#597： A Survival Expert's Guide to Bugging-In
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Summary
The coronavirus pandemic has forced millions of people to stay home due to shelter-in-place orders and lockdowns. What would you do if one or more of these services were completely cut off? To answer this question, I talk to friend and survival expert Kreek Stewart.
Transcript
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Brett McKay here and welcome to another edition of the Art of Manliness podcast. The coronavirus
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pandemic has forced tens of millions of people to stay home due to shelter-in-place orders and
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even lockdowns. While supplies of food, water, and other essentials have largely continued
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undisrupted, for the most part, if one or more of these services were completely cut off,
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what would be the best way to prepare for that kind of emergency? To answer this question,
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I talked to friend of AOM and survival expert, Kreek Stewart. Kreek has dedicated his life to
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mastering all things survival, spending thousands of hours in the field, authoring numerous articles
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and books, teaching courses to others, and hosting television shows for the weather channel like SOS
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How to Survive. Today, Kreek and I talk about what we can learn from the current pandemic about how
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to shelter-in-place or bug-in and how to be prepared if this crisis worsens in severity or we're one day
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hit with a more dire disaster. We dive into the different bug-in categories you need to consider,
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beginning with how much food and water you need for a long-term bug-in situation, and how to
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properly store it. Kreek then talks about what you need to consider in terms of first aid and home
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defense in a bug-in scenario, and why you also need to think about how to keep yourself entertained.
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Lots of practical and timely advice in this episode. After it's over, check out our show notes at
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All right, Kreek Stewart, welcome back to the show.
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Hey, man, it's good to be back. It's great to be here with you.
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So it's been a while. The last time we had you on the podcast is back in 2013. But if people have
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been following the art of manliness for a long time, they know you. You're the wilderness survival
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guy, the prepper guy. You've written some classics for AOM in the past. We got the zombie apocalypse
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survival shotgun. We've got your camouflaging articles, article on how to use a tampon in a
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survival situation. And I think a lot of people know your work that you've done with the Weather
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Channel, with fat guys in the woods and things like that. And I wanted to bring you on because
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right now we're in the middle of a pandemic, and this is the thing that you're helping people get
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ready for. And I love in your emails, you always end with a motto. It's not if, but when. So I
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imagine before the pandemic, I think there's plenty of people who thought of prepper survival type
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people was being too paranoid. Do you think people are changing their tune now about this?
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You know, this particular disaster, tragedy, pandemic, whatever you want to call it,
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is super interesting. I've found over the years of studying survival stories and taking people into
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the woods and just studying these things and being really in this industry that really the catalyst
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for a change of mind or a change of behavior or habit, I found that it really comes from one of two
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things, either extreme suffering or extreme tragedy. And in this particular pandemic, in this particular
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scenario, there is definitely a tragic side to it. I mean, there are absolutely people whose health
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are affected and there are people dying. And I don't want to be insensitive toward that at all
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whatsoever. And I know that in the midst of all of this, people are being laid off work and the
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economy's changing and losing their jobs. So there is absolutely a tragic side to this.
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But the interesting part of this pandemic is that in general, most people's needs are being met.
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You know, they still have food and water and electricity and access to medical care and
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heat and their furnace works and their toilets work and their showers work.
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And so on that side of things, there's not a lot of suffering happening. And so I think while this
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is really bringing the idea of preparedness to mind in the midst of this and staying home and being
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quarantined, I think that because there is not really what you would consider traditional disaster
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suffering, because that isn't happening in this particular scenario, I would guess that a lot
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of people will be very quick to forget about the quarantine and the coronavirus a few weeks after
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this whole thing passes. And so do I think that there'll be a change of tune as far as, I think for
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some people, but I think for a lot of people, time really will take away the details and we'll be
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back to square one when the next one happens. So I hope that's not the case. But my guess is that
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this will be a small hiccup for a lot of people. And I don't know that it will be the wake-up call
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We are humans. We always forget. And that's why we repeat history oftentimes.
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So your focus with your work is a lot about prepping, surviving away from your primary
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residence, either surviving in the wild or bugging out to another location. Well, that's another
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article you've written for us, how to build a bug out bag. But you've also written about what's
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called bugging in, which is appropriate with this quarantining and social distancing and shelter in
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place that's been going on. For those who aren't familiar with the idea, what is bugging in?
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Well, bugging in is, I guess the best way to describe it is another phrase for the idea of
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sheltering in place. And sheltering in place, the concept has been around for a really long time.
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And so with bugging out, you're leaving your primary place of residence for somewhere that's
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more safe. It's just not safe to stay at home. And so you have to leave in order to be safe.
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Well, bugging in is the exact opposite. Either you're staying in to be safe, or you have no option
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to leave, or you're basically forced at home. And so there are a lot of different things that could
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cause a bug in scenario. Historically, they've been chemical related, biological related, radiological,
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even nuclear. All of those are, I guess, they're real common. I mean, not common, but those would
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be kind of the classic reasons to bug in. Some other ones that have happened in a little bit more
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recent history have been violence. Violence is often a reason for local governments to put out an
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ordinance to state shelter in place. Like during the Boston Marathon, for example, the local police
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department did encourage sheltering in place because of the bombings. And in Los Angeles in 2016,
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there was, I remember there was a sulfuric acid tanker that caught on fire. And so everyone within
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15 miles or so of that tanker were required to shelter in place for safety. The most common,
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I would say, though, is winter storm warnings, winter storms that cause people to have to shelter
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in place or bug in. But now we're seeing globally this pandemic with the COVID-19 epidemic and
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something certainly that's never happened in my lifetime.
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So whenever you're consulting people on how to bug in, in general, how long do you advise people to
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prepare to be hunkered down for? Well, I base that on three tiers. And it's a little bit different
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for everyone and based upon everyone's time, budget, and how serious they are. Two weeks is an absolute
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minimum these days. Used to, it was three days. I can remember it was, you know, having three days
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worth of supplies on hand, almost kind of like a bug out bag. But these days, it's absolutely a minimum
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of two weeks to be able to bug in and be completely independent of survival on all of your needs for
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two weeks. Myself and what I would encourage other people to do is have a three-tiered plan. It starts
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with two weeks, which is pretty easy to accomplish for most people, even on a tight budget. And then
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a three-month plan, which is a little bit more complicated, but still fairly easy to accomplish
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for most people. And then stretch it out a little bit further and have a one-year plan, which for
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most is going to be, feel really extreme and may sound a little bit crazy. But for myself, I have a
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two-week, a three-month, and a one-year plan for complete independent survival for me and my family.
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Gotcha. And I mean, I think with this, it's good to have all those different tiers because you never
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know what the situation is going to be like. Right now, during this current pandemic, we had this
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immediate burst of people going out and just stockpiling stuff. So there's nothing there, or there's
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still stuff there, but it's not great. So in that situation, it'd be nice to have that two-week
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buffer then. But you never know if the supply chain, for whatever reason, doesn't kick into action like
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it should, that one month might come in handy then. Yeah, absolutely. Every disaster is totally
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different. And one minor change in this particular one with the coronavirus, if we just took out,
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if we took the coronavirus as it is right now, where people are quarantined at home and everybody's
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forced to stay at home and just for their own health and safety. But if you just take out one
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other thing, right now, everything is accessible. Everyone has electric, their furnaces are working,
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their water's running, they have access to food and medicine, they have internet and cell phone
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service. But if you remove just one of those services, things become exponentially more complicated.
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I mean, you take out electric and we're having a totally different conversation. I mean, you take
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out water and this thing becomes so more dangerous and so more complicated. Just one of those services
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missing. And this is an entirely different conversation.
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So when you're thinking about bugging in, what are the categories for human survival that you should
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be thinking about when you bug in? And is there anything in particular that you should think about
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Well, that's a really good question. When I think about survival and bugging in, like when I really sat down
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and started developing my own bug in plan, I thought about my grandpa. I thought about, okay,
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when my grandpa was my age, what did he need? And that was, you know, back when my grandpa was my age
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and younger, he needed water. He needed food. He needed a way to cook that food. He needed a way to stay
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warm in the winter. He needed personal hygiene items to a certain degree and some limited medication type
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situation and first aid tools. And then he needed all the like supplies and tools that related to any
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of those categories. For example, for he needed a way to heat his home in the winter. Well, he needed a
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way to cut firewood and split firewood and he needed a fireplace. And so when it comes to bugging in,
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it's oftentimes really over, overworked and made to be more complicated than it needs to be because
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we live in a day and age when we forget that it wasn't that long ago, that times were a lot simpler,
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that there was no running water. There was no electric, there were no indoor bathrooms and there
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was no, you know, internet and all that stuff. And when you really break it down, it's water food,
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a way to cook the food, a way to heat your home. If you live in a cold environment,
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some first aid and personal hygiene items, and then the tools that go with any one of those
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categories. Gotcha. So let's dig into some of these categories in more detail. Yeah. So you mentioned
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water and I think it's interesting for the, I talked to you about this before we started recording and
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for the past three weeks on art of manliness, a couple of years ago, I'm going to say six years ago,
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I wrote this article on how to do long-term water storage. And then for the past three weeks,
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you can just see it in our analytics, like the search traffic to that article has been
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been going up. So it's, it's a concern for people that, you know, somehow the water is going to go
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away. But as you said, in this, it's interesting, this emergency that we're dealing with water is
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still there, but again, it could, might not be there. And even let's say there's another disaster
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of some sort where your water shut off. Let's talk about water supply. How much water do you think
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a person needs in their home to last that two weeks, for example? Well, the general rule of thumb
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is one gallon per day per person. That's for not only drinking, but also personal hygiene and,
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and washing and bathing. And so one gallon per person per day, indefinitely, you know, for as long
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as whatever your plan is, is the amount of water that you'll need. And you're right about water. I mean,
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water gets knocked offline all the time. I mean, just in my hometown last week, in the midst of this
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pandemic, there was a boil issue in the hometown that I grew up in. There was a, there was a boil
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warning where, because of some pumps went down or something like that. And, you know, it happens all
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the time. Not too long ago in Flint, Michigan, there, there were major water issues where there
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were boil, where there were boil warnings. And, you know, places like Southern California that don't
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have their, in their own independent water supply, you know, it, it becomes a very fragile situation.
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And water is our most basic of human survival needs. I would, I would say outside of an immediate
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first aid threat, water is at the top. So, okay. One gallon a day, let's say you want to,
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you know, store two, you know, two weeks worth or a month worth. Like how do you store,
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what are the best way to store water, different options for that? Yeah. So for, I'll just take,
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my three tier, for example, okay. My two week, my three month and my one year tiers. And that,
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that I think describing how I do it will, will really, will really help. So my two week tier,
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I, I have two weeks worth of bottled water on hand at all times. And we move through, my family
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and I, we move through that on a regular basis. So we're always grabbing a water, bottled water.
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And so we're kind of moving through that two week supply of bottled water at any given moment.
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And beyond two weeks, it starts to get, you start to get into a situation where, okay,
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I need to think about how do I store this water and how can I depend on it for up to a year? Okay.
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Bottled water will easily last up to a year, except it's just a little bit cumbersome to,
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you know, to pack months worth of bottled water in your basement. Okay. So some of the best ways to
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store water for, let's say up to a three month time period are going to be two ways.
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Number one is those five gallon, kind of like the water cooler, uh, in office,
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those five gallon water containers. Those are a little cumbersome, but having one of those
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dispensers in your kitchen and having five gallon containers of those waters downstairs or in the
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basement or in the garage, uh, those are a really good way to store a lot of water. 55 gallon drums,
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food grade drums is what I use for my three month water storage, which can last up to a year.
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There's a company called Aqua Mira that makes a really good two part mixture that you pour into
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that, that makes it, that helps keep your water good for up to a year. And you can buy 55 gallon
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drums on Amazon. You can find them on, you know, food grade drums, probably the easiest places is
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on Amazon, but you can buy a pump so that you can pump water right out of them. And I change out the
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water and my 55 gallon drums every year. It's a little bit of a hassle, but I normally take one
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day a year and change out my drums and then refill those back up and put in a two part water purification
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mixture in there. And I'm good for another year. Storing water more than three months, one gallon
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per person per day becomes a little much. After that, you really start, you really need to start
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thinking about kind of an independent water supply. And that could either be a rain harvesting system
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or obviously some type of a well. A really common way to store water that a lot of people use are
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recycled two liter bottles, not milk jugs because they tend to degrade and get a little weird over
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time. But two liter bottles or other plastic bottles like juice bottles, those are really great
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ways to store water. And when you fill up a two liter bottle or a juice jug or something like
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that, I always put in, when I used to store my water like that, I would put in two drops of bleach,
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of unscented bleach per liter when I would do the storage. And that'll pretty much keep you up for a
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year. All right. So you've got water stored up. Now you need to think about food. What kind of food
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should you store for your long-term bugging situation? I'm going to go back to my whole,
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my three year, my, my three tier system again. And I think it'll make a lot of sense.
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So for myself and my family, this is the same model that I would encourage anyone to consider
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and possibly adapt if, if so inclined. So for myself and my family, we, we keep, you know, there's a,
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there's a saying within the survival industry that America is nine meals away from anarchy.
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And what that means is that most people have nine meals worth of food in their home at any given
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moment. And after that, things start getting a little crazy. And so for myself and my family,
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we keep two weeks worth of food. We're going to, we're going to go back to that two week,
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three month and one year mark. So I keep two weeks, three months and one year's worth of food
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in our house for independent survival for me and my family at any given moment.
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The two weeks category includes everything that we eat on a regular basis, fresh vegetables,
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meat, frozen meats, frozen vegetables, canned goods, pastas, you know, anything that's either
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in a package or ready to cook, ready to open up, ready to prepare. So we keep anywhere between,
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I don't know, one and two weeks worth of food, three meals a day, breakfast, lunch,
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and dinner for two weeks. Beyond that, from two weeks, and we're constantly moving through that
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food and buying more groceries or canning more or hunting more. And so we're constantly replenishing
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that two week food supply and we're moving on a regular basis through that. Beyond that,
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from our two week to three month window, I have moved to a freeze dried food methodology.
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I used to, I used to use all kinds of kind of hodgepodge, different food storage options,
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but up until my three month mark, beyond two weeks, if I couldn't get any more food, couldn't
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hunt, couldn't fish, couldn't go to the grocery store, couldn't get canned goods, then I would
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depend on freeze dried food. Now it's a little bit more expensive, but it's very simple. It lasts for 25
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years. You can, you can buy three months worth of this food. You can put it down, you can buy it
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gradually over time. You don't have to buy it all at once. It is a little expensive, but you can put
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it down in the basement or in a kind of a, you know, just somewhere that doesn't have sunlight and
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that's fairly cool ideally. And you'll last 25 years with that stuff. And it's literally, it's
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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
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go and it's really, really easy and the stuff's pretty good. Now beyond three months, freeze dried
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food gets really expensive. You can buy one year packages of freeze dried food, but they're very
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in the thousands of dollars. And so beyond that, then we start talking about what my grandpa did.
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We're back to my grandpa, right? We're back to grains. We're back to maybe producing some of your
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own foods, hunting, fishing, chickens, backyard chickens, goats, things like that. As far as food
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storage goes, a lot of grains, you know, barley, corn, flour, rice, a lot of pastas, macaronis,
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noodles, and spaghettis. And, you know, some, a lot of, it's more of an ingredients list of food
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storage, a lot of beans and legumes and canned foods and spices and mixes. And, you know, all of
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those things that you use to actually build and cook meals. And a lot of that stuff lasts a really
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long time, like wheat and corn and rice and beans. I mean, you, if you package those things correctly,
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those things will easily last you 25 years. We're going to take a quick break for your word
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from our sponsors. And now back to the show. And so with this ingredient stuff that not only do you
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have to, you know, store the stuff, but you also have to learn how to cook it in a way that's
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palatable. And that's actually the really hard part. The storing the stuff is really simple. You know,
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we, I buy, I buy my bulk goods in 50, 50 pound bags, but then I repackage that into,
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into plastic food grade five gallon buckets. So it's, it's really easy to storage and you don't
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have to worry about mice or anything like that. And, but the catch here is all of a sudden you
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got to know how to cook like your grandma, you know, you got to know how to make the biscuits and
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mix the wheat and make the, I mean, and make all the things. And so for a lot of people,
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including myself, that's a real challenge. And so that's a part of, you know, that's something
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that I've been working on personally over the years is, you know, once a week or so really,
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you know, getting, getting my hands messy in the kitchen a little bit and really understanding
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how to cook, you know, especially my generation or me, I'll just take blame for it. You know,
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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
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storage, you have to cook because you can't just, you can't just eat the beans, you know?
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You mentioned freeze-dried food. What about MREs? What's your take on those?
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MREs could easily be in that category, that three, I mean, MREs could be in, you know,
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could be in either your three-week, your two-month, your, I mean, your two-week,
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your three-month or your one-year category. They're very, I mean, they're calorie dense.
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The last 25 years, a lot of them, and they're open and eat, you know, really great long-term
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meals. The only problem is like freeze-dried food, they're, they're expensive. You know,
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those run anywhere. I mean, last time I checked, you know, roughly eight bucks, uh, eight bucks a
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pop. Right. So you're paying for convenience basically with that. Yeah. Yeah, definitely.
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But it's a fantastic option, you know? So you mentioned, you know, for water, like ideally
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you have a gallon a day, is there some sort of recommendation for how much food you need,
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uh, per person? You know, that's a tough one. You could break, I mean, I've broken mine down
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based upon testing with meals. The, I mean, I've got it into, I could give you my kind of,
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all right, let me, let me see here. I do, I have written down my, what I have per person in my
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household and it would give you at least a rough idea, but these are, but I've got these,
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the way I've written these down are one year numbers. And so this sounds a little crazy.
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Like for example, grains, which would include rice, wheat, any seeds for sprouting, oats and corn and
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barley and things like that. You know, I keep 600 pounds per person per year on hand. I mean,
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just, and that's just the grains. And then there's all kinds of other categories. We, like I keep,
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I keep 75 pounds of canned of dried milk on hand per person and about 35 pounds of oil and fats like
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peanut butter and powdered margarine and cooking oil for cooking. And you know, the, the numbers for
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one year sound a little crazy, but the way I would kind of back that down is you have to,
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in order to, in order to plan for long-term food storage, you have to understand how to cook it.
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And the only way to understand how to cook it is to actually get in the kitchen and start playing
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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
00:39:28.700
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.
00:46:17.620
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00:46:35.880
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00:46:43.060
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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.