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Part I - Defining Your Personal Preparedness Needs
1. Identify your major personal preparedness goals. Your basic self-reliance goals should include:
- Preserve life by providing basic necessities.
- Avoid unnecessary hardships and suffering.
- Protect against loss of goods, property, or freedoms.
- Maintain control of your chosen life style and life circumstances. -Act, not react.
2. Make a personal preparedness plan. Prepare (1) a list of goals to be accomplished,
(2) a time schedule, and (3) a financial budget.
3. Identify the most likely perils that may befall you:
- World, National, Community categories: (a) nature, (b) economy, and (c) war.
- Personal categories: (a) health, (b) crime, and (c) family finance.
4. Make a "Potential Perils" card file system. List every event on a separate card.
Some examples:
- Nature: Earthquake, Flood, Mudslides, Storms, Power outage, Fire, Drought
- Economy: Severe depression, Rapid inflation, Monetary system collapse,
Currency devaluation
- War: Nuclear attack, Chemical attack, Invasion, Rationing, Confiscation,
Empty stores, Famine
- Health: Heart attack, Accident, Disease, Stress, Emotional trauma, Mental breakdown
- Crime: Personal assault, Home burglary, Vehicle theft, Vandalism, Looting, Mobs
- Family Finance: Out of Work, Lawsuits, Tax problems, Lost retirement income, Medical expenses, Estate planning
5. Devise a realistic scenario for each of these perils. Write it in a sentence or two on each card.
6. List what you can realistically do to take protective action for each of these perils.
Write the actions on each card.
7. Estimate the total, or annual, cost of taking corrective action for each peril.
Write it on the card.
8. Estimate the total, or annual, hours required to take the corrective actions for each peril. Write it on the card
9. Rank each peril, on a scale of 1-1O, on how likely you think it is to affect you in the
next 5 years.
10. Concentrate your first efforts on (a) the greatest immediate perils, and (b) those that
can be corrected with the least expense and time.
11. Evaluate your disaster approach style. Is it "individual," "group," or "neighborhood"?
12. Evaluate how many of the perils are "at home" perils, requiring no outside action or exodus. Make your home your castle and fortress. Choose its structure and location carefully, then improve strengthen it.
Part II - Preparing for Short-Term Emergencies
13. Develop and maintain a family 72-hour cvacuation kit.
14. Store water. Obtain a portable water purification system.
15. Have on hand a 2- to 4-week supply of food for your family that requires little or no cooking. Plan menus. Pack it so it is portable.
16. Acquire some type of emergency power generator--enough to run your freezer, furnace,
and the lights. Have sufficent fuel on hand to run it daily for 2 to 4 weeks.
17. Provide your home with an emergency heating source and adequate fuel for at least
four weeks.
18. Provide your home with emergency lighting and adequate fuel for at least 4 weeks
You may want a combination or flashlignts, lanterns, candles, and a battery-powered
generator or battery recharging apparatus.
19. Provide your home with emergency cooking facilities, and adequate fuel for at least four weeks. Assume that you will have no gas or electricity. You may want a wood stove, or a Coleman or propane camp stove.
20. Provide your home with emergency sanitary facilities, sufficient to dispose of human
wastes and household garbage for at least 4 weeks. You may want a Porta-potty or some other type of emergency latrine. Remember, you'll need toilet paper, chemical disinfectants, soap and towels.
21. Provide your home with emergency medicines, both prescription and non-prescription, sufficient to last for at least 4 weeks. You'll want such things as aspirin, vaseline, toothpaste and Lysol. Be sure you have medicine to treat dysentery, fevers and other irritants such as athlete's foot and jock itch. Remember, bathing opportunities may be severely curtailed.
22. Prepare for empty stores. Store inexpensive essentials you would need in an emergency of several weeks' duration--things like soap, light bulbs, toilet paper, shoe strings, electrical basics, plumbing basics, insect and vermin killers, basic medicines, personal care items,
and tools.
23. Have emergency cash on hand--enough to travel as a family for at least four weeks. You should have sufficient to operate your car, buy food, and rent a motel.
24. Keep viable transportation available and operable, and keep sufficient fuel on hand to carry your family to a pre-determined evacuation destination. Store basic auto supplies such as gasoline, oil, fluids, fan belts, and a hand pump to remove it from a storage tank without electricity, if necessary.
Part III - Preparing for Personal Health, Fire and Crime Losses
25. Get family and neighborhood first aid and CPA training. Learn other techniques such
as the Heimlich maneuver. The life your loved ones save may be yours.
26. Make your home fire safe. Correct wiring deficiencies, remove dangerous combustibles. Install smoke detectors and have properly charged fire extinguishers on hand. Prepare and rehearse a family fire evacuation plan.
27. List, permanently label, and evaluate your possessions. Prepare a detailed inventory
of all your goods. Keep it updated, and in a safe place away from your home.
28. Burglar-proof your home. Obtain adequate locks, indoor and outdoor lighting systems, intruder alarms and intruder prevention signs. Train your family in theft-prevention practices.
29. Protect your car and other vehicles against theft.
30. Learn and teach your family techniques of personal protection. Decide appropriate responses for various types of assault confrontations. Carry some type of personal assault protection device, if appropriate.
31. Develop a strong, cohesive neighborhood. Strengthen and unify your neighbors. Encourage them to participate in "neighborhood-watch" safety and protection programs,
co-op buying groups for food storage programs, etc.
Part IV - Preparing for Long-Term Emergencies
32. Develop and maintain a year's supply of food, clothing and fuel. Implement an
inventory and rotation system to effectively utilize it.
33. Learn to garden, and be prepared to supply your own foods. Obtain adequate land,
and store seeds, tools, fertilizers, pesticides, and informative gardening literature. Learn
about indoor gardening too.
34. Develop a family emergency communication, evacuation, and reunion plan. Know where each individual will go, and how communication will be made, in case of war or other wide-spread or long-term emergencies.
35. Develop and build a survival skills library. Accumulate disaster readiness and
emergency survival information. Subscribe to self-reliance periodicals.
36. Have a secluded, private retreat where you can be relatively safe in time of serious social
or economic disturbance, or war. Make it safe from intruders. Be sure provision is made for food, water, sanitation, gardening, and other basic needs.
Part V - Prepare for Retirement and Estate Needs
37. Participate in basic insurance programs. Have adequate life, health, accident, liability, home and auto insurance.
38. Plan for adequate retirement income. Get professional help in personal financial and estate planning. Develop a systematic plan for acquiring both liquid and hard assets. Make investments. Participate in company profit-sharing plans, I.R.A.s, Keogh plans, and other investments. Though some gloom and doom counselors believe the economic system may collapse, bet on the system, and do the best you can to make safe investments for the future.
39. Have a will. Get professional help in writing it. Keep it current. Prepare for your own death, and for the orderly and tax-free transfer of your estate to your heirs. List your personal assets, and have your estate in manageable order.
40. Avoid things that will
- erode your personal value system.
- sap your personal strength and stamina.
- encumber your financial strength.
- prevent you from being able to make personal decisions based on your personal choice
of the best of all available alternatives.
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