#423： How to Survive a Grid-Down Disaster
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Summary
Jim Rawls is the author of several bestselling books on prepping for the end of the world as we know it, including How to Survive the End of the World as We Know It. In this episode, we discuss how our dependence on the power grid makes us more vulnerable to disaster than we'd like to think, and the downstream consequences that would happen if the grid went down for a significant amount of time.
Transcript
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Brett McKay here and welcome to another edition of the Art of Manliness podcast. We've all
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probably thought about it at one time or another. What would we do and how would we fare after
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societal collapse? Well, my guest today has spent his career helping individuals get ready
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for such a situation. His name is James Rawls. He's the owner of survivalblog.com, the author
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of several bestselling books on prepping, including how to survive the end of the world
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as we know it. Today on the show, Jim and I discuss how our dependency on the power grid
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makes us more vulnerable to disaster than we'd like to think and all the downstream consequences
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that would happen if the power grid went down for a significant amount of time, including
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loss of water, sewage services, and a disruption of supply chains. We then dig into what you
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can do to prepare for such a situation, including securing a water supply, storing food, and the
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skills and mindset you need to weather a crisis. Even if you don't think you're interested
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in prepping, it's really interesting to think through what you need to do to survive an apocalyptic
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scenario. After the show's over, check out the show notes at aom.is slash Rawls.
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So you're the founder and chief editor of survivalblog.com, and I'm sure a lot of our
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listeners have been there, and you've also written some books about prepping and getting
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ready for natural disasters and just being ready in general. I'm curious, how did you
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get started with this, getting prepared and teaching people how to prepare for things?
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Well, I really grew up with the lifestyle. I was born and raised in Livermore, California,
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which is the home of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. And my father worked in experimental
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physics. And most of the kids that I grew up with were either the sons and daughters of ranchers or
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the sons and daughters of physicists. And because they design nuclear weapons at Lawrence Labs, there's
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a very high recognition of the nuclear threat there always has been. And even to this day, Livermore has
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probably the highest per capita number of privately owned fallout shelters in the United States.
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So I just grew up with that mindset, and it never wore off.
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And I'm sure as you got older, you just acquired more skills. I mean, did you have any military
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background where you learned things? Or was this something you just sort of did on your own?
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Well, no, I studied a bit on my own. I grew up, you know, I'm the great grandson of a pioneer family.
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And I did a lot of study on my own. While it was in my high school years, I already had a
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recognition that I wanted to prepare on my own in addition to our family's preparations.
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And then in college, I enrolled in ROTC, partly, and in fact, originally, because I wanted some free
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training. And I went to ROTC basic camp at Fort Knox, Kentucky, which was basically a truncated
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version of Army basic training with more leadership skills taught. And from there, I was really hooked.
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And I went ahead and continued with ROTC, ended up graduating with three degrees and a commission as
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a second lieutenant in the Army. I got a reserve commission as an intelligence officer.
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And one of the nice things about Army intelligence is you get to do your wartime job in peacetime.
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You actually get to work a live mission. So working in intelligence also gave me a much higher
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recognition or realization of the fragility of society. I was involved with some country studies.
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And I could see that, you know, here we were breaking down the vulnerabilities of various countries.
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And in the back of my mind, I was always thinking, well, gosh, here in the United States, we're even
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more vulnerable. I recognized our, in particular, our vulnerability based upon our dependence on the
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power grids. There's an eastern grid, a western grid, and a Texas grid here in the States.
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And we are incredibly vulnerable and incredibly reliant on those power grids. And if they go
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Yeah, let's talk about that. So that's a big point you've made throughout your writing on
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the blog and in some of the books you've done, the power grid. I think a lot of people don't
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even think about it because they take it for granted because every time they flip on the
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switch, the lights come on. So what would cause the power grid, these different power grids to go down?
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Well, there's a number of different things. Of course, we live in the modern age of terrorism.
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So there's always the risk of a terrorist cyber attack that could attack the SCADA software,
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which is the system control and data acquisition software that runs the power grid all the way
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from generation through distribution all the way to your, in fact, nowadays, all the way to
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your power meter is a SCADA control device. So there's a vulnerability there. There's vulnerability
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to solar storms to, in particular, an X-class solar storm. There's vulnerability to EMP.
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And the one that most folks in the mass media completely ignored, and that is the vulnerability
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of staffing. If nuclear power plants don't have a set level of staffing, they, by law, must scram
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the pile on that power plant and shut it down. That's by NRC regulations. So that's 20% of our power
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generation right there, and more than 20% on the East Coast. And staffing is also a problem. Say there
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were a pandemic or, or a economic collapse with widespread rioting, looting, just lawlessness,
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power plant operators will not feel comfortable leaving their families and going to work. They're
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going to want to be at home protecting their families. And again, if there isn't a certain level
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of staffing, even hydroelectric plants need a little bit of staffing. But in particular, nuclear,
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to a lesser extent, any natural gas or coal-fired plants require fairly heavy staffing. And then
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at a minimal level, hydroelectric plants even require a little staffing. If the staff isn't there,
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the lights are not going to be on. The grids will go down. And once the grids go down, bring them back
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up is a pretty complicated process. They refer to it as a, as a dark restart. And it actually takes
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power to make power. So a dark restart would have to start in, if the, if the Western grid were to go
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down, that dark restart would have to start in the Northwestern United States and restart the system
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all the way down to the coal-fired plants in Arizona, for example. And the complexity of the
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power grids is going up year by year. Right now, they're in the process of creating grid inner ties
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between the Eastern grid and the Western grid, in part so that if the Eastern grid were to go down,
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it could be dark restarted with power from the Western grid.
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And I mean, I think most of us, you know, most people who are listening, that's probably,
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I'm going to say in their thirties, they probably don't remember, I remember reading about blackouts
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that occurred in the East coast and would go all the way from New York through the Ohio River Valley.
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I mean, it was pretty massive and because everything's all connected.
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Yeah. And the level of interconnectivity and level of dependence is only greater now than it was back
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in the 1970s. We rely on the grids for so much now that life as we know it simply wouldn't be going
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on without them. Because not only are we dependent on the power grids for pumping water, which is like
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98% of civic water supplies are not gravity fed any longer, partly because of federal standards for
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turbidity. By law, most water has to go through filters and that's all electrically pumped through
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filters rather than going through from gravity tanks. And there are very few civic water supplies that are
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gravity fed all the way from a mountain source, say, all the way to someone's tap. And ironically,
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one of those systems is the San Francisco Hetch Hetchy system, which is fed by an enormous reservoir up in
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the Sierras. It was kind of a sister valley to the Yosemite Valley, which was flooded. That's the
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Hetch Hetchy Dam. And they have gravity fed water all the way from end to end. But that system is a very
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small minority of systems. Most civic water supplies rely on grid power to pump the water up to enormous
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gravity tanks. You see them dotting the landscape, especially in the Midwest, for example. Wherever
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you see those tanks, they're completely dependent on grid power and the water will be gone in two to
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three days if the grids go down. Okay. So when the grid goes down, power goes out, two to three days,
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no water. I imagine you have problems with sewage as well. Oh, yeah. Yeah. If toilets aren't flushing,
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then unfortunately, we live in a society that is not used to the third world standards of cleanliness.
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At least in the third world, people are taught not to foul of a water supply upstream. We have a highly
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urbanized society with people who just don't have a clue. I think it will be a public health nightmare
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if we have a grid down collapse because people will begin fouling streams and creeks and it's going
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to end up fouling all the water supplies that people could otherwise be drawing on. So one of the crucial
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things is to have the ability not just to transport water from open sources, but also have the ability
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to filter water or bring it up near a boil or treat it with chlorine. Those are skills that every family
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should have and there's tools to go along with that. You need to have the water filters. You need to have
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at least plain hypochlorite bleach on hand and you need to have some way of transporting water even if gasoline
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gets short. So if there's a shortage of gasoline, you're going to have to think in terms of having like a
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two-wheeled garden cart and several big water cans, like a five-gallon military plastic water cans are ideal.
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Without that, you are going to be a refugee in very short order. And if the 20th century taught us anything,
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it's that the life of a refugee is nasty, brutish, and short.
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Okay. So power grid goes down. I want to kind of flesh this out for people. So all the things that,
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because we take this stuff for granted. So power goes out, power grid goes out, water gone two to
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three days, sewage gone as well. You might think, well, there's natural gas, but that probably also
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depends on the power grid, right? Mostly. Although in the Western United States, they're in the process
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of switching over the compressor stations on the major natural gas pipelines to be powered by
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natural gas powered compressors, engines that run on natural gas. That's the logical thing to do.
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But ironically, that wasn't done up until about five or 10 years ago. And they're just slowly in the
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process of doing that. Very few people have natural gas that's piped to their home that depends on
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local wellhead pressure, natural pressure. Everyone else has to depend on compressor stations. And if the
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power grid goes down for an extended period of time, the pressure on the natural gas lines will drop.
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And by the time you get all the way out to a civilian tap, a tap out at someone's domestic
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residence, they are going to be out of natural gas. So people need to stock up on propane as well,
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for example. There's just a huge cascade or chain of events that most people just don't recognize.
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They have an expectation that tomorrow is going to be just like yesterday. And unfortunately,
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that may come back and bite us. And again, as a modern technologically advanced and technologically
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dependent society, that risk is large and growing with every passing day.
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Right. And also when the grid goes down, logistics systems also go away as well. So food will probably
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Yeah. Two weeks or less. Most grocery stores are not very well stocked. When I was growing up in the
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1960s, our local grocery store had a back room with cases and cases of wet-packed foods and staple foods,
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things like rolled oats, all the main staple foods were stockpiled in the back. In a modern grocery
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store, that back room is not for extra inventory. It's simply a breakdown area for what comes off of
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pallets from the back of trucks. What you see on the shelf is all the store has. And that is not a
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very deep supply. And unfortunately, the modern just-in-time inventory control system, which is a modern
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miracle, actually was copied from the Japanese Kanban system, is incredibly efficient. It is, again, a modern
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miracle. But when the power grids go down and telecommunications go away, the store's automatic reordering
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system is just going to fall apart. So any supplies that come in will be sporadic at best if the 18
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wheelers are still rolling. Again, it's this huge cascade or chain of events that is almost
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unavoidable when you see a disruption in a modern first world country.
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Yeah. I think that's sort of the irony. As you said, the world we live in is a miracle and it's
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hyper-optimized. But the problem with hyper-optimization is that it's extremely
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fragile. You mess up one little part and the whole thing just falls apart.
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Exactly. So that's what Survival Blog is all about. I've been encouraging people for many years
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to recognize the fragility of our society. Secondarily, to recognize the inability of the
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government to respond in the event of a disaster. We have organizations like FEMA that have time and
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time again dramatically, spectacularly failed to be able to respond to any even localized disasters.
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Lord knows how they'd respond if it was a nationwide disruption. I like to say that FEMA
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actually stands for Foolishly Expecting Meaningful Aid.
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Well, before we get into specific tactics and gear supply, that's the stuff people love to talk
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about when they talk about prepping and getting ready for these sorts of things. But I think
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mindset, you talk a lot about mindset. What is the mindset shift that needs to occur in people
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in order to get ready for a disaster situation, but also to cope when something happens?
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Sure. Well, I think the main mindset you need to have is what I refer to as yo-yo,
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which stands for you're on your own. You need to recognize that government won't be there to help
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and that everyone rushing to the store at the 11th hour is part of the problem. Everyone who's stocked
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up in advance is one less person rushing to the store, so they're actually part of the solution.
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You can have extra on hand to dispense as charity or to have on hand for barter.
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If you have the mindset of a well-prepared individual who's looking out for the best interests
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of his family and his neighbors, and you stock up accordingly and arm, prepare yourself,
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get set up with communications equipment, first aid, the whole works, you're going to be part of
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the solution, not part of the problem. And from an actuarial standpoint, your chances of survival
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are going to be an order of magnitude greater than your neighbors because the average American
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suburbanite has no water filtration, no water storage, and virtually no food storage. The
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average American family has less than a three-day supply of food on hand at any given time.
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Right. So when it comes to prepping, my experience is when you look at, you read a book, you look at a
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website, you get really excited and you can get overwhelmed at the same time. It's like, man,
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where do I start? Right? Because there's so much. Like, so if say someone who's just starting out,
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they want to get prepared, what should their top priorities be?
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My website, for example, we have a quick start guide for newbies. If you, if you go to my website,
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survivalblog.com and click on, there's a link marked getting started in the top bar, that will take you
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to a kind of a basic introduction. And then there's a link there to a Excel spreadsheet to what I refer
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to as the list of lists. And there you can kind of break down what the basic requirements are for
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family preparedness and get yourself started in a systematic way to stock up, team up and train up.
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Gotcha. So yeah, we'll definitely put a link to that in the show notes. So I imagine water is
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probably a top priority when getting started. Yes. And you mentioned, we've mentioned, you know,
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having water filtration systems, but I also imagine having water storage, just water on hand
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can go a long way. Yeah. Of course, you know, there's limits to that, especially for someone who lives
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in an apartment, there's only so much room available. So you really need to think in terms
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again, of, of if you're, if you're planning to hunker down in a suburban or urban environment,
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you need to locate a open source of water, like a pond or a lake, and set up a plan for transporting
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that water. And unfortunately, human nature being what it is, if you're in a, in a city or a suburb,
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and you're wheeling along a cart full of water, in the midst of a major societal collapse, someone's
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probably going to walk up and stick a pistol in your back and say, I'm taking that cart. So you
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also need a security plan to go along with it. I'm actually a big believer in living at your intended
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survival retreat year round, like I do, because I don't think that bug out plans or, you know,
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are, are, are very realistic. The, if you think that you're going to have more than one trip out
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of town with your gear, you're, you're dreaming at most, you'll have one vehicular trip out of town
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with what, with what you can carry in your vehicle. Everything else will have to be pre-positioned
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at a well-stocked rural retreat. Hopefully you've got country cousins that you can depend on,
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or that you have a, a well-stocked vacation home, for example, in a, in a remote area that's not on
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major lines of drift. I realize that most people don't have the means to do that or don't have
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country cousins. So you may have to make plans to, to hunker down right where you are, but the
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logistical tail to that is pretty long. And it takes some planning, takes some thought and prayer
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and some budgeting. And let's face it, if you, unless you are willing to commit part of your
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annual income to stocking up, no one else is going to do it for you. And unless you do it,
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if something major happens, you may end up having to look across the dinner table at your family and
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say, sorry, I didn't plan ahead. It's not a very pleasing prospect.
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No, definitely not. Okay. Well, so water, you want to rely, not rely so much on water storage,
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find an open source of water and rely on filtration. I guess, would food be the second
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Food is probably, yes, the number two on the list. And I go into, into a lot of detail in my book,
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how to survive the end of the world as we know it. And if you also go through my blog archives,
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which are absolutely free and they date all the way back to 2005, we've been posting daily in
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survival blog. There's tens of thousands of articles and letters and column items that have
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been archived there. We go into great detail on, on storage food, both commercially packed or bulk
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foods that you can pack yourself. Typically that's done with a five gallon food grade HDPE plastic bucket
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or, or, or of the tall version of that, the seven gallon, what's called a super pale bucket.
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Typically those will have a O ring seal lid. And then you can convert those with what's called a
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gamma seal lid, which is a, a, a lid ring that has a spinner lid set into it to make it easier to get
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into those, those buckets. You need to think in terms of stocking up in, in bulk foods, your, your
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basic staples, you know, wheat, rice, beans, honey, and smaller quantity of wet packed canned foods,
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perhaps some MREs as a short-term supply as well. And then if you have the money for it,
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some ultra long-term storage food, those typically come in the number 10 size can, which is just,
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just short of a one gallon can. And those are typically night nitrogen packed. And those are
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designed for extreme long-term storage. We're talking 30, 40 years with full nutritional adequacy,
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even after that length of storage, uh, they're pretty amazing foods, but you've got to, you know,
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figure out what your budget can handle and also what your palate can handle. A lot of those foods
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are pretty high in sodium, for example. And if you're on a sodium restrictive diet,
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a lot of those long-term storage foods won't do for you.
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Yeah. And you've probably, people are probably thinking, well, what do you, where do you put
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this stuff? Well, you can get creative. Like I've seen people like replace their box springs with
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It's very easy to, to line up a whole bunch of super pails of, of storage food in place of your box
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springs. You're going to end up with a bed that sits maybe four or five inches higher than normal,
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but it's not that noticeable. A lot of people also just plain replace a coffee table
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with cases of long-term storage food and then draping them with a large piece of fabric.
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And then you can lay a piece of glass over the top or decorate over the top or whatever,
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but it's really not that noticeable unless somebody goes tugging at the drapes, uh, to see what's
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underneath there. Anyone with bookshelves can line up small cans of food behind all your books.
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There's a lot of different techniques that you use even for an apartment dweller to maximize food
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storage. But typically the best, and ideally the best storage space would be the classic cool,
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dry place. If you have a house with a basement, a dry basement, that's the ideal place.
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Yeah. And I know a lot of people think MREs are the first go-to, but those don't last very long,
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And also they're, they're fairly bulky in terms of the way, because they're packaged with,
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you know, utensils and an MRE heater and toilet paper and all the little accessory items.
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In terms of bulk there, you're only getting 12 meals in a case that measures about 18 by 18 by 24.
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24. So that's a fairly bulky way of storing food. They are handy in that they don't require any
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cooking, but there's just so many drawbacks. Your, your, your per unit cost or per meal cost is also
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quite high. They are fantastic for, you know, someone who's in a military field environment
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because they're, they're just packed with calories. You've got 2,400 calories typically in one MRE
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and they do have their advantages, but for the typical suburban prepper, I wouldn't recommend
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keeping more than one or two cases on hand, which you mainly need are the staple foods that you use
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on a regular basis. Not only are they things that you already know how to cook, you already are accustomed
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to eating for your digestion, but even more, even better is it's kids, kids will enjoy eating them
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because they're, you're going to be on your, your normal menu, your normal diet. And because you're
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stocking up in quantity and using foods that you normally buy anyway, there's not going to be any
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waste. And you're not going to worry about things reaching their expiration date and having to be
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donated to charity or thrown out. You're going to be rotating those foods constantly and using them
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up. So you've got the advantage of zero waste and you're eating cheap because you're buying in
00:26:14.700
quantity. If you buy oatmeal, oatmeal in individual serving packets, you're paying literally 30 times
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the price of oatmeal bought in bulk. I think that's an important point you made there. Cause I think
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there's a lot of suburban say suburban preppers like I want to get ready. So they buy bulk flour or
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wheat or oatmeal. They've never cooked with it before and they expect, Oh, whenever something
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happens, I'll figure it out, but probably not the case. Yeah. And of course, if you buy wheat,
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which is the ideal way to, to, to store rather than flour, flour only has about a three or four
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year shelf life. We can store for decades or even centuries. You've got to practice using those foods
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and you've got to integrate them into your family's diet so that you have, there's a learning curve
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with every individual food in terms of preparation. And there's also a acclimation curve. You, when you
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integrate these into your menu, into your, into your daily diet, your individual digestive system has to
00:27:22.860
be used to it. And if people were to switch to, you know, all wild game, for example, they'd run into
00:27:29.900
a lot of trouble in a hurry digestively. It could be disastrous. Yeah. I think that's an important
00:27:35.960
point throughout all this stuff. Like I think a lot of people, when they think prepping, they just think
00:27:39.900
buying the gear, buying the stuff. But if you don't know how to use it, it's useless.
00:27:44.820
It's not about stuff. It's not about gear. It's about skills and what's between your ears.
00:27:53.680
A lot of these folks who get involved with prepping think that they, they can buy a off the
00:28:01.040
shelf, you know, one year or two year food supply, set it in their garage and they're prepared.
00:28:07.300
They're dreaming. Again, there's the learning curve that goes with each of these things.
00:28:12.180
When you buy tools, you need to have the skills to go with them. That takes experience. It takes
00:28:18.580
time. It takes trial and error. Whenever you buy a tool, you need to have a full set of manuals to
00:28:24.660
go with it and spare parts and lubricants. I mean, it's a whole list of things that you have to,
00:28:32.540
to, to think about. And again, it's about skills, not gadgets.
00:28:39.120
So after food, so we got water, food, what would be the next thing someone needs to think about that
00:28:44.940
they're probably not thinking about? Probably self-defense. Or if it's, if things fall apart
00:28:48.920
in the middle of winter, I guess fuel would be closer to the top of your list. But self-defense
00:28:53.100
is very important, especially for people living in a urban or suburban environment, because you can
00:28:59.500
have the best preps in the world. But if someone comes barging in your front door and takes it all
00:29:05.000
away from you, you've got nothing. So you've got to think in terms of self-defense. And again,
00:29:11.600
there's a learning curve there. I've often been quoted as saying, owning a gun doesn't make anyone
00:29:16.460
a shooter any more than owning a surfboard makes someone a surfer.
00:29:20.320
Right. So again, we're going back to that thing. It's not, you can't just buy a gun and expect,
00:29:23.420
okay, I'm going to be ready. You got to, you got to practice with it.
00:29:26.100
Right. I would much rather own just one gun and have plenty of magazines, plenty of ammunition,
00:29:32.280
and most importantly, plenty of training than own a half a dozen guns and just a little bit of
00:29:38.680
ammunition. It's all about balance. And this, the training to go along with every item or tool that
00:29:46.800
you have or every vehicle you have is just as important as that item itself. So don't think in
00:29:55.180
terms of, you know, solving this problem with a checkbook or a credit card or a click of a mouse
00:30:02.140
on Amazon. Okay. It's not that simple. You've got to, to stock up, team up and train up. And the team
00:30:10.940
up part of it is the people you associate yourselves, yourself with. You've got to find trustworthy
00:30:17.220
friends who are like-minded, who you can really rely on when everything hits the fan. And you've got to
00:30:24.340
identify those folks now and start teaming up with them and training up with them now because you
00:30:31.120
don't want to have to be working the kinks out of the system after everything hits the fan. You want
00:30:35.980
to have a well-oiled machine in terms of your, your, your neighborhood. For example, you want to have
00:30:41.700
a neighborhood watch on steroids, but you got a plan for that. Now that means commonality of calibers.
00:30:48.540
It means training. It means having extra, you know, like field, field phones and, and, uh,
00:30:55.980
commo wire, for example. So that even if the grid is down and the telephones aren't working and the
00:31:00.280
cell phones aren't working, you can still pick up a field phone and talk to, you know, three or four
00:31:06.220
of your neighbors on a hot loop. And anyone who's listening to this, who doesn't have military
00:31:11.680
experience is probably thinks I'm talking Greek right now, but you've got to get up to speed on all
00:31:17.180
these technologies. Part of teamwork in defending a community when everything falls apart is going
00:31:25.740
to come down to communications, solar charging for, for batteries and night vision equipment. And
00:31:33.120
without night vision equipment, you're going to be at a huge disadvantage. I've often said that it's much
00:31:39.740
more important to own one gun with a detachable night vision scope than it is to own a half dozen
00:31:47.140
guns. I would much rather have one gun that I'm truly competent with and that is capable of defending
00:31:54.920
my family at night than having a dozen guns. Right. So night vision is definitely, it's a force
00:32:01.300
multiplier. Absolutely. Communications and night vision are your two key force multipliers in modern
00:32:09.360
combat. And if you can't shoot, move and communicate, you're ineffective. And part of
00:32:18.040
being able to shoot is having good night vision. And in terms of moving mobility, you want to be able
00:32:25.980
to cover pretty good distances in a short amount of time. And communication is crucial because if you
00:32:33.500
cannot coordinate security with your neighbors, everyone is going to be, you know, every man for
00:32:39.940
himself. And you've got to be able to watch each other's back. And communications is key. So I'm a big
00:32:48.880
believer in MERS brand, MERS band radios. MERS stands for multiple user radio system, M-U-R-S. That's a
00:32:57.620
fairly lightly used band. It's ideal for short range push to talk communications. It's fairly low
00:33:05.140
probability of intercept because most folks will be listening to CB, including the bad guys, but they
00:33:10.580
won't be listening to the MERS band most likely. And the other advantage of MERS is it's right next door
00:33:17.260
to the National Weather Service alert frequencies. So your same walkie-talkie can have one of its
00:33:23.740
frequencies set to the National Weather Service broadcast channel. And it's the same band that is
00:33:33.780
used by most infrared driveway alarm systems. The best well known is sold under the brand name Dakota
00:33:42.740
Alert. That uses the MERS band. So the same walkie-talkie that you have on your belt can have push to talk with
00:33:50.500
your neighbors. It could be tuned to the National Weather Service frequency, and you can normally
00:33:56.280
leave it on the frequency of your Dakota Alert driveway alarm. So if someone comes rolling in off
00:34:03.820
the county road onto your lane, you'll hear alert zone one, alert zone one. That'll at least give you
00:34:10.940
some time to react. So it's all there in one package. Again, that is MERS, M-U-R-S.
00:34:17.720
Can you buy this on Amazon or do you have to go somewhere special?
00:34:20.120
Sure. Yeah, you can buy Dakota Alerts, including Dakota Alert-compatible walkie-talkies on Amazon.
00:34:26.920
I've got a link on my website that folks can use to get to those Amazon products.
00:34:32.940
Cool. So you mentioned mobility, getting places. So what's the plan? I mean, we talked about if the
00:34:39.000
grid goes down, gasoline logistics is probably going down with it. So how do you stock up on fuel
00:34:45.860
in a safe way? Well, there are limits, of course. Of course, the safest way to store fuel would be
00:34:52.420
diesel because it has a fairly high flashpoint. Gasoline is problematic because it doesn't store
00:35:00.240
as well as diesel and there's more fire hazard if bullets start flying. So I'm a big believer in
00:35:06.000
diesel vehicles. If anyone listening to this thinks, oh, well, I'm going to stock my country cabin,
00:35:14.500
you need to have enough fuel on hand at all times to make that one trip out of Dodge.
00:35:22.720
And ideally, I look at vehicles like a crew cab, diesel, four-wheel drive pickup would be just
00:35:29.820
about ideal. And in the bed of that pickup, if your retreat is a long distance away, you should
00:35:37.080
probably have an 85-gallon fuel tank. They make a lot of them that are L-shaped and they're designed
00:35:43.100
to have a toolbox on top. And they kind of blend in. They don't look really apparent that you're
00:35:49.940
carrying a tremendous amount of fuel. But if you have a diesel pickup that has a 32-gallon tank of its
00:35:57.020
own and an 85-gallon reserve tank, you've got a tremendous amount of range. We're talking over
00:36:03.880
1,000 miles of range one way. I imagine medical supplies and training would probably be something
00:36:10.120
you want to think about too as well. Certainly. And that's something that's certainly not to be
00:36:14.600
overlooked. And every retreat group, if you're getting together a group of friends, you need to
00:36:21.180
at least find a nurse and preferably someone who has a medical degree and a background in emergency
00:36:28.900
medicine. That would be a key person to have on your team. But even without that, you should at
00:36:37.120
least take all the American Red Cross courses, the CPR class, the basic first aid class, the advanced
00:36:46.380
first aid class. And if you have the time, I would recommend you join your local volunteer fire
00:36:55.260
department and get training as an EMT. That would be fantastic. That's what my son did.
00:37:02.860
Yeah. And I imagine if you or someone in your family has special medical needs, I'm thinking
00:37:07.980
diabetes, dialysis, you need to think about that too.
00:37:12.620
Yeah. Unfortunately, if the grid goes down, folks are not going to have access to kidney dialysis.
00:37:18.160
But just think of the number of people who breathe every night with a CPAP machine. It's a huge
00:37:23.360
number of people who have COPD, chronic obstructive pulmonary disorders. There's a huge number of
00:37:31.860
people with COPD or who have severe sleep apnea who depend on a CPAP machine. That's a constant
00:37:40.380
positive air pressure device. It's basically a mask you wear at night hooked up to a pump,
00:37:48.000
an air pump. If the grid goes down, most folks are going to be out of luck because they don't have
00:37:52.600
battery powered CPAP machines. So between kidney dialysis and other chronic medical conditions
00:38:03.340
like COPD, there's a huge number of people who are dependent on insulin for diabetes. There's a huge
00:38:12.400
number of people who are dependent on heart medications. If we have major disruption, we could
00:38:18.180
probably expect to see a 20% die off in our population, even if there was still food and water
00:38:28.220
distribution. And if there's no heating, there's no power, there's no water, there's no food distribution,
00:38:36.020
we could see a die off of as much as 70% of our population over just one winter. That's how system
00:38:44.460
dependent we are these days. The numbers will be staggering. The social interaction coming out of
00:38:53.200
all of that will be horrendous. I think you're going to want to be able to hunker down for not
00:38:58.880
just one year, but two years while waiting for a die off if we have a grid down collapse where the
00:39:03.900
grid doesn't come back up. And so, I mean, okay. I mean, thinking about that as well, I think you
00:39:09.340
talked about this. One of the things you can do to prepare now is like get in shape, get your health
00:39:15.380
right. Absolutely. Yeah. If people don't have a vigorous lifestyle now, they should. You know, just
00:39:23.800
before this interview, I was out hauling slash getting my firewood in for next year. Here where I live,
00:39:32.500
I'm out cutting firewood every summer. And we're talking five cords every summer, which I fell,
00:39:41.800
buck, haul, split, and stack every year. It's great exercise. And that's just, and meanwhile,
00:39:52.420
my wife is very busy with our gardens. We have two different gardens. You really need to have a
00:39:57.920
vigorous lifestyle. And don't think so much in terms of just sitting on a exercise bicycle or
00:40:05.880
running on a treadmill. Make it useful. Make it practical. Again, I love splitting wood,
00:40:13.940
but find exercises that will match your lifestyle after a collapse. Because if you just concentrate
00:40:23.720
on running, you're only going to have lower body strength. Or if you just concentrate on,
00:40:29.660
you know, one particular type of upper body exercise, you're not going to have the lower body
00:40:35.320
strength you need. And unless you are involved in vigorous work, digging post holes, splitting wood,
00:40:45.640
all that sort of thing, you're not going to have the back strength you need.
00:40:48.780
So if for anyone who's stuck in an urban environment, I actually recommend swimming,
00:40:54.640
ironically, more than any other, because it works your entire body, all your muscle groups.
00:41:01.900
And if you swim quickly aerobically, you're getting really good exercise. But physical condition is
00:41:08.500
crucial. A normal diet and normal body weight are crucial. And if you can't get serious about this,
00:41:17.620
you've got to ask yourself how serious you are about living and providing for your family.
00:41:23.480
Again, it all comes down to priorities. It all comes down to time. There's always a ratio of sweat
00:41:28.580
to dollars. If you're willing to sweat more, you can spend less. And you can do a lot of these things
00:41:34.560
yourself. You know, you can hire someone to build fences for you, but why not learn how to do it
00:41:39.420
yourself and get exercise doing it at the same time?
00:41:42.560
Right. So, I mean, I guess another mindset question is where we've talked about some of
00:41:46.080
this kind of bare bones, right? We've barely scratched the surface of this stuff. But as I
00:41:50.380
said earlier, I think for a lot of people, it can be overwhelming. So, I mean, I guess there's
00:41:54.720
set expectations. This is not something you can do in a month or even a year. It probably is
00:42:02.160
Yeah. Folks, it's a multi-year plan to get up to speed. And it can take quite a while to find a group
00:42:08.540
of people that you can really trust and train with them. Again, there's learning curves with
00:42:13.780
all these things. And if you're establishing a rural retreat, it takes time to establish
00:42:19.860
fruit and net trees, for example. Those take years to grow. Or even just berry bushes take two or three
00:42:26.220
years to start really producing. So, there's a time component to all of this. And for anyone listening
00:42:32.620
to this, who feels behind the power curve, they have some catching up to do.
00:42:40.240
Yes. Don't just plan. This is not a pencil and paper exercise. This is not an armchair exercise.
00:42:47.620
This is a get up out of your armchair and do it exercise. So, if you feel serious about preparation,
00:42:55.620
I believe as a Christian, you should get down on your knees and pray and ask for God's
00:43:00.040
providence and guidance in this. And then once you feel firmly convicted to prepare,
00:43:07.240
forget the halfway measures. Dedicate a good part of your budget to preparedness. And if that means
00:43:13.960
skipping your planned vacation to Hawaii or selling your big screen television or selling your jet ski
00:43:21.380
or whatever it takes, get your finances in order and get prepared. Because no one else is going to do
00:43:27.460
it for you. And again, statistically, your chances of survival for you and your family will be much,
00:43:33.380
much greater. You know, I look at it from a, you know, a 19th century pioneer perspective.
00:43:39.940
My family came out west by covered wagon in 1852. And I grew up with that mindset that we provide for
00:43:50.040
ourselves. And that's what I tried to instill in my children. And for those of you folks listening to
00:43:57.800
this, I think that's the good, the good sound and historically proven approach. Use old technologies
00:44:07.500
where appropriate and high technology where appropriate, but old fashioned common sense at all
00:44:15.760
Well, Jim, this has been an interesting conversation. Thank you so much for your time.
00:44:19.500
Thank you so much. And God bless you and all your listeners. Again, I encourage them to take full
00:44:23.680
advantage of all the archives at survivalblog.com. They're fully searchable and free.
00:44:29.900
My guest here is James Rawls. He's the owner of survivalblog.com. You can go there. Like he said,
00:44:34.420
on the podcast, he's got thousands of free articles on prepping over there from all sorts of things.
00:44:38.940
Also check out his book on amazon.com, how to survive the new world as we know it. Also check out our show
00:44:43.620
notes at aom.is slash Rawls. That's R-A-W-L-E-S. We're going to find links to resources. We're going to delve deeper
00:45:02.220
Well, that wraps up another edition of the Art of Manliness podcast. For more manly tips and advice,
00:45:06.640
make sure to check out the Art of Manliness website at artofmanliness.com. As always,
00:45:10.740
thank you for your continued support. And until next time, this is Brett McKay telling you to stay