The Art of Manliness - #597： A Survival Expert's Guide to Bugging-In

00:00:00.000 Brett McKay here and welcome to another edition of the Art of Manliness podcast. The coronavirus

00:00:11.320 pandemic has forced tens of millions of people to stay home due to shelter-in-place orders and

00:00:16.220 even lockdowns. While supplies of food, water, and other essentials have largely continued

00:00:20.760 undisrupted, for the most part, if one or more of these services were completely cut off,

00:00:24.920 what would be the best way to prepare for that kind of emergency? To answer this question,

00:00:28.660 I talked to friend of AOM and survival expert, Kreek Stewart. Kreek has dedicated his life to

00:00:33.200 mastering all things survival, spending thousands of hours in the field, authoring numerous articles

00:00:37.420 and books, teaching courses to others, and hosting television shows for the weather channel like SOS

00:00:41.940 How to Survive. Today, Kreek and I talk about what we can learn from the current pandemic about how

00:00:46.240 to shelter-in-place or bug-in and how to be prepared if this crisis worsens in severity or we're one day

00:00:51.920 hit with a more dire disaster. We dive into the different bug-in categories you need to consider,

00:00:56.140 beginning with how much food and water you need for a long-term bug-in situation, and how to

00:01:00.340 properly store it. Kreek then talks about what you need to consider in terms of first aid and home

00:01:04.340 defense in a bug-in scenario, and why you also need to think about how to keep yourself entertained.

00:01:08.520 Lots of practical and timely advice in this episode. After it's over, check out our show notes at

00:01:12.300 aom.is slash bug-in.

00:01:23.880 All right, Kreek Stewart, welcome back to the show.

00:01:27.260 Hey, man, it's good to be back. It's great to be here with you.

00:01:31.460 So it's been a while. The last time we had you on the podcast is back in 2013. But if people have

00:01:36.980 been following the art of manliness for a long time, they know you. You're the wilderness survival

00:01:40.860 guy, the prepper guy. You've written some classics for AOM in the past. We got the zombie apocalypse

00:01:46.060 survival shotgun. We've got your camouflaging articles, article on how to use a tampon in a

00:01:52.400 survival situation. And I think a lot of people know your work that you've done with the Weather

00:01:56.720 Channel, with fat guys in the woods and things like that. And I wanted to bring you on because

00:02:01.240 right now we're in the middle of a pandemic, and this is the thing that you're helping people get

00:02:06.020 ready for. And I love in your emails, you always end with a motto. It's not if, but when. So I

00:02:13.540 imagine before the pandemic, I think there's plenty of people who thought of prepper survival type

00:02:19.140 people was being too paranoid. Do you think people are changing their tune now about this?

00:02:25.300 You know, this particular disaster, tragedy, pandemic, whatever you want to call it,

00:02:31.800 is super interesting. I've found over the years of studying survival stories and taking people into

00:02:39.380 the woods and just studying these things and being really in this industry that really the catalyst

00:02:48.140 for a change of mind or a change of behavior or habit, I found that it really comes from one of two

00:02:57.380 things, either extreme suffering or extreme tragedy. And in this particular pandemic, in this particular

00:03:05.800 scenario, there is definitely a tragic side to it. I mean, there are absolutely people whose health

00:03:14.000 are affected and there are people dying. And I don't want to be insensitive toward that at all

00:03:19.380 whatsoever. And I know that in the midst of all of this, people are being laid off work and the

00:03:25.280 economy's changing and losing their jobs. So there is absolutely a tragic side to this.

00:03:31.060 But the interesting part of this pandemic is that in general, most people's needs are being met.

00:03:39.380 You know, they still have food and water and electricity and access to medical care and

00:03:44.680 heat and their furnace works and their toilets work and their showers work.

00:03:48.940 And so on that side of things, there's not a lot of suffering happening. And so I think while this

00:03:58.380 is really bringing the idea of preparedness to mind in the midst of this and staying home and being

00:04:05.200 quarantined, I think that because there is not really what you would consider traditional disaster

00:04:14.620 suffering, because that isn't happening in this particular scenario, I would guess that a lot

00:04:23.120 of people will be very quick to forget about the quarantine and the coronavirus a few weeks after

00:04:31.220 this whole thing passes. And so do I think that there'll be a change of tune as far as, I think for

00:04:39.380 some people, but I think for a lot of people, time really will take away the details and we'll be

00:04:46.360 back to square one when the next one happens. So I hope that's not the case. But my guess is that

00:04:52.960 this will be a small hiccup for a lot of people. And I don't know that it will be the wake-up call

00:04:59.820 that I wish it would be.

00:05:01.520 We are humans. We always forget. And that's why we repeat history oftentimes.

00:05:06.120 So your focus with your work is a lot about prepping, surviving away from your primary

00:05:12.760 residence, either surviving in the wild or bugging out to another location. Well, that's another

00:05:17.560 article you've written for us, how to build a bug out bag. But you've also written about what's

00:05:23.100 called bugging in, which is appropriate with this quarantining and social distancing and shelter in

00:05:29.860 place that's been going on. For those who aren't familiar with the idea, what is bugging in?

00:05:34.220 Well, bugging in is, I guess the best way to describe it is another phrase for the idea of

00:05:43.180 sheltering in place. And sheltering in place, the concept has been around for a really long time.

00:05:49.620 And so with bugging out, you're leaving your primary place of residence for somewhere that's

00:05:57.020 more safe. It's just not safe to stay at home. And so you have to leave in order to be safe.

00:06:02.060 Well, bugging in is the exact opposite. Either you're staying in to be safe, or you have no option

00:06:09.520 to leave, or you're basically forced at home. And so there are a lot of different things that could

00:06:16.700 cause a bug in scenario. Historically, they've been chemical related, biological related, radiological,

00:06:25.900 even nuclear. All of those are, I guess, they're real common. I mean, not common, but those would

00:06:35.660 be kind of the classic reasons to bug in. Some other ones that have happened in a little bit more

00:06:42.640 recent history have been violence. Violence is often a reason for local governments to put out an

00:06:52.260 ordinance to state shelter in place. Like during the Boston Marathon, for example, the local police

00:06:57.600 department did encourage sheltering in place because of the bombings. And in Los Angeles in 2016,

00:07:05.980 there was, I remember there was a sulfuric acid tanker that caught on fire. And so everyone within

00:07:13.380 15 miles or so of that tanker were required to shelter in place for safety. The most common,

00:07:20.120 I would say, though, is winter storm warnings, winter storms that cause people to have to shelter

00:07:25.500 in place or bug in. But now we're seeing globally this pandemic with the COVID-19 epidemic and

00:07:35.000 something certainly that's never happened in my lifetime.

00:07:40.540 So whenever you're consulting people on how to bug in, in general, how long do you advise people to

00:07:47.200 prepare to be hunkered down for? Well, I base that on three tiers. And it's a little bit different

00:07:54.740 for everyone and based upon everyone's time, budget, and how serious they are. Two weeks is an absolute

00:08:03.020 minimum these days. Used to, it was three days. I can remember it was, you know, having three days

00:08:08.700 worth of supplies on hand, almost kind of like a bug out bag. But these days, it's absolutely a minimum

00:08:14.900 of two weeks to be able to bug in and be completely independent of survival on all of your needs for

00:08:23.880 two weeks. Myself and what I would encourage other people to do is have a three-tiered plan. It starts

00:08:32.100 with two weeks, which is pretty easy to accomplish for most people, even on a tight budget. And then

00:08:38.340 a three-month plan, which is a little bit more complicated, but still fairly easy to accomplish

00:08:44.260 for most people. And then stretch it out a little bit further and have a one-year plan, which for

00:08:50.240 most is going to be, feel really extreme and may sound a little bit crazy. But for myself, I have a

00:08:56.000 two-week, a three-month, and a one-year plan for complete independent survival for me and my family.

00:09:02.220 Gotcha. And I mean, I think with this, it's good to have all those different tiers because you never

00:09:07.000 know what the situation is going to be like. Right now, during this current pandemic, we had this

00:09:11.460 immediate burst of people going out and just stockpiling stuff. So there's nothing there, or there's

00:09:16.700 still stuff there, but it's not great. So in that situation, it'd be nice to have that two-week

00:09:21.060 buffer then. But you never know if the supply chain, for whatever reason, doesn't kick into action like

00:09:27.620 it should, that one month might come in handy then. Yeah, absolutely. Every disaster is totally

00:09:33.540 different. And one minor change in this particular one with the coronavirus, if we just took out,

00:09:42.200 if we took the coronavirus as it is right now, where people are quarantined at home and everybody's

00:09:48.220 forced to stay at home and just for their own health and safety. But if you just take out one

00:09:53.320 other thing, right now, everything is accessible. Everyone has electric, their furnaces are working,

00:09:59.160 their water's running, they have access to food and medicine, they have internet and cell phone

00:10:03.820 service. But if you remove just one of those services, things become exponentially more complicated.

00:10:13.460 I mean, you take out electric and we're having a totally different conversation. I mean, you take

00:10:21.220 out water and this thing becomes so more dangerous and so more complicated. Just one of those services

00:10:27.480 missing. And this is an entirely different conversation.

00:10:33.960 So when you're thinking about bugging in, what are the categories for human survival that you should

00:10:38.160 be thinking about when you bug in? And is there anything in particular that you should think about

00:10:41.940 when it comes to pandemics?

00:10:44.040 Well, that's a really good question. When I think about survival and bugging in, like when I really sat down

00:10:49.820 and started developing my own bug in plan, I thought about my grandpa. I thought about, okay,

00:10:55.920 when my grandpa was my age, what did he need? And that was, you know, back when my grandpa was my age

00:11:07.100 and younger, he needed water. He needed food. He needed a way to cook that food. He needed a way to stay

00:11:15.180 warm in the winter. He needed personal hygiene items to a certain degree and some limited medication type

00:11:23.420 situation and first aid tools. And then he needed all the like supplies and tools that related to any

00:11:30.880 of those categories. For example, for he needed a way to heat his home in the winter. Well, he needed a

00:11:36.880 way to cut firewood and split firewood and he needed a fireplace. And so when it comes to bugging in,

00:11:45.120 it's oftentimes really over, overworked and made to be more complicated than it needs to be because

00:11:53.460 we live in a day and age when we forget that it wasn't that long ago, that times were a lot simpler,

00:12:00.240 that there was no running water. There was no electric, there were no indoor bathrooms and there

00:12:05.580 was no, you know, internet and all that stuff. And when you really break it down, it's water food,

00:12:11.540 a way to cook the food, a way to heat your home. If you live in a cold environment,

00:12:15.340 some first aid and personal hygiene items, and then the tools that go with any one of those

00:12:19.940 categories. Gotcha. So let's dig into some of these categories in more detail. Yeah. So you mentioned

00:12:24.840 water and I think it's interesting for the, I talked to you about this before we started recording and

00:12:30.200 for the past three weeks on art of manliness, a couple of years ago, I'm going to say six years ago,

00:12:35.080 I wrote this article on how to do long-term water storage. And then for the past three weeks,

00:12:39.640 you can just see it in our analytics, like the search traffic to that article has been

00:12:43.380 been going up. So it's, it's a concern for people that, you know, somehow the water is going to go

00:12:48.000 away. But as you said, in this, it's interesting, this emergency that we're dealing with water is

00:12:51.740 still there, but again, it could, might not be there. And even let's say there's another disaster

00:12:58.160 of some sort where your water shut off. Let's talk about water supply. How much water do you think

00:13:02.460 a person needs in their home to last that two weeks, for example? Well, the general rule of thumb

00:13:07.780 is one gallon per day per person. That's for not only drinking, but also personal hygiene and,

00:13:15.440 and washing and bathing. And so one gallon per person per day, indefinitely, you know, for as long

00:13:23.720 as whatever your plan is, is the amount of water that you'll need. And you're right about water. I mean,

00:13:31.440 water gets knocked offline all the time. I mean, just in my hometown last week, in the midst of this

00:13:36.540 pandemic, there was a boil issue in the hometown that I grew up in. There was a, there was a boil

00:13:42.200 warning where, because of some pumps went down or something like that. And, you know, it happens all

00:13:48.420 the time. Not too long ago in Flint, Michigan, there, there were major water issues where there

00:13:53.200 were boil, where there were boil warnings. And, you know, places like Southern California that don't

00:13:59.020 have their, in their own independent water supply, you know, it, it becomes a very fragile situation.

00:14:06.320 And water is our most basic of human survival needs. I would, I would say outside of an immediate

00:14:12.600 first aid threat, water is at the top. So, okay. One gallon a day, let's say you want to,

00:14:18.820 you know, store two, you know, two weeks worth or a month worth. Like how do you store,

00:14:23.440 what are the best way to store water, different options for that? Yeah. So for, I'll just take,

00:14:29.020 my three tier, for example, okay. My two week, my three month and my one year tiers. And that,

00:14:34.720 that I think describing how I do it will, will really, will really help. So my two week tier,

00:14:41.100 I, I have two weeks worth of bottled water on hand at all times. And we move through, my family

00:14:48.440 and I, we move through that on a regular basis. So we're always grabbing a water, bottled water.

00:14:53.260 And so we're kind of moving through that two week supply of bottled water at any given moment.

00:14:59.720 And beyond two weeks, it starts to get, you start to get into a situation where, okay,

00:15:06.620 I need to think about how do I store this water and how can I depend on it for up to a year? Okay.

00:15:14.880 Bottled water will easily last up to a year, except it's just a little bit cumbersome to,

00:15:19.360 you know, to pack months worth of bottled water in your basement. Okay. So some of the best ways to

00:15:26.940 store water for, let's say up to a three month time period are going to be two ways.

00:15:35.100 Number one is those five gallon, kind of like the water cooler, uh, in office,

00:15:42.140 those five gallon water containers. Those are a little cumbersome, but having one of those

00:15:48.320 dispensers in your kitchen and having five gallon containers of those waters downstairs or in the

00:15:54.920 basement or in the garage, uh, those are a really good way to store a lot of water. 55 gallon drums,

00:16:01.340 food grade drums is what I use for my three month water storage, which can last up to a year.

00:16:07.720 There's a company called Aqua Mira that makes a really good two part mixture that you pour into

00:16:13.480 that, that makes it, that helps keep your water good for up to a year. And you can buy 55 gallon

00:16:19.760 drums on Amazon. You can find them on, you know, food grade drums, probably the easiest places is

00:16:25.380 on Amazon, but you can buy a pump so that you can pump water right out of them. And I change out the

00:16:31.840 water and my 55 gallon drums every year. It's a little bit of a hassle, but I normally take one

00:16:37.740 day a year and change out my drums and then refill those back up and put in a two part water purification

00:16:43.940 mixture in there. And I'm good for another year. Storing water more than three months, one gallon

00:16:50.600 per person per day becomes a little much. After that, you really start, you really need to start

00:16:56.860 thinking about kind of an independent water supply. And that could either be a rain harvesting system

00:17:02.480 or obviously some type of a well. A really common way to store water that a lot of people use are

00:17:09.920 recycled two liter bottles, not milk jugs because they tend to degrade and get a little weird over

00:17:16.400 time. But two liter bottles or other plastic bottles like juice bottles, those are really great

00:17:21.860 ways to store water. And when you fill up a two liter bottle or a juice jug or something like

00:17:28.800 that, I always put in, when I used to store my water like that, I would put in two drops of bleach,

00:17:36.160 of unscented bleach per liter when I would do the storage. And that'll pretty much keep you up for a

00:17:42.880 year. All right. So you've got water stored up. Now you need to think about food. What kind of food

00:17:47.560 should you store for your long-term bugging situation? I'm going to go back to my whole,

00:17:52.260 my three year, my, my three tier system again. And I think it'll make a lot of sense.

00:17:57.640 So for myself and my family, this is the same model that I would encourage anyone to consider

00:18:03.400 and possibly adapt if, if so inclined. So for myself and my family, we, we keep, you know, there's a,

00:18:10.140 there's a saying within the survival industry that America is nine meals away from anarchy.

00:18:15.380 And what that means is that most people have nine meals worth of food in their home at any given

00:18:22.240 moment. And after that, things start getting a little crazy. And so for myself and my family,

00:18:28.700 we keep two weeks worth of food. We're going to, we're going to go back to that two week,

00:18:33.400 three month and one year mark. So I keep two weeks, three months and one year's worth of food

00:18:39.680 in our house for independent survival for me and my family at any given moment.

00:18:45.180 The two weeks category includes everything that we eat on a regular basis, fresh vegetables,

00:18:51.120 meat, frozen meats, frozen vegetables, canned goods, pastas, you know, anything that's either

00:18:58.220 in a package or ready to cook, ready to open up, ready to prepare. So we keep anywhere between,

00:19:04.240 I don't know, one and two weeks worth of food, three meals a day, breakfast, lunch,

00:19:08.600 and dinner for two weeks. Beyond that, from two weeks, and we're constantly moving through that

00:19:14.960 food and buying more groceries or canning more or hunting more. And so we're constantly replenishing

00:19:20.960 that two week food supply and we're moving on a regular basis through that. Beyond that,

00:19:27.240 from our two week to three month window, I have moved to a freeze dried food methodology.

00:19:34.100 I used to, I used to use all kinds of kind of hodgepodge, different food storage options,

00:19:40.740 but up until my three month mark, beyond two weeks, if I couldn't get any more food, couldn't

00:19:46.540 hunt, couldn't fish, couldn't go to the grocery store, couldn't get canned goods, then I would

00:19:51.660 depend on freeze dried food. Now it's a little bit more expensive, but it's very simple. It lasts for 25

00:19:58.640 years. You can, you can buy three months worth of this food. You can put it down, you can buy it

00:20:03.520 gradually over time. You don't have to buy it all at once. It is a little expensive, but you can put

00:20:08.200 it down in the basement or in a kind of a, you know, just somewhere that doesn't have sunlight and

00:20:14.260 that's fairly cool ideally. And you'll last 25 years with that stuff. And it's literally, it's

00:20:20.480 freeze dried. So you just add water, heat it up. If it's a, if it's a heat up meal and you're ready to

00:20:25.340 go and it's really, really easy and the stuff's pretty good. Now beyond three months, freeze dried

00:20:33.120 food gets really expensive. You can buy one year packages of freeze dried food, but they're very

00:20:40.620 in the thousands of dollars. And so beyond that, then we start talking about what my grandpa did.

00:20:47.280 We're back to my grandpa, right? We're back to grains. We're back to maybe producing some of your

00:20:54.840 own foods, hunting, fishing, chickens, backyard chickens, goats, things like that. As far as food

00:21:01.920 storage goes, a lot of grains, you know, barley, corn, flour, rice, a lot of pastas, macaronis,

00:21:10.160 noodles, and spaghettis. And, you know, some, a lot of, it's more of an ingredients list of food

00:21:20.800 storage, a lot of beans and legumes and canned foods and spices and mixes. And, you know, all of

00:21:29.600 those things that you use to actually build and cook meals. And a lot of that stuff lasts a really

00:21:37.340 long time, like wheat and corn and rice and beans. I mean, you, if you package those things correctly,

00:21:45.660 those things will easily last you 25 years. We're going to take a quick break for your word

00:21:51.080 from our sponsors. And now back to the show. And so with this ingredient stuff that not only do you

00:21:58.480 have to, you know, store the stuff, but you also have to learn how to cook it in a way that's

00:22:02.940 palatable. And that's actually the really hard part. The storing the stuff is really simple. You know,

00:22:09.820 we, I buy, I buy my bulk goods in 50, 50 pound bags, but then I repackage that into,

00:22:17.200 into plastic food grade five gallon buckets. So it's, it's really easy to storage and you don't

00:22:23.480 have to worry about mice or anything like that. And, but the catch here is all of a sudden you

00:22:29.980 got to know how to cook like your grandma, you know, you got to know how to make the biscuits and 0.99

00:22:34.600 mix the wheat and make the, I mean, and make all the things. And so for a lot of people,

00:22:39.320 including myself, that's a real challenge. And so that's a part of, you know, that's something

00:22:45.840 that I've been working on personally over the years is, you know, once a week or so really,

00:22:51.480 you know, getting, getting my hands messy in the kitchen a little bit and really understanding

00:22:56.460 how to cook, you know, especially my generation or me, I'll just take blame for it. You know,

00:23:02.740 I'm not a cook and I don't spend a lot of time cooking, but if you go this route with long-term food

00:23:07.260 storage, you have to cook because you can't just, you can't just eat the beans, you know?

00:23:12.420 You mentioned freeze-dried food. What about MREs? What's your take on those?

00:23:18.240 MREs could easily be in that category, that three, I mean, MREs could be in, you know,

00:23:22.940 could be in either your three-week, your two-month, your, I mean, your two-week,

00:23:27.960 your three-month or your one-year category. They're very, I mean, they're calorie dense.

00:23:33.640 The last 25 years, a lot of them, and they're open and eat, you know, really great long-term

00:23:40.160 meals. The only problem is like freeze-dried food, they're, they're expensive. You know,

00:23:45.080 those run anywhere. I mean, last time I checked, you know, roughly eight bucks, uh, eight bucks a

00:23:50.340 pop. Right. So you're paying for convenience basically with that. Yeah. Yeah, definitely.

00:23:54.940 But it's a fantastic option, you know? So you mentioned, you know, for water, like ideally

00:24:00.120 you have a gallon a day, is there some sort of recommendation for how much food you need,

00:24:04.540 uh, per person? You know, that's a tough one. You could break, I mean, I've broken mine down

00:24:10.960 based upon testing with meals. The, I mean, I've got it into, I could give you my kind of,

00:24:20.240 all right, let me, let me see here. I do, I have written down my, what I have per person in my

00:24:28.420 household and it would give you at least a rough idea, but these are, but I've got these,

00:24:33.400 the way I've written these down are one year numbers. And so this sounds a little crazy.

00:24:38.800 Like for example, grains, which would include rice, wheat, any seeds for sprouting, oats and corn and

00:24:47.380 barley and things like that. You know, I keep 600 pounds per person per year on hand. I mean,

00:24:55.600 just, and that's just the grains. And then there's all kinds of other categories. We, like I keep,

00:25:02.200 I keep 75 pounds of canned of dried milk on hand per person and about 35 pounds of oil and fats like

00:25:13.000 peanut butter and powdered margarine and cooking oil for cooking. And you know, the, the numbers for

00:25:23.660 one year sound a little crazy, but the way I would kind of back that down is you have to,

00:25:30.720 in order to, in order to plan for long-term food storage, you have to understand how to cook it.

00:25:36.500 And the only way to understand how to cook it is to actually get in the kitchen and start playing

00:25:40.720 around with these ingredients. And it's only until you do that, that you're going to, that you're going

00:25:45.420 to be able to multiply out how much of these items you're going to need. There are a lot of rough

00:25:51.340 estimates online, like the LDS church. They have some fantastic information about long-term food

00:25:59.300 storage that I would recommend anyone read through as a part of just the culture of that church for

00:26:05.460 as long as they've been into existence. They have been in the business of long-term food storage. In

00:26:11.800 fact, their warehouse, they have a, something called the storehouse. It's a fantastic place to get

00:26:17.200 long-term food storage grains. I buy a lot of mine at bulk markets like Gordon food services and even

00:26:25.240 online on Amazon, but that LDS church, their storehouse, if there's one in your area, there's

00:26:30.720 some fantastic buys on long-term food storage, like big bags of grain and rice and stuff like that.

00:26:38.080 And the other thing you got to think about too, with food storage at least is, or even with water

00:26:41.360 storage, you got to know where you're going to keep it. If you have a house with a big garage or

00:26:45.480 basement, not a problem, but if you're in an apartment, then you have to get creative or maybe

00:26:50.140 you won't be able to care as much. Underneath your bed, that's a place where a lot of people I know

00:26:55.000 put their food storage or they actually turn their food storage into like the box springs of their bed.

00:27:00.480 Right. Yeah, no, absolutely. You'd be surprised that, you know, if you, what a slew of five gallon

00:27:06.580 buckets could make, you know, you could easily turn that into a coffee table or a bed frame,

00:27:12.440 but there's all kinds of creative ways, but you're right. It's, they can, I mean, especially

00:27:17.840 water. And when you start storing up three months worth of water and food, it's absolutely going to

00:27:24.380 take up some space. You know, it could sound, it could seem if for someone who's just starting to

00:27:29.820 think about, I need, maybe this Corona thing is, has got someone thinking like, listen, this just scared

00:27:36.100 the holy bejesus out of me. And I want to start keeping some food storage on hand for my family.

00:27:43.860 I mean, don't start at one year. You'll never get done. You know, that will become so overwhelming

00:27:48.780 that you'll just quit. I always say for the person who's just starting out, I always say,

00:27:53.700 start with a bug out bag that, that gets you three days worth of independent survival. And there's always

00:28:00.200 a place for a bug out bag. And then, I mean, there's a fantastic article on your site about

00:28:05.720 building a bug out bag, but there, you know, and then work your way up from that three days.

00:28:11.740 You know, you've got that, throw that in your closet and now think about my two weeks. And you'd

00:28:16.500 be surprised at how easy it is to get two weeks. And then once you've got two weeks, then you take

00:28:20.560 it a step farther and you think about, okay, what is some food and how do I store a little bit more

00:28:25.620 water? And then let's get me to that one month mark. Okay. But once you get past two weeks,

00:28:31.300 you want to start thinking about food that's going to sit on the shelf for a year. Okay. So that's

00:28:36.020 either freeze dried, that's MREs, or that's dried goods. Like I was just talking about wheat and rice

00:28:41.780 and beans, and then the ingredients to make meals with those things. So anything beyond two weeks,

00:28:47.880 you want, you want to have a long-term shelf life because you don't want to be dealing with that

00:28:51.660 stuff. Ideally you want a shelf life that's 25 years. And it is totally possible with those three

00:28:57.740 categories of foods to sit them on the shelf for 25 years, freeze dried foods, MREs, like you mentioned,

00:29:04.360 and dried goods. Those are all, those all last 25 years if stored properly. And it's really easy to

00:29:11.360 get one month's worth of food and water in storage over the course of just a few weeks. It's incredibly

00:29:17.560 easy to do on a very tight budget. This stuff is not, now the freeze dried is a little bit expensive,

00:29:22.740 but when you get into dried goods, it is not expensive at all to get, to get an incredible

00:29:28.500 amount of food storage under your belt in dried goods. Awesome. So this is all, this is all really

00:29:34.260 practical, actionable advice that you just gave. So let's talk about another item of category of human

00:29:39.740 survival you got to think about when you're bugging in, and that is first aid. So what sort of first aid

00:29:44.360 items should people stock up on for a bugging scenario? If there was one category that I'm weak in,

00:29:50.000 it's probably first aid. That's probably my weakest category of all. And so I always, in my first aid

00:29:58.040 preps, I always multiply out what I need. I know what I need for first aid in the outdoors, because I know

00:30:06.920 what those most common injuries are from experience. And so when I think about first aid, I think

00:30:14.160 about it a little bit differently than most. You know, most people would say, I need a little first

00:30:19.700 aid kit and I need to beef up on Band-Aids and Neosporin and things like that. Well, I'm of the

00:30:26.440 mindset that, you know, that stuff is fine for first aid, but what you really need for first aid are the

00:30:33.500 things to deal with real first aid emergencies. And those are not things that can be fixed with a Band-Aid

00:30:39.060 and Neosporin and a little butterfly patch and a patch of gauze. And so when I think about first

00:30:44.760 aid, I think about what are the big things that can happen that can really, you know, that can really

00:30:51.260 knock someone out. And those things are major bleeding. And so we need things to control major

00:30:58.760 bleeding if someone gets cut or falls on something or something weird happens. And the four things that

00:31:05.560 I would recommend to start off your, your bleeding control kit, if we're going to call it that,

00:31:11.060 is a tourniquet. And I use a cat tourniquet, a combat application tourniquet. I use a product,

00:31:16.820 I pack a product in all of my first aid kits and my bugging kit called Seelox Z-Fold Gauze,

00:31:22.700 which is, it's a, it's a wound packing. It helps your blood clot. And it's kind of an anti,

00:31:29.560 kind of a clotting agent mixed in with that gauze. So you can pack it and it'll just seal up a wound

00:31:34.680 pretty good. And Israeli compression bandage goes a long way, a handful of those, and then some

00:31:40.160 ace wrap so that you can really wrap that stuff up tight. And ace wrap can be used for all kinds

00:31:45.060 of things, but you definitely need a system in place for bleeding control because a bandaid and

00:31:49.980 a little bit of gauze just ain't going to cut it. But I know on the bleeding control, I know ITS

00:31:54.520 tactical, they sell some kits where like all, everything you need for that as well. Just fantastic

00:32:00.060 pouch has got tourniquet and everything in the gauze. So yeah, that's another place. If you just want

00:32:04.140 everything all in one place, ITS tactical has that stuff. Yeah. And then, and they'll probably

00:32:09.040 have everything that I've just mentioned in that kit and, and some other, and some other items as

00:32:14.120 well. You know, a company like ITS, they're going to, they're going to put together a fantastic

00:32:18.400 bleeding control kit, I'm sure. So what else besides bleeding control? Okay. So then we're moving to

00:32:24.420 sprains and broken or fractured bones. That's something that can really knock someone out. And so

00:32:31.180 everyone should have a Sam splint or four in their kit, a Sam splint can literally be used to

00:32:38.840 stabilize. I think every single bone in the human body, you can cut it and you can, you can split a

00:32:44.420 finger with it. You can use it to split your leg and your arm, and you could stabilize your head and

00:32:48.820 your neck. You can do all kinds of things with a Sam splint. And so a couple of those on hand and

00:32:54.700 some ACE wrap bandage, and you should be pretty good, pretty good to go. And some medical tape,

00:33:01.200 you should be pretty good to go to stay, help stabilize any sprains or, and broken bones to

00:33:06.420 at least temporarily, because that's a category that absolutely happens. And so another one is burns.

00:33:13.960 A lot of people don't think about burns, but man, when, when you get a burn, things can go downhill

00:33:22.280 really quick if you don't take care of it. And one of the products I like best for burns is a product

00:33:27.800 called water gel, water J E L. And they come in individual packets and it's just an outstanding burn

00:33:36.060 dressing. And it's one that a lot of outdoor enthusiasts use, and it can, it could just as easily

00:33:40.860 be used inside. So another thing that people need to think about too, what I think this,

00:33:45.260 the coronavirus pandemic has brought to light with supply chain is if you have any underlying health

00:33:50.360 issues, like perhaps store up on medication as much as you can for, you know, medicines that you're

00:33:56.280 taking right now, because that might not, you might not have it when you need it.

00:33:59.600 Yeah. No, absolutely. I mean, if something happened, which absolutely could, that interrupted the supply

00:34:06.240 chain for medicine or prevented people from being able to go to the pharmacy or something like

00:34:10.680 that, I mean, we're talking worst case scenario. And so I think most doctors these days totally

00:34:17.580 understand a very simple conversation like this. Hey doc, I'm putting together an emergency kit in

00:34:24.340 my house. I want to be ready just in case that I can't get my meds for up to three months. Can you

00:34:32.060 help me get a back supply of medicine that I could keep on hand for a three month supply? And if your doctor

00:34:40.400 isn't willing to work with you to get that done, especially in this day and age, that I would say,

00:34:45.860 go find a different doctor. Because people who are medically dependent on medicine, you absolutely

00:34:53.920 need to have a backup supply of that stuff on hand. And I think now with coronavirus, having that

00:34:59.800 conversation with your physician makes a lot more sense. You could say, listen, I mean, I just went

00:35:04.820 through the scare of my life and I was scared to death that I wasn't going to be able to get my

00:35:08.380 medicine. And I know now that I need a backup supply on hand. Can you help me? Can we put

00:35:14.600 together a plan where I can at least put some back just in case? And besides stocking up on medicines

00:35:22.180 and supplies for first aid, another part of this is getting the skills training. Because if you have

00:35:27.320 all the stuff but don't know how to use it, then it's pretty much worthless. Absolutely. I mean,

00:35:31.320 being able to even put on a tourniquet, understanding, I mean, you can have all the tourniquets in the

00:35:37.060 world. But if you don't know how to use it properly, it's never going to work. It'd probably

00:35:39.760 be more dangerous than not using one at all. But all of this stuff absolutely requires at least a

00:35:46.920 little bit of training. The good news is that it's not something that you need to spend full time.

00:35:52.700 I mean, this can become a really fun hobby, getting your preps ready for your family. There's

00:35:59.440 nothing more important that you can do for your family. A lot of people go to work every day to put

00:36:04.300 food on the table for their family. It's the same thing. You're just prepping for your family or for

00:36:09.640 yourself in a different way. It's a different kind of life insurance policy. And these are

00:36:16.580 fantastic things to do as a family, to train as a family on the evenings and weekends. And it can

00:36:23.960 be a lot of fun too. Well, and if you're shelter in place, you can't go anywhere. So this is something

00:36:29.100 to do. Yeah, absolutely. And that's an entirely category that a lot of people overlook is just

00:36:36.280 remaining sane during a bug-in scenario. Because there's a lot of funny stuff going around right

00:36:42.560 now just online about people spending just an inordinate amount of time with their families

00:36:47.520 all day long with their kids and going crazy. But there's something to be said for that.

00:36:53.540 You know, keeping, you know, thinking about what if I could, I literally couldn't leave

00:36:59.200 the house. I mean, right now people can go out into their yards and go outside and take

00:37:04.660 a walk and go to the grocery stores. But what if you were really cooped up in your house?

00:37:09.860 There are actually situations that could call for that, you know, that aren't off the table

00:37:14.660 in our future. What if you couldn't leave your house? You know, can you keep yourselves

00:37:19.100 entertained for a couple of weeks or for a week? And those things should be included in your list

00:37:24.540 too. You know, whether it's board games or card games or, you know, backup power supplies to keep

00:37:31.080 your tablets running, whatever, whatever that is for you and your family, it should absolutely be

00:37:36.300 considered. Uno could cause some fights though. Uno, man, the best game of all time. I played Uno last

00:37:43.300 week with my family. That's great. We've been playing a lot of apples to apples. And then I just

00:37:48.940 bought, like before this whole thing went down, I bought exploding kittens, which I heard a lot

00:37:53.640 about. We haven't played it yet. It's a card game. We'll see how it goes. But yeah, that's another

00:37:58.400 part is the psychological component that people often overlooked when it comes to survival stuff.

00:38:04.200 That's an important part of prepping and knowing how you're going to be mentally resilient during

00:38:08.960 this time. Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, we live in a really unique day and age where you can hop

00:38:14.340 on FaceTime. You know, we were on, you know, FaceTime last night with my parents, you know,

00:38:18.940 what if that stuff wasn't available? You couldn't talk to anybody. You couldn't have FaceTime with

00:38:23.140 anybody. You couldn't get on the phone. I mean, it's all totally possible. It goes back to the

00:38:27.800 beginning of this conversation that we're having, where if one of these other services that we

00:38:32.560 really depend on gets knocked off grid, I mean, we're having an entirely different conversation here.

00:38:39.780 You know, I mean, in general, on the scale of what could happen,

00:38:45.860 you know, this whole coronavirus pandemic, you know, there are some really incredible lessons

00:38:53.740 to be learned with this as far as, you know, how can I be better prepared for something where one of

00:39:01.120 these critical services is knocked offline? And I think this is a really great time to pull out a

00:39:06.680 journal and start writing some of this stuff down and, you know, thinking about what are the lessons

00:39:12.540 that I'm learning right here and over the course of the next couple of weeks that I need to fix and

00:39:18.480 put into place for the next event that not might happen, but absolutely will. We will have other

00:39:26.440 events like this and worse.

00:39:28.700 So, you know, another part in the article that you wrote about bugging in for us is self-defense.

00:39:33.260 Right now with the COVID-19 pandemic, first responders are still there, police are there,

00:39:38.720 but there might be a situation where their hands are going to be tied up. There's not going to be

00:39:42.760 police officers there to respond to you if you need help. So what should people think about when

00:39:48.020 it comes to self-defense in a bugging situation? Yeah, that's like a really great question.

00:39:52.960 You know, I have a lot of friends and family members who are first responders, whether it's police or

00:39:58.400 paramedics or firefighters. And they'll be the first to tell you that all of their services are

00:40:06.360 all planned and organized for a normal day. And when things get not normal, then they become

00:40:13.320 understaffed and overwhelmed. And it's just a part of, you know, every single disaster or pandemic,

00:40:18.820 whatever you will call it, that happens. You know, it is an issue. First responders are a little

00:40:23.860 less responsive during times of chaos. And so one should always be prepared in a worst case scenario

00:40:32.740 to fortify and defend their home. Whether that's just, you know, simple barricading measures, you

00:40:39.840 know, one of the best door barricades that I've ever seen is there are these little brackets that you

00:40:50.400 can screw on the inside of your door up against your door jam, and you can just drop a two by four

00:40:55.900 into those brackets behind your door. And I tell you what, with one of those in place,

00:41:01.820 no one's getting in your home, you know, unless they're coming through a window. I mean,

00:41:05.620 and if they're getting into your home, they're making a huge racket doing it. And it's a really

00:41:10.980 simple way. I mean, it's such a simple, it's like a, it's like $2 brackets and a four foot section,

00:41:16.840 a two by four. And it makes one of the most effective door barricades in the world. I hate

00:41:21.480 even talking about stuff like this, because it seems, you know, it seems so ridiculous. But at the

00:41:26.920 same time, I mean, you know, it's all stuff that's totally possible. And then, you know, as far as home

00:41:33.320 defense goes, you know, the obvious home defense tool is going to be firearms. And before that, firearms

00:41:39.720 training. And so, you know, I'm a huge proponent of firearms that are used responsibly and firearms

00:41:46.660 training. I'd say that, you know, if you're not willing to invest time in firearms training, then

00:41:51.220 I wouldn't even bother investing in a firearm. But, you know, in a worst case scenario, you're

00:41:56.740 not going to find a better way to defend your home and your family than a firearm.

00:42:00.580 As Woodrow Call said in Lonesome Dove, better to have it than not need it, than need it than not have it.

00:42:05.540 Boy, that's story of my life right there. You know, if I didn't choose the motto,

00:42:09.780 it's not if, but when, I probably should have chosen that one.

00:42:14.740 Well, okay, let's start with this. We've talked about a lot of great stuff,

00:42:17.700 water storage, food storage, first aid, getting the training you need,

00:42:22.220 also considering the psychological, your psychological welfare and well-being during a

00:42:26.600 bug-in situation. What do you think people can start doing now in the current shelter-in-place

00:42:32.520 and social distancing orders that we have right now to brace themselves for this current thing

00:42:36.900 we're dealing with, but also get them ready for the next one?

00:42:40.140 Well, I think the most important thing to do right now is to sit down and start taking some notes

00:42:45.680 about what you're observing about what's happening right now, because it's going to be really easy.

00:42:52.760 This whole corona thing is going to, this thing is going to end in a few weeks,

00:42:56.100 and we're going to all try our quickest and best to get back to normal as quickly as humanly possible,

00:43:02.520 every single one of us. And when we get back to normal, or whatever our new normal will be,

00:43:09.140 this whole thing is going to be really easy to forget, and we're going to intentionally try to

00:43:14.580 forget it. And because of that, I would highly encourage everyone, like I emailed my own list,

00:43:21.720 my own email list last week saying, listen, right now is the time to take some notes and to really

00:43:27.640 think about the lessons that we're learning in the midst of this whole thing. What are my weaknesses?

00:43:35.200 You know, what are the things I'm lacking on in food? What am I struggling with right now being

00:43:40.680 stuck inside? And what do I need to fix? You know, really taking notes and starting a journal and

00:43:46.960 putting this, start putting some, some things on paper that you can take action on when this whole

00:43:52.800 thing blows over, because it's really, I mean, it's only a matter of time before something on this scale

00:44:00.100 or worse. And, and there are many, many things that could be worse than this is going to happen.

00:44:06.540 And the time, you know, the time to, to take care of that stuff, this is, this is one of the biggest

00:44:13.500 wake-up calls I've ever seen when it comes to disaster preparedness. I've never seen something

00:44:18.720 like this as far as a wake-up call goes. In general, people, all of their needs are being met and it's a

00:44:25.300 perfect opportunity to sit back and reflect on how well am I prepared if something worse happens.

00:44:32.780 And so as far as action steps go, I would say the best thing to do right now is

00:44:40.240 write down notes on things that you're experiencing right now so that you can fix those moving forward.

00:44:48.900 Awesome. Well, Creek, where can people go to learn more about your work?

00:44:51.940 To learn more about me, the best place to go is my website. It's at creekstewart.com.

00:44:58.560 And if you're just getting starting with disaster preparedness and survival, and you want a really

00:45:03.680 great little step into that world, I'm running a free course right now that you can sign up for on

00:45:10.460 my website. It's a build the bug out bag challenge. And it's a free five-day course where I walk you

00:45:15.420 through five days of free training to build your bug out bag. And it's entirely free. It'd be a

00:45:20.500 perfect project to take on while you're at home. And it's not about spending money. It's about gathering

00:45:27.540 things around your house and putting them into a bag. So if you don't have a bug out bag, this would be

00:45:33.200 a fantastic first step. And it's very manageable. Well, Creek, this has been a fantastic conversation.

00:45:38.620 Thanks for your time. It's been a pleasure. Oh, man. It's always an honor and a pleasure

00:45:43.160 for me, Brett. I appreciate you. My guest today is Creek Stewart. He's a survival expert. The guy's

00:45:48.140 written lots of books. You can find them all on Amazon. And you can check out more about his work

00:45:52.180 at his website, creekstewart.com. Also, check out our show notes at aom.is slash bug in. We can find

00:45:57.300 links to resources. We can delve deeper into this topic.

00:46:03.200 Well, that wraps up another edition of the AOM podcast. Check out our website at

00:46:10.260 artofmanliness.com. We find our podcast archives, as well as thousands of articles we've written

00:46:14.260 over the years. We've got a lot of articles about emergency prep over there. So check that out.

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00:46:46.900 Reminding you not only to listen to the AOM podcast, but put what you've heard into action.

The Art of Manliness - March 30, 2020

#597： A Survival Expert's Guide to Bugging-In

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