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This episode is about thinking how preparedness and travel come together.  As the world will eventually emerge from this pandemic and restore some basic travel, maybe even total global excursions, how do we embrace that possibility while remaining prepared.  If you have 60 days of supply in your house, you cannot take that on an airplane - so what are the best moves for you to consider to ensure an incredible vacation and personal security.  How do you pack the car for a road trip in these times?  How much should go into your car?  Should we all travel with out go / bug out bags.  We don't want preparedness to keep us at home - in that we are afraid to leave our preps and travel, that creates a burden and places you in preparedness prison.  A place where you become so paranoid about the world, that you actively choose to never spend a night away from your home, in order to ensure that you always have access to your well stocked bunker.  Get out there, live....

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A fun episode, for all those living at 100 MPH who don't have time to consider our 12 step plan and still wish to just buy some stuff to be better prepared.  We discuss what are the simplistic realistic things for home, car and evacuation.  Simple, but necessary in a modern developed and connected world.  No bug out bags here, no saws, canned food, axes, shelters, sleeping bags et al, nope - just what you need to manage through the minor chaos of life - and still win that Twitter or Instagram fight with hours of battery life to spare.  So grab a beverage and listen.
All commentary is appreciated, drop us a note at [email protected] - good bad or otherwise, we want to hear it all !!!

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Continuing our discussion on emergency preparedness, this week we offer some thoughts on those disruptions the are not fixed after the first 72 hours.  The utilities do not come back on, or whatever element of critical infrastructure that has failed.  What is your plan for after that government recommended 72 hour kit is expired?  Have you a community plan, do you know your neighbours enough to put together a collective response?  Do you have strong social bonds with others upon which you can rely when the chips are down?  How long have you decided to be prepared for?  21, 45, 60 days?  While everyone wants to be prepared for everything, the reality is that there needs to be a timeframe around what you do - food, water, energy and equipment for how long?  The best recommendation is at least 21 days, for if society has failed to restart after 21 days, there might be some more significant issues to consider.  Finally, what happens after your planning horizon has expired - if you plan for 60 days, what is your intent on day 61?  Food for thought, join in on the discussion.  

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A quick reminder that preparedness is cheap, simple and easy for everyone to embrace.  When we consider the basic animalistic requirements of the human species and the fact that they are readily available everywhere in the developed world, then we cannot use the financial excuse as a barrier to becoming prepared.  It is a question of your own self-reliance, how much of your needs do you wish someone else to be responsible for and what percentage will you deliver?  That is a basic question to ask, reflecting on the simple survival priorities and you have a solution.  An old bag by the front door with some photocopies of documents and you have the evacuation kit that you hope you never have to use.  Or simply look around you, you have everything you need for survival, just make sure you know where it is and you have sufficient amounts to meet your family needs.  Take some time to be informed of what your fellow humans are facing around the world, there is hunger and strife that need not happen.  

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Collapse is a popular topic in today's preparedness media, many foretelling of the end of the current financial system, the Great Reset or some other apocatalk.  The reality is that every single civilization in history has terminated and to some degree, because of the decisions they made.  Through an examination of historical evidence, modern theories we discuss collapse and how our current society is awfully close to that precipice now - maybe we go over, maybe we don't.  But one cannot deny that the world is a complex, interconnected world that is harvesting resources from the earth at an unsustainable rate.  We eventually will kill this planet, maybe not for hundreds of years, but without societal change, the future is not bright.  So what can you do?  Maybe not solve global issues, but this is but one more reason to become  more self reliant, self sufficient and far less reliant on the government o provide for your welfare.  Huge credit to the BBC for the majority of materiel, including many quotes.  Find their articles here: https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20190218-are-we-on-the-road-to-civilisation-collapse.  Take the time to understand normal accident theory and how we live in a tightly coupled world.  

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In this episode I put together the micro plans from the 10 individual sectors of critical infrastructure and present my personal individual emergency preparedness plan for my family.  By navigating our dependancy on the CI that keep society running, we are poised to mitigate specific and identifiable areas where we would have a shortfall and determine the appropriate measure to mitigate.  This is how you develop a plan for your family, built for your family alone and implement.  This will not look like your neighbours and the acquisition list you construct will not mirror what FEMA or Public Safety Canada recommend you have on hand.  Join us for the discussion on the CI dependancy, plan management and how to go on and live an awesome life knowing that you have developed a detailed plan to provide all the insulation you require. 

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This week we conclude the examination of individual sectors of critical infrastructure with food and water.  These are often considered at the beginning of preparedness, as other than thermoregulation of core body temperature, they are the two principle elements of survival.  They represent your ability to continue to function and therefore require far more consideration than just canned food and water bottles.  We examine sewage, disposal of human waste, hygiene and other important elements often left out of normalized preparedness discussions.  Take the time for your family, invest in a detailed analysis of these sectors of CI and prepare your micro-plan for each.  You don't want ti just survive, you want to thrive in an emergency.  Make sure your food is what you love to eat and puts smiles on everyone's face.  Beans and rice will drive people mad.

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This week we forgo a repetition of each individual step for each consideration within a CI, hence we cover 6 CI sectors in one episode.  By now you know how to plan, conduct the analysis, ask the "so what" questions and develop the micro plan for each CI.  If not, go listen to the previous 2 episodes where it is painstakingly detailed.  At first glance, many will consider these CI as straightforward and not worth much consideration.  However, if fuel is not available and you do everything with your car - how does your world look now?  What if you rely on public transport and there is none - how do you get where you need to go?  What if you cannot get a medication refilled, or talk to a doctor?  What if your small business cannot receive critical inputs for your product due to shipping disruptions?  What if there is no Internet or cell data - or both?  How does your life look now - I believe exceptionally complicated.  Join us for a great chat on these important supportive sectors of a modern society

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This week we continue the development of your individual emergency preparedness program through the analysis of dependancy on critical infrastructure (CI).  Finance and the financial services industry are subject to infrequent outages that may cause significant disruption in your life dependant on your reliance on the immediacy of access to money, or simply bad timing.  When the point of sale fails at the grocery store and you just rung up $200 in groceries, can you pull out that cash to cover them - or will you have to walk away?  Insurance is the modern form of risk transfer - do you have enough and the correct coverages?  Do you understand lawyer speak?  
Your income.  Families with a single source of income are facing considerable risk - COVID-19 has shown us that in a very short period of time, your principle line of income is gone.  Do you have others?  Side hustles, part time jobs? Other family members?  Even small lines of income can cover food, electricity etc in times of need.  Remember, it is your responsibility to fund the requirements of your life and those for whom you are responsible, not the government's.  If you lost your job today. how long would it take you to pivot to another field and resume income earning?  Have you covered that period with savings, or are you relying on the generosity of taxpayers?  Your risk tolerance drives these choices.  

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This episode outlines the process for evaluating and developing a plan based upon your reliance and dependancy on the sectors of critical infrastructure.  We examine energy and utilities to look in detail at hydro, natural gas, fuel oil, propane and containerized gas.  Looking at each one of these elements of the energy sector, we ask the important question: "what does my world look like without hydro / gas".  That will be very different for many people, with each family's dependancy on energy being different.  Further, we talk about how to plan for this loss by categorizing everything supported by hydro into one of 3 groups: critical, essential and nice to have.  We build a power profile to meet critical needs, then look at the options available to provide that power: solar, wind, fuel generator and battery bank.  
Planning leads to a conclusion of either a specific task to complete, a specific acquisition or nothing to see here....
A review of each of the CI will provide a plan to meet the requirements of that CI, by aggregating these, you have developed a detailed plan for your family, created based upon your needs and family's plan.  We will never tell you to purchase something off the shelf.  

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