 1/2 cups flour with 2 teaspoons soda, 2 teaspoons cinnamon, 1 teaspoon nutmeg, 1/2 teaspoon cloves. Add to first mixture, now cooled. Stir in 1 jar assorted fruits. 1 cup nuts may be added if desired.

Turn into a greased and floured loaf pan and bake for 2 hours at 277 degrees. (Set the typical oven to 350 and if you continuously monitor it, you’ll see it slowly move up and down between about 340 and 360.)

 

Start now to make sure you are staying prepared.

 

Via: From Old Timey Recipes

Black Friday Deals – 2013

I wanted to scour the internet sites and post up a bunch of deals for Black Friday. This year, it looks like Soldier Systems has done some of the hard work for me, with a list of deals from tactical websites.

Here’s the linky: http://soldiersystems.net/tactical-black-friday-2014/

Of note, Grey Ghost Gear is having a 35% off sale – site wide – through tomorrow. Their stuff is already very affordable…35% off is a killer deal. If you’re looking for a pack or nylon gear, check ’em out.

LA Police Gear is having a pre-Black Friday sale with 11% off. Last year, they had some killer countdown deals that I’m still kicking myself for not jumping all over.

Palmetto State Armory is having some “Pre-Black Friday” sales and will certainly have some good deals on BF itself. They’ve currently got a couple nice AR uppers for $400, BCG and free float rails included…hard to beat that kind of price.

Dave Canterbury’s Pathfinder School Store is offering free shipping when you spend over $75. Through Cyber Monday.

 

Start now to make sure you are staying prepared.

Homemade 100% Whole Wheat Dinner Rolls

This recipe comes courtesy of Charley Cooke, host of Cooke’s Frontier where she shares a delicious new recipe each week. She posts delicious recipes on her blog, Cooke’s Frontier.


Tall, fluffy and light- not usually words you associate with whole wheat right? Well, these rolls are all of those things and more! They are made with 100% whole wheat; get a little sweetness from honey and richness from eggs and milk. All in all, the perfect roll.

To start making these, I milled some white wheat berries in my grain mill and creamed some milk. Such a hard life I live with all of this good food around me! I looked the recipe over and although it originally called for being made in a stand mixer, I decided to try it out in my bread machine. Success!! My Kitchen Aid is on the fritz so being able to make these in the bread machine was an especially good thing.

I found the recipe on An Oregon Cottage and it’s a keeper. I can’t wait to serve these up with our tomato soup tonight! My family loves them and I am confident that you family will too.

100% Whole Wheat Dinner Rolls

  • 2 Tablespoons yeast
  • 1/2 cup warm water
  • 1/2 cup butter, softened
  • 1/4 cup honey
  • 3 eggs
  • 1 cup milk or buttermilk
  • 4 1/2 to 5 cups whole wheat flour (hard white wheat or hard red wheat both work great)
  • 1 1/2 teaspoon salt

In the bowl of your bread machine, add the water, yeast and honey. Let it bubble up and get foamy. Add in the milk, eggs and butter. Put the 4 1/2 cups of flour and salt on top of that and turn it onto the “dough” setting.


 

Keep an eye on the dough while it mixes, this will be softer dough. You should be able to touch it and not have it stick to your finger, but feel tacky. Add in a little more flour if your dough it too soft and just a sticky blob. It will form a ball when it’s just right.

 

Let the bread machine do the work of mixing and rising.

Grease a 9×13 inch pan and lightly dust your counter with flour. Plop the dough onto the floured counter and pat it out into a rectangle. Cut the dough into 24 even pieces and shape into a ball. I like to place the dough on the counter, cup my hand over the top and roll it in small, quick circles until it makes a smooth ball.

 

Place the roll into the pan 4 across and 6 down until you have a pan filled with rolls. Cover with a towel and let rise for 1 hour. Heat the oven to 350 degrees and bake the rolls for 20-25 minutes, or until nicely golden and make a hollow sound when tapped. Remove from the oven and butter those tops! Let cool and enjoy.

 

Start now to make sure you are staying prepared.

 

Via: thesurvivalmom

Emergency Preparedness for Everybody

Power outages happen at the damnedest times.  They never seem to happen when you’re carrying your bug-out bag or when you’ve got a flashlight in your hand.  And water outages don’t happen when your rain barrel is full or you’ve just topped off your 50 gallon water supply in the basement.

These things always seem to happen when you’re sitting on the toilet in the early evening and your flashlight is on the other side of the house when everything is plunged into darkness.  The water stops flowing when all you have is five gallons left over – if that – from the last storm that came through a year ago.

Imagine if the power went out right now – boom, it’s gone.  You’re sitting in the dark, or maybe having a cup of coffee at the breakfast table, or possibly getting a little SHTFblog reading in on the sly at work.  It’s out.  The backup generator didn’t kick in and there is no electricity feeding your gizmos.  No lights, no running water, no electric stove.  Nothing.

Take Inventory

Stop right now and take inventory of where you are and what resources you have available.  Emergencies don’t wait for you to get ready folks, they happen when they happen.

For me – as I write this – it’s early morning on a Saturday in November with an outside temperature right now of about 34 degrees. I’ve got a generator twenty feet away, a few different water filters I could use for several thousand gallons of water if necessary, and a couple of kerosene heaters to heat the house on a limited basis for awhile.  At this exact moment I could go a few days with only minor discomfort and hopefully the electric company would have the power back on by that time.

But there are way more people out there not ready.  Let’s face it folks, most of us today aren’t equipped to go long periods of time without electricity.  It’s the lifeblood of our electronic civilization and many people would not be able to cope with an extended power outage.

If you saw the NatGeo movie “American Blackout” you’ll begin to get an understanding of just how dangerous it can be.

So the emergency/power outage has started and you’ve taken stock of what resources you have on hand.  If you’re home I hope you’re in pretty good shape.  Flashlights, candles, food and water, a way to stay warm, etc.  If you’re out and about you might not have quite as much with you.  I usually carry a small light and a multi-tool or pocket knife with me, so I can at least see if I’m in a dark office or other space without light.  I also always have a bug-out or Get Home Bag (GHB) in the vehicle, so if push came to shove I still have a day or two worth of food and water.

Make a Plan

Have a plan laid out for what to do when TSHTF.  This could be anything from a big old snowstorm to a societal collapse.  If you have the thinking done ahead of time you’re going to be much better off than trying to come up with something on the spot.

Your plan will almost certainly change, but it’s better to make small adjustments to a plan than to try and come up with something in the middle of an emergency.

The only piece of advice I’ll give with your plan is to make it as simple as possible.  If it’s too complicated your kids and even the adults might forget some of it during the heat of the moment.

Execute the Plan

Once an emergency begins and you sense there’s danger go ahead and execute the plan.  Maybe your first step is to establish communication with your family members, or maybe you have a prearranged meeting spot if communications are down.

The worst that can happen is you get to practice your plan, which is a good idea anyway.

Have a Rally Point

A friend of mine was at the Boston Marathon during the bombing.  He was in town and his wife was running the race when the bomb went off.  When he tried to call her on his cell phone he couldn’t get through.  He said, “Jarhead, if there was one thing I wished we’d done it would have been to set up an emergency rally point.”  He finally caught up with her hours later, but if it had been an extended emergency it could have been real trouble for them.

Rally points are simply a place where you meet up if there’s an emergency, or in some case even if you get separated.  If I’m at a big outdoor event with my family and we’re going separate ways I’ll always say something like, “Ok, let’s meet at the hot dog stand by the entrance at 2:00 pm.”  That way if we can’t find each other we’re not wandering around like a bunch of zombies looking for each other.

Basic Preps

At a minimum have enough food and water on hand for three days, at a minimum.  Some people go for a month to three months and others have a year or more food stored away.  Imagine how good it would be to know that if you’re suddenly cut off from the outside world you’re going to be able to eat for an extended period.

I’ve got some dehydrated food from Survival Cave stored away.  Chances are good I’ll never have to use it, but I breathe easier knowing it’s there.  It can be a little pricey, but it’s an insurance policy good for many many years.  Well worth it in my book.

Have you been checking out the repercussions from the typhoon that just wiped out the Philippines?  That is a truly horrible situation these people find themselves in and as I watch the news I constantly ask myself, “Could I have done better than this?  Would my preps have made it through the storm?”

I’m not trying to bash those folks by any stretch, but if you can look at a situation and get a feel for just how bad the folks over there have it, then maybe you’ll go the extra mile and make sure you have good preps in place.  Batteries, solar chargers, heat sources, communications and backup plans, food, water… these are all important to the safety and well-being of your family.

 

Start now to make sure you are staying prepared.

 

Via: shtfblog

China Announces That It Is Going To Stop Stockpiling U.S. Dollars

China just dropped an absolute bombshell, but it was almost entirely ignored by the mainstream media in the United States.  The central bank of China has decided that it is “no longer in China’s favor to accumulate foreign-exchange reserves”.  During the third quarter of 2013, China’s foreign-exchange reserves were valued at approximately $3.66 trillion.  And of course the biggest chunk of that was made up of U.S. dollars.  For years, China has been accumulating dollars and working hard to keep the value of the dollar up and the value of the yuan down.  One of the goals has been to make Chinese products less expensive in the international marketplace.  But now China has announced that the time has come for it to stop stockpiling U.S. dollars.  And if that does indeed turn out to be the case, than many U.S. analysts are suggesting that China could also soon stop buying any more U.S. debt.  Needless to say, all of this would be very bad for the United States.

For years, China has been systematically propping up the value of the U.S. dollar and keeping the value of the yuan artificially low.  This has resulted in a massive flood of super cheap products from across the Pacific that U.S. consumers have been eagerly gobbling up.

For example, have you ever gone into a dollar store and wondered how anyone could possibly make a profit by making those products and selling them for just one dollar?

Well, the truth is that when you flip those products over you will find that almost all of them have been made outside of the United States.  In fact, the words “made in China” are probably the most common words in your entire household if you are anything like the typical American.

Thanks to the massively unbalanced trade that we have had with China, tens of thousands of our businesses, millions of our jobs and trillions of our dollars have left this country and gone over to China.

And now China has apparently decided that there is not much gutting of our economy left to do and that it is time to let the dollar collapse.  As I mentioned above, China has announced that it is going to stop stockpiling foreign-exchange reserves

The People’s Bank of China said the country does not benefit any more from increases in its foreign-currency holdings, adding to signs policy makers will rein in dollar purchases that limit the yuan’s appreciation.

“It’s no longer in China’s favor to accumulate foreign-exchange reserves,” Yi Gang, a deputy governor at the central bank, said in a speech organized by China Economists 50 Forum at Tsinghua University yesterday. The monetary authority will “basically” end normal intervention in the currency market and broaden the yuan’s daily trading range, Governor Zhou Xiaochuan wrote in an article in a guidebook explaining reforms outlined last week following a Communist Party meeting. Neither Yi nor Zhou gave a timeframe for any changes.

It isn’t going to happen overnight, but the value of the U.S. dollar is going to start to go down, and all of that cheap stuff that you are used to buying at Wal-Mart and the dollar store is going to become a lot more expensive.

But of even more importance is what this latest move by China could mean for U.S. government debt.  As most Americans have heard, we are heavily dependent on foreign nations such as China lending us money.  Right now, China owns nearly 1.3 trillion dollars of our debt.  Unfortunately, as CNBC is noting, if China is going to quit stockpiling our dollars than it is likely that they will stop stockpiling our debt as well…

Analysts see this as the PBoC hinting that it will let its currency fluctuate, without intervention, thus negating the need for holding large reserves of the dollar. And if the dollar is no longer needed, then it could look to curb its purchases of dollar-denominated assets like U.S. Treasurys.

“If they are looking to reduce these purchases going forward then, yes, you’d have to look at who the marginal buyer would be,” Richard McGuire, a senior rate strategist at Rabobank told CNBC in an interview.

“Together, with the Federal Reserve tapering its bond purchases, it has the potential to add to the bearish long-term outlook on U.S. Treasurys.”

So who is going to buy all of our debt?

That is a very good question.

If the Federal Reserve starts tapering bond purchases and China quits buying our debt, who is going to fill the void?

If there is significantly less demand for government bonds, that will cause interest rates to rise dramatically.  And if interest rates rise dramatically from where they are now, that will set off the kind of nightmare scenario that I keep talking about.

In a previous article entitled “How China Can Cause The Death Of The Dollar And The Entire U.S. Financial System“, I described how China could single-handedly cause immense devastation to the U.S. economy.

China accounts for more global trade that anyone else does, and they also own more of our debt than any other nation does.  If China starts dumping our dollars and our debt, much of the rest of the planet would likely follow suit and we would be in for a world of hurt.

And just this week there was another major announcement which indicates that China is getting ready to make a major move against the U.S. dollar.  According to Reuters, crude oil futures may soon be priced in yuan on the Shanghai Futures Exchange…

The Shanghai Futures Exchange (SHFE) may price its crude oil futures contract in yuan and use medium sour crude as its benchmark, its chairman said on Thursday, adding that the bourse is speeding up preparatory work to secure regulatory approvals.

China, which overtook the United States as the world’s top oil importer in September, hopes the contract will become a benchmark in Asia and has said it would allow foreign investors to trade in the contract without setting up a local subsidiary.

If that actually happens, that will be absolutely huge.

China is the number one importer of oil in the world, and it was only a matter of time before they started to openly challenge the petrodollar.

But even I didn’t think that we would see anything like this so quickly.

The world is changing, and most Americans have absolutely no idea what this is going to mean for them.  As demand for the U.S. dollar and U.S. debt goes down, the things that we buy at the store will cost a lot more, our standard of living will go down and it will become a lot more expensive for everyone (including the U.S. government) to borrow money.

Unfortunately, there isn’t much that can be done about any of this at this point.  When it comes to economics, China has been playing chess while the United States has been playing checkers.  And now decades of very, very foolish decisions are starting to catch up with us.

The false prosperity that most Americans are enjoying today will soon start disappearing, and most of them will have no idea why it is happening.

The years ahead are going to be very challenging, and so I hope that you are getting ready for them.

 

Start now to make sure you are staying prepared.

 

Via: thedailysheeple

Massive Vulnerability Detected In National Power Grids: “There Is No Way to Stop This”


If you think that our multi-billion dollar electrical power grids are secure and capable of withstanding a coordinated attack, think again.

According to one group of engineers, the grid is so vulnerable that it wouldn’t even require a skilled hacker to compromise. In fact, when Adam Crain and Chris Sistrunk decided to test some new software they were developing they identified vulnerability so serious that it could literally blind operational controllers to such an extent that they would be locked out of monitoring systems and unable to maintain grid integrity.

The consequences, according to the engineers who note they are in no way security specialists, could be a total downing of the national power grid with nodes across the nation being taken over all at once. Moreover, the same systems used to maintain the U.S. power grid are also being used in other industries, like water treatment facilities.

You’d think that such vulnerability would be a top priority for the Department of Homeland Security, considering they are spending millions of dollars and promoting their coming Grid Ex exercise in November.

But you’d be wrong. The kicker is that when Crain and Sistrunk advised the DHS Industrial Control Systems Cyber Emergency Response Team, they got what essentially amounts to no response. It took Homeland Security a full four months before they even acknowledged the problem.

The two engineers who discovered the vulnerability say little is being done.

Adam Crain and Chris Sistrunk do not specialize in security. The engineers say they hardly qualify as security researchers. But seven months ago, Mr. Crain wrote software to look for defects in an open-source software program.

The program targeted a very specific communications protocol called DNP3, which is predominantly used by electric and water companies, and plays a crucial role in so-called S.C.A.D.A. (supervisory control and data acquisition) systems. Utility companies use S.C.A.D.A. systems to monitor far-flung power stations from a control center, in part because it allows them to remotely diagnose problems rather than wait for a technician to physically drive out to a station and fix it.

Mr. Crain ran his security test on his open-source DNP3 program and didn’t find anything wrong. Frustrated, he tested a third-party vendor’s program to make sure his software was working. The first program he targeted belonged to Triangle MicroWorks, a Raleigh, North Carolina based company that sells source code to large vendors of S.C.A.D.A. systems.

It broke instantly.

“When Adam told me he broke Triangle, I worried everything else was broken,” said Mr. Sistrunk.

Over the course of one week last April, the two tested Mr. Crain’s software across 16 vendors’ systems. They did not find a single system they couldn’t break.

By the end of the week, the two had compiled a 20-page report replete with vulnerabilities in 16 different system vendors for the Department of Homeland Security’s Industrial Control Systems Cyber Emergency Response Team, I.C.S.-C.E.R.T., which notifies vendors of vulnerabilities and issues public advisories.

And then, they waited. It would take I.C.S.-C.E.R.T. another four months to issue a public advisory for Triangle MicroWorks’ system.

D.H.S. did not return a request for comment.


Mr. Crain found that he could actually infiltrate a power station’s control center from afar. An attacker could use that capability to insert malware to take over the system, and like Stuxnet, the computer worm that took out 20 percent of Iran’s centrifuges, inflict actual physical harm.

“This is low-hanging fruit,” said Mr. Crain. “It doesn’t require some kind of hacker mastermind to understand the protocol and do this.”

What makes the vulnerabilities particularly troubling, experts say, is that traditional firewalls are ill-equipped to stop them. “When the master crashes it can no longer monitor or control any and all of the substations,” said Dale Peterson, a former N.S.A. employee who founded Digital Bond, a security firm that focuses on infrastructure.

“There is no way to stop this with a firewall and other perimeter security device today.”

The New York Times

When outgoing DHS head Janet Napolitano suggested that a cyber-attack on the nation’s power grid is imminent, she meant it.

They know that these systems are vulnerable, and the steps needed to protect the grid from cyber-attacks and other potential hazards like a Super EMP or a severe geo-magnetic event would cost in the multiple billions of dollars to fix.

The fact of the matter is that DHS and the vendors who produce these software control systems are dragging their feet, leaving the entire country vulnerable.

Crain and Sistrunk are not hackers or security experts. They are software engineers and they were able to compromise our entire national power grid and water utility systems from remote locations.

What do you think China, Russia, and rogue hackers are capable of doing?

If you don’t think they’ve mapped our entire grid and its vulnerabilities you are kidding yourself.

This is deadly serious.

And when we say deadly, we mean it, because according to a report from the Center for Security Policy presented to Congress in 2010, if our power grid were to be taken offline for an extended period of time, 9 out of 10 Americans would be dead within a year.

There would be no way to transport food because gas stations pumps would be inoperable. And even if they did work, the commerce systems which makes the exchange of goods possible would be offline. Couple that with water utilities not functioning due to lack of electricity, and we’re talking about a worst-case scenario so bad that this country may never recover.

Former Congressman Roscoe Bartlet has urged those who can to move out of major cities for this reason.

 

Start now to make sure you are staying prepared.

 

Via: thedailysheeple

Massive Fireball Roars Through Suburban Power Lines, Blows Out Electricity

If you’ve ever wondered what a massive electrical surge from an electro-magnetic pulse weapon, solar flare or cyber attack might look like, then take a look at this footage shot in Montreal.

 

 

In this instance the surge caused a cascading electrical outage across one neighborhood. Imagine what such an event would look like across the entire national power grid.

Then consider how long it would take to bring essential services like hospitals, communication system, commerce processing, and banks back online.

According to former Congressman Roscoe Bartlett, we’re talking not days or weeks, but months and years before utility workers would be able to repair key transformers and nodes.

We could have events in the future where the power grid will go down and it’s not, in any reasonable time, coming back up.

For instance, if when the power grid went down some of our large transformers were destroyed, damaged beyond use, we don’t make any of those in this country. They’re made overseas and you order one and 18 months to two years later they will deliver it.

Our power grid is very vulnerable. It’s very much on edge. Our military knows that.

 


 

Start now to make sure you are staying prepared.

 

Via: shtfplan