Survival Scenario: Helpful Survival Tips

People prepare for all sorts of survival scenarios. Some people are hikers and some are hunters. Either of those activities can put you into a survival scenario where you may have to use those little survival skills you read about in the cub scouts or watched on Man vs. Wild. As dire as these situations can be, I am going to talk about what I think is the ultimate survival scenario. Yes, I'm talking about one of those end of the world situations. Whether it be from a nuclear war or the bird flu, there is a minute chance that if you survive the initial problem, you'll have to survive afterwards. This could pose to be the most difficult if you are not prepared or have the ability to think on your feet and recognize oppurtunities. I'm going to give you ideas and survival tips that I have learned from survival classes in the military, scouts, and watching plenty of discovery and history channel programs.

Depending on what issue is going to create this apocolyptic situation will determine what our priorities are going to be. Let's go with a bird flu or pandemic situation. The experts say that once the pandemic is global, it will take about 90 days to kill everyone before the virus dies out. What does this mean? It basically means, that if you can stay locked up in your house and avoid contact with other people, particularly infected people, you can wait it out. As easy as that sounds, we all know how tough that could be. The first issue would be food and water. Do you have enough food and water stockpiled to keep your family alive for 90 days? I sure as heck don't. I am working on it however. Water will probably flow from the pipes for a while. That is, until the people that keep it functioning either die or say "screw it. I'm staying home." So, you need to start thinking about how you can get food and water while staying relatively secluded during this time.

There will also be the problem of looters. There will be other survivors that didn't have stockpiles either and will probably be looking to get someone else's food and water. The special I watched on the History Channel said to throw trash, tv's, and clothes etc, out in your front yard to give the appearance that you have already been looted and looters may keep going. Plan B of course would be to have a hide built into your home, or a lot of bullets.

So, seclusion and having the supplies to stay alive for the first 90 days are the trick to surviving a pandemic. Any other situation, I would say get to a rural area as soon as possible. There you will have a better chance of finding food and water. That is, unless you live near the desert.

The single most important resource people need to survive is water. We can only go a couple of days without it. SO, the first thing you may want to do when you know disaster is coming is to fill up as many containers as possible while your tap water supply is good. You can of course purchase big pre-filled containers as well. However, these supplies may not last as long as you need them to.

The best thing to do is educate yourself on how to make some kind of water purification device. You can make a small tube that has a filter built in and run water through it. You can purchase these at many sporting goods stores. Purchasing some small Brita water filters is good because you can use these to easily make a device to filter your water. If it is truly an apocolyptic scenario, you may want to build a sand filter to filter large quantities of water. These are usually made with large tubs and a lot of sand and gravel. You can put a layer of coals in there to help get rid of bacteria as well. I have attached one video of a small bio sand filter. The same principles apply to a larger one. Of couse, you can always search youtube and find plenty more instuctional videos. You can filter rain water, pond water, river water, you get the point. Remember the hot water heater is a good place to look as well.

Once you have filtered particles out of the water you need to rid it of any bacteria. The first method that comes to mind is to boil it. This should kill anything bad. The availability of water is going to differ depending on what type of climate you live in, If you live in the desert, you may want to learn as many ways as possible to locate water.

Surprisingly enough, the next necessity, after water, you need to locate is food. You may have had a surplus of M.R.E.s (Meals Ready to Eat) laying around, but those won't last forever. On a sidenote, M.R.E.s contain around 2,000 calories. This means, you can survive pretty well on one a day, so be sure to ration them wisely.

I recommend learning about plant life that grows naturally in your region. You also may want to keep some seeds around in the event you are somewhere you can start some kind of garden. Seeds do have a shelf life so if you're going to do this, remember to renew your stash from time to time. There are some foods that off higher nutritional values than others. These are the ones you probably want to consider. Example: Sweet potatoes.

These contain more vitamins than most people realize. Also, if you're as lucky as I am and there are lots of grape vines in the area, grapes are a great source of nutrition.

Hunting and fishing may be a good option. Depending on where you live and how much poaching will have already occured, you may be able to kill some of your own food. Hunting requires a lot of energy so you should consider this if you're really low on food. When killing smaller game, you may want to keep some of the parts you would normally discard, such as the heart and eyeballs. I would make a stew with small game so that I could make sure I'm not wasting any calories. You can eat insects if you need to. Ants contain as much protien as meat does pound for pound. I would recommend some sort of ant stew as opposed to crunching a bunch in your teeth.

You're going to have to suck it up and probably eat some things you used to consider dusgusting. Do it. Survive until you can get a good source of food started.

One important thing to remember in this survival scenario, is that medical treatement will be scarce. If there are any doctors, they will either be in hiding, like everyone else, or overwhelmed with emergencies. This is why it is a good idea to have a very good first aid kit with you at all times. You will not be able to get the same medical care you can now, so even smaller wounds can become life threatening. Have a first aid kit that contains plenty of bandage material, possibly supplies to stitch if necessary, and plenty of disinfectants. I personally would have as much antibacterial cream as possible. I sure wouldn't want to survive a pandemic, beat dehydration, and avoid starvation just to die of an infected cut.

You may also want to have a good medical or first aid book. You never know what kind of information you may need when trying to survive in what is basically a new world.

 History Channel's After Armageddon.

 I know that I have not included every little survival technique in this hub. The odds of a pandemic completely destroying the world as we know it are hopefully pretty slim. But, the basic concepts I have written about can still be applied to smaller than worldwide disasters. Lots of what we now know about how people react has come from researching such events as the tsunami in Thailand and Hurricane Katrina. You can prepare yourself for any type of disaster be it earthquake or just a power outage, with a little bit of planning. We never know when we will find ourselves in a survival scenario. Always be prepared.